Washington Post, what happened to you? You’re the paper of Woodward and Bernstein, a beloved local institution and a veritable fourth branch of government.

Coming home after a Saturday night carousing, I used to love to see the trucks lined up outside your building on 15th Street. Back then (the 90s), the paper was printed right next to the Post’s HQ. Blue trucks would be double-parked along the street, waiting to deliver the news to the region.

And if I stayed out late enough, I could pick up the fat slab of Sunday’s paper while it was still technically Saturday night. There was a weird thrill to this, getting the news ahead of everyone else. The Sunday paper was an event, something everyone read.

This is all gone now. Where once stories were reported, fact-checked, edited and edited again before the presses rolled, news these days emerges in electronic form, often-rushed and incomplete. This is a good thing. I am for more news, more information, for the great cornucopia of the web. No more gatekeepers, let the public decide what matters.

But the Washington Post is an institution. It is a brand expressing journalistic quality and integrity. When they publish something, I expect it to be true.

I don’t expect the Washington Post to be running a digital sweatshop, where young journalists are expected to churn out regurgitated news items in the mad pursuit of impossible traffic goals.

How does this fit into the great tradition of the Post? The strength of the paper is its ability to really delve into issues. Why are they trying to be like some smarmy blog?

And getting a few hits on your site – what is that really winning you? Traffic rushes in to click on a link and then rushes off to some other site.

At the What’s Next DC conference, I watched Katharine Zaleski, the paper’s digital news director, give a presentation on the strategy. Coming from the Huffington Post, she brought a relentless focus on metrics. News was to be measured. And the measurement was site traffic. She had charts showing how traffic to the site had increased as the Post increased its “buzziness,” with efforts like news aggregation and blogging.

Does the Washington Post really want to emulate The Huffington Post? Do they want to “surf the trend waves on the Internet”? Shouldn’t the paper be making waves rather than trying to catch them?

And are ephemeral bursts of web traffic the right metric to follow? If so, why not just turn your site over to cat videos? But the Post is more than that, isn’t it?

Stay true to your mission – quality journalism. It’s what you do best. Stop trying to be cool. Don’t go for viral. Avoid “buzziness” and all its advocates.

Instead, simplify. Be the Apple of newspapers. Don’t add more web gimmickry to your cluttered and unusable web site. Focus on what you do best.

Don’t measure web hits – look at engagement. How long do people stay on the site? How many stories do they read? Try to duplicate the loyalty readers once felt toward the paper that they lovingly held in their hands. Better to have 100,000 devoted readers than a million casual followers.

No more second-rate social media. It’s beneath you, Washington Post. Simplify, focus on your strengths and pursue engagement with readers to be true to your news-breaking legacy.

I was there at the beginning.

In 2007, Twitter leapt into geek consciousness at SXSW Interactive. Monitors had been placed in the halls of this tech conference, displaying what people were tweeting about. I thought it was an interesting curiosity, like watching telegrams in real time. Little bursts of text scrolled across the screen, as people shared opinions about the workshops that they were in.

Imagine, prior to this epochal event of just five years ago, we had no easy way of getting real-time information from our friends, unless of course we talked to them. And when we went to events, we were fully present, listening to speakers without constantly checking our electronic devices. We paid attention, more or less. Or nodded off. Or wandered away, in search of something more interesting, guided only by instinct.

I blame Margie Newman. An early-adopter of social media, she sold me on Twitter, pitching it (she does PR) as a great way of getting relevant information delivered right to your iPhone. I followed her as she shared interesting articles about digital marketing, as well as her daily coffee runs.

And it was good, this small-scale tool, this curiosity that entertained and informed me during odd moments during the day. It was a niche web service, used by the super-geeky and wired.

The fact that it failed on almost daily basis (the Twitter fail whale became an Internet meme) confirmed the fact that it was not ready for the mainstream. No one talked about its potential – just having Twitter working seemed like a feat.

I found a use for it. I tweeted the news that I was writing a book, Murder in Ocean Hall. I tweeted how many words I had written. Friends replied that they were looking forward to reading the book. This type of public accountability ensured that I would finish the book, no matter what. And it built an audience for my novel.

