Wednesday, May 26, 2010

How to be a Gov 2.0 Ninja @lostonroute66 #g2e #gov20 #ux #ixd #ogov

Focus on Pillbox
Has API - drive traffic to it
Pillbox by phone - queries pillbox by speaking - created by student at GWU - created it in 3 weeks
There's an IM version of it tool
iPhone Pill Discovery App - someone scraped our data and made the app
PharmvilleRx - prescribe meds, does teach about meds, even if irreverent
Sharing Facebook interface FBML <> PHP
Have released a lot of code re this.
Creating new way to open data and solve challenges - lots of orgs want to work with them ... and still in beta
Found ancient text on being Open Gov Ninja??? Mid 12C Japan? Open Gov Initiative?
What is Open gov Ninja
Ninja Myth: if they could be effective - they'll do it.
Centers on Data.gov agency. From 26 to >200K datasets
skills: Innovation - do something new and unique
Ninja Myth: Ninja used magic - nope used what was available to them (e.g., farm tools)
Andrew.wilson@hhs.gov - web new media strategist SAHMSA - using google docs and google pipes
had to bridge Open & transparent to Usable
Took 9 people and several parts of 2 agencies FDA, NLM, 3 months for standard.
Ninjas did learn from secret texts, but also from leaders...like Hopra and Kundra
We have texts - WebContent.gov...
but no mountain hideaways...do have Gov20 and Health20 web meetups
@levyj412 : mission, tool, metrics, teach

Now outside: Strategy, Ethnography
learn from our citizens - Michael Wesch, KSU; Gelly Goto
field studies, ethnography, shadowing
Listened to people about how they worked and lived
Strategy: Ethnography; Activity: Personas - for debate - answer using personas or get back out with your citizens
This is user centered design - citizens should outnumber you

Strategy: Community Engagement
Health Information Unconference
Even if usable, need support of community - need champions - engaged communities
Ask community - took pillbox on the road
HealthCamp provided advice and grew community. Felt ownership of project.
Read comments in blogposts
picked up by lifehacker, and got

Activity: Building Open Data
Ninja Myth: Ninjas created by Linux
Stallman: GNU Project "Free as in Speech" not "Free as in beer"
listen to your citizens take the wheel - they know where they are going
pillbox API data as a web service - they knew they were helping to prove this
API for medical journals
Trying to see if we can have API Catalog

Strategy: Must take data to your users
we have data and an API that can solve problems
kicked off program on farmville, in hackathon.
wrote wrapper in Ruby to GitHub; another person wrote in Python
Did better with coopetition. Only possible with open system

Ninja Stealth: Not really useful or practical
Is your project aligned with your organization?
Think small, small and iterative, fail fast, document failures "look what we've learned from this"
Have cover - member of management who like the project
Management buy-in show buy in and success from other agencies.

Posted via email from John Whalen's Posterous

Democratizing Content: Gary Vaynerchuk @garyvee #g2e #gov20 #crushit

Built $60M job w/ Web 1.0 strategy
How I built brand, and amazing opportunity
America is the brand that sold my parents
Not techie, not interested in platform. Like message.
Disrupted my marketplace in 24 months
We have been in push business for last 70 years
Now in pull business
Writing new book on ROI of new media.
Interesting idea: Raise your hand: "How many of you said you'd never get a cell phone? How many still don't have one?" - message: We change our opinion do be ready for change.

Posted via email from John Whalen's Posterous

Creating Passionite Citizens: Kathy Sierra #g2e #gov20 #ux #ixd

Gov Social Media fantasy: Open Data; ????; Passion! < really???
No, so we need to see what people are really interested in and passionate about
You hear more the more you've learned about music, or see more if stargazer
High resolution means deeper dive. Must find a way to enable "kicking ass & higher res"
Don't make a better (x); make a better (user of x)
Make a killer user, not killer app
Picture the badge on their superman suit
Hard to get that passion - except for pets - need to hook into that - gateway drug for passion
Need Trojan horse to create passion
1. Teach something cool: How to make an apple switcher video which is actually for the Dean switch campaign, Netflix Oragami - get something they can do
2. Ask someone to do something: Request your thing in the wild - picture of book with running with the bulls.
3. Wrap it in compelling context: Made calendar for water quality report and tips. Filled with water quality tips. Looked like pin up calendar, or copies of movie covers. Can buy the LOLcat bible.

Posted via email from John Whalen's Posterous

Berners-Lee: Open, Linked Data for a Global Community #g2e #gov20 #semanticweb

Tim Berners-Lee

Four levels: Putting info up, making it accessible, give it location and linking it.
Name: not crisps - called potato ships - local name
Working on potato chips labeling...nutrition facts, serving size, calories - that's what people look for in US
Bar code - language understood globally by machines
Need common schema and link the different sets of terms (crisp/chips,etc.)
Can use other people's vocabulary - small number of people can work out links.
[sorry hard to hear him...missing lots]

Posted via email from John Whalen's Posterous

The Pillars of Gov 2.0 #g2e #gov20 #cloud #australia

Senator Kate Lundy @katelundy

Australian government - seeing a lot in UK, US, and Canada
Pillars: Democratizing data, make information publicly available in useful open format. Attitude and practice needed. (GovHack)
Citizen-Centric Services: always up-to-date. Not obscured by org-chart of gov. Give personal detail based on personal info they are willing to provide.
Participatory Government: always been there with voting. Making collaboration in developing laws. Crowdsorcing at its most constructive.
Each of these can improve trust. Australia has made remarkable progress in this regard. Requires leadership and shared goal.
Universal national broadband network. Computer in every secondary student. Unrivaled. Know they can invest in Gov2.0
New Freedom of Info act, and Information Commissioner designate - already appointed. Guides disclosure, management, and usability of data from gov.
There is Gov2.0 blueprint doc. Gov 2.0 Taskforce
New Gov2.0 showcase of initiatives.
Must transform or become irrelevant. Focus on Democratizing data, citizen-centric services, and participatory Government.

