Recently in Local Government Category

This post from Chris Dorobek at the DorobekInsider.com and Federal News Radio is an interesting look at Gartner's 10 Technologies to watch.

Find the post here

Here are the technologies listed:

• Virtualization
• Cloud computing
• Servers -- Beyond Blades
• Web-Oriented Architectures
• EnterpriseMashups
• Specialized Systems
• Social Software and Social Networking
• Unified Communications
• Business Intelligence
• Green IT

We've talked about the Web 2.0 concepts (Social Networking, Enterprise Mashups, and Web-Oriented Architectures) in this blog.

Chris points out that Cloud Computing is a challenge in government.  I think this is true, but I believe that government can find certain areas where Cloud Computing provides real benefit for minimal risk.

We have been working with a government agency on allowing them to tap into our email delivery infrastructure for messages they need to send out regarding new rulings.  Rather than force them to manage all of the data on our servers, we simply accept the email address(es) of the recipients and the message content when it is ready for distribution.  This information has to go out over the Internet anyway, and by using our email delivery infrastructure, our client has better assurance that the information will get to the inbox of the intended recipient in a timely manner.  If the email bounces, we take care of it.  If the client needs to send a lot of emails, they leverage our scale.

Cloud computing is just as powerful for government as it is for others, but we need to work hard to find the right opportunities to make it work well without risking secure data.

There is a lot of interest in this topic.  Yesterday, we had 80+ people on a webinar discussing the work we are doing in cloud computing through our On-Demand Mailer which allows any government agency to use GovDelivery as its mail sender for any important email (we used to just offer our service for mass email communication.  The interest and the fact that no one dropped off during the whole presentation or the case study by www.nlrb.gov was a good sign to me.  You can signup to get a recording of the Webinar and our presentation here if you're interested.

One of the challenges for us with Cloud Computing is figuring out how to explain it to our clients.  In our webinar, everyone kept asking us to "explain again how this is different from what we already do."  I am hopeful that is people get more used to the concept the explaining will get easier.

We've been looking at different Web 2.0 sites and exploring how best clients can use them in conjunction with our system and on their own.

One site I like is Twitter.  Twitter allows an organization or an individual to post a couple of lines about what they are doing at a given moment.  This overlaps with the Facebook "status" update so I thought it wouldn't be worth the effort.  However, now that I've got Twitter working well with Facebook, I can update my status on Twitter and it gets posted everywhere.  Twitter is easier to use and something that can be updated quickly from a cell phone or blackberry.

I don't have any specific ideas yet for interconnections between GovDelivery and Twitter, but in looking around, I did see a lot of Twitter accounts being managed by government agencies and public officials.  Take a look at the GovDelivery Twitter Account and Who We are Following.  You can also take a look at my "young" Twitter account.

Here are just a few:
http://twitter.com/pueblo81009
http://twitter.com/USAgov

NASA has many offices and programs using Twitter.  As usual, they are very advanced in use of Web 2.0 tools.

and lots of public officials:
http://twitter.com/MayorMark
http://twitter.com/MayorRTRybak

Why does this matter?  Any government entity has a lot of information to offer.  Twitter is an easy way to pull forward and call attention to the information that you think might be most interesting or valuable.  I've blogged before on the difference between "give me what I want" content and "give me what you think I need" content. 

Twitter allows an agency to highlight for me the information that I might need and to do it in a simple and interesting way. 

During our Web 2.0 Webinar last Tuesday, many participants asked for examples of existing government blogs. Since we didn't have a chance to answer this question during the Webinar, we assembled this list to show that blogs are being published at all levels of government.

Federal
    http://blog.aids.gov
    http://www.tsa.gov/blog/
    http://www.cdc.gov
    http://blog.epa.gov

State/Local
    http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/trees/blog.htm
    http://www.humanrights.state.mn.us/velblog3.html#
    http://www.ci.santa-paula.ca.us/blog/
    http://secondward.blogspot.com/

This is not meant to be a comprehensive list. It's only a sample of the many blogs that are being published by governments throughout the United States.

Please let us know about other government blogs you are reading.

My previous entry was on Web 2.0 in government.  I want to add some fresh links and expand the conversation to cloud computing which some people, in an effort to give the entire world a headache, refer to as "Web 3.0".

Before we talk about Web 2.0+, let me share this glossary of Web 2.0 terms.  I used to go mad trying to understand all of the Web 2.0 / Web 3.0 terms.  Blogs, Wikis, Folksonomies, Mashups, Tags, Tag Clouds, Widgets, Cloud Computing, SaaS, etc.  Like Web 2.0 itself, there is no one in charge of Web 2.0 and the terminology has taken on a life of its own.