While I was engaged in my archaic writing activity, Twitter took off. Tweetups were held. Celebrities began using it. Tweets floated down from space.

The potential of Twitter was fully-realized, as it tied the world together in 140-character chains. Which was wonderful. It’s a great and easy tool that’s perfect for the non-geeky.

Twitter was big, mainstream and it even worked. The fail whale was no more.

But as Twitter and social media took off, several insidious psychological elements of the experience became apparent.

Celebrity Syndrome

The idea of “followers” is contrary to our democratic ideals. We don’t slavishly follow our leaders, as if they’re Eva Peron. We’re not Argentina.

Early Twitter was a free exchange of information among equals. But now Twitter has become about popularity contests and numbers of followers. It’s about sucking up to some pseudo-famous person for a bit of recognition.

This is galling. It’s like recreating the world of high school cliques in cyberspace. I see the Washington Post’s top tweeps and I’m not sure what’s more absurd, a dead-tree paper defining Internet success or the dubious nature of their picks.

Social Media Expert is an Oxymoron

How can you be an expert in a medium that is so new? More than another media, social media is guided by zeitgeist and the fickle whims of the public. You cannot make a video go viral; only millions of people and their individual choices can do that.

You can train people to use social media but, in the end, it’s about knowing your audience and connecting with them in an authentic manner. And then hoping for the best.

The expert that promises that there’s some magic formula is not to be trusted. And if someone labelled as a “guru” or a “rockstar” comes waltzing into your office, then hold on to your wallet, for you’re about to make an expensive mistake.

The overhyped aspects of social media irritate me so much that I included a social media guru in my latest novel, Don’t Mess Up My Block. She writes only in lower-case and is constantly “crushing it” in everything she does.

The Collapse of Attention Spans

I worry about Millenials. Growing up digital once seemed like a gift. It may be a curse. I’m fortunate that I was young before the onslaught of attention-stealing electronic media. As a child, I could sit and read for hours. I still can, but it’s more of an effort now. I have to put the iPhone and iPad out of reach.

In the brilliant book Cognitive Surplus, Clay Shirky makes the point that the rise of the West can be traced to coffeehouses. Caffeine allowed us to concentrate and keep working. But if social media is destroying our ability to focus then how can civilization progress?

The Melding of Work, Life and Home

Facebook comes with one major misgiving for me – it mixes together people from different spheres in my life. Coworkers, high school friends, college buddies, family members and professional contacts are all thrown together in a boiling stew of political theories, recipe suggestions, kid photos, medical problems and news of the weird. It’s disturbing, this mix of people from different times and places, jumbled together and all sharing way too much information.

We used to keep different parts of our life separate, like Don Draper. I’ve known people who have quit Facebook entirely, unable to tolerate this blurring of social and professional lines.

So, What Do You Do?

My advice is to only use the tools that you enjoy. You don’t have to be on Facebook or use Twitter. For me, it’s Twitter, Flickr, Instagram and Facebook (with misgivings). I’m interested in tech, photography and events in DC.

Not on my list: Foursquare (why let people know where I’m at?), Pinterest (it’s just for girls, right?), Tumblr (don’t understand) and YouTube (cat videos).

You could spend all your time tweeting, retweeting, sharing links, rating videos and commenting on life around you. Or you can get out there and live.

After all, on your deathbed, you’re probably not going to say, “I wish I had tweeted more.”

I’m quoted in this article on AOL Government about using internal social networks. Imagine a company-wide version of Twitter or Facebook and you’ll have a good idea of how an internal social network works. They’re non-hierarchical, open environments where employees can share information.

Perhaps the best known of these systems is Yammer. It’s billed as an “enterprise social networks” but looks and operates so much like Facebook that people can start using it immediately. If you know how to post updates and respond to friends on Facebook, then they you quickly figure out Yammer.

Yammer feed

But should you?

Yammer is an amazing tool enabling easy collaboration among employees who could be anywhere. It lets them converse, share files, create wiki pages and organize groups, either from their desktop or mobile phone. It’s a generational improvement over bloated SharePoint.

