Conferences & Networking

Web 2.0 Expo: Towards a More Open Union: Ways for Us to Change America

Posted on Apr 29, 2009 in Conferences & Networking |

Session Description: We have a unique opportunity now, as developers and designers to change our Government. From the FEC to Recovery.gov, new sources of data are beginning to pour out of Capitol Hill and state houses across the country. What kind of opportunities arise? But how do we developers use our skills to make this data compelling, useful and open. Sunlight Labs director Clay Johnson will discuss the story so far with Government data, where things are headed, and how you can help.

This session took place Friday, April 3, 2009. The speaker:

• Clay Johnson, Sunlight Labs.

So this was much more of a call to action on the part of developers, but it had some take homes for everyone.

Bullet Point Review!

• The Landscape
  • Barack Obama “transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency”.
  • Harry Reed “it’s time for open government, transparency, and it’s a time for results”.
  • Nancy Pelosi “the internet is an incredible vehicle for transparency, honest leadership and open government”.
  • John McCain “ethics and transparency are not election year buzz words; they are the obligations of democracy and the duties of honorable public service”.
  • Democrats: helps keep the majority, rep helps take back the majority.
  • Transparency makes healthier government.
    • Wubbahed.com
    • As they become more digitally immersed, they ask for less money in earmarks; digitally immersed = ethical?
    • Recovery.gov powered by Drupal
  • Transparency Opens Markets
    • Open data coming out of the government is helping to increase markets for commerce (Google Maps, Weather.com are examples).
  • Transparency Saves Lives
    • FDA made a widget regarding the salmonella outbreaks.
• The Problems
  • We have to meet the president half way.
  • Public means online (a warehouse open in wash dc doesn’t cut it).
  • We can’t afford to wait on government to get their stuff cleaned up.
  • Sunlight Labs is a community of 466 (so far).
• How You Can Help
  • Coding>Consensus
    • If you do it for them, they’re faster to adopt than they are to decide to adopt.
  • We don’t have much time.
    • Every politician is kowtowing to transparency. May change by January next year when people start running for election again. Only have about 9 months to push the ball as far up the field as it’ll go.
  • Issue -> Movement
    • Be an Organizer
      • Make sure people know each other’s names.
      • Move them into the physical space.
      • Make specific requests, but check your ego at the door.
        • Convene a Hack-a-thon in your area.
    • Parse a State (50 State Project)
      • The laws your state legislature are passing are far more important.
      • More local = more listening.
      • More local = less technology.
    • Redesign an Agency
      • Federal websites are heinously ugly.
      • Draw a picture for them of what their websites should look like – see them want to adopt your designs (Examples: USA.gov, Federal Elections Commission).
    • Visualize Data
      • CIO of the Federal Government wants to create data.gov with all the feeds and data.
      • Visualizations tell stories.
    • +1 Our Community
      • Spread the word about Sunlight Labs to developers and hackers.
      • Sunlightlabs@googlegroups.com
      • Wiki.SunlightLabs.com
        • Working on standardizing nomenclature in government documents (e.g. walmart, wal-mart, wlmrt all used in various documents, making searching hard).
      • Steal this presentation
        • Sunlightlabs.com/ignitepresentation

Points brought up during the Q&A

• What can non-developers do?
  • Join the list; it’s an open forum.  Some stuff you might not understand but there’s other stuff you can help with.
• How do you solve the warehouse full of paper issue?
  • A big scanner 🙂
  • Some are handwritten scans and using volunteers to manually enter this data into a database.
  • Data and technology will get us 80% there, the rest are actual eyeballs reviewing things.
• How can government help facilitate this?
  • Bulk access to the data.
  • API, rest based.
  • Compelling user interface for ordinary citizens (IN THIS ORDER).
• Have you explored the limitations of transparency (money, CIA, DOD)?
  • They’re not into hacking the FBI, they’ll know when they’re successful when the EEF complains about what they do.  For the time being they’re allies.  There are limits they tend not to cross.  They know what info is sensitive and not to put online.
  • Start with the open data and then remove what might be private, not the other way around.

Despite not being a developer, some of this is stuff that we can all pass on to our friends who ARE developers and attempt to make a difference.

Web 2.0 Expo: Navigating the Maze: How to Sell to the Public Sector

Posted on Apr 28, 2009 in Conferences & Networking |

Session Description: Public sector agencies spend billions of dollars each year on contracts with IT providers, small and large. And with the changes in Washington and at the state level, there is a greater interest than ever in Web 2.0 tools and technologies in government. How can you determine if there is a need for your product or service in the public sector? How do you participate in those opportunities? How can you get your foot in the door? Why does is seem so hard? How can your firm can be a part of this dynamic marketplace? This session discuss some of the rules and constraints of dealing with public sector agencies and the opportunities which exist. Come and learn how the public sector entities buy products and services and how your business can become an active participant in this market.

This session took place Friday, April 3, 2009. The speakers:

• Carolyn Lawson, CA Public Utilities Commission
• Adrian Farley, Office of the CIO of California

Bullet Point Review!

• Virtually every agency within the state has a CIO.
• They all have a direct dotted line reporting to the state CIO.
• Mapping the public sector market.
  • Size of the market (large and growing market).
  • Trends.
  • Priorities.
  • Opportunities.
  • Large and Growing Market.
    • State of local government currently spending more than $60 billion annually on IT
      • State of CA spends over $2 billion annually on IT goods and services.
    • The market is expected to exceed $75 billion by 2011.
    • Federal government spends more than $66 billion annually on IT – almost even split between civilian and defense.
      • The Recovery Act includes bill more for health IT and other tech related spending.
    • Total federal expenditure expected to exceed $80 billion by 2011.
  • Government leveraging Web 2.0
    • State of California agencies leveraging YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other web 2.0 technologies to communicate with and engage the public.
      • Focus is now on opportunities to realize real program value – improved outcomes, better service at lower costs – through web 2.0 tools.
    • Federal government entered into agreements w/ YouTube, Flickr and others to enhance government services and improve internal productivity.
      • CIA using Facebook for recruiting.
      • The State Department, The Department of Defense, and Federal intelligence agencies.
  • Policy priorities for state CIOs.
    • Consolidation: centralizing, consolidating services, operations, resources, infrastructure.
    • Shared Services: business models, sharing resources, services, infrastructure.
    • Budget and cost control: managing g budget reduction, strategies for savings, reducing or avoiding costs, activity based costing.
    • Security: security safeguards, enterprise policies, data protection.
    • Electronic records management/digital preservation, discovery.
    • ERP strategy
    • Green IT
    • Transparency
    • Health IT
    • Governance
  • Tech Priorities for State CIOs
    • Virtualization
    • Document/Content/Email Management
    • Legacy application modernization and upgrade
    • Networking, voice and data communications, unified communications.
    • Web 2.0
  • Part of selling to the public sector is understanding the nomenclature.
• Looking at how to integrate social tools with search.
• Frame your solution within the context of what state CIOs feel is important.
• Know where their pain points are.
• Answer questions before they ask.
• Resources
  • NASCIO
  • California Office of the State Chief Information Officer
  • Federal Business Opportunities
  • BidSync
  • Procurement:  CA Department of General Services
  • CA Multiple Award Schedules
  • CA Small Business & DVBE Services
• Everything the individual agencies do has to align with the state goals.
• The purpose for what we do in IT is to meet the public need – no time to work with toys and “nifty things”.
• Carolyn: If you’re registered as a small business it’s easy for me to buy from you.
  • One set of terms and conditions across the state.
• Each agency has a delegation, an amount of money they can spend before the process gets more difficult (extended procurement process)which can take up to 18 mo.
• This power point is gold to you!
• It’s a long process to get CMAS, but don’t get discouraged.
• The government wants what you have!

Points brought up during the Q&A

• Is any of the procurement system organized by science or across departments?
  • Typically things are broken down by what they’re looking for.
• Less people are writing letters anymore, so they need more feedback from the people.
• As soon as you say web 2.0 their eyes are going to glaze over – talk about what these tools will do without relying on the web 2.0 word (as soon as you get to acronyms you’re pushed away).
• What are your feelings on software as a service?
  • There are pockets of resistance but they’re people that fear software as a service means less work for them. The added value is in connecting with the program.
  • Building an army of solution architects.
  • Supportive of cloud computing if they’re the right fit for the business problem.
  • There’s the fear of losing jobs but also the fear of losing control.
• There can be preferences based on location based businesses, whether you’re using a military base, only about a 5% preference. No preference on minority or women businesses due to Prop 209.
• How does the state define small and micro businesses?
  • A small business is $10 million per year or less, or $30 million over 3 years. A micro business is $1 million or less of annual revenue.
• What’s the time frame on the CMAS process and can you bid on jobs during the process?
  • It averages 30 days, sometimes up to 60 days. It’s based on the GSA (federal government pricing schedule). Find one thing that aligns with the product or service you’re offering. Complete the form thoroughly. If you don’t complete the whole thing, they’ll highlight what’s missing and send it back, starting the process all over again. No bidding during process.
  • Small business only takes 10 minutes to apply on the website.
• Are there any restrictions on a US company representing a company based outside the US?
  • Only if you’re incorporated in Bermuda or another country for the purposes of evading state or federal taxes. That’s the only real requirement.
• Recovery.gov
• Lots of people try to grease the rails; so public servants are extra diligent – many don’t even take private appointments to limit preferred access.
• Use broad and open process to make sure no one has more access than someone else.
• Trying to ensure it’s a level playing field.
• They want to find new and innovative ways, but they don’t want to cross lines and they want to be appropriate.
• Is there a schedule of vendor fairs?
  • They do them around segments of architecture, not just for people they’ve already done business with.
• Government technology conferences?
  • Plug for tech people to go there, govtech.com/events

Overall this wasn’t the best session of the Government 2.0 track, but it was insightful.

The slides are available for download here: Navigating the Maze: How to Sell to the Public Sector (PPT).

Web 2.0 Expo: Making Government 2.0 a Reality: A Citizen’s Guide to Essential Reforms

Posted on Apr 27, 2009 in Conferences & Networking |

Session Description: The potential for Government 2.0 is both real and exciting: technology-wise, we can now cheaply and efficiently enable a government that is transparent, participatory, collaborative, and effective. But there are some very real, very stubborn obstacles in the form of outdated laws, regulations, and policies. Andrew will outline these barriers, and set forth an agenda for reform.

This session took place Friday, April 3, 2009 and kicked off the Government 2.0 track of sessions.  The speaker:

• Andrew McLaughlin, Google

This was a fascinating session, and Andrew did his best to cover what he did to assist with the transition committee, Tigger, to transition President Obama into the White House.  Andrew dedicated his personal time, taking three months off from his job at Google to commute to Washington DC during the week and back home to the Bay Area on weekends, from Election Day to Inauguration Day, to help.

He used a really cool software called MindMap (I think) that he actually said was proprietary, but it was basically an outline on steroids, so forgive me if there are a LOT of notes; I tried to get everything, but I’m sure some might not make sense.

Bullet Point Review!

• The promise: transparency, participation, collaboration, efficiency & effectiveness.
  • Get a better government; spend less money.
• Some Examples:
  • DC: CapStat Mapping Application
    • Puts government data in citizens’ hands in real time.
    • Key facts:
      • All 911 and 311 reports are viewable online, same day, with full tracking to resolution.
      • Every city agency must provide public data feeds; now more than 260 live data feeds.
      • 2008 year to date homicide rate down 19% over 07.
    • Mapping applications
  • DataCatalog
  • Apps for Democracy
  • DC Stumble Safely
    • Virtual Alabama
      • Emergency response platform becomes backbone of statewide gov collaboration and performance.
        • Changed government culture across the state to reward sharing and use of data, rather than hoarding and ownership.
    • Now used to improve operations in all kinds of ways not originally envisioned.
    • Key facts
      • Total cost $160k + 2 staff.
      • Supports 550 agencies.
      • 10 days from decision to functioning system.
      • Enables state to mothball expensive emergency operations center, saving millions.
      • Uses Google Earth geo platform.
      • Can be used by governor and police/responding agencies.
      • If you want access to this, you have to give us your data in real time and keep it updated – has worked well.
      • Hopefully positive political pressure will also en courage participation.
  • Washington State Dashboards
    • Since 2005
      • 93% of highway projects completed on time, 95% within budget.
      • <24 hour response time to child abuse calls went from 69% to 95%.
      • Doubled job placement rates.
      • Lowest traffic fatality rate in history.
    • Data driven management isn’t new; what’s new are the cheap, powerful IT tools that drive performance.
  • SeeClickFix
    • Lets you create an area to monitor reports of complaints.
• The Obstacles:
  • Acquisition and procurement.
    • Federal procurement.
      • Must government use of free online service be subjected to a competitive bidding process?
      • Gratuitous service agreements for free apps.
        • Library of Congress iTunes, Flickr, YouTube
        • GSA: YouTube, Flickr, vimeo, blip.tv
      • Advertising: agencies are restricted from carrying advertising for private individuals, firms, or corporations (so if it’s ad supported, can’t use it).
      • Government subject to terms and conditions, but has to individually evaluate and perhaps not be subject to those.
    • Indemnification
      • Anti Deficiency Act
        • Federal contracts can only provide for ltd indemnification unless a specific statue provides otherwise.
        • But conventional website boilerplate terms and conditions like Google, YouTube, provide for unlimited liability.
        • Example: The VA wanted to use Second Life to rehabilitate vets.
          • Linden Labs contract specified unlimited liability, so had to have a special contract drafted.
    • Legal jurisdiction and venue.
      • Federal agencies are governed by fed law. Agency GCs won’t sign contracts that bind them to state law.
      • Most internet companies terms define legal jurisdiction in a specific state.
  • Access
    • Employee access and use of social media.
      • Acceptable use of Facebook during work.
      • Some agencies prohibit use of social networking and other web 2.0 sites.
      • Need to establish a presumption.
    • Disabled Access
      • Needs to be equally accessible for disabled and non disabled
      • Can the government sign a contract with a web service that is not section 508 compliant? If so, how to ensure equal access to info for disabled employees and citizens?
    • Freedom of Information Act
      • Challenge if iterative media
        • How many versions of a document are subject to FOIA requests?
      • Danger of disclosure of user login data, which would discourage citizen use of web tools.
        • Need to clarify that personal data is exempt from FOIA.
  • Privacy and Security
    • Privacy
      • OMB circular on cookies.
        • Prohibits federal websites from using persistent cookies unless certain conditions are met.
          • Persistent browsing.
        • So federal web can’t remember preferences or settings, or gather web analytics.
        • Needs to be fixed to enable persistent cookies while protecting citizen privacy.
      • 3rd party websites and embedded content.
    • IT Security
      • Malware, spyware via web 2.0 use, threat to agency networks and citizen personal information.
      • Every technology platform adopted by the government must undergo a rigorous security review.
      • Federal Information Systems” included.
  • Management Statuses.
    • Paperwork Reduction Act
      • Requires some forms of web 2.0 information collection to undergo a time-consuming OMB clearance process.
        • Example: solicitations of input and ideas to improve government that involve particular data about users.
          • Stories and Experiences
        • Public engagement tools can trigger OMB info collection requirement and approval process.
      • “Public Information Collecting Activities”
        • Example: TSA blog’s use of a survey.
    • Presidential Records Act
      • Requires preservation of all written white house communications.
        • “Document Material” = records
        • When is a wiki doc or online comment forum final and thus is a “record”?
      • Electronic records must be kept in written form.
        • Printer overload
    • • Need to enable electronic storage of web-based records.
        • Official websites like WhiteHouse.gov
        • Official postings on third party sites like YouTube videos, Flickr photos, Facebook status updates.
  • Commercial Endorsement
    • Advertising supported 3rd party sites?
      • YouTube
      • Facebook
    • Exclusive use of a single service?
      • They do redundancy of services.
• A Reform Agenda
  • Laws, regulation, rules
    • Takes time.
    • Sometimes there are statutes that require the cooperation of Congress, etc.
  • Culture
    • People -> Send Good People
      • President Obama really personally “gets it”.

Points brought up during the Q&A

• GMAP really fantastic management process but still needs work; not really parsable.
• Wonderful in theory, hard to manage in practice.
• Now considered mandatory in campaigning to have a great website with lots of awesome content.
• User interface always lags behind the back end.

Especially with my involvement of late in lobbying in Sacramento against legistlation that could really hurt my industry, this session hit home for me and convinced me to stay for the rest of the Government 2.0 sessions that day.

Web 2.0 Expo: Day 2 Keynotes

Posted on Apr 24, 2009 in Conferences & Networking |

As I mentioned yesterday, I only made it to day 1 and 2 of the keynotes.  I tried my best to get there on time, but just barely missed the BART train I needed to get to Moscone on time to catch the beginning of they keynotes.  So admittedly, these aren’t the best notes I’ve ever taken, and for that I apologize.

Anssi Vanjoki, Nokia: The Year of the Mobile Computer: Mobile Computers as Personal (Mobile) Computers

• Context is forming everything.
• Social locations are the future.
• Anssi showed video of the Morph phone, currently in development, and MAN does it look SWEET!

Ellen Miller, Sunlight Foundation: A Conversation with Ellen Miller

• Information is not public unless it is online.
• Real-time availability and disclosure.
• Creating accountability within government.
• Trying to do for data what open source did for software.
• Trying to redesign government.

Kevin Lynch, Adobe Systems Incorporated

• Kevin didn’t really talk about much except to demonstrate a new product they’re working on called Flash Catalyst.  It looked REALLY cool; basically Flash meets Illustrator to easily design widgets and apps.

I was stoked to see Flash Catalyst because it appeals to my designer side, and that Morph from Nokia… consider a smart phone that can fold, wrap around your wrist, match color to your purse or outfit of the day, etc.  Awesome!

Web 2.0 Expo: Day 1 Keynotes

Posted on Apr 23, 2009 in Conferences & Networking |

Most conferences I’ve been to have one keynote for the entire conference, maybe one keynote per day.  This conference had a bunch of keynotes all in one big block – every day!  On the official Day 1 of the conference, April 1st, they had the keynotes in the evening after the sessions and before the cocktail reception, sponsored by Palm. The other days the keynotes were in the morning. I made it to the keynotes on the 2nd, but not on the 3rd, so those notes are coming tomorrow. Without further ado, here is a recap of some random notes I took during the first day’s keynote sessions.

Tim O’Reilly, O’Reilly Media: O’Reilly Radar

• Google figured out how to extract additional data.
• Able to extract meaning.
• Starting to see coordination of electronic sensors.
• A meaningful names pace is a very powerful tool.
• Meaning doesn’t have to be formalized.
• The energy signature of major appliances are so unique you can identify the make/model by the energy surge.
• We’re getting beyond the point where the web is just fun and it’s starting to work.
• Web 2.0 + World = Web Squared
• History is on a different course because of someone being able to understand how to apply technology (President Obama).
• The Power of Less
• Take what we’ve learned with the consumer internet and apply it to hard problems.
• Build a simple system – let it evolve.
• Create more value than you capture.
• Continue to create, invent, and make value.

John Maeda, Rhode Island School of Design: “Open Source Administration”

• Developed the laws of simplicity.
• Forever Stamp the perfect example of simplicity of design.
• Technology makes things happen at light speed.
• The pendulum swung towards tech and now it’s swinging back to humanity.
• RISD is a traditional art and design school.
• Perfect symbol for American innovation.
• Used to have a hierarchy of leadership tree, turning into a network that you can talk to anyone in.
• Creative Leadership:
  • Leading Creatively – example Steve Jobs
  • Google creative leadership

Stephen Elop,  Microsoft Business Division: A Conversation with Stephen Elop

• People are bringing in different perspectives.
• Has the benefit of learning from other areas of the business.
• Taking on the cloud: Microsoft working to combine offline.
• Will there be MS Office apps for the iPhone? Keep watching!
• Beta code for Office online soon (maybe next year).
• Software plus services.
• Sharepoint is the fastest growing product in the history of Microsoft.
• If they redo any interface, half a billion people use the products and would have to re-learn the software.
• OneNote is like Word on crack.
• Microblogging – will Microsoft get into that? They’re experimenting with it and blogs.
• There’s a joke that Microsoft is the evil empire, so Stephen gave Tim a “I am the Empire” shirt people around the MS campus have been wearing lately.

Amanda Koster, SalaamGarage: Imagine What You Can Do

• Telling stories that will make a difference in people’s lives.
• She told the story of a little girl and what it’s like to go on a SalaamGarage.com trip.
• Tell someone’s story through you, through your social media.
• Use your influence to educate to make a difference.
• It’s all for amateurs; not for professional photographers.
• They’ve used ReveNews
• It’s not a broad message, it’s one little girl, that you met, whose story you can share.

Michael Abbott, Palm, Inc.: High Order Bit

• New Palms run on a web OS
• Cards – multiple apps running at once.
• Palm Synergy – bring the data together in a single place.
• Notifications – notice manager.
• Web OS platform built with HTML, Java, and CSS.
• Doesn’t require a server to run.

Tim O’Reilly had very engaging and interesting things to say, and I loved listening to John Maeda’s presentation.  Stephen Elop seemed to be on the defensive a little during the Q&A portion of their conversation, and what he said kind of ran on a little and I tuned out unintentionally.  I appreciated Amanda’s passion and I really like what they’re doing at SalaamGarage, but towards the end it did sound like a Save the Children commercial.  Finally, since I have a Blackberry that I love I kind of tuned out Michael’s commercial for the new Palm Pre, but it DID sound like a pretty handy little PDA.

I’m glad that they made the video of John Maeda available and I wish they’d have made the video of Amanda Koster available too, because they were both good speakers.

Web 2.0 Expo: The Social Media Trilogy: Three Vital Components for Building a Successful Online Strategy

Posted on Apr 22, 2009 in Conferences & Networking |

Session Description: It’s time to look at the big picture – beyond starting a blog or getting your team on Twitter. To survive in these trying economic times, enterprises must adopt a trilogy of Web 2.0 fundamentals as part of their long-term communications objectives. This session leverages the experiences of some of the world’s most successful communities to help you develop a strategic vision for enterprise-oriented social media. Also included are several use cases that demonstrate the success of having organization-wide Web 2.0 technology and information on how Vignette is helping the world’s leading brands with their social media efforts. Takeaways include how Web 2.0 intersects with a broader online strategy, the social media success trilogy and how to integrate these fundamentals into your organization’s DNA. Sponsored by Vignette.

This session took place Thursday, April 2, 2009. The speaker:

• Gerardo Dada, Vignette

I’m not sure what I was expecting, but this session was good.

Bullet Point Review!

• Only 12% rate their web 2.0 efforts as effective.
• Measurement is key.
• 40% of businesses have no real strategy.
• Web 2.0 is viewed as an immature medium.
• 2008 was the year of Trying, 2009 is the year of Embracing.
• How do you build a strategy?
  • You don’t; web 2.0 supports a strategy.  It’s a tool.  Marketing, Customer Service, Human Resources, Corporate Communications, PR, product development, knowledge management, etc.
  • People are looking for answers and information.  They don’t care as much where it comes from.
  • Social is integrated part of the web.
• How do you build a community?
  • You can only foster a community.
  • Participate in a community.
  • People have persona’s and want to keep them separate.
  • There’s nothing wrong with integrating technology buy you have to ask permission.
  • Strategy has to be flexible enough to work with what’s coming next.
  • Understand what people are saying.
• How do you succeed in Social Media?
  • It’s about the people.
  • Fundamentally change the company mindset.
  • There’s a resurgence of the personal brand.
  • Requires a mind shift and a new culture.
    • Be Passionate!
    • Develop a Strategy (set milestones).
    • Have clear goals and metrics
    • Without metrics you won’t get support from executives.
• Resourcing
  • Needs to be on top of mind
• Promotion
  • Marketing lead it, IT is jumping in now.

I didn’t write anything down from the Q&A portion, though I remember there being one.  I think it was a lot of people asking specific questions that really didn’t have any kind of broad appeal to my readers here, but overall it was a good session.

Slideshow Presentation: