Earlier today, David McClure, the Associate Administrator of the General Services Administration’s Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies, introduced a government social media timeline in a blog post on its new citizen engagement platform, Citizen.apps.gov. Here’s an excerpt from his comments:
Gov 2.0 is like any social network– it’s always changing, can be both difficult and rewarding, and occasionally get pretty hairy. And like Facebook, Gov 2.0 is only as valuable as the time you – and your community – put into it. It’s been a rapidly accelerating ride – as more and more interest comes from the White House, and, more importantly, the American public to increase the reach and effectiveness of engaging and communicating with government.
McClure cited milestones like the first government YouTube channel, the redesign of WhiteHouse.gov with open source software or the use of Twitter by the State and Defense Departments after the Haiti earthquake. Now, the federal government is looking to the American people – yes, you – to send “the important U.S. government milestones you know about by emailing them to us at [email protected].” Add a date, provide any sourcing information and keep eye on the evolution of this government social media timeline.
I love the concept of keeping a historical record of social media milestones. And I’m glad to have been introduced to the social timeline tool Dipity.
@Heather: another timeline tool to check out is Timetoast. I had started a similar timeline but abandoned when I learned GSA was completing theirs (a lot of work goes into each entry): http://www.timetoast.com/timelines/64686
David and the Govloop family. It is important to use the http://www.opengovplaybook.org
as a documented record of the discussions that lead to the development of the OGD plans we have in place today. Steven Covey, said in every project, start with the end in mind.. So two opportunities to measure the milestones of Gov 2.0. begin with November at the Martin Luther King Jr. Library in DC where we first started the discussion. January 2010, we had a Bigger meeting at the Department of Transportation….and we carried on until now. I have noticed over the past 60 days there have been questions about is Gov 2.0 in a slump, to continuous divide with no real gain in job creation sufficient enough to build public trust. So I think our goal should be to mature Gov 2.0 to foster economic development, job creation, and to solve public problems.
Government should help to foster contracting opportunities and engage with OMB on this issue of insourcing. The idea of cutting back on the use of outsourced contractors appears to be a direct opposite of what we are trying to stimulate.
Thank you Dave, for asking for input. If we can stay on this topic and ride it out to resolutions, then I think all of the volunteer work massive number of professionals put into the development of the OGD plans would be well worth all of the efforts.
Thank you
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