Yet, it’s very openness makes managers nervous. If you give employees a tool like that, they will inevitably post pictures of their cats and “clutter” the network with notices about carpools and old iPods for sale.

I’ve seen it happen. Way back in the 90s, in the era of AOL bulletin boards, I worked for AARP. We carefully set up boards for AARP members to discuss Medicare, Social Security and other very important issues.

But members gravitated to the AARP Love and Relationships board. Thousands of messages were posted there. People connected. Friendships were made. Marriages occurred.

Nobody talked about Social Security. It was what we thought was important. But not what our users wanted.

If you set up Yammer for your company or organization, this will happen. Employees will come up with new and unexpected uses for this tool, for good or ill. They may collaborate to develop a brilliant new product or a way to save thousands of dollars. But they’ll also probably be spending a lot of time sharing restaurant recommendations and commuting tips.

Or worse. They’ll start bitching about their bosses.

I’ve seen it happen. Yammer was rolled-out casually in an organization I worked for. An all-staff email was sent out, encouraging people to use it. I was intrigued. All the “power users” were on it, the super-connected adopters of new technology. Everyone who was a fan of Twitter or social media signed-up immediately. It was really popular among young employees.

One of these employees was dissatisfied. He made his grievances known on Yammer, for everyone to see. He complained in a very emotional manner about his assignments and the lack of respect that he was shown. It was embarrassing for him and his manager.

What to do?

Yammer wasn’t shut down. Restrictions weren’t put in place on what employees could post. A committee wasn’t formed to come up with guidelines on appropriate uses of this new tool. All of these efforts would’ve killed off participation.

Instead, the manager met privately with the employee. He removed his posts. Everyone moved on.

This is a common-sense solution, one that treats employees as adults. You’re responsible for what you say online. We expect you to be professional. We don’t need to shut down the whole system just because one person makes a mistake.

It’s inevitable that social media is incorporated into the way we work. Doing so will bring enormous changes to relationships between bosses and employees, subverting traditional hierarchies and creating faster, more effective methods of collaboration. Companies shouldn’t look at these changes as threats, but as opportunities to grow their businesses by tapping into the creativity and productivity of their most important resource – their people.

Execution trumps strategy, according to Rachel Tipograph, social media director for the Gap. She was a very wise speaker on the “how” of actually getting things done in large organizations. Creating meaningful experiences online is more important than endless rounds of strategy and planning. As I listened to her speak at What’s Next DC, I watched heads bobbing in agreement around the room.

Execution > Strategy. Which is how I feel about conferences devoted to social media. How can you develop the perfect social media strategy in an ever-changing environment, especially when success is determined by the audience? It’s better to dive in, create something, and see what works.

I was at What’s Next DC thanks to my own bit of execution – I made a pithy comment on the importance of storytelling on GovLoop and won a free ticket to this conference on digital marketing.

What’s Next DC was relentlessly focused on execution, on new media marketing efforts that worked as told by the people who created them. There were no belabored lectures on the media landscape illustrated by grainy slides filled with biz speak jargon. Instead, real practitioners in the field told their stories, warts and all.

How Dunkin Donuts does it.

One of my favorite speakers was Jessica Gioglio from Dunkin Donuts. She made the point that Dunkin Donuts was a brand owned by the fans. People feel passionate about the donut-maker and her job was to provide them the tools to express that passion. They have a huge presence on Facebook, where they promote a “fan of the week” and run lots of Dunkin “DD” puns.

And when Dunkin screws up, she’s going to hear about it, even if it’s a local franchise having a typo in their signage. You have to respond quickly and personally to every concern.

Sabrina Caluori from HBO is not the kind of speaker you’d typically find at a conference in DC. She shared the successes and failures of HBO’s social media efforts. They originally tried a tweet-chat with one of the stars of True Blood. As hundreds of questions poured in, it was quickly clear that this wasn’t going to work. That led to the development of HBO Connect, a “digital water cooler” for fans to discuss their favorite shows and communicate with talent.

