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Archive for the ‘web 2.0’ Category

Posted on September 11, 2009 - by amy senger

The Gov 2.0 Showdown

It was the event we had been waiting for. From the West: Silicon Valley. From the East: the Beltway Bandits. Dueling for a new frontier: Government 2.0. Here are my thoughts on the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of the Gov 2.0 ~~Showdown~~ Expo Showcase & Summit.

The Good

If there’s one word that isn’t typically associated with government, it’s the word innovation. Which is unfortunate, because some of the best innovations we have today are the result of government pursuits and investments, such as GPS. While leaders like Vivek Kundra are changing this antiquated image of government, the problems that we face as a country are not ones that will be solved and addressed by a single person or organization, so when someone like Tim O’Reilly rolls into town and wants to get in the game, it’s good for us all. The fact is, government isn’t relegated to just those appointed to a position nor is it confined to district lines. At a time when our world economy is volatile and facing downward, making times tough for more and more folks, we need creative solutions to do more with less, and this is where technology presents a great opportunity. Relying on the same players and same molds of thinking can only ensure that government performs and delivers in a same ol’ same ol’ kind of way.

The Expo Showcase did a fantastic job highlighting some great innovations and efforts across the country, from the City of Santa Cruz’s feedback portal that’s using the power of citizen input to tackle the City’s fiscal problems to a collaborative effort by two Senior Fellows at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs to use Virtual Worlds to understand Islam to engender greater diplomacy. These are the types of initiatives that need to be promoted to provide greater awareness.

At the Summit, to hear from luminaries like Vint Cerf, who worked 7 years at DARPA, and Carl Malamud, who founded Public.Resource.Org, attendees were exposed to a wisdom that is gained from years of experience and dedication. We were also reminded that there are issues that are too ubiquitous not to have government participate. The need to have clean data will be as important as having clean air and water, and our digital identities will require the same level of protection and rights as our physical bodies. This is the future of government.

The Bad

First, I was disappointed that there wasn’t more time allotted for questions and answers, specifically during the Expo. I would’ve like to have seen less presentations and more conversations. The rapid-fire “Ignite-style” format of the Expo was fine but there was a need for in-depth conversation of the presentations. People want to hear the nuts and bolts – the challenges, the keys to success, the pitfalls to avoid, the nuggets of insight. Which brings me to my second point: the rapid-fire format might be more suited for the selection process, where the submissions are mandated to a 5-minute presentation that can then be voted for online before the Showcase. This would embody the essence of Gov 2.0, encouraging everyone to participate and have a voice.

Finally, the cost. There was lots of chatter about the cost of the event. While I won’t get into the nuances of pricing an event like this, I was told by an organizer that Tim O’Reilly feels so passionately about Gov 2.0, he would have done it for free. Sounds like a great idea to me. If the intent is to repeat the Showcase/Summit format next year, I would make the Expo Showcase a free, sponsor-subsidized, “first-to-register, first-to-attend” affair.

The Ugly

Last but not least, the diversity of presenters for the Summit left something to be desired. This was so much of a sticking point for me that I made the decision not to attend the Summit but after several conversations with some of the key organizers, including Tim himself, I was extended a complimentary pass to the Expo and Summit. To be fair to Tim and the O’Reilly and TechWeb staff, I have organized a conference (the 2008 WIRe/ICES Enterprise 2.0 conference) and I know first-hand how difficult and trying it is to orchestrate an event such as this, coordinating speakers with times and dates while achieving the desired content, discussion and outcome. However, I look at the Summit Program Committee and I see 8 white men and 1 white woman. The first day of the Summit featured 5 women out of 35 presenters (15%). Many have argued the benefits of heterogeneous ensembles, citing evidence of how homogeneous groups, like Wall Street and the American Automobile industry, can go astray. The fact is if government is the platform, the platform should represent its constituents and users. Diverse people offer diverse values. While I hear Tim’s argument that there are simply less women and minorities in leadership positions, we’ll be stuck in a perpetual chicken or the egg loop if a homogeneous group of decision-makers determines what constitutes a leader and who is qualified to be one. We can do better.

