Anybody who does a little research in Web 2.0 in government can quickly find lots of examples of the US federal agencies using web 2.0 tools to engage and create communities. NASA's site http://www.nasa.gov/collaborate/ has lots of accounts on twitter, facebook, myspace, an impressive amount of videos on YouTube and pictures on Flickr, Blogs from NASA leaders, scientists and engineers, an iTunes channel with audio and video, and RSS feeds. They offer lots of ways to interact and collaborate with them. Eric Hackathorn who works for NOAA lives in the virtual world at http://hackshaven.com/ is a big fan of web 2.0 and interactive government. In his recent posting Web 2.0 and Interactive Government he talks about giving power back to the individual by making government participate and listen to the global conversations about what's happening on the Internet. President-elect Obama says he will record a weekly Democratic address not just on radio but also on video. The address, typically four minutes long, will be turned into a YouTube video and posted on Obama's transition site, Change.gov, once the radio address is made public on Saturday morning. Interesting and exciting stuff at the federal level.
So why isn't much happening at the local and regional government level? Isn't that where government really touches the life of citizens and where an average citizen can really make an impact?
Social Networking is coming to a government near you and promises to change everything. Building online communities of people who share similar interests and are interesting in interacting is a perfect fit for government. After all, governments by definition are a community of people with similar interests that need to interact. The reason for government is to do things collectively that you can't do by your self.
I just came from attending the Governing conference session titled "Governing in a Wiki World: How Web 2.0 is Changing the Way Government Does Business". I think anyone attending would agree with me that it will change how governments interact with their citizen for the better. The session did a good job of explaining what some of the jargon was all about. The video wikis in plain english does an excellent job of explaining to executives what a wiki is and why it might be useful in your organization. The entire Commoncraft site is a treasure chest of free videos that explain social networking in very simple terms, for free! They also offer high resolution versions that you can license to use inside your organization.
So what would you use a wiki for? Well internally basically everything that needs to be written by more than one person or anything you want input on. Which in government is just about everything. A procedure manual, disaster plan, job description, agenda for a meeting, software documentation, the list has no end. By securing the wiki and inviting only those who need to participate you can control the content. For example you might want to limit editing access to only the HR department for the human resources manual and allow everybody to read, and limit access to only the executive team when discussing strategic initiatives (or maybe you want to open it to the entire organization and get some real feedback!). The efficiency gains over emailing a document back and forth and reconciling versions later is substantial
Externally you may want to share draft documents with special interest groups and ask them to edit it and make whatever changes they feel necessary. One site that everybody works on or multiple sites of the same document for the various interest groups and compare the differences later. I guarantee you that you will get input and ideas that staff would have never thought of and get to a finish product faster than ever before.
Did I mention if you own SharePoint you can start using Wiki's today will all the security and controls you need! (for Free!)
Social networking is much more than just wiki's and almost all of the technologies have applicability in government for engaging both employees and citizens to change government for the better. They are coming and faster than you might think!
Shadow systems are a reality in any IT organization, especially government. They pop up for various reasons including an unresponsive IT department, systems not meeting user needs, staff looking to analyze information in new ways, and changes in business practices to name a few. The government structure itself helps these systems exist, individual agencies / departments are are often so autonomous and they act like independent companies within a larger organization, having their own operating processes and procedures and want total control. With the rise of powerful desktop applications, savvy end-users got the tools to author sophisticated applications on their own, often times finding it more expedient than traditional development routes. They typically use Microsoft Excel and Access and build ad hoc systems that grow over time to mission critical. In fact, some organizations rely on spreadsheets as a key component in their financial reporting and operational processes. The problem is most of these systems are not tested, documented or secured with the same rigor as more formally developed solutions by centralized IT. Many even expose sensitive data to user not authorized to view it.
