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5 Ways Government Works Better With Social Media

What is government 2.0? Tim O’Reilly describes it as government working as a platform. Others might describe it as applying the technologies that make up Web 2.0 to the practice of government, including blogs, wikis, social networking and crowdsourcing. The simplest way of describing government 2.0 may be any technology that helps citizens or agencies solve problems, either for individuals or the community, and enables government to operate more efficiently or effectively.

The following are five ways that the U.S. government is using social media to deliver services or engage citizens in making better policy.

1. Communicating Info About the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill

As the impact of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that began on April 20 has grown, traditional technologies have been applied to mitigating the damage, like dispersants or floating booms to protect fragile wetlands. NOAA is tracking the oil spill and NASA satellites are tracking the slick.

The Environmental Protection Agency, however, has also used its existing social media muscle to communicate how it is monitoring and responding to potential public health and environmental concerns. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson shared news and her observations on Twitter as @LisaPJackson and on her Facebook (Facebook) page. The agency set up a website, deepwaterhorizonresponse.com, with a dedicated Twitter account at @Oil_Spill_2010 and on Facebook at Deepwater Horizon Response. Following the principles set out by the Obama administration’s Open Government Directive, the EPA is releasing oil spill data it collects from monitoring in open formats.

The EPA is also coordinating with volunteer efforts to help, like the Crisis Commons oil response project. Just as Crisis Camps helped in Haiti, where crisis mappers helped first responders like the United States Coast Guard to find earthquake victims, now thje Ushahidi open source platform is being by the Louisiana Bucket Brigade to track the reporting of oil spill-related incidents. Volunteers are sending texts, tweets and email to OilSpill.LABucketBrigade.org where they’re added to a database of oil spill-related incidents.

2. Using Twitter for Storm Reporting

Emergency management agencies like the Federal Emergency Management Agency (@FEMAinFocus) or state first responders like the Virginia Department of Emergency Management (@VDEM) are already on Twitter, sharing information during crises. Now, the National Weather Service is experimenting with getting information back from the online community. Government storm spotters are now searching for geolocated tweets that contain “significant” weather information. You can now submit storm reports to National Weather Service using Twitter. Just hashtag a geo-enabled tweet with #wxreport.

Although Twitter storm reporting is still an experimental effort, there’s evidence that the NWS believes this will be valuable, as indicated by their statement that “access to information from this widely used social media tool will help to enhance and increase timely and accurate online weather reporting and communication between the public and their local forecast offices.”

3. Helping Kids Get Up and Move

First Lady Michelle Obama has taken on the issue of childhood obesity with a “Let’s Move” campaign. Can the third of American youth be helped through social media? The Department of Agriculture is doing more than spreading information through its @USDAgov Twitter account or Facebook. The USDA is looking for innovative ideas for applications that could make a difference with childhood obesity with a web app contest – and they’ve put up $60,000 in prizes for the winners. The Official Rules require apps to use the USDA Nutrition Dataset available at www.cnpp.usda.gov/Innovations/DataSource.htm to ensure the educational quality of the games.

“This is about helping people have healthier lifestyles and more active lifestyles,” said Amanda Eamich (@Amandare), Director of New Media at the USDA. “The site is divided into two sections: apps and games. games are targeted at tweens, to help them have healthy eating habits. Apps are more for nutritional gatekeepers, which could be a parent, caretaker or anyone else interested. We want to develop games and apps that useful and relevant to people’s lives, not just what the government thinks you should learn.”

The competition, which has already attracted over 12,000 supporters, closes for developers to create nutrition-related apps on June 30. Members of the public will be able to join Apple Computer co-founder Steve Wozniak in voting for the winners in July. Some fans already have ideas for how to take home top prize: “Make a tower defense game w/ calories as points & veggies as guns,” tweeted Anil Dash. “I bet you’ll get $10k + a trip to the @whitehouse.”

Apps for Healthy Kids was featured as part of an “innovation showcase” during the recent Government Web Managers Conference in DC. Video (video) archive:

4. FedSpace: A Social Network for Federal Agencies

Social media and government isn’t just about new ways that agencies or officials share or gather information, collaborate with the public in addressing the grand challenges for the 21st century or build better policy through online engagement. Applying social software to internal collaboration is also a key element of improving the way government works through technology.

NASA has used Spacebook, an internal expert networking site for NASA employees, to enable staff to get to know one another in the immense agency. Spacebook helps improve teamwork, communication and access to information across NASA’s many projects and technology installations. “Using these tools lets you be sort of top-of-mind with a lot of these people so that when you need to call on them there’s already a connection,” said Emma Antunes (@eantunes), Web Manager for Goddard Space Flight Center, and the project manager responsible for developing the agency’s Inside NASA intranet and the Spacebook utility.

Antunes is now involved in a new project: an internal federal social network, known, for the moment, as FedSpace. As Antunes explained in a comment on Gartner analyst Andrea DiMaio’s post:

“FedSpace will be a professional collaboration space for Federal staff and contractors…many of whom don’t have access to secure, accessible, compliant collaboration tools to work across government. FedSpace will use the collaboration work/tools that some agencies have developed for internal purposes and fill gaps to provide these and other resources for interagency use. Intellipedia, Spacebook, Diplopedia, and other agency-specific internal spaces have proven to be highly valuable by increasing collaboration, nurturing innovation, increasing knowledge, and reducing redundancies. Similarly, there are many examples of how large-scale collaboration tools can and do work well internally in corporate settings. Jakob Niesen’s case study “Enterprise 2.0: Social Software on Intranets” cites industry leaders from IBM to Sprint who have found success in social intranets that were completely internal.

The potential benefit of combining the best ideas, processes, and lessons learned from more than two dozen Federal agencies in policy, human relations, software development, and subject-matter specific areas is immense, and optimizing the talent of the Federal workforce is critical to accelerating efficiencies and effectiveness in government. By working with our government colleagues (and for profit and nonprofit organizations) that have demonstrated value in hosting internal collaboration spaces, we expect FedSpace will help provide the tools and platform for quality collaboration across government.”

While the working name may not be ideal, given recent challenges at MySpace, the idea is ambitious. Will people get nervous when the FBI director follows them? Will a presidential poke mean you’re late for a meeting in the Oval Office? Jokes aside, the same potential for knowledge sharing and collaboration that other internal social networks have demonstrated could help the feds work better together.

5. San Francisco and the District of Columbia Team Up on Open 311

At first glance, standardizing the specification for the application programming interface (API) for Open 311 may seem like a minor technical detail. Adopting the 311 platform certainly doesn’t sound social, even if the announcement is made on a blog. But when the research and development group in the Office of the Chief Technology of the District of Columbia (@OctoLabs) tweeted, “Historic moment : ) SF+DC agreed on Open311 API v2.1 spec, implmnt. is underway,” it was a milestone for open government.

Why? Open 311 is a standard for citizens to communicate with their local governments. For instance, SeeClickFix integrates with Open 311 to communicate service requests directly into a city customer relationship management (CRM) system by reporting issues through the Web, widgets or smartphone applications. Citysourced is also using Open311. Now that D.C. and San Francisco have standardized on the API, developers across the nation can create applications that will work in any city that uses Open 311. That means citizens will be able to tell their governments what’s happening where they live, participating in improving their own communities.

Luke Fretwell (@lukefretwell) interviewed Phil Ashlock (@PhilipAshlock) of OpenPlan.org on GovFresh.tv about what Open 311 is and why it’s important:

Fretwell also recorded a video of craigslist founder Craig Newmark and San Francisco CIO Chris Vein discussing Open311 and open government.

Top 10 Wedding Dance Videos on YouTube

In the old days, getting married was simple: Get a white dress, make sure the groom shows up on time, and order enough cake to go round. Nowadays however, there are some expectations when it comes to choreography.

We’ve scoured Youtube for the creme de la creme of entertaining wedding dance routines for your viewing pleasure. Below you’ll find celebratory entrances, surprise first dances, and a great “girls vs. boys” dance-off.

The list incorporates some old favorites as well as some more recent efforts from a new generation of beautiful brides and gorgeous grooms. Have a look-see, and let us and other readers know in the comments if we missed any other worthy dances.

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1. JK Wedding Entrance Dance

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Now going on 50 million views, this wedding video went about as viral as it possibly could. What made it such a hit? The unorthodox fun of dancing down the aisle to a great pop song — and the sheer joy of the occasion shining through. It has even spawned parodies, resurrected a career and was paid homage on The Office.

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2. Mammothian Surprise Group Wedding Reception Dance

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It looks as if the entire wedding party practiced pretty hard for this Gorillaz number. Bonus points for the inclusion of some sweet robot moves.

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3. Rina & Nick’s Wedding – CRAZY First Dance

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This couple keeps it tight with their chosen medley of songs, all “crazy” themed, as they crank out some superb steps on their special day.

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4. Crazy Wedding Ceremony!

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Each member of the wedding party gets their own entrance theme as they make their way down the dry ice-filled aisle. We wouldn’t attempt to elbow in on the dance floor at this reception.

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5. Dirty Dancing UK – Julia and James First Dance

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Nobody puts Baby in the corner at this celebration. This British couple painstakingly recreate the famous Swayze/Grey dance from the finale of Dirty Dancing, including (unlike some other DD wedding sequences) the bride’s dress, which is tailor-made to look like the one from the movie.

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6. Best First Dance Brubaker

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A YouTube classic, this couple’s hip hop interlude (which starts with the wonderful line “I like big butts and I cannot lie”) and wacky dance routine is juxtaposed quite spectacularly to the romantic slow dance it interrupts.

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7. Best First Dance EVER!

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A surprise to the wedding guests, this couple executes a fantastic routine, and they appear to have lots of fun doing it — which makes all the difference.

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8. First Dance with Surprise Jack Johnson Michael Jackson

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As Jack Johnson’s mellow tones fade out, this funky couple hit it with a bit of MJ, much the obvious delight of the crowd. Some nifty moves from both the bride and groom have helped this clip surpass 12 million views.

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9. Wedding Thriller Dance

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Zombies might not be what spring to mind when you think about a first wedding dance, but considering how effective this entire wedding party is at performing Thriller, maybe we should rethink it.

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10. Wedding Dance – Hilarious!!!

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This wedding dance is bonkers — a full-on girls versus boys dance-off. We have to say we think the boys might be victorious here, but everyone’s a winner when you’re having that much fun.

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BONUS: Surprise wedding first dance by Clay Family!

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Technically, this isn’t a wedding dance as it’s a 10th anniversary celebration, hence the bonus status. Be sure to keep watching until the kids join in, at which point it goes from good to great.

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5 Essential Apps for Your Business’s Facebook Fan Page

If you’ve already searched for some Fan Page inspiration and undertaken the task of building a custom landing page for your business’s Facebook presence, you may now be in the market for some features that will further engage your fans.

A nice feature of the modern social web is that it’s modular. You can plug in and customize pre-made pieces of software (often created by other users or companies), and mix and match what works [...] Continue Reading…

6 Ways Brands are Using Social Media For Real-World Action

Ever since Facebook (Facebook) moved beyond the college campus and Twitter (Twitter) joined the social media matrix, brands have been trying to figure out what to do with them.

Generally speaking, brands are using social networks in a relatively systematic way:

1) Create an account; 2) Run ads; 3) Collect fans; 4) Provide news, offers and promotions; 5) Repeat.

But the lines of the digital world and real world are blurring, and businesses should start thinking about [...] Continue Reading…

10 Fresh Tips for Community Managers

Most community managers are well-versed in the basics of social media engagement. We all know how to deal with trolls and how to create conversations. Here are some interesting and unorthodox bits of advice for the expert community manager — that tireless social media junkie with oodles of personality who’s trying to balance marketing-driven execs with ego-tripping power users while still trying to maintain some semblance of a personal life.

Community managers, feel free to [...] Continue Reading…

Download the “Give to Get Marketing” Webcast for Alumni and Non-Profits

Right Click here to download the “Give to Get Marketing” Webcast for Alumni and Non-Profits .  This will take awhile to download as it is 400mb.

Right Click here to download the smaller 5mb version, same program, just smaller fit on the screen.  

 Take notes ! Share the information ! Right click the screen to advance to the next slide while viewing.

For best results, right click and say “save file as or save target as” and [...] Continue Reading…

Link to Download our Collegiate Webinar Presentation

Right Click here to download the Collegiate Digital Marketing Webinar, the smaller size.

Right Click here to download the Collegiate Digital Marketing Webinar, the Full Large 400mb Size.

For best results, right click and say “save file as or save target as” and choose a file location on your PC to save the file to (like your desktop). Then view the movie.

It is in quicktime format and will play with the quicktime player integrated in the [...] Continue Reading…

Link to Tom’s Webinar March 2010

Right Click here to download the Digital Marketing Webinar.

For best results, right click and say “save file as or save target as” and choose a file location on your PC to save the file to (like your desktop). Then view the movie.

It is in quicktime format and will play with the quicktime player integrated in the movie file. Choose view—>fit to screen to optimize viewing.

Comments are welcome back about this presentation to webinar@monsooninteractive.com or [...] Continue Reading…

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