It has been a month since my last blog post, I need to improve that. I have started a couple since then, but not gotten back around to complete them. This time I am staying on course to completion…
As (Ok, as an aside I have to admit that the rest of this is being written a day later than the beginning. So much for that.) I prepared to present information about our Web 2.0 initiative at our department head meeting, we got set back a tad. The Chief Clerk decided to hold back on starting the discussion board until he had reviewed the idea with more senior managers. However, we still got the survey out and I was able to get four departments on board as pilot groups for use of SharePoint and other Web 2.0 technologies.
I have written a Web 2.0 Policy and user guide, much thanks to those who provided suggestions and to IBM and Sun. They are now in the hands of the legal team and will hopefully be presented for adoption at a Commissioners’ meeting in early April.
From the technical side, we are at a point where we are starting to realize what we don’t know. It is better to get there before we have things deployed, so I think this is good. SharePoint has given us a couple of disappointments, not that we expected any single tool to provide all answers. At this point we have a need for an event registration tool. The site that we found from Microsoft for SharePoint is lacking in a number of ways, especially in not being able to limit number of seats available and not being able to take notes on special accommodations that an attendee many require. I know there has to be more of a community out there around SharePoint than I have uncovered so far. If necessary, we may have to find a different tool to use for this or develop something ourselves.
Bill, I’ve just discovered your blog here, and I’m enjoying every post. You’re doing a great job sharing your process and thinking. Your point about knowing what you don’t know is critical, but it also makes you, well normal. 🙂 That is, most of us trying out Web 2.0 don’t really know what to expect, but it’s the wilingness to experiment that makes you a leader. Too many times in gov’t, we wait until perfect knowledge exists to take a step, and then we’re woefully behind. So keep it up!
Oh, I meant to invite you to share what you’re learning in the wiki run by the Social Media Subcouncil. Everyone’s welcome to get an account and help out. We even have a page for policies, and I’d love to have you add yours: http://govsocmed.pbwiki.com/Web-2-0-Governance-Policies-and-Best-Practices