What governments need is a tool that allows those savvy end users to take their data, forms and process and create solutions to run their organizations. Something similar to creating a web Mashup. That is, use their business knowledge, understanding of the data, forms and processes to create business mashups that create value for their organization. Then share it out and allow others to take advantage of their expertise and solution. The tool also needs to be robust enough for government IT shops to use as it as their application development environment of choice. It also must help enforce data integrity and security. Instead of a mashups (a pure web play) governments really need a Software Plus Services approach so they can drive adoption by taking advantage of rich desktop products like MS Outlook for its user interface. Outlook being so intuitive that almost everyone knows how to use without any training.
If I were still a Government CIO, I would be taking a long hard look at Microsoft Dynamics CRM as application development environment that empowers savvy end users to configure robust applications without any programming. It is well suited for both ad hoc and full scale development in the following themes: relationship oriented, process driven, and collaboration driven The following white paper written by one of Microsoft's CRM partners does a good job of describing Dynamics' CRM history and many of the advantages of this approach.
The beauty is migrating those ad hoc Access and Excel applications is somewhat straightforward using Dynamics CRM. At the same time it provides a secure, scaleable architecture that uses both an Outlook and web user interface to leverage the full power of the Microsoft stack. Instead of hard core programming all of its power can be harnessed through configuration with the ability to jump into .Net or AJAX should the need arise. The multi-tendency feature allows IT to host individual departments in the same environment and securely isolate them from each other. In this manner, you could develop integrated justice, code compliance and grants management systems in the same environment you allow savvy end users to create business mashups to replace shadow systems. I believe it is a much better model for application development in government and maybe the only one really worth considering.
A couple of weeks ago I was migrated from using a traditional desktop telephone to Enterprise Voice using Microsoft's Office Communicator 2007. Microsoft is a big proponent of using its technology and if you are flexible to change this practice of eating one's own dog food can be an exciting way to drive innovation. I was already really familiar with the cost reasons why it makes sense to implement VOIP; however, I had no idea about the innovation piece.
At my last position we implemented CISCO's VOIP solution. We had a great Centrex rate with AT&T but was still able to achieve significant cost savings in the first couple of years by implementing it. The users loved it and it made our life administering the phone system much easier. In fact is was one of the most popular projects I've ever done. Customized ring tones, LCD screens, dynamic soft keys, etc were all great features for making improvements over the existing phone system. We also implemented unified messaging so our users were able to get all of their voice, email and fax messages in their email inbox. They could remotely retrieve messages by either phone or PC. Users could retrieve messages from public computers via OWA. While this was a great productivity boost for most users it was but not the real innovation changes that I had hoped for. We were not able to improve collaboration or take advantage of any of the XML capabilities to extend the IP phone system. We ended up with a voice solution that looked and worked very similar to the old phone system. Even their soft phone looked and worked exactly like their hardware. That is not what I was looking for in innovation.
Having worked in IT for so many years I have an appreciation for how much goes on behind the scene to make it look easy, and I'm sure the rollout of Enterprise Voice for the Redmond Campus was no exception, but from an end user's perspective, it was pretty simple. I got an email about 1 month ago offering me the ability to “opt-in” to the UC telephony experience. The sign-up process included choosing either a GN2000 USB Headset and a Polycom CX100 USB Speakerphone or UC Desk Phone and links to install both Office Communicator 2007 and Office Live Meeting 2007. I chose both the GN2000 and the CX100, installed the software which of course required a reboot. A week later the devices were delivered via mail to my office, I plugged in the headset and 10 minutes later I was using the UC telephony capabilities.
Now the innovation. First off, I have nothing that looks like a phone. The interface is just office communicator. Anybody who uses instant messaging will feel right at home:
It is integrated with both your outlook schedule as well as telephony, so whenever your schedule shows you busy or you are on the phone your status changes from green to orange. Hovering over the note icon to the left of the phone displays the out of office notification from outlook:
Pretty cool to know if somebody is available to take your call before calling. Click on the phone icon located on your contact list and it drops down the various phone numbers available, select one and you're connected. Pretty easy. You also have the option of having a communicator all. Using the Communicator Search box: 
you can look up anybody in the company directory and initiate a call. You can also just key in a phone number to make a call. It even translates letters like 1-866-HOTWIRE into numbers on the fly so it makes cutting and pasting numbers easy. No more having to maintain multiple directories for your data and voice shops!