The final point I will make is that no matter what label it is given, government is undergoing an amazing transformation. I have spent my entire career in government and it’s truly an exciting time. Quibbling over the term Gov 2.0 doesn’t serve much of a purpose. I don’t see how vilifying or denigrating govies or contractors or technologists does anyone any good. There are people who work hard on all sides of the fence and openness and transparency does and will continue to show this.

Posted on June 8, 2009 - by amy senger

Creating a Culture of Collaboration – Part II

Several weeks ago, I posed a question to Mark Drapeau (@cheeky_geeky in Twitter) about tweet attribution and I was glad to see the variety of responses it generated. The question was prompted by something I tweeted and something he tweeted subsequently – which I’ve provided below. In Mark’s defense, I posted the original blog without providing specific details, on purpose. I was interested in his response (and I simply wanted to get the question out there since I was leaving for a 10-day cross-country road trip the next day!) If you notice, in the example I provided, Mark’s tweet is very similar to mine but he clearly changed a few words so it is not verbatim.

I asked the question out of curiosity. My intention was most definitely not an attempt at a light smear campaign. Mark has over 7,000 followers, ranks in the top 30 Twitterers in Washington, DC and is on the program committee for the upcoming Gov2.0Summit – he is clearly one of the top Twitterers for Government 2.0. And I am not passing judgment on what is considered right or wrong for social software behavior. In the case of the example tweet I provided, I don’t particularly care that the essence of my tweet was re-tweeted without attribution because the information was shared with a larger audience (Mark’s 7,000+ followers) – and this is a good thing. But I do care why he did what he did so we can learn – Mark clearly could have just re-tweeted verbatim and still had enough characters to include a RT @sengseng but he took the time to rearrange some of the words and add the location. Perhaps he felt including the venue was more important than providing the source. This doesn’t seem unreasonable. (I am curious about tweets that are re-tweeted verbatim without attribution. Do they all fall under the category of a character constraint or redundancy due to a link to the source’s website?)

When it comes to social media and collaboration, what is the formula, the nuances, and the components for getting a message out to elicit participation, as well as growing a large, vibrant, active community of members? More importantly, what are the personal gains and losses versus the community gains and losses of our actions in these online social forums? At the end of the day, I want the leaders of this brave new 2.0 world to be asking and answering this question. We create a social conscious based on our actions in these virtual environments and in my opinion, we cannot afford to experience the same failings of the finance industry or the real estate market or the automobile industry with Government 2.0.

Posted on April 21, 2009 - by amy senger

Why I Twitter…and why I am Twittering less…

Recently I’ve come to re-evaluate my love affair with the world’s most perfunctory channel of noise. Several weeks ago, after recovering from a violent case of the stomach flu, I realized that lately Twitter tends to stress me out in the same way diatribic diner menus and multi-level department stores do – too much going on, too much to process, too much noise. Upon recovering from the 24-hr purge-fest, I underwent a cathartic purging of my material belongings and in the process asked myself what had value and what had meaning. Not to my surprise, a lot didn’t and I ended up donating over 50 books to the public library. One book, however, that made the cut and I’m currently reading is “The Power of Now.” Twitter seems to perfectly illuminate how NOT present I am – it is simply a snapshot of the past or reminder for the future. But it is not me living in the NOW.

I’ve since scaled back on the number of people I follow and will probably continue to do so even more. I like being lean. But even more, I like being in the moment. If I’m twittering, I’m not present. To be present in a 140-character, a-thousand-voices-speaking environment is like being a tiny buoy bouncing up and down to the whims of the ocean’s waves, never knowing that an entire world exists below it.

I’m not abandoning Twitter. I still plan on using it for the most self-serving, basic purpose – as a microblog of my life. Verily, I want my life and the people who I care about captured, so that (and this might sound unorthodox to some) when say my dad is no longer physically present, he will persist. And if my niece or perhaps, in the event I do have children, my children want to know about me or the people in my life, I will have left a trail of breadcrumbs. (Which reminds me, @Ev, maybe you should spend less time on Oprah and more time on the archiving and access issue – I want ALL of my tweets archived and accessible).

