This is going to be a really complex piece about all the various cultural, legal, policy, and other issues surrounding how government employees use social media on the job. Ok, not really. Actually, I think it boils down to two simple directives: DO: use social media tools to serve your mission. DON’T: Be stupid. ItRead… Read more »
One of my long-term goals has been to create a set of basic webinars about each social media tool: blogs, wikis, photo sharing, social networking, etc. Our target audience is government staff who don’t know much about social media; these won’t be advanced webinars with a lot of implementation detail (maybe we’ll get to thatRead… Read more »
A couple of weeks ago, I attended the Personal Democracy Forum conference. One of the best sessions was by danah boyd (she doesn’t capitalize her name), a researcher currently working for Microsoft. She basically whacked us over the head with the fact thatdespite similar numbers, the people on Facebook aren’t the same people on MySpace.Read… Read more »
On Earth Day, we (that is, my part of EPA) launched Pick 5 for the Environment. The basic idea was simple: ask people to commit to at least 5 of 10 actions we listed. The items were pretty common: use less electricity and water, be sun safe, commute cleaner, etc. So far, we have aboutRead… Read more »
Go read this. And comment. Why Gov 2.0 means the U.S. Government must centralize its Web operations
For a few months now, I’ve been repeating this mantra about how to approach social media projects: mission, tool, metrics, teach. It was even one of the options for the day 1 camp song at Gov’t 2.0 Camp. It came to me while walking home from the Metro one day. I was trying to comeRead… Read more »
When it comes to using social media, there’s no question we’ll make mistakes, and there are plenty of people ready to point them all out in glorious detail. But if we never try anything new for fear of being criticized, we’ll also never learn, and I think the public understands that. I’ve seen plenty ofRead… Read more »
Last week, I blogged about 4 major new developments in open government. Next up is an effort to engage the public in improving regulations.gov, which is where people can comment online about proposed regulations, read related materials, and generally get involved in helping set policy. The feedback effort is called Regulations.gov Exchange. Here’s the noteRead… Read more »
Here at EPA, we have many Twitter feeds. Most are run automagically via RSS feeds. I’m trying to figure out whether our main feed, @usepagov, should have a live person behind it who responds to people. I’m very concerned about the potential time demands, because EPA is involved in an enormous number of issues thatRead… Read more »
So many things happened today that my head is spinning. If your head is spinning, too, you might appreciate a handy-dandy link list. U.S. Government YouTube hub: gives you quick access to all agency channels. White House blog post re: Gov’t 2.0: Bev Godwin highlights social media projects all across government. Features a video withRead… Read more »