Mixed Feelings About OGI Conference
Allan Eustis and I attended the Open Government and Innovations Conference (OGI) on Tuesday and Wednesday. Like so many, we were lured in by the chance to hear directly from the White House via CTO Aneesh Copra and CIO Vivek Kundra. Both were excellent speakers. They made good points and as a citizen I have hope about where this will go in the future. Data.gov and the other new aggregate sites have so much potential it is mind-boggling. Tim O'Reilly and David Weinberger were amazing. I learned new things about the philosophy behind the technology that I had never considered, and they were very entertaining to boot. O'Reilly's point, don't just ask for their voices, ask for their hands, when engaging the public was simple, but profound. The keynotes were worth the effort to attend the conference - and I want to thank DoD for spear-heading the event. However, as a government employee looking to leverage web 2.0 to further our work, I came away somewhat disappointed.
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. NASA and DoD get to successfully use social media, and the rest of us, for the most part, don't. This is the divide that needs to be overcome. I understand that agencies like the IRS and SSA have intensely sensitive data and need to be extremely cautious. But there are a great many agencies that do not fall into this category that are prevented from using these technologies, despite any prior approval GSA may have gotten. My agency isn't even officially allowed to use Twitter yet. A colleague at DOJ said his monthly newsletter takes 2 weeks to get all the necessary approvals so how can they even consider a blog! Yet, his office is directly involved in the community and they need a way to engage their customers better. One panelist at a breakout session described how DoD is using "other transactions" to quickly fund new ideas to address current problems. While very interesting, this was less than helpful since DoD is the only agency that I know of with this kind of authority - everyone else has to use the traditional and time-consuming procurement system. For an expo, these are excellent speakers. DoD, NASA, The White House are getting things done, but as a method to further collaboration and expand the use of social media, it failed. We need specifics: case studies, business case stratregies that succeeded to support any/all of these tools, etc.
I did come away with some useful information beyond hearing from the keynotes. The breakout sesson Measuring the Impact of Social Media was very good. It was the first session I attended that got into the nitty gritty. For those few who have gotten their feet wet with social media (my office does have an official blog, the only one at our agency) we got some tangible tools. What are your goals when using web 2.0, and then how do you measure it? How do you measure transparency? One panelist, KD Paine, didn't just raise the questions, she went on to answer them (from her own experience). This was very valuable, and subsequently the session was packed. We need to evaluate more than just hits, we need to evaluate engagement and compare it appropriately. If we only have 20 followers on Twitter, but they are all the key stakeholders we need to reach, we may be succeeding. Speaking of Twitter, the conference made a good choice in broadcasting the Twitter-feed #ogi. It was eye-opening to see instant reactions to speaker remarks and "connect" with folks across a room that I couldn't see or speak too. Also cool to see instant consensus as ideas were tweeted and retweeted many times. USMS subsequently attracted new followers as I am sure others did, helping us all to reach more of our customers and stakeholders. However, the conference loses major cool points for not having any of the speakers use the internet for their presentations and for not making clear to attendees that WiFi was free to registrants.
Overall, I learned a lot, but came away with very few concrete tools to make open government happen. Hopefully, the President will soon follow-up his Transparency Memo with concrete guidance for all federal government. Many are obviously ready and willing to engage the public, we're just waiting for the green light.
ps I have to add, I have never been to conference center before that has no vending machines! By the afternoon, I was fading and desperately needed some caffeine. Should they do this again, I highly recommend leaving the coffee out and providing soda in the pm.
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. NASA and DoD get to successfully use social media, and the rest of us, for the most part, don't. This is the divide that needs to be overcome. I understand that agencies like the IRS and SSA have intensely sensitive data and need to be extremely cautious. But there are a great many agencies that do not fall into this category that are prevented from using these technologies, despite any prior approval GSA may have gotten. My agency isn't even officially allowed to use Twitter yet. A colleague at DOJ said his monthly newsletter takes 2 weeks to get all the necessary approvals so how can they even consider a blog! Yet, his office is directly involved in the community and they need a way to engage their customers better. One panelist at a breakout session described how DoD is using "other transactions" to quickly fund new ideas to address current problems. While very interesting, this was less than helpful since DoD is the only agency that I know of with this kind of authority - everyone else has to use the traditional and time-consuming procurement system. For an expo, these are excellent speakers. DoD, NASA, The White House are getting things done, but as a method to further collaboration and expand the use of social media, it failed. We need specifics: case studies, business case stratregies that succeeded to support any/all of these tools, etc.