Click on your phone icon and 
you have the option to call forward to another number or ring simultaneous numbers. You can also set what to do if you don't answer. In my case voice mail.
The really cool thing is this works great from inside corporate walls of Microsoft. It worked equally as well in my hotel room using the Sheraton wireless Internet connection in London, England. It worked fine using the public Wi-Fi at the library in Porto, Portugal. It worked just fine using the Verizon EVDO capability built-in my laptop at the airport. Basically it worked perfectly anywhere I could get an Internet connection and I mean all the features worked.
Documenting calls and creating records of conversations are easy with the Outlook and OneNote integration. An entry is automatically created in your conversation history folder in Exchange showing who called, when and for how long the conversation lasted. While on the call you can easily document the conversation using OneNote integration.
While I've only been a user for a couple of weeks so far I believe unified communications will transform business in the coming decade in the same way e-mail changed the business landscape in the 1990s.
Tomorrow, I try the live meeting integration. Let's see if it works as well as telephony.
I just received my corporate email congratulating me on my 6th month anniversary at Microsoft. It is hard to believe it has been six months already! I joined the Worldwide Public Sector team as their Industry Director looking out after their Dynamics line of products in government (more on the in future writings). Ever since coming to Microsoft I have had this burning desire to share what I've learned Microsoft with my past colleagues and friends who are still CIO's or IT Directors for public sector organizations. Hopefully this information will be useful to them as they continue to improve how their organizations use technology to better serve their citizens.
When I was a CIO one of my big frustrations with vendors was they are totally focused on selling products. They always stated out sharing all the bells and whistles their products had. It supports X, interfaces with Y and exports to Z. As a technologist, all really cool stuff but not much emphasis on solving the problems I was faced with trying to live on a tight budget. That is what attracted me to Microsoft's Worldwide Public Sector team. They were hiring a group of individuals who purpose was to create solutions to real problems governments are facing worldwide. The approach was to starts at the lowest level with citizenship programs to assist governments who are struggling with how they include their citizens in the digital age. Policy is also an area where Microsoft works with governments to drive standards that help governments protect their technology investments. OpenXML is an example. Moving up to the infrastructure layer and all of the traditional MS products that most CIO's are familiar with. A the upper level we focus on Industry solutions in 3 areas: Health, Education and Government. We call this the Connected Industry Framework.
Microsoft in government uses this as its framework to talk with customers and partners. As an former CIO I gives me something to talk about with all government stakeholders. At the political layer they are interested Citizenship and Policy issues, Infrastructure for the IT folks and Solutions for the business leaders. This blog will focus on sharing what Microsoft is doing in each of these areas and how they are helping governments drive transformation.
Another interesting part of my job is working with the MS product teams to ensure that their products meet the needs of public sector organizations. As our team talks with government leaders we bring back their feedback and advocate on their behalf to the product groups. I know as a CIO I was always looking for somebody on the inside who could take my message, find the right resource inside Microsoft and effect change.
Partners, Microsoft is all about partners. As a CIO with a talented development staff I never really had an appreciation for how much MS uses partners. In my current role, I see that they are critical to actually providing solutions. Microsoft in Government works with partners to develop those solutions and put them in the hands of government.
So, the last and probably most interesting part of my job is working with our subsidiaries and getting in front of government customers. It is always rewarding to meet customers are hear how they leverage our technology to be more efficient or provide new services. I am always amazed at how creative and talented the public sector community is at using technology to improve their organizations.
So in my travels within Microsoft and around with world with partners and customers I plan to share what I uncover so that others can leverage it to improve the quality of service to their citizens.
