Following the lead of U.S. transportation secretary Ray LaHood, Amtrak launched Ask Our Expert to answer rider questions via YouTube. For the inaugural segment, Amtrak vice president of high-speed rail Al Engel answered questions from Facebook fans, including “What’s being done in the immediate future to speed up the Acela?” and “When will this countryRead… Read more »
Co-authors Bill Jensen and Josh Klein are interviewing people for a book they’re writing called 100 Disruptive Heroes. As they interview people, they stick the videos up on YouTube for anyone and everyone to see. Last week Bill interviewed me for the book, and here is the resulting video. Admission: I have not actually hadRead… Read more »
Bioinformatics is the application of computer science in the form of statistics and analytics to molecular biology. This exciting field is bringing about great breakthroughs, especially in genetics, where computers and algorithms are being used to map genomes. Advances in this field show promise in helping us understand life and advance science. The field isRead… Read more »
The Road Map for the Digital City – Achieving New York City’s Digital Future is a recently released report by Mayor Bloomberg’s Office of Media and Entertainment and the NYC Digital initiative. It’s outstanding and is a must read for anyone involved in government at any level, especially if your involved with web/gov 2.0 initiatives.Read… Read more »
The Defense Intelligence Information Enterprise (DI2E) is an overarching construct for integrating operational intelligence capabilities in support of DoD missions. This community is closely related to the DoD Intelligence Information System (DoDIIS) community, but the focus here is more on the operational military. Here is a bit from the DI2E conference site: The first DefenseRead… Read more »
A few weeks ago I finished “What Technology Wants” by Kevin Kelly. For those unfamiliar with Kelly (as I was) he was one of the co-founders of Wired magazine and sits on the board of the Long Now Foundation. What Technology Wants is a fascinating read – both attracting and repulsing me on several occasions.Read… Read more »
Following the inaugural IRC chat earlier this month, we’ll be meeting again this coming Wednesday, June 1, 2011 at 2pm Pacific (9pm Berlin): irc.freenode.net #edem The idea is to establish this as an additional standing backchannel to be used especially during conferences and events related to e-participation and e-democracy. In the meantime, we’ll do monthlyRead… Read more »
A key challenge in IT is dealing with all the different ‘camps’ of different makes and types of technologies. In Government this is particularly challenging right now, because simultaneously Government agencies are meant to embrace, adopt and master a variety of new technologies, including Web 2.0 social media, Cloud Computing, Open standards, Open software andRead… Read more »
I’ve been thinking about public sector innovation and how many times we re-invent the wheel and spend the same dollar over and over again. The following metaphor comes to mind: Imagine a big puffy down pillow. You push your fist into the pillow. As long as you keep your fist in place, the new shapeRead… Read more »
I enjoyed Steve Radick’s blog post on Govloop about implementing the Plain Writing Act. Steve speculates that it will take years (actually, he says “decades) to implement the Act. He gives several reasons, and they’re all good. I’ve read a number of opinion pieces about the new CustomerService Executive Order, saying, “Yeah, yeah, yeah –Read… Read more »