Posted via email from John Whalen's Posterous

Unlocking Real-Time Data #g2e #gov20 #cloud

Joshua Rubin, Unlocking Real-Time Data

Unlocking real-time - why hard?
National weather service is open...so consumers have lots of choices
Opened up MBTA (Boston) data, several apps built quickly for schedule
Traditional model: countdown system, then shared. What if we shared first bus location system first.
Provided real-time data feed. W/in 1 hour someon had it on google maps, 1 week desktop widget, w/in 5 weeks nice iphone app, 8 weeks then text msg system. No cost to MBTA.
Beginning to open system for rest of busses.
Imaging the innovative solutions.
someone built bluetooth watch w/ realtime data.
Therefore...Release your data first and let others create solution.

Posted via email from John Whalen's Posterous

Cloud Computing Services: O'Reilly chat w/ Google and City of LA. #g2e #cloud #gov2

Randy Levin (City of LA), Dave Girourd (Google), O'Reilly

Going to cloud, saving $500M
Novell currently for email.
End of RFP process what would need is going to google and leapfrog
Google - biggest cloud objectives

who owns data
how is it managed
data distributed over massive computing infrastructure

Google: not trying to lock people in

O'R: do you feel locked in?

L: No more than SAP. More free that way.

O'R: What are some of the new parts of the Google toolset? e.g., Automatic translation (that have no obvious financial need)

G: When Google got into multilingual and taken things that are fanciful science project that are approachable (e.g., google earth). Thinking about speech recognition, translation - really only work on massive scale. Devices too: Chrome OS and Android will adapt to data stored in cloud and these things access the data.

O'R: Polyglot LA...issue of languages increasingly difficult to give services to all citizens.

L: Need to figure out how to embrace this. Really we're only on email and calendaring. Current email wouldn't work w/ Android, iPhone. Don't want to worry about having standard device. Can let workforce use whatever they like.

O'R: One piece of advice to agency looking to cloud compute

L: Know your requirements. We thought we did, but didn't. Elongated process.

G: Large org need to think of it as transformational change. Means to end. Signify that change is afoot. Need high-level push that times are changing and cloud is one way to do that.

Posted via email from John Whalen's Posterous

New Opportunities and Responsibilities in Cloud. Microsoft #g2e #gov20 #cloud

Brad Smith, SVP Microsoft

World racing to the cloud
New power for info - 311 - e.g., getting pothole fixed. Can report and see progress
Took them 8 days from conception to deployment. From platform people know and understand.
NASA - JPL - Arizona state + Windows Azure - can look at Mars pictures and link to geolocation
Challenges:
Issues of privacy - cloud at Microsoft or Google. Privacy reshaped. Security too.
Data center can provide more data security. But attract people who want to get in when you set up Fort Knox
Challenges for national sovereignty - Italian using Irish cloud run by US company going through France. No answers for this yet.
New Responsibilities:
Innovation - keep innovating to keep protecting privacy (e.g., in private on IE 8)
New Leadership in Gov: Laws need to be modernized. Protection of privacy - 84 and 86 for Privacy and electronic security. Need updating
New Collaboration - need govs to work together to make progress and address challenges need...
New Conversation:
Recognize the way it can benefit government, citizens, citizen groups.

Posted via email from John Whalen's Posterous

Cloud Computing Services: O'Reilly chat w/ Google and City of LA. #g2e #cloud #gov20

Randy Levin (City of LA), Dave Girourd (Google), O'Reilly

Going to cloud, saving $500M
Novell currently for email.
End of RFP process what would need is going to google and leapfrog
Google - biggest cloud objectives

who owns data
how is it managed
data distributed over massive computing infrastructure

Google: not trying to lock people in
O'R: do you feel locked in?
L: No more than SAP. More free that way.
O'R: What are some of the new parts of the Google toolset? e.g., Automatic translation (that have no obvious financial need)
G: When Google got into multilingual and taken things that are fanciful science project that are approachable (e.g., google earth). Thinking about speech recognition, translation - really only work on massive scale. Devices too: Chrome OS and Android will adapt to data stored in cloud and these things access the data.
O'R: Polyglot LA...issue of languages increasingly difficult to give services to all citizens.
L: Need to figure out how to embrace this. Really we're only on email and calendaring. Current email wouldn't work w/ Android, iPhone. Don't want to worry about having standard device. Can let workforce use whatever they like.
O'R: One piece of advice to agency looking to cloud compute
L: Know your requirements. We thought we did, but didn't. Elongated process.
G: Large org need to think of it as transformational change. Means to end. Signify that change is afoot. Need high-level push that times are changing and cloud is one way to do that.