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Gov 2.0 Radio: Bill Eggers and John O’Leary

adrielhampton — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 04:13:24 +0000

I hope you’ll join us Sunday night for a very special edition of the Gov 2.0 Radio podcast, as we host a conversation with Bill Eggers and John O’Leary, authors of the new reform treatise “If We Can Put a Man on the Moon: Getting Big Things Done in Government.”
Eggers in 2005 chronicled the rise of innovative e-gov projects and the potential for tech-enabled reform in “Government 2.0,” a work of research well ahead of the curve. In “Man on the Moon,” Eggers and O’Leary apply process thinking to the sticky business of managing complex public initiatives.
Gov 2.0 Radio is live Sundays at 9 p.m. EST on BlogTalkRadio.

~ Adriel Hampton is a San Francisco public servant and host of the Gov 2.0 Radio podcast.

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Gov 2.0: Mission, Tools, Metrics, Teach (The Four Laws of Levy)

adrielhampton — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 02:35:06 +0000

I got thinking again this week about one of my favorite Gov 2.0 practitioners, the EPA’s Jeffrey Levy.
Levy is important not just because he’s one of the nicest folks in Gov 2.0, which he is, but because he’s making real strides in creating road maps for integration of social media into the practice of government. One of his contribution is the short mantra, “Mission! Tools! Metrics! Teach!”
You can read Levy’s thoughts on these four points at his blog, Government 2.0 Beta. Whatever your agency or charge, these four points are great to build flesh around. While everybody is hot for Facebook and Twitter, picking tools without looking at mission is recipe for short-lived success.
Are you a small town or local agency? Perhaps a Ning network is what you’re looking for, or a targeted Twitter outreach strategy using something like LocaFollow. Looking for collaboration in a field of practice? GovLoop groups might hold the key. Creating documents or strategy with a far-flung team? Maybe you want PBWorks, WetPaint or MixedInk.
Metrics will also be specific to your mission. I’ll take ten team members working effectively on a multi-pronged outreach strategy over 500 Facebook fans any day. Also consider the New York Times, which recently created Twitter lists for breaking news stories, then dismantled them when the real-time version of the stories quieted down.
Finally, as the Social Media Club’s mission statement goes, “If you get it, share it.” Follow the lead of folks like Levy, who created a simple blog for sharing the stories of what works and what doesn’t.
Mission! Tools! Metrics! Teach!

~ Adriel Hampton is a San Francisco public servant and host of the Gov 2.0 Radio podcast.

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Building Community at CA Data Camp

adrielhampton — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:31:38 +0000

Saturday, Citizen Space in San Francisco hosted the first California Data Camp and DataSF App contest. The event was a great mix of journalists, developers and govies, with an unconference and on-site app-building competition. Sponsor Spot.us liveblogged the event. You can also check out short videos from Craig Newmark and GovFreshTV.
I’ve also thrown together a list of active tweeters from the event.
In the morning session, I talked about bringing “Citizen 2.0″ (Facebook group here) social media trainings to traditional activists and groups.
CA Data was a powerful event in that it brought together several sectors around common ideals of collaboration and open government.
Social media and Web 2.0 tools are powerful only in pursuit of a mission. Environmental groups, political clubs, Chambers of Commerce, what kind of traditional partners should the wired to share embrace?

~ Adriel Hampton is a San Francisco public servant and host of the Gov 2.0 Radio podcast.

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More Gov 2.0 Blogs

adrielhampton — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 05:33:54 +0000

Following on my recent 10 Gov 2.0 blogs to track, here are a few more resources:

Recommended by Gwynne Kostin and Sarah Bourne:

http://blogs.gartner.com/andrea_dimaio – Gartner’s Andrew DiMaio

http://candioncontent.blogspot.com/ – Candi on Content

Recommended by Christoph Berendes (whose own Citizen Tools – http://citizentools.netalyst.com/ – is worth your time):

http://blog.e-democracy.org/ – E-Democracy.org Project Blog (and related http://stevenclift.com)

http://www.worldblu.com/nowblu – WorldBlue (workplace/organizational democracy)

http://internationalbudget.wordpress.com – Open Budgets Blog

Should have been on my first list:

http://govtwit.wordpress.com/ – GovTwit

Communities:

http://ohmygov.com/ http://dowire.org http://govloop.com http://govfresh.com/ http://governingpeople.com/

~ Adriel Hampton is a San Francisco public servant and host of the Gov 2.0 Radio podcast.