I have a passionate, vested interest in the Washington Post. I’ve read the paper daily for decades. Over the past couple years, I’ve watched as the Post web site became virtually unusable, due to a clunky content management system and the integration of every annoying web gadget out there.

Sadly, social media is just part of the clutter. Katharine Zaleski from the Washington Post discussed some of these “advancements”. Coming from the Huffington Post, she brought a relentless focus on metrics and daily measurement of news performance. And she rolled out a couple of dubious products. Mention Machine is super annoying. It’s a little bar that appears at the bottom of the browser, impinging upon the story that you’re reading, and showing the number of Twitter mentions various candidates have received. Doesn’t the Washington Post understand that we just want to read an article? Isn’t that what newspapers are for?

Another deleterious gee-whiz gimmick is the Washington Post Social Reader. I don’t want to install another annoying Facebook app just to read stories that my friends find interesting. Why do you have to reinvent the URL?

This is execution gone wrong, when you place barriers in front of your readers.

Wouldn't you like this for your next meeting?

One final (and good) example of execution – the brilliant whiteboards by Carolyn Sewell!

These beautiful “doodles” summed up panel discussions in a creative and artistic manner. They’re a great way to remind people of what was discussed. And I’m sure her artistic talent didn’t originate in some strategic planning session.

What’s Next DC is not just another social media conference. With its focus on results, attendees left with lots of good ideas to execute – and not just strategize about.

I’m old enough to remember the early days of the web. Back then (not too long ago, the 1990s), organizations didn’t take this online medium seriously. The web site paled in importance to the newsletter or magazine, at least according the leaders of the time. After all, who reads things on a computer? The Internet was a place for nerds and geeks, for them to discuss Star Trek trivia and learn arcane HTML codes.

If you ran a company or a nonprofit, you really didn’t need a web site, or so people believed. And if you wanted a web site, you could have your nephew build it. He could make something flashy and “cool” like MySpace.

I see the same attitude today toward social media. Why should an organization invest in Facebook or Twitter? Let the interns handle it…

But would you trust an intern to be the voice of your organization? That’s the point I made in a recent article in AOL Government. If you accept the fact that social media is important (and you should, because that’s where the audience is), then why would you hand over these communication efforts to those who know the least about your company? Do you trust college kids to spread your message, respond to questions and interact with potential customers? Do they know the hot-button issues within your company? The language that you use with customers? Your customer service standards and policies? The things that they’re *not* supposed to talk about?

And what happens when the interns leave? They take all that hard-won knowledge about your organization with them, as well as valuable expertise in social media. And they may take the Twitter account as well.

Social media is too important to be left to a transient workforce. Companies and organizations should take a deliberate approach to this dynamic new tool. The keys to the social media kingdom shouldn’t be in the hands of someone who just walked in the door.

Your voice online should be controlled by someone who both knows your company and is familiar with the culture of the web and social media. Look around – you probably have someone already with the requisite experience and interest. They’re probably doing something perceived as more important. But what’s more important than representing your brand in a medium that reaches millions?

Now, Discover Your Strengths is one of the very few personal improvement books worth the money. It’s been superseded by the awkwardly-titled StrengthsFinder 2.0 but the message is the same in the new book:

You should concentrate on what you’re best at. Don’t try to improve your weaknesses, instead sharpen the skills that you do better than anyone else. It’s a countervailing message in this age of self-improvement. It says to drop what you suck at (I’m never going to be a great basketball player) and work on what you do best (writing and photography).

The two books contain surveys to identify your unique strengths.  You’ll probably experience an “ah-hah” moment at the results, confirming what you already knew.

The same principle of concentrating on your strengths can be applied to social media efforts. In this new and ever-changing field, how do you determine what to spend time on? Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube, FourSquare, Digg, SlideShare, Scribd, Flickr… and on and on and on. You could spend twenty-four hours a day in front of an overheated laptop updating social media sites.

I worked with Janice Hall Booth, a very interesting woman who wrote an inspiring book, Only Pack What You Can Carry. She’s an “adventurista” and an excellent role model for young women who want more out of life than Sex and the City.

