So the highlight of my week in Gov 2.0 came last Thursday, when I had a chance to listen to and meet the crew of NASA’s STS-127 thanks to @NASA’s tweetup at the agency’s D.C. headquarters. The event drew nearly 20o participants from all over (including@argelialibertad who came all the way from Venezuela) who took up the agency on its offer to get up close and personal with honest-to-goodness astronauts.
This was the second such Tweetup the agency has conducted, and it was truly a first class event: goodie bags with NASA posters, puzzles, pins, reporter’s notebooks and the like; live feed of event on NASA TV (complete with cool NASA Tweetup animation); opportunity to ask the crew questions and get autographs; photos and more (see some of the agency’s Flickr shots here).
To show what a Gov 2.0 geek I am, while others queued up to speak to the astronauts, I was trying to track down @BethBeck (office of space operations) and NASA Public Affairs team members Stephanie Schierholz and Mike Curie to chat about why they put the event on. Beth put it best when she told me they get to work with these men and women all the time but the public has very few opportunities to meet, speak with and ask questions of those who are completing the agency’s missions in space. The Tweetups are a way to help communicate directly about NASA and help the public understand the importance of the various missions.
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While other agencies may not have the star power of the space program and astronauts to help fill seats, I believe other agencies could learn from NASA’s efforts in terms of sharing info in a new way with citizens. It would be great to see other examples of gov using public Tweetups as one of their Gov 2.0 tactics.
Check out Beth’s blog here, and below is a video presentation on the mission of STS-127 (same video presented at Tweetup, but missing the astronauts’ personal commentary.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TL74pz3BVo
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The first “Twitter App Store” launched at OneForty.com and GovTwit is listed under the networking section. If you get a chance to review/rate GovTwit at the site, it would be appreciated (and many thanks to @sarahebourne, Chief Technology Strategist at Commonwealth of Massachusetts for leaving a review).
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Great video on the Top 10 Stupid Things People do Using Social Media according to Pentagon Channel’s FNG (For the New Guys) HatTip to @mixtmedia for originally pointing out the video on Facebook. In addition to being entertaining, I learned that the Pentagon Channel has a great Facebook presence as well as YouTube presence.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=td8Xw5plXAI
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The FCC upped it’s online interactions with the launch of OpenInternet.gov including soliciting feedback on Chairman Julius Genachowski’s speech on to The Brookings Institution, which is a prelude to upcoming official proceedings around the topic.
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According to @Hitwise_UK, UK Govt websites now receive more traffic from social networks than news sites – http://twitpic.com/ike22
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Interesting Additions to GovTwit Directory Tweeted Last Week:
Added @USAMB4REFORM (Dept. of State, Kenyan Ambassador) to directory: http://bit.ly/ID1Om
Hmm, @2gov seems to be mashup of @tweetcongress & not yet deployed @govluv http://bit.ly/aIGDP (HT @civicvoice)
Just added @Astro_127 to GovTwit (yeah, should have had him in before @NASA tweetup): http://bit.ly/156ubM
We’re happy to welcome Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke to Twitter! Follow him at @SecLocke
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