Video – Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra
Vivek Kundra covers a lot of Government 2.0 ground in this video and the audience had several good questions about the Government’s Open Data initiatives. This is a long video, but it is also packed with information about where we are headed with Government 2.0.
This is an intelligent idea, an app store for the Government. This is a very interesting concept, I think we all learned a thing or two from Apple’s iPhone app store which can be applied to how we all use technology. I recommend taking a quick look at their “Cloud Computing” video (upper right corner) on https://apps.gov/cloud/advantage/main/home.do
App store for the Government
See what others have done: Open Government Intitative – Innovations
All kinds of people have created all type of apps and solutions using Government data to help citizens. You can now see their great work on display in the Innovations Gallery at http://www.whitehouse.gov/open/innovations
Government 2.0 Innovations Gallery
Government Data is available on Data.gov for your Gov 2.0 Apps
The U.S. Government has released high-value datasets to meet the Open Government Directive http://www.data.gov/
Government Data
How do I connect with other Gov 2.0 people?
There are many organizations and citizens involved with Government 2.0. You can find many of them by searching “Government 2.0″ on Twitter or the web. There are also many groups on Google and Facebook. Here are just a few of my favorites.
GovLoop – Social Network for GovernmentGovLoop ( @GovLoop ) is the premier social network for government connecting over 20000 federal, state and local employees, contractors and academics.
GovTwitGovTwit ( @GovTwit ) hosts the world’s largest list of government agencies on Twitter, tracking state/local, federal, contractors, media, academics, non-profits and government outside of the U.S.
Sunlight FoundationThe Sunlight Foundation ( @SunFoundation ) uses cutting-edge technology and ideas to make government transparent and accountable.
Gov 2.0 RadioGov 2.0 Radio ( @govwiki ) is where government and technology reformers come to talk. The live weekly podcast captures the thoughts of public and private sector leaders using Web 2.0 to make government more effective, collaborative and transparent.
Today We Celebrate the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989!
The fall of the wall was a huge event for humanity. People have been building walls for thousands of years. Most walls are built to keep people out and some are built to keep people in. I encourage you to review this video on the Newseum web site: “Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall” by Gene Mater.
1989 rock music video documenting the historic fall of the Berlin Wall.
All Walls Are Not Necessarily Made of Concrete & Steel
Celebrate today by tearing down walls of limitations around you. Change your world today! Encourage two other people to do the same thing.
Kennedy speaking in West Berlin: “Beyond the Wall”
Martin Luther King “I have a dream”
Reagan – Tear Down This Wall: “We welcome change and openness”
Roger Waters (Pink Floyd) and friends..1990 in Berlin
I love Pink Floyd!
You should also see this Roger Waters 1990 Berlin video with Cyndi Lauper
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
Gov 2.0: Real Collaboration, Participation, & Transparency #g2s #gov20
Some of the top minds in technology and government, along with many other smart people clearing the path on our journey towards Government 2.0 gathered together in the Washington DC area in September 2009 to share insights about our changing world. The main events were the Gov 2.0 Expo and Gov 2.0 Summit. The amazing part of these events is that they are “living events”. These Government 2.0 events are scheduled in the past, but participation is ongoing. I encourage you to visit their web sites to see how you can get involved. Your voice matters, make a difference today!
The Exponential Value of Collaboration
The Gov 2.0 Summit and Gov 2.0 Expo events are great examples of demonstrating the exponential value of collaboration with the use of Web 2.0 tools. You can easily add and extract value because the way the information is shared in a truly collaborative environment. The use of Social Media has opened the flood gates of participation and collaboration.
The information from these events is of great value, but the demonstration of how to share thoughts and ideas is priceless. These events are successfully using Twitter, YouTube, Blip, SlideShare, Blogs, Wikis, Web Sites, and other social media tools to exponentially increase their value. This gives many other people that could not physically attend these events the ability to participate. This also gives the presenters an audience that could not fit into any man-made physical structure. Can you imagine a room big enough to fit a million people? How would you manually capture all their comments and suggestions? Web 2.0 gives us presentation rooms and collaborative envorinments that are not constrained by time and space.
Government 2.0 Expo & Summit
Gov 2.0 Expo Showcase 2009
The Platform for Change Over the past fifteen years, the rise of the World Wide Web has resulted in remarkable new possibilities and business models reshaping our culture and our economy. Now the time has come to reshape government. With the proliferation of issues and a scarcity of resources to address them all, leaders inside and outside government are turning to the principles of participation, collaboration, transparency, and efficiency to address the challenges facing our country and the world. This is the agenda of the Gov 2.0 Summit. http://www.gov2summit.com
Gov 2.0 Summit, a new government technology conference co-produced by O’Reilly Media and TechWeb, capitalizes on the momentum for change and broad engagement, creating a non-partisan forum for addressing the monumental challenges our nation faces by applying the Web 2.0 principles of user engagement, rapid development, and real-time intelligence. Gov 2.0 Summit will bring together influential stake-holders in government, industry, non-profits, and academia to make government more transparent and accountable, reinvent the contracting ecosystem, and feature best practices and case studies to demonstrate how tasks can be accomplished more effectively and cheaply. http://gov2summit.blip.tv
