Author: Joe Flood

Joe Flood is a writer, photographer and web person from Washington, DC. The author of several novels, Joe won the City Paper Fiction Competition in 2020. In his free time, he enjoys wandering about the city taking photos.

Government Web Sites Grapple with YouTube

YouTube is ubiquitous. Millions of people visit the site every day. For the Wired Generation, it’s the functional equivalent of television. Yet, despite the vast audience of YouTube, many government agencies do not make their videos available on the site. Some are even worse – and ban their employees from even visiting YouTube.

By withholding their videos from YouTube, government agencies are shortchanging their key mission, which is communicating to the public. Taxpayers paid for those videos and they shouldn’t be hidden away on some .gov site. They are in the public domain and should be made available in every venue possible, including the one that everyone watches. To not post your videos to YouTube is like saying, “Please don’t show my content on TV.” Continue reading “Government Web Sites Grapple with YouTube”

Friday's Links

Here’s what’s interested me in the last week:

How Phony is Shepard Fairey?
There’s a fine line between art and plagiarism. 

Apple Store Design Hits a Glass Wall Again
Who is the Old Georgetown Board and why are they holding up Apple coming to DC?

How Will We Survive Battlestar Galactica’s Radioactive Future?
Some practical suggestions.

Christian Bale, Hero of the Set
I find this a little hard to believe – a movie set being terrorized by a DP?

Writers Need to Promote Their Books
Seems obvious, but just because you’re published, it doesn’t mean that your work is done.

Rise of the Goverati

“Rise of the Goverati.”  Isn’t that the new Terminator movie?

No, “goverati” is the term Mark Drapeau uses for:

people with first-hand knowledge of how the government operates, who understand how to use social software to accomplish a variety of government missions, and who want to use that knowledge for the benefit of all.

This includes people inside and outside of government who wish to apply Web 2.o principles and technologies to the not always transparent work of government.

And, as a former member of the goverati, I got to say, it’s a great term.

Government 2.0: The Rise of the Goverati – ReadWriteWeb .

Ocean.gov – A Modest Proposal

surfer and blue sea

Have you ever wondered why there’s no ocean.gov? This is a valuable and easy to remember URL that the government doesn’t currently use. And it should, for we all depend on the ocean for the very air we breathe.

When I was at NOAA, it was explained to me that there’s no web site at ocean.gov because no one agency or part of government “owns” the ocean. Lots of federal and state agencies have jurisdiction and interest in what goes on in the watery realm. Doing something with ocean.gov would require cooperation and agreement among the numerous governmental entities which all have a stake in the ocean. Creating ocean.gov would require a web manager with the patience of Job and the diplomatic skills of, well, I don’t know, to get all the various ocean-related partners on the same page. Which is why it’s never been done. Continue reading “Ocean.gov – A Modest Proposal”

No More Washington Post Book World?

Call me old-fashioned, but I think that one of life’s joys is to sit down with a good newspaper.  Though I’m someone who’s spent a career working on web sites, there’s some really special about a quiet morning with a paper.  And some coffee.

A newspaper is easier on the eyes than a glowing screen.  It also offers the chance of serendipity, of stumbling upon some article you never would’ve read, just because you have to turn pages to find the article you’re looking for.  A newspaper is also mostly distraction-free (no videos blaring, no animating ads) which, IMHO, makes reading an article in print a richer and more rewarding experience.  Things I really want to absorb, I need to see on paper.  

Today comes the news (ironically, from The New York Times), that the Washington Post is ending Book World, its Sunday books supplement.  Economic reasons are cited.  I find this hard to believe.  Washington is one of the most literate cities in the country, filled with readers, and writers, too.  Hop on the Metro, visit a coffee shop, stroll through a park and you’ll find scores of people lost in good books.  The city is home to excellent and popular bookstores, like Kramerbooks and Politics and Prose.  With the wide range of books that people in DC read, there’s got to be a need for book reviews. Continue reading “No More Washington Post Book World?”

Murder in Ocean Hall – First Chapter

I’m just about done writing my murder mystery, “Murder in Ocean Hall.”  I’ve put the first chapter online.  The book is about a famous explorer who dies in mysterious circumstances in Ocean Hall at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.  Suspects are many. A cynical DC detective investigates the case.

Read the first chapter.

Feedback is welcome 🙂

One Writer's Day

my work environment
My work environment.

Now that I’m not working in an office, people are curious about what I do all day. I told a friend of mine that I was taking a couple of weeks off to go down to Florida. “Take off from what?” he retorted smartly.

But the truth of the matter is that I am busy. I’m writing a mystery called Murder in Ocean Hall.

The other question I get is, “What tools are you using?” There’s almost a fetishization of writing tools out there, as if creativity was a matter of getting the right notebook or pen set. Or, if you’re a geek, getting the right piece of software, one that will magically draw out your work of genius and put it on the page.

While I’ve certainly been guilty of this in the past, I’ve been tending toward simpler and simpler tools. And, with my time, I’ve really discovered the value of something I once despised – routine. Routine is like a healthy habit, one you can’t put down. Continue reading “One Writer's Day”

Friday Photo: Espresso and Chocolate

espresso and chocolate

I snapped this pic at Co Co Sala, a high-end chocolate store on F Street near the National Portrait Gallery featuring tiny (but delicious) pieces of black gold. On the right side of the plate is a little piece of mint chocolate. On the left, the waitress gave me a free sample of chipotle chocolate, which had a spicy kick to it. I paired them with a double espresso. For $6, this is affordable luxury.