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Twitter Lists, Ratios and Follower Counts: Network vs. Broadcast?

adrielhampton — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 06:16:30 +0000

Even at this stage in the game, you could probably get five experts in a room and have each describe Twitter differently. Kind of like The Elephant and the Blind Men fable. But with the new lists feature, it’s growing easier to see why and how people people are using this tool.
Two of the main reasons people use Twitter are to broadcast and to network. (Why people follow is similar, either to receive the broadcast, or to network – and probably a combination of both.)
I got to thinking today about the new Lists feature and what the ratio of followers to Lists says about a handle on Twitter. Folks are already blogging on this – here’s one on the “respect ratio.”
I think the ratio has a lot to do with value, and a lot to do with networking vs. broadcasting. Some folks are definitely on Twitter not to aggressively use Twitter, but simply because they are famous and so is Twitter. Others have a tight connection to their followers, because they are really tuned into the tone and culture of the medium.
I also think that these ratios are going to expose again the ridiculousness of the suggested users that Twitter feeds to new members. With a high percentage of Twitter newbies not sticking around, the high follower counts for suggested users are grossly inflated in terms of their intrinsic value to the community at large.
Enough narrative, on to some numbers:
Erin Kotecki Vest (QueenofSpain) 1/39
Aaron Brazell (Technosailor) 1/26
John P Kavanagh (Jonnerz) 1/696
Robert Scoble (Scobleizer) 1/30
Chris Brogan 1/39
Govwiki 1/32
Jack Dorsey 1/984
Mark Drapeau (Cheeky_Geeky) 1/37
Erica Holt 1/44
Gary Vaynerchuk (Garyvee) 1/421
Scott Horvath (1/24)
Ari Herzog 1/6!
If you’re familiar with many of these names, you may join me in noticing that the ratios seem not to scale. It simply may be impossible to keep a tight network going after 100k followers. Also, Lists are very new so may not have settled out yet as a metric. That said, they also haven’t yet been gamed like follow counts (down with the SUL!). A few more quick observations: Dumping trash followers tightens your network. The founder of Twitter’s ratio looks like that of an MLMer. Even a robot can build a tight network on Twitter.
What are you seeing?

~ Adriel Hampton is a San Francisco public servant and host of the Gov 2.0 Radio podcast.

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Tagged: Twitter Lists

Making Gov Easy for Citizens and Business

adrielhampton — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:59:51 +0000

There’s a whole industry around advising commercial sectors about new laws that impact business. And yet, new laws in general get rigorous review before that go into effect. Why not create a list of categories of impact (businesses of 50 or less, businesses that serve food, condo associations, etc.) and invite folks to opt into an e-mail notice or RSS feed of the summary of any new law that regulates how the do business? During the analysis phase for legislation, it would be easy enough to check off these categories, and the tech for piping out notices is inexpensive. Of course, this might serve as a tool for the existing consulting orgs, but that’s OK, too. It would be government lowering the cost of business, and it would also give folks an easy way to monitor the impact of what their representatives are up to.

~ Adriel Hampton is a San Francisco public servant and host of the Gov 2.0 Radio podcast.

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10 Gov 2.0 Blogs to Track

adrielhampton — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:27:10 +0000

Just last summer, “Gov 2.0″ was anything but a buzzword, and social media was just coming into its own in the mainstream. This post is to clue you in to some of the great public and private sector bloggers who’ve helped blaze the trail. You probably know most of them, but maybe you’ll find one or two new. In no particular order:

Maxine Teller – MiXT Media

Ari Herzog – AriWriter

Steve Radick – Social Media Strategery

Jefferey Levy – Government 2.0 Beta

Mark Drapeau – Cheeky Fresh

Gwynne Kostin – On Dot-Gov

Andrew Kryzmarzick – Generation Shift

Nick Charney – CPSRenewal

Craig Newmark – CNewmark

Marylin Clark – Hello Happy Pitbulls (a special treat for dog lovers)

Who would you nominate? Who have I missed?