Janice had a problem. She wanted to use social media to promote her book but had a full-time job. I’ve seen some of the social media plans for authors – they’re comprehensive, exhausting affairs filled with exhortations such as “get 20 new Twitter followers a day for 30 days.” How do you compel people to follow you? These plans treat all social media channels equally and require herculean efforts to complete.

Also, social media experts are extroverts; writers are not.

I took a different approach. I advised Janice to concentrate on the social media channels that she was most comfortable with. She was more likely to stick with something she was really passionate about and enjoyed. For Janice, this was blogging. Not surprising, since she’s a writer.

For my own social media efforts (for me and Murder in Ocean Hall), I’ve concentrated on blogging and Twitter. I like the constant newsfeed of Twitter, as well as the back-and-forth wittiness with friends. And for writing longer than 144 characters, I have this blog.

There’s a thousand other ways of promoting a book online. GoodReads is a really interesting online community. Facebook marketing ties yourself to the whims of a single online service. A book trailer (like a movie preview) on YouTube is a good idea for graphic novels. An email newsletter is something I’d like to do at some point. I post a lot of photos on Flickr, though they’re about my life in general, not just my book. FourSquare – why do I want people to know where I’m at?

My other piece of social media advice: evaluate after 30 days. What’s working? What’s not? Most social media, like media in general, does not reach a mass audience. You will not have thousands of followers overnight.

Instead, I’d look at your social media efforts based upon your individual strengths. Do you have blog posts that you’re really proud of? Have you made new connections that you treasure? Have you learned something new?

Passion and authenticity are rewarded in social media. Don’t try to do everything. Concentrate on what you enjoy.

I had the privilege to work with Janice Hall Booth. She’s a very inspiring woman who wrote a great book, Only Pack What You Can Carry. It’s like Eat, Pray, Love but is about someone who actually went out into the world and did something Her message is that you can find your personal mission through solo travel.

Janice has been a whitewater rafter, a photographer, a nonprofit executive and an avid adventurer, always willing to push the limits of what’s possible.

Only Pack What You Can Carry

But perhaps her most challenging adventure was getting a book published! She’s been blogging about this and has now put the publishing story together in a handy PDF. Find out how she was discovered and what it was like working with National Geographic. It’s a warts and all look at the publishing world, told with her trademark honesty.

And I make a brief cameo at the end, as Janice’s new media coach. While I gave her checklists to follow and guides to blogging, my advice was really simple – use the tools that you’re most comfortable with to tell your fascinating story.

SXSW in 2007

SXSW Interactive is an annual conference of social media and web geeks in Austin. It’s a huge, exhausting event that takes place over a long weekend in March and is popularly known as the conference that introduced Twitter and other new forms of communication.

The criticism now is that it’s gotten too big and too corporate, dominated by giant corporations trying to be hip. And that it’s gotten to be such a chaotic moshpit that it leads to network outages.

I went to SXSW in 2007 and 2008, just the right moment before it became mainstream. The conference taught me to love the brilliant minds at 37signals, whose radically hopeful ideas about the future of work cannot arrive soon enough. I learned that project management should be as simple as possible. Gantt charts and MS Project should be avoided in favor of clear goals that everyone can understand. REWORK is their vision for the ideal work environment, where meetings and busywork are eschewed in favor of collaboration and results. Their philosophy is subversive and attractive for anyone stuck in boring meetings or lengthy conference calls.

A surprising part of SXSW for me was meeting authors and discovering self-publishing. Listening to showmen/charlatans Tucker Max and Timothy Ferris, I realized that I should write and publish a book. Rather than trying to interest a NYC publisher, they just started writing and blogging their adventures and opinions. In the trade show, I also got to examine the slick self-published titles produced by Lulu – they looked and felt exactly like “real” books and were indistinguishable from anything you’d find at Borders. These two lessons:

1. Ignore the gatekeepers and write your book
2. Self-published books are real books

within a year prompted me to write my first novel, Murder in Ocean Hall.