I did come away with some useful information beyond hearing from the keynotes. The breakout sesson Measuring the Impact of Social Media was very good. It was the first session I attended that got into the nitty gritty. For those few who have gotten their feet wet with social media (my office does have an official blog, the only one at our agency) we got some tangible tools. What are your goals when using web 2.0, and then how do you measure it? How do you measure transparency? One panelist, KD Paine, didn't just raise the questions, she went on to answer them (from her own experience). This was very valuable, and subsequently the session was packed. We need to evaluate more than just hits, we need to evaluate engagement and compare it appropriately. If we only have 20 followers on Twitter, but they are all the key stakeholders we need to reach, we may be succeeding. Speaking of Twitter, the conference made a good choice in broadcasting the Twitter-feed #ogi. It was eye-opening to see instant reactions to speaker remarks and "connect" with folks across a room that I couldn't see or speak too. Also cool to see instant consensus as ideas were tweeted and retweeted many times. USMS subsequently attracted new followers as I am sure others did, helping us all to reach more of our customers and stakeholders. However, the conference loses major cool points for not having any of the speakers use the internet for their presentations and for not making clear to attendees that WiFi was free to registrants.
Overall, I learned a lot, but came away with very few concrete tools to make open government happen. Hopefully, the President will soon follow-up his Transparency Memo with concrete guidance for all federal government. Many are obviously ready and willing to engage the public, we're just waiting for the green light.
ps I have to add, I have never been to conference center before that has no vending machines! By the afternoon, I was fading and desperately needed some caffeine. Should they do this again, I highly recommend leaving the coffee out and providing soda in the pm.
Comment
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Comment by Dave Schroeder on January 26, 2010 at 1:23pm
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Jaime, for what it's worth, the Web 2.0 and Social Software Working Group of the Federal Knowledge Management Initiative created a brief whitepaper with some guidance and recommendations for federal agencies:
http://wiki.nasa.gov/cm/wiki/?id=7733
I would encourage folks to pass this along to managers in information-related capacities and to look over the recommendations, and consider the implications for your own organization.
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Comment by Helen Mitchell Curtis on August 3, 2009 at 1:46pm -
If you get a chance, you may find some helpful info in the Gov 2.0 presentation I did in Feb, which included info & links to Gov 2.0 implementations, resources, barriers, trends, best practices, future vision & problems, etc. See http://slidesha.re/GM5NV
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Comment by Jaime L. Maynard on August 3, 2009 at 1:04pm -
Hmmm, this was an eye opener considering DoD's efforts in social media: DoD May Ban Twitter...
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Comment by Jaime L. Maynard on August 3, 2009 at 8:13am
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Thanks so muc Helen, for your input. Also for the link to the OGI presentations! Bryan Klein built us a wiki to collate open gov materials/prsentations/feedback etc. We have a found it a useful tool.
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Comment by Helen Mitchell Curtis on July 31, 2009 at 5:17pm
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Joanne - The OGI presentations are available at http://1105govinfoevents.com/OGI/Sessions_Linked.pdf. However, do note that when clicking on an active link, you need to place your pointer BELOW the title to get to the actual presentation's link. I've called 1105 about the bug and they'll notify the powers that be to look into it.
Jamie - I've found your post and all contributors comments very helpful and much needed! Thanks to Jeffrey for the great resources too! Having 32 yrs. in Govt, mostly at FDA working with Search technologies and more recently in private industry, I can relate to the challenges from the "inside-out" and the "outside-in". So I thought I'd throw in my 2 cents worth. As to pre and post conference feedback- I think both are important - but I don't recall EVER being asked for my input on conference content beforehand. I've attended & spoken at many over the years and the hosting organization has usually decided on or used feedback from prior events to decide on theme, topics, speakers, etc. So if the new model is to get input BEFORE a conference - esp. for Gov 2.0 type events - Feds may be slow to accept the culture change or feel empowered to pro-actively make suggestions/recommendations. Also, if not working in Gov 2.0 space, they may be buried under with their regular projects facing resource, budget and/or time constraints therefore not pro-actively looking for Gov 2.0 events.
As for post-conference feedback - I hope you've shared your thoughts and the comments in this blogpost with 1105 (FYI- your blog entry is on the OGI homepage). Your points resonate loudly with me - often hearing 'theory' preached on what works and doesn't work, rather than real-world, practical case studies including how to change the culture, get funding, ROI, how to measure value added, suggest projects for quick wins, benefits, standards, & governance in addition to what you've already mentioned. From what I'm hearing from others that have commented, there may not be a wealth of projects that can yet be referred to for lessons learned.
I appreciate the resources Jeffrey shared and am encouraged to find links to info on Gov 2.0 projects, standards and policies being developed. When doing research back in Feb. for a presentation I had to do on Search & Gov 2.0, I couldn't find any central repository with current info on all the Gov 2.0 projects. Collaborationproject.org was helpful, but not complete or up-to-date. It would help to see that info consolidated or at least provide links from one centralized site. Agency, project Descriptions,costs, contacts, lessons learned, time to complete, etc. would be nice and if a public facing site, a link to it would be great too.
A few generalized tips you may already know that helped lead to success at FDA with Enterprise Search System, especially when organization is not supportive, no funding already designated and initially worked 'under the radar'.
