National Academy’s Collaboration Project: Top 3 Tech/Innovation Priorities for President Obama

President Obama has called for government to become more transparent, participatory, and collaborative. The National Academy’s Collaboration Project has issued a paper highlighting three priorities that the new President must focus on to make this vision a reality. The paper, Enabling Collaboration: Three Priorities for the New Administration, encourages the President to: Create an openRead… Read more »

GovLoop’s microlending team is up and running!

(Note: everything I discuss below is from me as a private individual, not representing anything connected to EPA, the federal government, or anyone else.) [Update Feb 4, 2009: I’ve created a GovLoop group.] A few days ago, I wrote about the power of microlending and suggested that maybe we could set up a lending teamRead… Read more »

Ocean.gov – A Modest Proposal

Have you ever wondered why there’s no ocean.gov? This is a valuable and easy to remember URL that the government doesn’t currently use. And it should, for we all depend on the ocean for the very air we breathe. When I was at NOAA, it was explained to me that there’s no web site atRead… Read more »

Web 2.0 and US Government

From USA.gov http://www.usa.gov/webcontent/technology/other_tech.shtml Social Media and Web 2.0 in Government What Is Social Media and Web 2.0? Social Media and Web 2.0 are umbrella terms that define the various activities that integrate technology, social interaction, and content creation. Social media use the “wisdom of crowds” to connect information in a collaborative manner online. Through socialRead… Read more »

Federal Eye: Challenges Await Gregg at Commerce

The nomination of Sen. Judd Gregg to serve as commerce secretary signals the New Hampshire Republican will have a big role to play in convincing lawmakers to support President Obama’s economic proposals. It’s also expected he will focus on entitlement reform, an issue he’s worked on in the past as chairman of the Senate BudgetRead… Read more »

Australia government adopts Gershon’s recommendations

How should government spend on ICT? Australia has decided to implement in full the recommendations of Sir Peter Gershon UK Treasury’s former Chief Executive. Engaged in April this year, Sir Peter Gershon UK Treasury’s former Chief Executive has performed an independent review of the Australian Government’s management of information and communication technology (ICT). The reportRead… Read more »

An Emotional Case for Twitter

A few people have asked me why should they care about a person eating soup or someone buying new shoes on Twitter or Facebook status updates? Good questions! I had searched my mind for good answers. Then I read a New York Times Magazine article a few months ago about Twitter and Facebook updates inRead… Read more »

Multi-communicating vs. Ma Bell

As a communicator, I often try to design campaigns to reach as many people in as many ways as possible. For example, to get environmental tips out to folks for Earth Day last year, we used Web pages, podcasts, home page banners, and daily email subscriptions (here’s the presentation I ‘ve been doing on thatRead… Read more »

Security Policies to Support Government Use of Social Networking Technologies in Today’s Web 2.0 World

From another newsgroup that I subscribe to. The European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) has released a position paper on Web 2.0 technologies, including social networks. http://www.enisa.europa.eu/pages/02_01_press_2008_12_10_web2.html The document enumerates a variety of vulnerabilities in Web 2.0 technologies and discusses high-level recommendations for each. The document does seem to have an overall positive viewRead… Read more »

Gov 2.0 – what’s happening in the UK?

In the UK a Power of Information Taskforce has been looking at the use of web 2.0 technologies for public service purposes. I am providing part of the secretariat to the Taskforce. Yesterday we published a detailed report, in a form which encourages others to comment, and a set of recommendations. The report is availableRead… Read more »

Yearly Archives: 2009