Andrew McAfee said in his recent writeup of twitter that “humans like to be altruistic” and I responded that humans have a need to be relevant – altruism is simply a bi-product. How can we be relevant if we are not present in our own lives? Can I truly be present in the moment if I’m twittering away? The fact is, I don’t tweet the most memorable moments of my life because either I won’t forget them or a 140-character line of text cannot do the moment justice. And what does this mean? Do I simply tweet the forgettable moments? What does that say about Twitter? In order to be memorable, I need to be present and for me, that’s the only relevance that matters.

I will also continue to use Twitter as a bookmarking tool to information sources of interest to me (and other folks who might be interested as well). But it’s really about me. And all the minutia I said has meaning, I need to appreciate more.

Posted on March 22, 2009 - by amy senger

My SXSW All-Stars

South by Southwest…what can I say that hasn’t been said. I felt like the bumble bee girl in the Blind Melon video “No Rain.” For someone who is unable to sit through a meeting without thumping her leg/foot 98% of the time, who gets lambasted for not following “the rules” on a regular basis, who sleeps with her iPhone and wakes up in the middle of the night to google something that surfaces in a dream, and whose biggest buying addiction is books, I felt reunited with “my kind.” SXSW is like a giant bazaar for starving geeks to greedily consume and share knowledge and information.

As much as I learned, the event would be not be what it is without the personal interaction. So here are my SXSW All-Stars, the people who made my SXSW experience stellar:

Most Beautiful: Qui Diaz, @beautfiulthangs

Qui and I knew of each other through Twitter but had never met in person or even exchanged tweets. When we were introduced, she was wearing a cowgirl hat & emanated a certain light and joy that felt completely familiar to me. Mary Oliver said, “Beauty without purpose is beauty without virtue…” and Qui’s Twitter bio speaks to her virtue: I heart nonprofits, blog about social media for social good & see beauty everywhere.

Most Refreshing: Guy Kawasaki, @guykawasaki

This guy was in the Blogger’s Lounge passing out Alltop stickers like a band promoter in a parking lot. Humility and modesty are a rarity in our culture and this web celebrity lacks the bravado and hubris too many of the “big names” possess.

Most Passionate: Sheri Graner Ray

Sheri, a Senior Game Designer for companies like Electronic Arts, Origin Systems, Sony Online Entertainment and Cartoon Network, spoke on the panel “Gaming as a Gateway Drug: Getting Girls Interested in Technology” and her passion is infectious. I hope companies listen up and understand that we need to get and keep girls in tech and gaming is one of the best ways to do this. The ones that do WILL dominate the market.

Most Interesting: David Heyman, @davidheyman

David makes geography & cartography cool. He’s hung out with lions and elephants in Kenya, does improv/stand-up comedy and has a vast amount of baseball knowledge.

Most Energizing: Gary Vaynerchuk, @garyvee

Gary Vee is like doing a triple shot of expresso while listening to AC/DC. If you get the chance to hear him speak in person, take it.

Most Impressive: Andy Carvin, @acarvin

As National Public Radio’s senior product manager for online communities, Andy understands news, journalism and the web 2.0 world. Since joining NPR, he’s been working to develop a new online strategy for the organization, including citizen journalism, social networking and user-generated content.

Most Sauce: Laura Fitton , @pistachio

I bonded with Laura over Twitter (I admit, mostly making fun of Andy McAfee). In person, she’s smart and down-to-earth, with a dollop of dead-on snark. She’s the type of person with whom you want to do business AND go grab a drink.

Most Hustle: Larry Chiang, @larrychiang

Good god, does the man ever stop working a room? I’m almost certain he sleeps in a collared shirt, cradling both his blackberry and iPhone in hand, mumbling thoughts about venture capital and credit scores. Check out his tips on “How to Work a Conference.”

Most Surprising: Christopher Barger, @cbarger

Christopher Barger, Director of Global Communications Technology at General Motors, was a surprise. I wasn’t expecting to see anyone from an American Motor Company at SXSW, yet alone on the panel “Digital Tsunami: Breaking News at Breakneck Speeds.” I’m still skeptical. It’s got to be a new way of doing business for how the United States approaches transportation or bow and parish at the feet the innovators of the industry.

