Thanks

Yesterday I posted a bit of frustration to my social networks. In about 10 or 15 minutes, I received support and encouragement from all over the place. From colleagues and friends in dot-gov, from college chums, from buddies and family. Made me feel thankful.

So here's some thanks.

Thanks to you guys, the people who read and comment on this blog. You on the Google Reader, thanks! Friendfeed folks, thanks! You, coming here from a Twitter link, thanks! You, from Governing People, thanks! My buddies at GovLoop, where I repost, thanks! Facebook friends, thanks! You from the comfort of your email, thanks! You, who came here randomly from a Google Search, thanks, hope you got some of what you were looking for! You, who followed a link from a blog, thanks!

Thanks for the inspiration. Thanks for taking chances and trying new things out. Thanks for the constructive criticism. Thanks for participating in dot-gov and working to make the world a better place. (Yes, I do think that's what we're doing.)

Now I am off to make cranberry sauce.

YouTube Captioning Makes Video More Accessible for All

Dear Google/YouTube,
We want it. We want it NOW!
xoxo,
Your Dot-gov Buddies

A big barrier to making video content available to people who can't hear is creating captions for the audio--like the closed captioning you see on TV. This is especially important to government because we are required-- by law and by mission--to make content available to all people, regardless of their abilities. So, the dot-gov space was a-flutter [I almost said a-twitter, and that was true too] when Google announced two new features to make videos on YouTube accessible to the deaf and hearing impaired.

First, and available to EVERYONE now, YouTube account holders can upload a transcript with a video and YouTube will be automatically generate, time stamp, and incorporate captions into your video.

What does this mean? Well, in order for captions to make sense, they need to be coded to match up with the audio on the video. Bottom line, using current technologies, it takes more than a few painstaking staff hours to time code a 15 minute video. This delays posting the video--or fosters a reluctance to create video content or, even worse, encourages posting video that people who are deaf can't access. This is a huge problem for time sensitive, safety messages.

Why is this extra cool? The generated YouTube caption file can be downloaded from YouTube and used in other versions of the video. Most federal agencies post their video on a dot-gov site in addition to posting on YouTube. This will turn around processes and let us create the timestamp file on YouTube to post with our videos. Yay! I know at least one hard working captioner who will be ecstatic to turn her attention to more video production and less caption production. Breaking news: IT WORKS!!

Second,

[Google has] combined Google's automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology with the YouTube caption system to offer automatic captions, or auto-caps for short. Auto-caps use the same voice recognition algorithms in Google Voice to automatically generate captions for video. The captions will not always be perfect, but even when they're off, they can still be helpful—and the technology will continue to improve with time. --Read more on the Google Blog.

Auto-caps is being piloted withUC Berkeley, Stanford, MIT, Yale, UCLA, Duke, UCTV, Columbia, PBS, National Geographic, Demand Media, UNSW and most Google & YouTube channels.

This is pure awesomeness--despite any imperfections in machine generated captions--because unscripted events require a transcriptionist at cost of time and money. If the captioner is also transcribing it can take an hour to get a minute or two of captioning done. Google's auto-caps is a game changer with the potential to make more video more accessible to everyone.

Let's let Google explain the service:


This is great news for people who are deaf or hearing impaired. This is great news for government agencies that struggle with the cost and expertise required to make video accessible to everyone. This is great news because government can't be transparent for most of the people--open government is only meaningful when it's available to all.

Dear Google/YouTube,
Thanks for this new service! We are happy to help beta test your auto-captioning feature. Give us a call!
xoxo,
Your Dot-gov Buddies

Ripe for Change: Compliance and Hiring

Government 2.0 is more than social software. It's also updating processes that are barriers to a nimble, effective, collaborative government. Processes like hiring and compliance.

A hearing last week focused on yearly cybersecurity reporting and compliance versus protecting systems. NextGov reported on challenges with FISMA, the Federal Information Security Management Act, which requires agencies to identify and inventory their IT systems and determine how sensitive the information is that is stored on those systems.

"It seems like OMB thinks that a snapshot of agency preparedness every three years will defend our critical networks," said Sen. Thomas Carper, D-Del., during a hearing of the Senate Federal Financial Management Subcommittee, which he chairs. "But instead, billions of dollars are spent every year on ineffective and useless reports. Meanwhile, we continue to get attacked."

Efforts at more realtime, and effective, cybersecurity were cited at Department of State.

To supplement FISMA reporting requirements, State implemented a widely lauded risk-scoring program that scans every computer and server connected to the department's network no less than every 36 hours to identify security vulnerabilities and twice a month to check software configurations. The program assigns points on a scale of zero to 10, with 10 being the riskiest security threats. Points are deducted once issues are resolved. Since July, overall risk on the department's key unclassified network measured by the scoring program has been reduced by nearly 90 percent at overseas sites and 89 percent at domestic sites.

