Ethan Klapper's Open Salon Blog

Government 2.0 Predictions for 2010

Mon, 4 Jan 2010 12:01:55 -0500

Originally posted at Social Government.

Without a doubt, lots of (read: unprecedented) progress was made in the government 2.0 world in 2009. We saw the first federal CIO and CTOs appointed, the launch of Apps.gov and even the White House embracing the open source Drupal content management system for their Web site.

At this pace, 2010 will be an even better year. This year is a major election year, with the entire House of Representatives and a third of the Senate up for election. In addition, 37 states and two territories will hold gubernatorial elections. This blog hopes to pay close attention to the government 2.0 promises made by candidates. Of course, our coverage will remain nonpartisan and unbiased.

So with an exciting year ahead of us, here are some predictions, in no particular order.

More and more state and local governments will embrace government 2.0 technologies. In 2009, we largely saw long-standing stigmas erased at the federal level as agencies continued to effectively integrate social media into their Web presences. Cities such as San Francisco and Washington were leaders at the local level. In 2010, we’ll see these state and local governments expand their presence on Twitter, and turn hard-to-use Web-based GIS systems into user-friendly Google Map mashups. But with budgets facing a crunch at all levels of government — especially at the state level — development will be at a slow pace.
Government 2.0 will receive more high profile endorsements. Craig Newmark, best known as the founder of Craigslist, is an exuberant government 2.0 supporter. While I don’t anticipate this being the top political issue of our time, more pressure from outside government will bring more attention to the cause.
More companies offering government 2.0 products will be on the ground in Washington. In 2008, Google opened their Washington office. Last year, Facebook followed suit. Lobbying for the adaption of government 2.0 across the federal government will lead to results. Will we see Twitter add a D.C. presence this year?
Improved outreach to state and local governments will take place. While I don’t expect Google to open a Juneau, Alaska, office and Facebook to open one in Tallahassee, Fla., companies will step up efforts to court these smaller sectors of government. We might see special Web sites created especially for this purpose, and possibly some new hires as well.
Any remaining barriers to government 2.0 at the federal level will be removed through the legislative process. While we pretty much saw this happen last year through the rulemaking process, the antiquated laws on the books preventing the adaption government 2.0 will be repealed in Congress. Why not?
Open source is open for business in D.C. and at all levels of government. Following the lead of the White House in choosing the Drupal content management system to power their Web site, government Web sites from D.C. and all across the country will recognize the benefits of open source: cheap, easy and fully customizable. Open source is budget-friendly and comes with a large pool of developers. Of course, security is always concern with open source, and could be a barrier to open source CMS deployment throughout government. But if it’s fit for the White House, it’ll probably work elsewhere.
“Ghost tweeters” will be unmasked. With more public officials using social media tools than ever before, the public will demand to know who is actually Tweeting, writing the blog posts and updating the Facebook statuses. Throughout government, there’s a mix of authentic tweeters (like Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.) and people who have ghost tweeters (like President Obama, who publicly acknowledged that he had never tweeted before). Officials should be required to disclose if they’re really the ones tweeting. It’s a form of government accountability.
More officials will do the tweeting, blogging and Facebooking themselves. Tacked on to the previous item, constituents will demand to hear directly from their public officials in social media. It does not take long to send a 140-character tweet or a short Facebook update, and it’s very easy to teach people how to do it. Really, I can find little excuse here.

Happy New Year! This blog is back for 2010, and will be celebrating its first birthday at the end of the month. Here’s to a great 2010.

Best Practices: Google Maps for Government

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 15:02:11 -0500

The possibilities for using Google Maps are endless. From showing where the nearest bus stop is to the devastation from Hurricane Katrina, the ever-popular mapping service has yet to see widespread adoption by the government, even though it should.

Google Maps makes data more digestible for average citizens. While expensive and precise geographic information systems (GIS) are the lifeblood of many agencies, Google Maps should be considered as a valuable Web 2.0 tool to better serve the masses.

Google Maps has been used for governmental purposes, like the effort to direct voters to polling places last fall. But mashups are created by third parties (or Google) and are subsequently not sponsored by the government.

So how could agencies use Google Maps in an official capacity?

The U.S. Geological Survey could move their popular earthquake maps to Google Maps. The map would certainly see more use. Users could report their earthquakes directly to the map.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (which has a great Twitter feed, by the way) could use the maps to detail exactly where their relief funding goes – down to the block.
The weather maps from NOAA’s National Weather Service need an overhaul. While this could present a challenge to developers, smart planning would enable NWS to serve their next generation of online weather maps using Google Maps.
The FAA can show you how your flight will be rerouted using Google Maps.
And, of course, how can we forget Recovery.gov, which should soon be adding lots of data. This should be a no-brainer to use Google Maps for this Web site.

These seemingly ambitious ideas would actually work – and constituents would be grateful. However, here are some best practices to follow in order to be certain!

Cut the clutter. While there is undoubtedly a lot of data to serve on these maps, be mindful that cluttered maps are hardly as effective as clean maps. Use filters, or break your data into multiple maps to reduce the clutter.
If needed, ask for help from the big G. If something is not possible with the current API, reach out to the Google Maps team and ask them for help. Certainly, you will get special treatment as a government entity – and they will help you. The company wants to help the government – look at how YouTube worked with the Senate and House to make their respective “portals” as a recent example.
Be smart about what data you use for the map. Make the data public friendly. Don’t create a map with obscure data that no one can use – use data that the public would find [remotely] interesting. That said, challenge yourself to make monotonous data interesting with Google Maps.
Promote, promote, promote! Once developers work hard to create these maps, don’t bury the map on the Web site! Promote it through the site’s homepage, Twitter, blogs (including Gov Gab) and all other means possible. A properly designed map will sell itself virally – but at first, you’ll need to make the public aware.