~ Adriel Hampton is a San Francisco public servant and host of the Gov 2.0 Radio podcast.

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Tagged: Gov 2.0

Why and How: Local Twitter Lists

adrielhampton — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:12:59 +0000

If you don’t live in a metro area, social media community building can be daunting. Last year, I organized a charity tweetup in my medium-sized town and thought that at least several Twitter contacts were confirmed. It turned out as a small crowd of me and my best pal from up the street. Now, there are many other posts to be written about successful tweetups, and perhaps I’m not the one to write them.
But I do have one action-oriented tool I wish had been there last year: location-based Twitter Lists.
In fact, I also wish I’d had this tool, or had created something like it, when I recently ran for U.S. Congress in a far-flung district of medium-sized towns. See, I believe that community building among social media users in a geographic area has great potential for businesses, activists and government. Twitter Lists are far better than Facebook’s location-based groups for this, because, unlike Facebook groups and friend lists, they are easy to share and manage and require no immediate buy in from the folks you’re listing.
I’ve got plenty of ideas on how to effectively use local Lists, and I hope you’ll share yours as well.
So, on to building them.
Pretty soon, there will be tools to automate this (and as soon as you build one, please let me know), however, getting ahead of the curve is what helps set you apart in the social media world. Be the first to build a valuable list and folks will notice. If you’re already in a big metro area, this is a no-brainer. The guidance here is for folks in the Twitter wastlelands. First, decide what towns you want to have in your list. Create a placeholder Twitter account for each one. Also create a List for each. Use the Google-powered LocaFollow.com – which I expect to make this much easier very soon – to search out and bulk follow users in each town from its own Twitter account. Then add them to your town-specific list. Repeat for each of your towns, then create a new list for the region and add all your town-listed folks to this one. Ta-da, you’ve got micro- and macro-targeted lists to build community within. And hopefully your first tweetup or Congressional race goes better than mine!

~ Adriel Hampton is a San Francisco public servant and host of Gov 2.0 Radio.

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Twitter Lists: Thinking Like a Spammer

adrielhampton — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 05:50:43 +0000

So I’m loving Twitter lists. I’ve already written here about their potential as a discovery engine for new people to follow, and about how I like the crowdsourcing of tags to describe other users (and how you learn about yourself from the tags others put on you.) Blogging and exploring today, I’ve been thinking about two more big issues.
Social media consultant Ari Herzog commented on an earlier post that he’s using Lists to organize people he’s not following. Me, too.
1) Lists allow you to dip in and out of important communities, either as a lurker – just checking out what’s up, or to carve your reach further into a community you want to engage with.
The implication is that Lists are great for explorers and marketers. And for spammers.
2) Imagine you’ve got a product for dentists. Well, according to Listorious, there’s already a handy list for you to start peppering them with @ reply messages. Get ready for it.

~ Adriel Hampton is a San Francisco public servant and host of Gov 2.0 Radio.

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Representative Gov 2.0 & the Identity Crisis

adrielhampton — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:46:24 +0000

What do you thing the greatest barriers are to elected officials and constituents interacting through social media? The barriers atop my list are identity and representation. Why would officials expose themselves to the open Web if they rep a specific, local constituency? And how are they to sort through all the noise?
If you believe that social media has potential for increasing citizen participation, informing policymaking, and creating better government – as I do – a first step towards engaging policymakers is to get real constituents online and using social media. That’s the aim of local Citizen 2.0 trainings I’ve helped put on (on Facebook at http://tinyurl.com/citizen20).
The next step is a localized way for citizens to engage with their representatives on social networks. If x number of constituents – vs. random activists – engage with an official using social networks, they will have real impact. Reps will pay attention when social media means real voters, volunteers and donors. That’s why I’m excited about projects like GovLuv.org. Designed by Jim Gilliam and the Open Forum Foundation, GovLuv filters outTwitter activity to connect local reps and their constituents, highlighting their activity in one conversation stream.
As more citizens embrace social media as a way to interact with their reps, such filtering will be a game changer.
What do you think?

~ Adriel Hampton is a San Francisco public servant and host of Gov 2.0 Radio.

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