"These methods have allowed one critical piece of the department's information security program to move from the snapshot in time previously available under FISMA to a program that scans for weaknesses continuously, identifies weak configurations [every] 15 days, recalculates the most important problems to fix in priority order daily, and issues letter grades monthly to senior managers tracking progress for their organization," Streufert said.--Read more in NextGov

On the hiring side, John Berry, Office of Personnel Management (OPM) boss, said that "cracks are showing" in the personnel system. According to Government Executive, he outlined a number of areas that might be ready for updating. Berry said that

Reformers must realign personnel systems to recognize, reward and promote merit within the federal workforce, while making the merit system principles a matter not simply of fairness but of job performance.

While not making specific policy edicts, he offered a few focus areas like

• Expanding the eligibility for big bonuses--beyond the Senior Executive Service
• Helping agencies pilot and incorporate telework
• Working to better recognize and reward star performers
• Focusing on training managers and workers to help adopt change
• Reviewing the current 15 grade system for a more flexible and simplified promotion path
• Creating "results-only" work environments, removing time and place from performance. Read more on GovExec.

Are these the "right" areas to focus on? I don't know. Frankly, the emphasis on big bonuses seems a caricature of the private sector. And, I would like to add changing the hiring process to allow more fluidity between the public and private sectors--the two systems are currently incompatible. But I do believe, like Berry says, "we can seize this moment to build something new."

It takes a while to turn around a large, complex vehicle like government. These efforts are helping to turn in the right direction.

Yellow Brick Roadmap: Five Examples of Getting Gov 2.0 Done

Since my post talking about the frustration in talking about making government more transparent, participatory, and collaborative, I had an epiphany. We are all Dorothy Gale.

Dorothy, from the Wizard of Oz, wore magical ruby slippers that empowered her to do what she most wanted--return home to Kansas. BUT she couldn't unleash their power until she believed that she could. Crazy, no?

How did our heroine get to believing? Via real life experiences. So, for Halloween I will be a Good Witch and provide guidance in the form of examples of real agencies solving the problems in becoming the government that we want to be. Call it the Yellow Brick Roadmap.

So, what are the barriers and what are solutions that agencies have found?

Privacy: The Department of Justice (DOJ) unveiled a new website and a set of social media tools at the end of September. They addressed privacy issues in 3rd party web tools--like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter--head on with a comprehensive Privacy Impact Assessment. DOJ writes that

[T]hese third-party websites are not a part of the Department’s internal information systems nor will they be operated by a contractor of the Department, the Department does not and will not collect information from individuals when individuals interact with the Department’s social web accounts. While it may appear that information posted by third parties on the Department’s accounts is the Department’s information, such third-party postings are technically and factually under the dominion of the third-party social websites.

DOJ's construct may be a good model for other agencies. Read the PDF of Justice's Privacy Impact Assessment.

Employee Use of Social Media: The Government Services Administration (GSA) is a Federal agency that provides services and support to other government agencies. They published a social media employee use policy in July. This policy addresses agency expectations,

As the technology evolves, this order and its accompanying handbook will evolve, but in general terms, this order defines guiding principles for use of these technologies by GSA employees. The use of social media technology follows the same standards of professional practice and conduct associated with everything else we do. Common sense and sound judgment help avoid the most vexing issues.

Read the PDF of the GSA Policy for Employee Use of Social Media.

Legal barriers in standard 3rd-party terms of service agreements: This was the original show-stopper for many agencies trying to use social networks. The federal government could not agree to some clauses in standard agreements with social media service providers.

Since this problem was identified a year ago, government-wide agreements have been negotiated with You Tube, Flickr, Facebook, MySpace, and more with additional agreements in the works. This has been a collaborative effort with many agencies contributing time and lawyers including EPA, Commerce, GSA, Library of Congress and the White House.

While each agency will decide when and how to implement social media and social networking tools based on their priorities and strategies, a basic legal hurdle for all government has been cleared. See more on the process for using standard terms of service agreements on Webcontent.gov.

Strategy and process: Frankly, another barrier has been, how do you get started? A terrific model for people to learn from is provided by The Smithsonian, the world's largest museum complex and research organization.

This Smithsonian Web and New Media Strategy was created through a fast and transparent process that directly involved, and continues to involve, hundreds of stakeholders inside and outside the Institution. This strategy will feed into the Smithsonian’s comprehensive strategic plan, currently under development.

