Fedspace vs Govloop
I found out this morning that the Federal Government in the US is going to be launching its own "Social Networking" site. This would be for federal employees and contractors only, thus blocking interaction between local, state and federal.
Given the Govloop has been occupying the Gov2.0 social networking space in the US up until now and has been pretty effective in providing a forum for everyone with an interest in Government and Gov2.0, do you think that fedspace is a step forward, or a step backwards, or possibly sideways
Tags: federal, government, networking, social
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Adriel Hampton on -
James, I think not enough info is in to really evaluate this initiative. Is it a better government-wide intranet? There may be some value to that. Meanwhile, GovLoop's a great place to share, and many of the most active members won't be impacted at all - we're not feds ;).
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Permalink Reply by Christopher Whitaker on -
As a state employee, a site like this does nothing for me. Howecer, I can see why the Feds would want to restrict it to just federal employees. I vote sideways
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Permalink Reply by Sterling Whitehead on -
Sideways. FedSpace will occupy its own sphere while GovLoop will occupy another. FedSpace will likely grow reasonably large relative to GovLoop because it will have official federal backing. However, I can't tell now how the community would actually look. It will really depend (at least at first) on who manages the social site and what restrictions are placed on it.
I also feel feds will be more willing to share senstitive information over FedSpace than they would over GovLoop.
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Permalink Reply by Teri Centner on -
I started writing a comment, but it got really long, so I turned it into a blog post. Please check out "My Vision for FedSpace (even though nobody asked me)" at http://ning.it/duWANM
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Permalink Reply by Patrick Quinn on -
I'm with Christopher, a statie who won't be affected by FedSpace.
I do think, however, that the first generation of FedSpace community leaders are right here on GovLoop.
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Permalink Reply by Megan on -
I'm a no..I think it is a step backwards. We've got plenty of stovepiped solutions, we really don't need more.
I am for more openness in general, and am pushing for models that are general enough for all segments of government, while still allowing for specialization and unique requirements (i.e., apps and widgets that are only of interest or of value to an individual Agency).
http://www.slideshare.net/meskey/opengov-v20-how-do-we-get-from-her...
I've recommended that NASA release the Spacebook (i.e., OpenNASA v1.5) source code as opensource.
This would allow any Agency to build their own intranets (XXXXbooks), or OpenGov v2.0 portals, and to tailor the code to specific needs. Stay tuned.
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Permalink Reply by Steve Radick on -
Like Adriel said, it's much much too early to evaluate this in any real manner yet. It's just an idea right now. Until we've had an opportunity to take a look at it and play with at least an alpha version, it's just too tough to speculate. However, I will bring up two things that others haven't brought up yet -
1.If we were to build a working group to evaluate the best way to implement something like FedSpace, and you wanted to get representatives from across the government to participate (you want everyone to use it, so you want everyone involved, right?), where exactly would you tell them they could collaborate? Google docs? GovLoop? Facebook? Eh...all out, especially if you're looking for frank, honest discussions about culture and budgets. Right now, you'd default to....drum roll please.....Outlook! There's no safe, secure, platform where people from ALL different agencies can go and collaborate with one another. GovLoop's great and it allows a lot of communication/collaboration that never would have taken place otherwise, but there's definitely an official business filter here.
2. Things like Spacebook, milBook, Statebook, Intellipedia, OMB Max wiki, etc. get a lot of attention, but these social networking sites still only hit a small % of government workers. There are a lot of agencies and departments without anything like this. FedSpace would fill that void. Ideally, FedSpace would have started first - before Intellipedia, before Spacebook, before all of these stovepipes. We would have been able to start broad and drill down vice the other way around.
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Permalink Reply by Gary Berg-Cross on -
@steve
Regarding your caution that T"here's no safe, secure, platform where people from ALL different agencies can go and collaborate with one another."
One update on this there remains a critical issue for platforms like Facebook regarding privacy.
Recently the company unveiled a program that automatically shared data with special partners and changed the way it tracks people’s interests last month, bloggers and users are up in arms over privacy.
See http://social.venturebeat.com/2010/05/13/zuckerberg-privacy/
As that article notes Mark Zuckerberg may "not truly and genuinely believe strongly in" inherent privacy or perhaps it doesn't fit a convenient business model. This raises issues for Gov 2.0 and FedSpace relying on such private technology.
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Permalink Reply by Steve Radick on
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@Gary - that's my point. Gov't CAN'T rely solely on private tech like Facebook for these purposes just for the reasons you state. That's why gov't can't just use public platforms to do this as some have suggested.
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Permalink Reply by Christopher Whitaker on
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I would never trust facebook with work stuff
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Permalink Reply by Scott Hielen on -
I'm a little late to the rumble, but there's utility in having both (the theoretical) FedSpace and (the actual) GovLoop. If USG is going to evolve (is there anything slower?) into a flatter Gov 2.0 organization, "zealous dialogue" within the institution is going to be a critical component. Why did GovLoop spring forth? Because there wasn't really any such thing inside the institution.
Just read The Power of Pull: How Small Moves, Smartly Made, Can Set Big Things in Motion by Hagel, Brown & Davison. They talk about how "creation spaces are initially organized by, and engage, people operating outside of traditional institutional boundaries. Individuals are fast becoming the essential catalysts for institutional change. The early participants in these creation spaces are individuals with the questioning dispositions often exhibited by edge participants. These dispositions lead them to discover and bring to the surface new practices and ultimately new institutional arrangements to support these dispositions. A key attribute that all of these individuals share, whether they are extreme sports enthusiasts, avid gamers, or software geeks, is an enormous passion that drives them to push the performance envelope and that draws them together to help each other get there. [p. 150]" Awesome book, by the way.
GovLoop is that kind of creation space and that's why change in Government is typically initiated from the outside in. GovLoop would still serve a huge role because it's in the public space and would allow for much broader collaboration and freedom of expression. For the military community, it's the raw and unfiltered commentary in places like Small Wars Journal that educate and inform the debates going on inside the firewall. However much transparency we think we'd like to have, I'll wager there's a significant amount of business that would best be conducted within the institution's boundaries. The institution is also saying something when it provides its employees a sanctioned place to network for the benefit of the organization. It endorses the activity of the crowd without making them go outside in the cold to do what they do. If USG owns the network, it can capture and use the data on that network; it couldn't (shouldn't) do that with GovLoop. How does DoD protect GovLoop and keep it safe? Does it need to?
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