1) Start small, trying to get biggest bang for buck- ex. bottlenecks, pain points or 'low hanging fruit'
2) Identify stakeholders and value of project to gain their support
2) Find a champion & cheerleader that believes in your project
3) Get Management buy-in and then to fund it
4) Collaborate with stakeholders frequently
5) Gather User Requirements
6) Create strategy plan, develop standards & governance (or use existing), project plan
7) Build proof-of-concept with regular user feedback (RAD)
6) Do usability testing
Helen L. Mitchell
Principal, Enterprising Solutions
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Comment by Stephen Buckley on July 31, 2009 at 3:37pm
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Until the "Open Government Directive" comes out (later this year?), federal employees do not now have official instructions that will, in essence, give them permission to move forward and try new things. All they have right now is some general language contained in the President's Memo on Transparency and Open Government.
And even though that memorandum contains some very exciting language, it does NOT provide the necessary "cover" if a new project is attempted, but then fails in a very public way, and the proverbial stuff "hits the fan". So it's perfectly rational to play it safe and, I agree with Jaime, that most people will maintain the status quo until the President issues further direction and guidance (i.e., the Open Government Directive).
In the meantime, though, these "open-gov" conferences are filling the void. Unfortunately, they are limited in value because, even though some of speakers are from the White House, the conferences are privately-sponsored, so they can NOT issue any official instructions and guidance that you can take back and show your boss.
However, theses conferences ARE being marketed in such a way ("Real Important People telling you Real Important Stuff!") that it should NOT really be a surprise when federal attendees (like Jaime and others) begin to feel underwhelmed after their third or fourth "open-gov" conference.
Yes, there is some value in continuing to have these conferences. But conference organizers should be wary not to "over-promise and under-deliver" to their customers. However, given the D.C. frenzy on "open-gov", it could be that the customers will keep coming, anyway, rather than take the risk of being caught "out of the loop".
Anyway, here is something from Katie Paine to help future conference organizers figure out (assuming they care about citizen-customer feedback) if they actually provided value to their attendees:
"How to Evaluate Events and Sponsorships"
http://www.themeasurementstandard.com/issues/6-1-09/events&sponsorships6-1-09.asp
Having said all that, I DO wish I could have attended the OGI conference, if only for the Katie Paine's session on "Measuring the Impact of Social Media". Jaime said she got value from that, but Ms. Kaine's reply with a link to download her OGI presentation seems faulty (error message:"Not a PowerPoint file.) Anyone else getting the same result? http://www.kdpaine.com/speeches_conferences/latest_speech.htm
Ms. Paine also posted a fine follow-up article about her OGI session (see link below), in which she found that attendees were MORE interested in measuring "transparency", etc. That's not really surprising because federal employees already know (from the President's Memo) that they will be graded on how well they do "Transparency, Participation, and Collaboration" (and not "social media-izing", per se).
"How to Measure Transparency and Open Government"
http://www.themeasurementstandard.com/issues/7-1-09/painetransparency7-1-09.asp
I've been trying to raise this aspect -- defining and measuring of "T,P and C" -- as more fundamental than finding the next "killer app" (the latter being more fun). And I plan to pull together hers and other links in a blog-posting on "measuring transparency" soon. (With a blog-name like mine, I really should post something more on that subject.)
vr,
Stephen Buckley
http://www.UStransparency.com
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Comment by Joanne on July 30, 2009 at 6:24am -
I agree with the above- case studies, how to tools/ideas, metrics are what we need now. Let's get off square one, see how we can overcome barriers- as "one government" rather than many independent efforts across government- at least to the extent possible. But its not too late and I don't want to wait a year- so let's use an official site or govloop to do this now. Also would like to know when the presentations will be made available- if they are not already. We're all ready to go forward.
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Comment by Bulat Ashimov on July 30, 2009 at 1:37am
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Really useful post to me. Even though my attempts to promote the Web 2.0 including Social Networking for my e-Govt failed recently I keep trying it to persuade our management engaged in building the e-Government
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Comment by Jaime L. Maynard on July 29, 2009 at 9:18am
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Jeff, I will talk with some of my colleagues who also attended and see what we can come up with. I'll try to post something to you in the next few days..
And that security agreement would be very helpful, I am sure. Even if it doesn't include specifics, our OCIO folks can reach out for more.
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Comment by Nicci on July 28, 2009 at 11:28am
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Mark D. Drapeau - I have to respectfully disagree with your view that providing feedback after an event is pointless. It is far from. People are willing to listen. People want to improve and provide a good product, and attendees sharing thoughts about how something worked and how it didn't is the fastest way to for to do that in the future. Sure, it's not as instantaneous as providing feedback before the conference, but it's an essential part of the process. I agree that there should be as much collaboration as possible in the planning stages, but sometimes people don't know what they want until after--and event planners don't always know how well something does or doesn't work until after the event as well. The feedback will likely be considered for all future events, and not just for the people who put on the conference probably.
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