I'll quick stipulate that the Smithsonian is not a typical government agency, yet their approach can be modified to fit the culture and needs of any agency. First, tie new media to the agency strategy. Second, appoint a leader with decision-making authority. Third, create a tactical road map. Fourth, create a funded unit that will implement the strategy.

Before people [you!] start to moan about how hard this is, nobody said it would be easy. The Smithsonian, however, is showing a way. See all the details at the Smithsonian Web and New Media Strategy Wiki.

Transparency & Open Government. While the long-awaited Open Government Directive is not yet published, the President's January 21st call for a more transparent, participatory and collaborative government has already made an impact.

The Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Homeland Security have undertaken dialogues with stakeholders to strengthen not only services but also strategy. The Open Government Directive development process itself has included public brainstorming and a wiki to help develop the policy. Each of these projects and tools are part of the learning process to make open government robust and meaningful. It's already happening.

This Yellow Brick Roadmap to real accomplishments is meant to help people [you!] believe that we are making progress opening up government. And, to show concrete examples that can be leveraged by people [you!] trying to make progress in your own agencies.

The path to success is recognizing that we [you!] are already on the path, that you have the tools/ruby slippers and it's up to you to make it happen. Got it?

Have more examples with enough resources for folks to replicate? Add to the comments below. Then, pick up your basket and your little dog, too, and follow the Yellow Brick Road!

Shorts: Twitter Grows, Report Cards, Drupal and Memos

Twitter grows. Pew released some data last week about growth in Twitter use--from 11% of Internet users to 19% in just six-months. Other findings? Three groups of internet users are mainly responsible for driving the growth of this activity, social network users, people who are using mobile and folks under age 44. See more at the Pew Internet Project.

White Paper Report Card. Candi Harrison asks, "Web Manager Council’s White Paper – Is There Progress A Year Later?" In her post she recaps the goals of easily identifiable, relevant, accurate, and up-to-date information that is easy to understand, addresses citizen tasks, is consistent across channels, provides feedback channels and is accessible across reading, ability and language barriers. She gave government a mixed review. See more here.

White House goes Drupal. And TechPresident swoons as they announced that whitehouse.gov has moved to Open Source Software and dropped their proprietary system. I am not sure that this is a great advance for democracy--bottom line is that there will be a custom (read proprietary) system built on the open source platform. But it is good for open source. See more at TechPresident.

Finally, NextGov reports, no movement from White House on the issuing of the Open Government memo that the President announced January 21. See Next Gov.

Talk Talk vs. Do Do

Just what we need to move the policy discussion forward, another conference?

Back in March, Mark Drapeau from National Defense University wrote about the mid-life crisis of gov 2.0.

Government 2.0 has reached its midlife crisis. Despite some leadership from influential individuals on using social software in government, there is still in many cases a disconnect between authorities issuing directives and ground troops carrying them out...Resistant to change and adhering strictly to doctrine even when nonsensical, people in the clay layer can halt progress. Despite their intentions and being in a strategic position, they often stop the progress being called for.-- Read more on ReadWriteWeb

The solution? A conference. The wonderful Government 2.0 Camp in March attracted a huge number of government (federal, state and local as well as some international) and private sector attendees to talk about government 2.0 and learn from each other.

In July, Jaimie Maynard, a federal staffer, blogged about her post-conference low after the Open Government and Innovations Conference.

All web 2.0 conferences are all starting to look exactly the same. Many speakers come from agencies that are boldly using social media in a new and exciting ways, and many more "believers," who are not allowed to use those same technologies, come to hear about it. But the status quo remains the same...DoD, NASA, The White House are getting things done, but as a method to further collaboration and expand the use of social media, [the conference] failed. We need specifics: case studies, business case strategies that succeeded to support any/all of these tools, etc.

So, now it's October and there is another lament that Government 2.0 is failing or flailing. The Gov 2.0 conferences of the fall--O'Reilly's Expo and Summit--felt like just alot of talk by the same people about the same things.

Brian Drake from Deloitte blogs,

How we can get more people, enthusiasm, and get some tough issues on the table. The one group we continue to not hear from are the detractors or skeptics of social software...In addition to the slim number of public, cogent arguments against Government 2.0, our own discussions about failures are truncated. I’m noticing our Government 2.0 conferences either trumpet the achievements of the few or recast a failure as a success.--Read more on Brian's blog.

So the wrong people are coming to the conference. The solution? Another conference. This one to focus on the "Shortfalls of Gov 2.0" and attract people who aren't coming.

Steve Radick, from Booz Allen and a member of the "Goverati," offers a three part solution.

1. Realize that not all is perfect in the land of Gov 2.0
2. Identify the skeptics and open up a dialogue with them
3. Hear the war stories of the people who have gone before us --Read more from Steve's blog.