Most Thought-Provoking: The panel for “OpenID, OAuth, Data Portability and the Enterprise”

Kaliya Hamlin (@identitywoman)
Bob Blakley (@bobblakley)
Danny Kolke (@etelos)
Joseph Smarr (@jsmarr)

The twitter stream from the panel paints a pretty good picture of the discussion: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=+%23sxswid

Joseph Smarr, Chief Platform Architect at Plaxo, gave a choice quote when he described the future of online identities and content: Ownership of user-generated content via open platforms is a “slippery salamander.”

My personal SXSW MVP: Michael Bassik, @mbassik

Michael is the reason I attended SXSW. I highly recommend listening to his panel “What your Startup Can Learn from Barack Obama and Howard Dean.” Thanks, Michael, for showing me the SXSW light:)

“He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star.” ~William Blake

Posted on March 12, 2009 - by amy senger

Spying 2.0: What I will & won’t be saying at SXSW

Tomorrow (Friday) I’ll be speaking at SXSW Interactive. I’ve never been to SXSW (yes, I’m a SWirgin) and I have no expectations. The truth is I’m not one of the people you see on the “panel circuit” – in general I prefer to listen and learn – and then assault panelists/speakers with my typical barrage of questions:) My friend submitted the topic and when it got accepted, he asked me to speak and I said yes.

The topic of my talk is Spying 2.0: Can America Compete With Web-Savvy Enemies? For the record: I’m not a spy, most defintely not a Mrs. Smith. I’m a senior research analyst for LMI, a not-for-profit strategic consultancy committed to helping government leaders and managers reach decisions that make a difference. We work with every federal department, agency, and military service on a broad spectrum of issues and opportunities. At the beginning of my talk, I will be making the disclaimer that I will not be speaking for any of the clients LMI represents. As a contractor, I cannot refer to any of the projects I work on and as an employee of LMI, my thoughts and opinions expressed during my talk are strictly my own and do not represent those of LMI nor any of the clients LMI serves.

I have a “robust” set of restrictions on what I can and cannot say but the best part is the format of my talk is a Salon, which I’m told is a “tad less formal” and an alternative to the rigid speaker versus audience format. If you ask me, it sounds like a cocktail party discussion (refreshments will be available) where I present a topic and the objective is to stimulate some good discourse amongst the participants.

I am not an “expert” in anything detailed in my Salon description:

Accelerating technology cycles leave the US intelligence community gasping. Twitter, cloud computing, folksonomies, Loopt… can America’s sclerotic intelligence machinery compete as our enemies adopt cheap, fast-evolving open-source and web 2.0 intel strategies?

Fortunately for me, I don’t have to be. My experience has shown me my network, more times than not, is smarter than the expert. I do plan on tweeting during my talk and I’ll have my peeps @immunity & @robotchampion in the room. I hope to see some other familiar faces but really I want to generate solid discussion and ideas on the topic.

I have some general thoughts on what I plan on saying, including asking what it means to be a “spy” in today’s day and age when everyone and anyone can take a picture with their cell phone and post it to the internet. And I also want to share something Rod Beckstrom said when I first met him last year: “We’re not safe until we ALL are safe.” This is not limited to just Americans and our allies.

Dennis Blair, U.S. Director of National Intelligence, recently made the following statement about cybersecurity: “It’s a crew race. The offense pulls ahead -– you find out -– then the defense pulls ahead. We’ve got to keep stroking, faster, better, with more teamwork.” This doesn’t seem to be, in my opinion, a very good long-term strategic plan. Something has to change.

If you look at the current U.S. administration’s agenda, the breadth of intelligence issues has broadened to include things such as the economy (the President now receives an Economic Daily Briefing) and energy and the environment. My plan for the talk is to share what I can, ask questions, listen and have everyone tweet the hell of it during and after:)

Excuse me while I get my boots on…

Posted on March 2, 2009 - by amy senger

The Currency of Integrity and Goodness

Lately I’ve become consumed with a topic I see as an inevitable trend in social software and digital identity on the Internet: the currency of integrity and goodness.

First, I thank my colleague Fred for unknowingly interjecting goodness into my ponderance of the notion since my original focus was simply integrity. The fact is, a person can be honestly, wholly and consistently bad yet still have integrity.

