Anderson started off with an interesting example – the infamous Twitter fail whale. Countless users have bemoaned the unreliability of Twitter, though in fact, the service has been down only occasionally and it’s gotten dramatically better of late. He contrasted this with a couple of stories about government sites. In the first, he had to pay taxes in Delaware for his corporation but their web site was down for the entire weekend before his taxes were due. In another example, he wanted to pay a traffic ticket he received in Truckee, CA, but the town did not take credit cards online, something a teenager could’ve set up. These are much more critical tasks than updating your Twitter feed.

Four Web Rules of the Google Generation

In Anderson’s view, the Google Generation (those who grew up with the Internet) expects government sites to work as well as commercial sites. But I think any regular user of the web thinks this way, no matter the age. He listed four rules of the Google Generation. This is what they expect:

1. Everything should work all the time. 
2. If you can’t find it on Google, it doesn’t exist. 
3. Meet us where we live (Facebook, Flickr, Twitter).
4. We want to interact with your content.

Unfortunately, as Anderson listed in his Delaware example, not everything works all the time on .gov sites. Also, while optimizing your content for Google is a great idea, not all .gov sites do this and some government content is hidden in databases which Google has a hard time searching. There are just a few examples of government in Facebook or Flickr though this is a common practice in the .com and .org worlds. And the idea of people discussing, rating, ranking and remixing government content on a .gov site is something I’ve never seen before (but would love to).

Obstacles to Web 2.0 in Government

Any discussion of Web 2.0 in government soon turns to the innumerable obstacles to bringing social media to government sites. Anderson made the point that these barriers are similar to those to any large company or organization.  They include:

• Outdated technology 
• Legal concerns
• Privacy worries
• Procurement hassles
• Archive issues
• Lack of urgency

In the commercial world, this is why smaller companies are the innovators. They are not saddled with a content management system purchased in the 1990s nor IT policies not updated in more than a decade.

Black Wire/White Wire

Anderson had a story bound to terrify any government CIO. At Conde Nast, he was saddled with many of the same restrictions that afflict any large organization. Old emails got deleted after 30 days, server space was limited, vital email got stuck in spam filters and no one could install software on their machines without approval. His team was frustrated by these restrictions which hindered their effectiveness.

His solution was to opt out of IT support by setting up his own DSL network and servers in his office. Anderson showed the setup, with a black wire for the IT department’s connection and a white wire for his DSL hookup. The black wire only got plugged in to print. In his view, the role of the CIO should be to provide a fat pipe to the Internet and maintain the printers, not tell people what technology they can use.

Consumer Apps > Enterprise Apps

One reason that Anderson cited for seceding from his IT department was that his staff was used to consumer applications (like Gmail and Google Docs) that were superior to their enterprise equivalents (Outlook, Word). Not only were these consumer apps easier to use, they were also available anywhere. Anderson uses Google Docs exclusively. He also listed the new US CIO, Vivek Kundra, as a proponent of using consumer technology in the public space. In his previous role as CTO for the District of Columbia, Kundra brought these apps in-house and established wikis and data feeds to make local government more efficient.

Web 2.0 Thinking

Finally, Anderson presented a list of good and bad words. These are words and phrases to be encouraged, with their bad counterparts in parenthesis:

• fail fast (approval process)
• hosted/cloud (client/server)
• nimble (planning cycle)
• experimental (safe)
• beta (signed off)
• messy (static)
• sure! (maybe next year)

Anderson is an inspiring speaker, particularly on the subject of “failing faster”. He made the point that he’s failed lots of times, in lots of different ways, but each experience taught him something. Failing is a necessary byproduct of experimenting, something that should be encouraged across government.

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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.

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This un-conference is about convening a trans-partisan tribe of open government advocates from all walks — government representatives, technologists, developers, NGOs, wonks and activists — to share knowledge on how to use new technologies to make our government transparent and meaningfully accessible to the public.

In practice, this meant a very smart and dedicated group of government and non-government techies devoted their weekend to collaborating, brainstorming and scheming new ways to make government more open and accessible to all of us. What was unique about the un-conference was that it was open and collaborative, where the people in the audience were just as smart as the “experts” presenting. It was also made up as it went along, as topics and panels were put together on the fly, in response to the interests and passions of the attendees.

I attended because I used to be a government web site manager and think that government sites can be better. And that they should be better, for they are paid for by taxpayers. In one session I was in, the question was asked, “What can the public do to make .gov sites better?”

My answer is to keep pushing. There are numerous barriers to improving government sites, from IT security to policy, that can only be overcome through public pressure. The public needs to demand sites that are easier to use and more efficiently managed. Why can’t .gov be like Google?