And, a conference about Government 2.0 Shortfalls.

Underlying this most recent discussion is the idea that people are unaware of the barriers, arguments against, downsides to Government 2.0. I want to clarify that assumption.

People who actually work in government are well aware of the barriers and arguments against Government 2.0.

Yes, we already know. We don't need to talk about it at another conference. We need to fix it. The problems and issues have been defined and discussed since last year. A few quick examples,

• In December 2008, the Federal Web Managers' Council published, "Social Media and the Federal Government: Perceived and Real Barriers and Potential Solutions" (pdf) This paper identified challenges with strategy, access, legal, privacy, advertising, ethics, accessibility, and the Paperwork Reduction Act. The paper also offered concrete recommendations to overcome these barriers.
• In June, the Office of the Chief Privacy Officer at the Department of Homeland Security held a two-day workshop to explore best practices to implement the President’s January 2009, Transparency and Open Government Memorandum. In addition to Gov 2.0 advocates, panelists included a variety of viewpoints including privacy advocates, civil liberties organizations, security professionals, and differing legal opinions.
• Last month, the Federal CIO Council security workgroup published Guidelines for Secure Use of Social Media by Federal Departments and Agencies identifying issues and recommendations to address security issues in social media.

While government 2.0 is bigger than social media much of the privacy, security, procurement, ethics, and laws and regulations issues are the same.

AND, many of us in government also know that there are some "successes" that have leap-frogged some hurdles and were implemented because leadership demanded that something be stood up. Agencies are playing catch up.

Gartner's Andrea DeMaio blogs very thoughtfully on government and technology changes. He recently said,

I am still amazed to see how little employee-centricity there is in today’s government 2.0 conferences, debates, positions and articles. It is as if employees were considered legacy, just part of an organization that will be transformed, and not the real fuel and soul of those organizations.

Until when their role will be given equal dignity as “citizens”, government 2.0 will remain an interesting subject for discussion, will marginally contribute to service improvement, but won’t realize a fraction of its potential.--More on Andrea's blog

I think that Brian and Steve make excellent points in their posts. I am not opposed to a conference to discuss the shortfalls of Government 2.0, but I am unsure about the payoff. What do we gain? How does it affect the policy? That's where the rubber meets the road. When will we have guidance on records? Can we make better sense out of the limits on advertising? Why does each agency need to do a privacy impact assessment on YouTube or FaceBook? Are the issues the same across government? How can we move the incentives (i.e. money) to reward cross-agency efforts? To gain efficiencies and reduce redundancies? To break down silos? To improve innovation?

Here's the challenge, because if we aren't getting to these solutions, it's just more hot air.

On the Side: Sidewiki and SideKick

First, a side of Google. A few weeks back, Google introduced a new feature on it's Toolbar letting people comment on any web page. Called Sidewiki, people with Google accounts can comment on the entire content of a Web page or about specific portions of the page. They can also publish these comments to Twitter, Facebook and Blogger accounts.

Why is this important? Well, it's importance depends on it's popularity, but it frees comments from websites by opening all websites to comments--outside any comment, moderation or policy of a site.

People can have discussions around your site, rather than on it. Google wins by collecting information about pages and sites from humans rather than machines to grow their search algorithms. It's also another potential ad space--imagine an ad for Coke on the Pepsi homepage, Or ads from private sector employers in the same browser window as usajobs.gov.

For site owners, Google lets you claim your sites on Sidewiki. It's a good idea, too, since site owner comments appear first. You'll need a Google Webmaster Tools account. Many government sites are already using the Google Webmaster tools after the the Google Sitemaps push in dot-gov a few years back. Follow the steps here to claim your site. It took my team about ten minutes.

My second side is a side of the cloud you didn't want to see. People using T-Mobile's Sidekick smart phone lost all of their data supposedly safe "in the cloud."

A server meltdown over the weekend wiped out the master copies of personal data -- including address books, calendars, to-do lists and photos -- accumulated by users of T-Mobile's formerly popular Sidekick smartphone.

This computing calamity allows Sidekick owners only a faint hope of backing up the information currently on their devices, and none of recovering anything they'd trusted to online storage. And it leaves T-Mobile and the operator of the Sidekick's data service, a Microsoft subsidiary formerly known as Danger, Inc. -- oh, the irony! -- with some serious explaining to do.--Read more on WaPost.

Is this a setback for cloud computing? Well, it does put a damper on the cloud hype-machine. Importantly, the "cloud" in question was a single server--a single point of failure. To me, that doesn't sound like a cloud application but an application called "cloud computing."

For government, at the simplest it means to make sure you know what you are buying, understand redundancies and risks, and NEVER let your data get out of your control. A tough reminder, caveat emptor.