This post originally at Social Government.

A Rough Yet Promising Start for Recovery.gov

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 23:02:18 -0500

When President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 into law Tuesday, he announced that Recovery.gov, a Web site he first spoke about last month, was live. The new Web site is committed to transparently showing citizens where all of the $787 billion in the stimulus package is being spent.

While I applaud the Obama Administration for their committment to openness and for using the Web as their main tool of transparency, Recovery.gov has some issues.

First, CNET reported that Recovery.gov initially included a robots.txt file. A robots.txt file blocks so-called bots (including search engine crawlers) from accessing a Web site. While the White House has since removed the bot-blocker, one can't help but wonder why someone wouldn't want Google crawling a Web site about transparency in the first place. The White House did not comment on this.

Perhaps most importantly, the Web site only scratches the surface of breaking down the massive package into bits and pieces. While the federal government begins to dole out stimulus money, it seems the Web site is still a work in progress -- one can only see two metrics: a state-by-state breakdown of job creation and a very broad estimate of investments made. Yet the bill contains very specific uses for the money -- a point that someone would never understand by looking at the fancy yet hardly useful graphics on this Web site.

However, we have yet to see the full potential of this new site. A searchable database of some sort seems to be on the way -- as evidenced by strict reporting requirements mandated by the Office of Management and Budget. Hopefully the database will implement a user-friendly design to tackle the hoards of data soon to flow through government computers.

It also seems like individual states have mimicked the concept. Colorado, where Obama signed the stimulus, has created their own economic stimulus Web site. This action is not neccessary (I wonder if we'll see it in states with Republican governors) but should prove to serve as a nice complement to the main Recovery.gov Web site.

One thing is for certain: despite a bumpy start, if Recovery.gov works as intended, we've surely entered a new era of Web-based transparency.

Twitter In Government Agencies: Best Practices

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 15:02:44 -0500

With Twitter being all the rage lately, there are bound to be questions about how the popular microblogging tool should be deployed in government. Some agencies fully embrace Twitter, giving the intimidation of government a human face.

Others simply have no clue what they’re doing. Accordingly, their follower count reflects that. But, you can’t blame them for trying.

With the help of the must-read GovTwit Directory, here are some Do’s and Don’ts when using Twitter in a government agency, with examples.

Use Twitter as a point of customer service. While most government Twitter accounts are happy to respond to user’s inquiries, they should do something that @washingtonpost does every Friday: ask “what do you want to know?” This is a great way for agencies to interact with their constituents. Perhaps at a designated time each week, senior managers should come onto their agency’s Twitter accounts and host a Q&A? It’s a simple idea with endless possibilities. Possible examples include the Transportation Security Administration answering questions about security restrictions, the Internal Revenue Service answering tax preparation questions and the National Park Service connecting people to information about various national parks.
Twitter is not only for automated feed dumping. I am a believer that twitterfeed hurts more than helps. After reading that a Nebraska newspaper dramatically increased followers on Twitter last year by turning off their twitterfeed, the same has got to be true about government. I have also turned off the @socialgovt twitterfeed. While Twitter should be used to promote blog content, do it yourself if you really care about your followers. People like to know that there’s an actual human on the other end! Twitter presents itself as an opportunity to write creative headlines that will draw users to your content. Perhaps the best of example this is @NASA, an agency that fully understands the meaning of Twitter and social media (more on that later). @NASA teases press releases and YouTube videos with tweets written by a human, among other things. The result: over 12,500 followers. Bad example: @Greenversations, which just feeds in content from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Greenversations blog. But the agency does have alternative Twitter feeds which are better.
Be conversational. Use @ replies and retweet as much as possible. This goes for everyone, not just the government. Twitter is a two-way conversation, and people will be more likely to follow you if you respond to their inquiries and retweet content as much as possible. If you look at @AFPAA, which is the “official Twitter site of the US Air Force,” you’ll see plenty of community interaction. The State Department’s @dipnote does a good job, too.
Have fun, be human. I’m referring to what NASA did with @MarsPhoenix, the rover that landed Mars over the summer. By writing in the first person and being cute, followers were treated to what seemed like a firsthand perspective of the what was going on with the successful rover. Tweets like “Iron Chef on Mars? Set the oven to 1003 degrees Celsius (1837 F) and baked a soil sample and find secret ingredients Minerals, that is” explained complex technology to the masses. Currently, over 42,000 people follow @MarsPhoenix, making it one of the more popular government Twitter feeds. NASA continues to make good use of Twitter with their many feeds.
Don’t do the exact opposite. @CBP_update, of U.S. Customs and Border Protection is not a good use of Twitter. It seems that someone copy and pastes headlines of new press releases into Twitter and tweets them out. No links or anything. Hands down, the worst government Twitter account I’ve seen. This is not something to be proud of.
Don’t share classified information. This may sound obvious, but that’s exactly what Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., did on a recent trip to Iraq. He tweeted that he was in Iraq when the trip was classified and his location was not to be known. Hoekstra got reprimanded by the mainstream media for his lapse in judgement. If such an incident were to happen again, congress might try to pass laws restrict this type of candid communication.

This is a list that I hope to build on. If you have any other suggestions, let me know.