Lately social media has become, in my opinion, obsessed with online influence and predominance. Sites like Twinfluence that measure things such as reach, velocity and social capital are amusing to me if only because I look at the lists and think “so what?” Take for example the Twitterer who at this time has the *most (based on the site’s calculation) Reach, the number of followers a Twitterer has (first-order followers), plus all of their followers (second-order followers). At this time, it is Scot McKay, self-described dating coach, author, podcaster, firestarter, karaoke hack, Dannie and Micky-Mac’s dad and @emilymckay’s knight in shining Under Armour. If Scot McKay says the milk section of the grocery store is the best place to meet a potential dating interest, do people flock there? (PLEASE NOTE: I do not know or follow Scot McKay and to my knowledge he did not tweet this).

I don’t find number of followers interesting. A person can be a celebrity, make a lot of noise, but not get people to act. Influence is the ability to affect a person, thing, or course of events and I’m more interested in the integrity of a person and his or her motivations for doing what they do. I’m more interested in people like Laura Fitton (@pistachio in Twitter) who, when she asks her readers/followers to support a cause she is passionate about, they contribute.

As more and more light has been shed on economic/financial power players like the Bernie Madoffs, Phil Gramms and Allen Stanford s of the world, I’ve been contemplating the price society pays for a lack of integrity and goodness. This weekend I attended several sessions at Transparency Camp in DC and I found two sessions extremely interesting: one on Social Network Analysis by Valdis Krebs, Erin Kenneally and JC Hertz and the other by Kevin Connor, a developer of LittleSis.org, a site that helps spot the symptoms of corruption and cronyism in the political process and promotes government and corporate accountability. I think we will be seeing a trend of companies, organizations and citizens taking a greater interest in how much integrity a person or entity has and the relative “goodness” of their pursuits since the current trajectory of social transparency means it will be more and more difficult to “behave badly” without folks knowing about it. The price of things such as blind greed or even prejudice might get significantly more expensive. This could benefit societies at large since the culmination of an individual’s lack of integrity and solely self-motivated pursuits has the ability to hurt the greater good. Take for example former executive director of the CIA, Kyle “Dusty” Foggo who had a record of misconduct that stretched over 20 years. When the public reads stories like this, I guarantee his association with the agency does not go unnoticed and very likely denigrates the integrity of the agency as a whole.

People are social creatures. We like to conform, as shown by studies like the Asch conformity experiments, a series of studies published in the 1950s that demonstrated the power of conformity in groups. The danger in this lies in the fact that just as quickly as something or someone can become popular, the reverse is true and if you look at social markets in the same light as financial ones, then the predisposition towards large “unexpected” fluctations should hold true. For this reason, I think we’ll start seeing people and entities question their associations with more rigor than in the past, or potentially pay a price.

Posted on January 10, 2009 - by amy senger

The Value (and Price) of Twitter: Part II

Lots has been written about the value of Twitter, why people should use it, how people should use it and I don’t really feel like regurgitating the arguments (Chris Brogan wrote a good piece on “Twitter as Presence“, Marcia Conner highlighted the micro-learning aspect of it, and even the pedantic Andrew McAfee mentioned the social benefits of the application). Last month I made a bet that I could go an entire week without using Twitter, Facebook and my favorite social music-sharing site, Blip.FM. And I was successful.

This is what I learned:

I have a relationship with Twitter: it provides me with the social interaction that I as a social being need. On the flip side, I wonder if my Twitter habit precludes me from picking up the phone or meeting in person to have a robust conversation that is more substantive and fulfilling.
Facebook and Twitter are my social network relationship managers: I keep up-to-date and make social plans using these two tools. I have a horrible memory and am a fairly social person so seeing what other folks are doing in Facebook and Twitter reminds me of what events I want to attend. And I regularly use Twitter or Facebook to find folks to attend these events.
The “noise” of Twitter is addictive. Information addiction is becoming more prevalent as we have access to more sources. Our brains are pattern recognizers and it loves new information because it’s trained to seek it out. Twitter offers many things, including fictive learning (the exploration of could-have-been-experienced) and could be just as powerful as experiential learning.
Twitter lets me see everything that’s going on. Since birth, I have displayed an active curiosity in everything. A few months ago, I asked my mom to describe me as a young child and what I was interested in and she replied, “You were constantly moving. You could never sit still, you could never stay put. You were interested in EVERYTHING. And got into EVERYTHING.” Since i don’t have a cable/internet connection at home, I rely on twitter via my iPhone as my main source of news and communication (for world, family, friend and work updates).
Anyone can listen and jump into the conversation (but since I couldn’t participant, I had little interest in what was going on). This is a critical aspect of social change. Groups or individuals who are neglected, overlooked or dismissed will not exhibit a need or desire to participate or contribute and will therefore be apathetic.
The bar is very LOW to participate. Anyone can throw in 140 characters worth of information. This is great for actions like making mental notes, expressing a feeling, asking a question and sharing links or event headlines. However, many things in life cannot be captured in 140 characters and other formats and forums must be used or suffer the consequences of gross misunderstandings and inefficiencies.
I was very productive during this period. It was refreshing not to share, to focus on me and be primarily self-focused. When I wasn’t consuming information, I was able to process and create it. Since Twitter and social applications are noisy and addictive, I must train myself to limit my usage and exposure to them and I now make a conscious effort to “turn off the noise” and schedule planned periods of time to use them, either as a break to checkout what’s going on or share thoughts.
I don’t know who I don’t know and I can share with these people. A great learning experience was when I needed to disseminate information for an event to which I didn’t have an attendee list. Not having Twitter at my disposal hurt potential recipients.
Twitter is not the value..I am. There’s been much discussion over the value of Twitter and the most obvious aspect is the user and customer data. Twitter owns a very lucrative repository of its customers (aka Tweeters) buying, thinking, and behavioral cues and patterns . Companies, government agencies, even potential dating partners are interested in learning about “me” and social applications like Twitter provide a very convenient platform to execute against the resume and influence others.

One of the keys to my 1-week social software sabbatical was creating an incentive to break my habit since I didn’t know all the opportunity costs of my participation. So I, the competitive being that I am, contrived a wager with Andrew McAfee that is available for public viewing here:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddz85z7r_13gpj74bd4

Since I was ruled successful in completing the terms of my part of the agreement, it’s Andy’s turn to complete his end of the bargain.

Posted on December 14, 2008 - by amy senger

The Value of Twitter: Part I

Among Twitter users, the term “Twitter addict” freely circulates and is unabashedly self-proclaimed by many members of the community. I am one of these people, who finds the allure so irresistible, I am often teased about my usage.

I started using Twitter in mid-2007. I don’t know the exact date because I have over 8,000 updates and unless someone can prove otherwise, Twitter and Twitter-tangent apps don’t allow me to dig back into the archives this far.

I have often debated the value of Twitter, most notably with Andrew McAfee, associate professor at Harvard Business School and Enterprise 2.0, Boston Red Sox and New York Times crossword puzzle aficionado. Since his first tweet on June 4, 2008, he and I have exchanged jabs, on the verge of SNL Point-Counterpoint diatribes, over each other’s usage, with him calling me an “emotion-junkie” and me calling him a “repressed hoarder.” I can’t deny his accusation since I believe emotions are self-illuminating cues to what both drives us as well as areas for attention and self-betterment.

*NOTE: I saw Andy on June 1, 2008 at the Government Leadership Summit and took the opportunity to ‘lightly’ antagonize him for not using Twitter. Three days later, @amcafee arrives. Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not.

My ongoing debate over the use and value of Twitter with my Twitter antagonist led me to examine my own usage and re-evaluate the value of Twitter. What were the costs versus the benefits to both me and my followers for my participation in Twitter? I decided the best way for me to answer this was to step off of the Twitter playing field for a week and take a “carrot and stick” approach to break my addictive behavior. I, the competitive being that I am, conceived a wager in which the reward would provide me something I infinitely desire – insight into people, and in this case, a person.

For one week I would refrain from using Twitter, Facebook, and Blip (my three most favorite online community applications ) in exchange for one day of Andrew McAfee departing from his usual perfuctory, minimum participation in Twitter. The product was a wager built collaboratively and transparently in a Google Doc: