Government 2.0: The Use of Drupal and Open Source Technologies
Happy Fav Five Friday!
The web and other news sources have been buzzing about the White House site using open source technology, Drupal. Many influential people have shared their thoughts on this subject, but I like this post by Tim O’Reilly the best. He makes a good point about how the Government has been using open source, but it’s adoption by http://whitehouse.gov should improve the government adoption rate. The New York Times also published an article titled “Drupal Moves into the White House”, which you can find here. I recommend you review these two articles, because they are packed with related resources.
Calling a Friend with a Coconut
The right tool for the job is important! Can you make a phone from a coconut? You probably could, if you were a professor stranded on a desert island with the Skipper and crew. Would you hang a picture with a shovel? Would you cook a meal in the dishwasher? These ideas may seem silly, but most jobs are easier with the right strategy and correct tools. The mission is better served when more options are available. Drupal is not going to be the “magic bullet” that kills all overspending in Government IT, but it is good to see more tools available in the Government 2.0 toolbox.
What is this “Drupal, Open Source PHP CMS” Thing?
Drupal is a free software package that allows an individual or a community of users to easily publish, manage and organize a wide variety of content on a website. Tens of thousands of people and organizations are using Drupal to power scores of different web sites for Enterprise 2.0 solutions, Government 2.0 platforms, Social Networking portals, and much more.
The built-in functionality, combined with dozens of freely available add-on modules, will enable features such as: Collaborative authoring environments, Collaborative authoring environments, Blogs, Discussion Forms, Podcasts, and much more.
Drupal is open-source software distributed under the GPL (”GNU General Public License”) and is maintained and developed by a community of thousands of users and developers. Please visit http://drupal.org for additional information.
Drupal (#OpenSource CMS): Tutorials & Webinars for Beginners
5+2 Webcasts About Drupal
These “how to” Drupal webcasts are part of my favorite Drupal collection. You will find five presentations to help you quickly understand what Drupal is and what it can do. I have also included the important “Drupal Security” presentation, a quick overview before you buy the book. I added the “Drupal Garden” video, because it allows you to see how simple & cool content management can be. You should also listen to the “JackBe” video “Developer Community Ignites Customer Engagement, Reduces Costs and Delivers Measurable ROI with Drupal”, he uses some very interesting words to describe Drupal. You can review other Drupal presentations here.
The Future Gov 2.0 Toolbox Will Hopefully Also Contain Tools Like Zend Framework
Extending the art & spirit of PHP, Zend Framework is based on simplicity, object-oriented best practices, corporate friendly licensing, and a rigorously tested agile codebase. Zend Framework is focused on building more secure, reliable, and modern Web 2.0 applications & web services, and consuming widely available APIs from leading vendors like Google, Amazon, Yahoo!, Flickr, as well as API providers and cataloguers like StrikeIron and ProgrammableWeb. Learn more at http://framework.zend.com
Social Media, Widgets, & Gadgets with OpenSocial?
How about Government web sites with customizable widgets, like the iGoogle dashboard? Apache Shindig is an OpenSocial container and helps you to start hosting OpenSocial apps quickly by providing the code to render gadgets, proxy requests, and handle REST and RPC requests. Apache Shindig’s goal is to allow new sites to start hosting social apps in under an hour’s worth of work. Learn more here http://incubator.apache.org/shindig/
What about Open Source Training and Education?
Drupal does not offer any type of “Developer Certification” at this time. It just does not seem to be part of their business model. You can become “Third Party Drupal Certified”. Will Government 2.0 Developers really need certification? There are a few places you can get an “open source” type of certificaiton. Zend offers Training and Certification Programs. You may want to take a look at O’Reilly Technology School. O’Reilly has been spreading the knowledge of innovators for close to 30 years. With an academic approach to publishing, trend spotting, research, and conferences, O’Reilly has gathered and distributed the information needed for innovation, helping to drive the development of the Internet as seen today.
Moving Forward with Government 2.0
Discover, Participate, & Engage with Data.gov
The purpose of Data.gov is to increase public access to high value, machine readable datasets generated by the Executive Branch of the Federal Government. Learn more at http://data.gov
Web 2.0 Summit 09: Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Tim O’Reilly
This video is amazing! The Web’s Founding Fathers @timberners_lee & @timOReilly cover so much on Web 2.0, semantic web, FOAF, micro formats, social networks, HTML 5, mobile web,..
You really need to watch this a few times and take notes. This video is 33 minutes of pure genius!
If you only watch one video about the web this year, this is it!
The Amazing Web 2.0 Summit 2009 – O’Reilly Media #w2s
Happy Fav Five Friday!
The Web 2.0 Summit conversation is no longer just about the Web. Now is the time to put the power of the Web to work—its technologies, its business models, and perhaps most importantly, its philosophies of openness, collective intelligence, and transparency. http://www.web2summit.com/web2009
The Web 2.0 Event of the Year – Web 2.0 Summit – Web Squared #w2s
There were so many great events in the past few days. The big events that caught my eye were: Web 2.0 Summit 2009 #w2s , Blog World – New Media Expo 2009 #bwe09, and TWTRCON DC 09 #twtrcon. The Summit was outstanding and easy to follow online. John Battelle, Tim O’Reilly, and all the people supporting this event did an outstanding job! There was an avalanche of news released about all levels of technology, including Twitter, Google, Bing, Facebook, and so much more. This event was like an intellectual amusement park with thrill after thrill. Thanks to @JohnBattelle, @timoreilly, and the crew at @web2summit for another thrilling event. Thanks to all the guests, attendees, and fans for sharing #w2s
5 Web 2.0 Summit Resources to Help Plan Your 2010 Strategy
Economy + Internet Trends Presentation by Mary Meeker
You can get Mary Meeker’s Economy + Internet Trends Presentation here.
Web 2.0 Summit Videos on blip.tv
Web 2.0 Summit 2009 Videos on YouTube
Web 2.0 Summit (formerly named Web 2.0 Conference) brings the intelligence, innovation, and leadership of the Internet industry together in one place at one time. Through incisive plenary sessions, frank onstage conversations, rapid-fire “high order bits,” and Launch Pad, visionaries and executives from Internet businesses present their unique perspective on the Web’s future-in-flux. Web 2.0 Summit is brought to you in partnership with O’Reilly Media, Inc. and TechWeb and moderated by John Battelle, Program Chair, and O’Reilly CEO and founder, Tim O’Reilly.
Ross Dawson does an amazing job of sharing the Value Strategy for implementing Enterprise 2.0.
I am a professional Enterprise 2.0 developer and fixing poor implementations of Enterprise 2.0 has paid me well over the years. Some organizations have invested countless hours and thousands upon thousands of dollars trying to implement E 2.0 and knowledge management solutions. Most of these solutions fail, mostly because they lack a strong implementation strategy and the adoption rate dies.
I believe most people would like more time and reduced workloads. I also believe most organizations would like higher productivity and profits. Everyone wins when Enterprise 2.0 solutions are implemented with a winning strategy. Ross carefully explains all the necessary steps for a successful Enterprise 2.0 solution.
Ross explains the Business Value of Social Media tools like Blogs, Wikis, Micro blogs (internal Twitter), Social bookmarking, …
He includes many case studies (missing from most E 2.0 info) and details about Business Culture.
The Golden Nuggets in the “Adoption” sections are priceless.
The charts and graphs are absolutely beautiful.
There is something here for everyone.
I have read some of these other reviews about how some of this information is available on the web. This is true, Ross Dawson is on Twitter and has a blog. He also offers a free “Social Media” chapter from his book on his web site.
This book can save you countless hours and dollars.
If you are looking for code or tools, then this book is not for you.
If you want to implement successful Enterprise 2.0, then get this book today!
I also recommend getting a few extra copies for your colleagues.
