Social Software/Web 2.

Darlene Meskell
Director,
USA Services
Intergovernmental Solutions,
GSA Office of Citizen Services

North American Day 2007

September 12-14, 2007
The Journey to Oz

“Lions and tigers and bears! Oh my!”

The Journey to Web 2.0

“Wikis and facebooks and blogs! Oh my!”

 What is Web 2.0?

• Blog
– People have conversations online: ideas ↔ feedback
– Communities form around topics that interest people
• Wiki
– Internet-based location for collaboration (We are smarter than me)
– Allows people to post, remove, change, edit, merge content
• Multi-User Virtual Environments (Second Life)
– Virtual interaction with a different population
• RSS Feeds
– Push out information to subscribers
• Video Postings (YouTube)
– Video postings
• Web chat
– Instant consultation with an expert online
• Podcasts
– Audio downloads
• Bookmarking and Tagging (del.icio.us and Diggs)
– Personalize and organize your content
 How Does Web 2.0 Impact Government
“One of the goals of democracy is to make government a two-way process and the
Web offers a way to do this” -- Ben Schneiderman, University of Maryland

How E-Government is changing society and strengthening democracy:

• Building Trust in Government

– Two-way communication
– Gives everyone a voice
• Engaging Citizens in Government
– Collaborators can access the same text, resources
– At a distance
– Public meetings online
• Inviting public comment
– Regulations.gov
– E-petitions
• Using social media
– Going where the citizens are
– Reusing data to generate more useful information
• Mature e-democracy
– Transparency
– Giving citizens the tools to participate online
U.S. Government Blogs
 Blog Will Launch in October

“Gov Gab” will post 5 days a week on USA.gov

4 Purposes, or Why USA.gov started a blog:

• To open a conversation with the public
• To put a human face on government
• To reach new audiences
• To share government information

Subjects will be personal choices, e.g., how to handle lost

airline luggage, influenced by the Blogosphere
Putting a Human Face on Government

6 USA.gov Bloggers

Colleen – Consumer information specialist

Newbie bureaucrat
Jake – Frequently Asked Questions
Rocker
Marybeth – Web content manager
Consumer information specialist

Nancy – TV, print and radio PSAs

Media whiz

Sam – Media specialist

Southern belle, shopper

Sommer – Web content manager

Midwesterner
 Blogging policies

Policy statement from HHS:

• We expect that summit participants will treat each

other with respect.
• All comments will be reviewed before posting.
• We will not post comments that contain personal
attacks of any kind; offensive terms that target
specific ethnic or racial groups; or vulgar language.
• We will not post comments that are spam, are clearly
off topic or that promote services or products.
• Comments that make unsupported accusations will
also not be posted.
 Pandemic Flu Leadership Blog
Message: Be Prepared for Pandemic Flu

• Blog May 22 to June 27 before, during and after HHS

leadership forum on pandemic preparedness
• “…to have an open conversation and shape the
thinking about how to communicate the critical need
for preparedness...
• “…addressing the need for all Americans to prepare
for pandemic influenza, the challenges that leaders
will face in communicating this need and the potential
solutions for overcoming those challenges.
• “…to communicate lessons learned from the
Leadership Forum and to communicate what needs
to be done moving forward.
Reaching a new generation on YouTube
Message: Go Out and Play an Hour a Day
CDC in Second Life: Hygeia Philo
Message: Take precautions against STDs
WikiHomePage | RecentChanges | Page Index Login (create account) (3NH7)

• [Portal-Search] [News & Announcements] [Communities of Practice] [Go To] [

Membership] [Expedition Workshops] [Past Events] [Credits] [IPR] (3CSL)

Welcome to COLAB: An Open Collaborative Work Environment (CWE) to

Support Networking Among Communities of Practice (http://www.gsa.gov
/collaborate). (3CSV)
• This open collaborative work environment includes a wiki, email discussion
forum, message archive, shared file workspace, full text search, and portal. Wiki
comes from the Hawaiian word for fast and is "a web site where community
members create/edit a web page" that supports quick, collaborative writing and
easy hypertext linking. The structure is not pre-determined, but invented and
evolved by community in neither a top down or bottom up manner.

Networking Among Communities of Practice in Support of: (35OA)

• 1. Architecture and Infrastucture Committee (Organization Chart): (35OB)
• 2. Best Practices Committee Wiki Page: (35OL)
– Enterprise Process Improvement Community of Practice (EPIC) (Email and Files)
(36A3)
– IT Performance Management Community of Practice (ITPM CoP) (Email and
 Benefits of Using Wikis

• Support Communities of Interest / Practice

– Like-minded individuals communicate online
– Single place to archive papers, agendas, e-mail lists
– CIO Council committees
• Create a joint work product across boundaries
– Data Reference Model v.2 by 130 people in 180 days
– “We are smarter than me” book by 1 million authors
– “Swarm intelligence”
• Organizing communications quickly
– Tsunami rescue workers
 Web Chat

How can I e-file my

taxes?
What national
parks are in Utah?

How can I get my husband to

stop smoking?
What is the recovery rate for
skin cancer?
 Issues and Benefits for Government
Issues
• Policies
• Resources required
• Software to use
• Content-fresh and readable
• Moderated content
• Continuity
• Credibility
• Easy to use
• Malicious postings
• Liability
• “Official” statements
• Release confidential info
• Costs
Benefits
• Communicates with citizens
where they are
• Appeals to many generations
• Listens to what citizens think
• Increases participation in
government
• Expands the reach of
government
• Makes government transparent
• Increases trust in government
• Reuses data to create new
knowledge
• Fosters collaboration
• Builds communities
 Government 2.0: Wikinomics,
Government and Democracy
“…a multi-million dollar global research project that will identify and analyze
emerging opportunities to harness new models of collaboration to transform the
pubic sector.” -- Don Tapscott, author, Wikinomics and CEO, New Paradigm

• 4 forces:
- Technology Revolution (Web 2.0)
- Demographic Revolution (The Net Generation)
- Social Revolution (Social Networking)
- Economic Revolution (Wikinomics)
• Deliverables:
- Survey of young people 13-29 on how they will behave as citizens
- White papers, case studies, survey analyses
- Podcasts, conference presentations, interactive working groups
 Department of the Navy Uses of Web 2.0

• Podcasts:
– Department of the Navy Chief Information Officer
– Chief of Naval Operations
– Commander Navy Reserve
– Commander Fifth Fleet

• Wikis:
– Defense Intelligence Agency (Intellipedia)
– Naval Research Laboratory (SECCHI)
– Navy Information Operations Command experimenting with wikis to improve the process of
developing IO doctrine

• Pseudo Blog:
– Marine Corps Center for Lessons Learned - reports findings, trends and issues through verbal,
written, and electronic media

• RSS:
– RSS being built into the redesign of the DON CIO web site
• Allows users an alternative path to finding information
• Allows users to tailor information to what they are interested in
• Provides a basis for content exchange and sharing with other sites such as NKO or DKO
 For more information…

Darlene Meskell Rob Carey

Director CIO
USA Services Intergovernmental Solutions Department of the Navy
darlene.meskell@gsa.gov robert.carey@navy.mil

For the Intergovernmental Solutions Newsletter

How E-Government is Changing Society and Strengthening Democracy
go to
www.gsa.gov/intergovnewsletter