Dave and Margie Newman

However, so much of the best stuff at SXSW happens outside the convention center. Like when I met Dave and Margie Newman in the beer tent, who ended up moving to DC and becoming great friends.

Or when I encountered the strange figure of Reverend Billy, railing against consumerism and Starbucks. And just the experience of getting out of DC and going somewhere warm to eat BBQ and watch women in skirts and cowboy boots was rejuvenating.

Reverend Billy

I realized that I’m more interested in going to Austin than attending SXSW. Unlike when I attended in 2007 and 2008, there are panels relevant to my job as a web editor for government web sites. But the thought of yet another endless discussion by self-appointed thought leaders on “Gov 2.0″ makes me ill. Why go to SXSW to see that?

I hope that the govvies in Austin avoid such seminars and look for the different and the oddball. Roam the streets. Talk to people. Stay out late and get drunk.

Another reason for skipping SXSW is that some of the “keep Austin weird” creative spirit that I like so much has migrated to DC. Unbelievable, yet true.

Just look at my schedule for this month. Last night, I went to screening of short films by a local director – this is someone who is making movies outside of Hollywood. Then on Tuesday is the DCist Exposed Photography Show, a community-based exhibit of photos that embodies the democratic, creative ethos of SXSW. Later in the month, I have the DC Film Salon on my calendar, another communal mediamaking event. I also plan on doing some writing for the Pink Line Project, an online guide to the arts in DC.

The do-it-yourself creative spirt of Austin and SXSW inspired me to create art. Being there made me realize that I wasn’t interested in the stories of startups making millions of dollars, of the next Twitter or Gowalla. And of large organizations trying to adapt to new technology… that doesn’t seem to belong at SXSW at all.

Instead, I was intrigued by individuals making art on their own, whether they were writers, photographers, bloggers or filmmakers.

SXSW demonstrated to me that you could write and publish your own book. Or make a short film. Or create a blog to share your message. It had an enormous influence on me and one that I’m still trying to incorporate into my life.

Perhaps that’s why I don’t feel the need to attend SXSW this year. I’m still working on what I learned from previous years. These are ideas of autonomy and creative self-expression, empowered by new tools such as self-publishing and social media. You don’t need to sit in a convention center to learn that. You just have to participate.

So, late one afternoon, my building caught fire. My apartment was fine; other people weren’t so lucky. This is part one of lessons learned. Check out part two for my thoughts on the importance of communication after the fire.

I got the call around 6:30 PM.

“Oh, Joe, I think your building is on fire.”

It was a friend of mine, John Hanshaw, who lives nearby. He could see my apartment building and said that it was surrounded by fire engines.

I really didn’t believe him at first. DC sends out fire trucks for everything. They roll not just for fires, but for medical calls as well. This is because the ambulances are unreliable and sometimes can’t find the right address. The thinking is that the local fire company knows the neighborhood better.

But this makes the city a “land of sirens”, with fire trucks constantly racing down streets, sirens blaring. After a while, the commotion becomes so much background noise.

At the time, I was a few blocks away, having a drink. I was about to go to an election night party.

I tweeted flippantly:

Within just a couple of minutes I got a  second call, this time from Neil Torda in the mountains of North Carolina. We went to high school together and he knows my place in DC. Seeing my post, he did a Google search.

He tweeted an article about the fire and sent me this terrifying picture.

I walked back, visions of my building completely destroyed.

When I got there, the fire was out. There was a black hole on the 9th floor where an apartment used to be. I hoped that my place, on the 7th floor, on the backside of the building was okay.

My neighbors were sheltering in the lobby of a building around the corner. The building’s management provided pizza and drinks. Later on, the Red Cross distributed blankets.

Everyone wanted to know when they could get back inside. Management said it would be a couple hours. And that they would call us (which they never did).

To me, this seemed hopelessly optimistic. Looking at the burned-out apartment, the broken windows, the smoke and water damage, all the ladder trucks surrounding the building, getting the elevator running, the necessary investigations – there was no way we were getting in that night.

I left and walked over to the Helix, a boutique hotel a couple doors down from where I live. I knew that they were actively involved in the local community, having been a sponsor of the DC Shorts Film Festival, which I volunteer for. I love all the Kimpton properties and have recommended them to out of town visitors.