While I initially thought Web 2.0 was just for kids (hence all of the annoying terms), I'm a convert now.  Facebook really makes my life better both personally and professionally.  Mashups allow our company to deliver more value than ever to the government, and SaaS companies serve our most critical CRM and Web conferencing needs.

Most importantly, I'm convinced that cloud computing is going to make technology more powerful and cost-effective for government in so many ways that we will look back on 2008 10 years from now and see it as the infancy of e-government.

To that end, I want to add another important link which is this story on cloud computing.

We have over 250 government agencies using our Software as a Service platform here at GovDelivery.  I don't consider use of our hosted, SaaS, platform by itself as cloud computing, but now that the service is becoming more open and allowing other applications to tap into it for limited functions, it really is "service in the cloud."  For us, this means allowing agencies to connect to our "On-Demand Mailer" whenever an agency needs additional mail sending scale for certain applications or needs to send a message to a stakeholder with assured delivery to the inbox, tracking, reporting, etc.

The article referenced above lists these benefits of cloud computing:

• Reduced Cost
• Increased Storage
• Highly Automated
• Flexibility
• Allows IT to Shift Focus  "No longer having to worry about constant server updates and other computing issues"

This list of benefits is literally the Holy Grail of government IT!

The article concludes with the typical security concerns that are always raised when government talks about doing something new.  Here is the good news, it's not all or nothing. 

For example, the On-Demand Mailer service we offer is currently built to handle emails you are already sending out over the public Internet. 

We are not offering the service to the CIA for sending highly-classified emails... that is not something that belongs in the Cloud. 

Still, there are many services that fit well into the Cloud now.  Web 2.0 and cloud computing raise all kinds of security concerns.  Luckily, from the looks of all the blogs, Wikis, mashups, etc. that we see on government sites despite the security concerns raised about Web 2.0 in government, government Web and e-government managers will find the appropriate areas where they can leverage cloud computing without taking unnecessary security risks.

Everyone is talking about and writing about government 2.0 recently.

There was a great write up in FCW with a panel interview that included Bev Godwin from USA.gov and others.

There was another post on Mashable.com that provided an "Insider's Perspective" on government 2.0.

My company, GovDelivery, has made a big push into Web 2.0 in the past year.   We've found a lot of enthusiasm from our clients in a few key areas.

1. Collaboration: Using the Web 2.0 concept of "mashups" to present the citizen with "one stop shopping" for government information.  Another Web 2.0 concept, Software as a Service, SaaS, makes mashups a lot easier.
   
   Example: Use the Get Email Updates link on this DHS page and watch how you are walked through a subscription process that brings together many agencies including some outside DHS. [This is my only example that is "powered by" GovDelivery)
   
   
2. Distribution: Enabling websites, RSS feeds, and email alerts with forwarding and posting capabilities that allow citizens to repost publications and announcements to social networks, tagging sites, blogs, etc.
   
   Examples: Visit www.state.gov and look in the upper right for a simple widget that allows you to repost content or tag it using social networking sites.  Another great example is the FBI Widget Tool.
   
   
3. Aggregation: Bringing together content by using tag clouds and other tagging approaches
   
   Examples:  See right side of NASA homepage; CDC has also experimented with tag clouds.
   
   
4. Blogging: Posting content updates or more colorful blog-style entries and allowing citizens to comment. 
   
   Examples: Local government excels here with more blogs than I could possibly list for Mayor's and elected officials (take a look here).  These officials are embracing Web 2.0 in campaigns and they bring the same concepts into office.  One interesting blog is the DC Summer Intern Blog.
   
   In federal government, for all the discussion and fear around blogging, there are some truly terrific examples (and no disasters that I know of).  DoD sets the standard, but TSA, GovGab, and the Secretary of Transportation are also running exceptional blogs.

In short, for all the discussion about risks, government 2.0 (aka, government's embrace of Web 2.0) is already here.  In many cases, government is further along than private industry in embracing Web 2.0

Sure, some agencies are further along than others, but the progress and momentum is amazing.  Remember, these concepts are all relatively new. 

Additional resources:

• If you're interested in blogging, you must read "Naked Conversations"
  
• The Federal Consulting Group recently hosted a Webinar on Government 2.0 where I participated along with FEMA.  Register for a recorded version of this here
  
• Janice Nall from the CDC discusses their strategy here

If you're interested in this topic, we have another upcoming Webinar on Government 2.0.   

Our webinars are focused on how governments can use our platform to take advantage of some of these concepts, but we've received good feedback that we don't lay the sales pitch on too hard, and anyone is welcome to attend.