An open post to Govloop.ca folks about our next steps….

Greetings all,

Sadly I wasn’t able to make the Govloop.ca Victoria meet up. Nina forwarded me the to-do list, and, as was declared by the group, I’m willing to take the lead in much of this. Steve has named me interim Canadian Editor of Govloop.com, which basically means I have a few extra passwords. Upon reviewing the list, I’m going to need some help in getting some of this stuff done. Govloop Victoria folks, you may have noticed that there’s more than just you on the list – and that’s because I’ve drafted in some additional folks to contribute. Please feel free to say hi to folks from Ottawa and Edmonton.

Our timelines are currently a bit flexible – we’re waiting for Ning to update their offering before we can move ahead on some of the items below. The ones we can move on, well, I’d like to.

Firstly, if you don’t have a govloop.com profile, please go get one. (You actually need it to see this note) If you haven’t yet found or confirmed our “friends” status on govloop, please do. Please feel free to sing “why can’t we be friends” while you do this.

Next steps:

• Elevator speech/vision/purpose of what you’re doing and why – I’d like to pull from your reasons for participating in drafting a group “manifesto”.
• Intro (some portion of the above) on our site – this will wait until Ning upgrades
• Start adding content now – I’d like to see everyone post a blog, and then tweet to it. Please follow each other on Twitter, and retweet posts that group members write. Nick’s got a great one already.
• Find more people to add content through our networks – Your homework is to ask one other Canadian to join our team.
• Add a maple leaf (or something Canadian) to add to our govloop profile pics – Raffaella and Gillian, do you guys mind taking this on? I think you’re better at this than I will be. Once you’ve added it, can you provide the image to me, or others to drop on our logos? If you Tweet professionally, I’d also suggest adding this icon to your Twitter image, pls/thx.
• Twitter(coming), fb- group – Created, I’ve sent out invites.
• Could suggest that US sets up their own subsite as well as us, and govloop global (or something like that) would be the broader umbrella. – This is hopefully coming eventually, post Ning-launch
• Data. Devin’s taking a look at the Govloop.com data catalogue and will let us know his thoughts. If anyone else wants to participate, let me know and I’ll forward you the passwords.
• Tell the story of us – Raffaella has already started documenting govloop.ca #yeg events. Rumon, I’m hoping you’ll start bringing your camera to Victoria events. I’ll also take pictures – I’d like to use the Whitehouse.gov photo of the day as a model for what we’re doing. Part of the transparency required for our purposes means telling our own story, aesthetically. Rumon & Raffaella, do you mind setting up a flikr account for your pics? That way we can share the images of what we’re trying to achieve in creating a uniquely Canadian public service perspective.
• One Post, by March 31st. I’d like to see us all write a post in which we share an inspiring story, quote, TED talk, photo, song, or what have you, that you keep coming back to. I’ll have mine done today. One you’ve posted, Tweet it, or email it to me. I’ll gladly retweet.

That’s it!

Cheers,

Bowen