I told them that I lived next door. I was hoping they would give me a decent rate but instead the manager comped me. He showed me a picture on his Blackberry of my building in flames.

While all this was going on, I had updated my Twitter and Facebook feeds. An outpouring of concern filled my iPhone. Friends asked how I was, shared how they had seen the fire, if they could do anything, if I needed a place to stay. It was incredibly moving.

Unfortunately, my iPhone wasn’t fully charged and it soon died. There’s a perverse thrill you get with disaster. It seems like a crazy adventure – locked out of my apartment! I get to stay at the Helix! Fire trucks! Streets shut down!

But then my phone powered down and I couldn’t talk to anyone. Real worry set in.

I didn’t sleep and walked back early the next morning. Entering my apartment and seeing it exactly as I left it was a moment of incredible relief.

Others were not so fortunate. They have to deal with homes now wrecked by smoke and water. I really didn’t know how bad the fire was until I saw the video of people being rescued from the upper floors of my building. I can’t imagine their terror.

Lessons Learned

1.  Social Media is Great but Better to Have Neighbors

John Hanshaw, who lives two blocks away, told me about the fire. Later on, I commiserated and shared information with my neighbors, people who I had shared small-talk with in the elevator. Friends who lived in DC offered me a place to stay. People called to check in on me. The Helix Hotel put me up, recognizing that they were part of the community.

2. Location Doesn’t Matter

Who confirmed the fire for me? Neil Torda, who lives hundreds of miles away but was sitting in front of a computer.

3. Social Media is Indispensable

I tweeted so that friends and family instantly knew that I was okay. Having parents on Facebook can be occasionally awkward but at least my status updates alleviated their worry.

4. Social Media is News

A three-alarm fire in Washington is big news. How was this story covered? Social media informed the coverage each step of the way. As you can see from this TBD page, updates came in about the fire in real-time and included pictures, videos and tweets from participants. It wasn’t just media covering the story but also included involved parties and those who just happened to be walking by.

5. You Need an Emergency Plan

Leaving my apartment yesterday, I had no idea that I’d have to find another place to stay for the night. “Go to the Helix” is really not a good emergency plan… It would’ve been nice if I had a pre-arranged place to go, with at least a toothbrush and a change of clothes.

6. Charge Your Phone!

I didn’t think I’d be out long so my iPhone wasn’t fully charged. Yet, this was how I communicated with the world and found needed information. When it died, I was essentially lost.

Things could’ve been so much worse. I’m thankful they weren’t.

Some more random thoughts about Transparency Camp 09. Here are my big take-aways from the conference.

Excitement: There’s a tremendous amount of enthusiasm among enlightened advocates of government transparency, fueled by the election of Obama and the mainstreaming of Web 2.0 tools like blogging. There’s a real can-do spirit, which is in marked contrast to continuing bad news about the economy. 

The Importance of Free Beer: How do you get people to hang out after the formal sessions of a conference, for a further exchange of ideas? You offer them free beer, of course (courtesy of Peter Corbett). I saw this at SXSW too. The convivial sharing of booze leads people to make connections they never would’ve made.

Twitter is Useful: This micro-blogging service was a great utility during the conference. Attendees tagged their tweets with #tcamp09, which enabled anyone (even people not at the conference) to see what attendees were saying about the sessions.

Macs are Everywhere: I was pleased to see so many Macs at the conference. The facility at GW had outlets at every table and wifi was available as well, which led to a proliferation of laptops, the majority of which were Macs.

Education is Needed: Advocates of open and accessible government need to learn more about the near infinite complexities of government policies and procedures. A host of rules limit what government can do online. Also, there’s not “one government” as Jeff Levy from EPA repeated over and over. Different government agencies have different IT policies and requirements. Pity the poor developer who wants to create a web application for all of government. 

As someone with a background in government and nonprofit web sites, I got a tremendous amount out of this conference. Attending events like this, you come away with renewed excitement about the possibilities of the web and a host of new ideas to explore.