Perhaps more importantly, the creative, risk-taking spirit of events like Transparency Camp needs to be encouraged within government. There are a lot of very talented people within government who want to blog, use Twitter, publish data in open formats, create mashups and experiment with new technology to better serve taxpayers. These people need to be empowered so that they can more effectively communicate the work of government to the public that pays for it.

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The nonprofit to be pimped was Student Movement for Real Change (SMRC), an organization that was founded to connect American college students with schools in Africa that need assistance. Students apply for internships that, “provide college students on-the-ground development experience, cultural immersion, and the necessary leadership skills to develop sustainable projects that address local needs through a 6 or 8 week internship (depending on the community) in developing communities” to quote the SMRC web site.

Vanessa Carter of SMRC gave a brief overview of SMRC and the challenges they face. Like many nonprofits, they’re a very small organization with a limited budget. Their main marketing objectives are to obtain:

• Interns. They’ve had success getting applicants for their programs in Africa through the use of Google Ads. These search-based ads are how most potential interns find out about the program.
• Donations. They recently redesigned their web site and it includes a nice red donate button on the home page. They’ve also had limited success raising money through Facebook Causes.

The question Vanessa had for the group was, “Out of the sea of social media tools – Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, YouTube, blogs – which is worth doing?” With a very small staff, limited time and a reluctance to learn anything complicated, which of these tools would be most effective for her organization?

The group weighed in with their advice. Many of the participants were active users of these tools and brought lessons learned from applying these tools to similar nonprofits. They provided both strategic insight and concrete tactical advice:

• Facebook: Given that SMRC wants to reach college students, Facebook would be the place to prioritize. While some of the group thought that Facebook was too broad of a social network, the consensus was that Facebook was the network that college students are on all the time. The advice was that SMRC should expand its presence on Facebook.
• Facebook Ads: Facebook knows an extraordinary amount about its users and can provide very targeted ads, which is pretty frightening, but would be effective for SMRC. The ads could be run when students are looking for internships.
• MySpace: While a comment was made that MySpace was “over”, this service is used by vast numbers of high school students, who might be future SMRC interns.
• Google Ads: SMRC has had success with Google Ads but the advice was to look at the metrics behind the campaigns, to analyze what search terms were working and adjust accordingly.
• Twitter: Nothing brings out controversy like Twitter! The group went back and forth about this, about the wonders of Twitter (I agree) but that it’s really an early-adopter tool and not yet mainstream (I agree again).
• Blogs: SMRC already has a few blogs on their site. Everyone agreed that blogs are necessary in this day and age but that more guidance is needed for bloggers and that they need to be done more consistently.
• Video: The wonders of the Flip camera were much extolled, for it allows video to be cheaply shot and uploaded to YouTube. This would be an ideal tool for SMRC.
• Email Listservs: It’s very Web 1.0 but is still an effective tool.
• The SMRC web site: While the site was just redesigned, the group thought it could be improved upon through the addition of the tag line, describing the organization, and by better using the home page real estate.
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM): Nonprofits need better tools to manage their relationships with donors. Nobody seemed too excited about their CRM system.

At the end of the meeting, the folks at Genius Rocket offered to help Vanessa produce a video ad for SMRC. So, she not only left with a long (and hopefully useful) list of to-dos, she also received some donated assistance. And all of us geniuses who offered our help got tasty snacks and the satisfaction of helping a good cause.

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I was at SXSW last year when Twitter launched.  They had monitors outside conference rooms showing “tweets” from users, little random bits of text unfurling on a screen.  I thought it was interesting, like a bad stream of consciousness novel, but didn’t see the point.  Why would I want to let the world know about the trivia of my life?

Twitter won a SXSW Web Award, in the blog category.  The founders gave a clever acceptance speech – in less than 140 characters.

Still, I was unconvinced until a few weeks ago when my buddy Neil suggested that I try it. He and his hard-working IT colleagues use it to keep track of one another across a busy college campus.

That seemed useful so I tried it out.  I found that several other of my friends and colleagues were already on Twitter and it’s been really interesting to discover the projects that they’re working on.  It’s helped me make connections and get good ideas.  For example, I found out that:

• A fellow Nature Conservancy alumni has created a Rails-to-Trails Photo Challenge, one that I plan to enter.
• My friend Neil is finally moving.
• Eric, the NOAA Second Life guru, has the same problems with mindless government regs that I do.
• MOSSO is a terrible hosting company, according to a SXSW friend.
• Artomatic was having a pinata-making workshop.  Damn, I missed that!

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Really, not much.  5-10 hours a week at most, time that I’d otherwise spend watching TV, I’m sure. Museum 2.0 has a great post on how much time Web 2.0 really takes and includes a handy chart showing how much time each tactic can take.

And how did I find this article?  Twitter.  The author, Nina Simon, is a Twitter friend of a friend of a friend.

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