Next Generation of Government Lunch Keynote: Day 2

Today’s lunch session featured, Matt Mullenweg, Founder, WordPress & Successful Young Entrepreneur and Jon Carson, Director of the Office of Public Engagement, White House. Matt kicked of the session by stating, “Do not listen when people say this cannot be done,” using his experience at WordPress. Matt mentioned how powerful the internet age has become, and the ability connect people and share knowledge.

Matt and Jon spoke at length about the challenges of breaking down silos, and the importance of collaboration across government. Matt mentioned there are technological solutions that will help solve some of government’s challenges. Matt and Jon talked about the need to consolidate websites, develop a single point of entry, and cross agency collaboration.

The session then continued to a Q & A from the audience

Question: Full Reign of Government Web Infrastructure in 1 Year

Matt: “I would somehow incentive open source over commercial solutions,” stated Matt. Secondly, “Create open source internal equivalents of tools.” Matt mentioned creating apps and develop tools that would help people do their job better internally.

Question: What is your approach to developing great products and services?

“A great product has to have a point of view, something it stands for and things that it doesn’t do,” stated Matt. Matt continued, “Most products start of very simple.” Matt described WordPress how develop, starting just as a blogging software, to the development of WordPress today. “As much as possible, within the structure of what you’re trying to do, you want to give ownership and authority of what people are doing,” Matt stated.

Question: What are some of the challenges of running

Matt stated that an advantage: “can hire the best people in the world regardless of technology, which can be very powerful.” Matt stated that disadvantage: “There is something with brainstorming and collaboration that works best in person.” Matt mentioned that security has not been an issue, in terms of cost, there is not a lot saving. What is saved in office costs is spent in travel costs. “As knowledge workers does not necessarily correlate to what kind of job we are doing,” stated Matt.

If you want to check out the summit and were unable to attend, the conference is being live streamed on GovLoop, simply head over to the homepage of GovLoop and you’ll find links and resources to follow throughout the day. Since you can’t join us in person, we hope you’ll follow us digitally! Also, follow the conference using @nextgengov and #nextgengov, posting on GovLoop using Nextgen.