I’m taking a break from Education (2.0) to spend some time trying to understand how we might transform local government with information technology, especially via social media. Gartner defines “Government 2.0” as the use of information technology to socialize and commoditize government services, processes and data.

A few months ago, I blogged about “Getting all A’s in school” to motivate the use of social media in education. For this post, I’ll “play” with a similar theme to motivate the use of social media in local government to facilitate:

• Accountability and Advocacy
• Business (public)
• Communication
• Democracy
• Emergency preparedness and Engagement

We don’t want to give any F’s and in any case, this is just a gimmick to get some ideas flowing!

Accountability and Advocacy

As in my education post, government can do a much better job of advocacy by being more accountable as a result of transparency in its interaction with the citizens it serves. In a manner similar to what I described for education, social media between government and citizens could document government’s value to its citizens.

Business (public)

In conducting the people’s “business” government can deliver services more effectively and efficiently via information technology.

Communication

As a result, communication between government and its citizens would be vastly improved!

Democracy

Citizens would have greater opportunity to be heard!

Emergency preparedness/public safety and Engagement

It’s time to get practical…especially since I now live in Florida where severe hurricanes can disrupt the lives of millions of people! Due to our ability to forecast their potential severity, many lives can be saved by emergency preparedness. Especially since my county’s early social media efforts are being led by Seminole County Emergency Management, this is the best place to do more. Furthermore, my faith-based friends back in central Indiana where I lived previously are experimenting with Twitter to promote readiness. Even more is possible as efforts such as CrisisCommons suggest. I am especially intrigued by the application of the Ushahidi product Crowdmap to handle information coming out of a crisis. What is most encouraging is the pending FEMA certification of a course titled “Social Media for Natural Disaster Response and Recovery” offered by the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center (NDPTC).

Perhaps, public safety is another likely area to try with service providers such as Nixle which publishes alerts via text messaging as well as experiments with Twitter by neighboring Orlando Police.

No matter which grade you give your local government, it could get a better grade by using information technology and social media to engage its citizens!

Where do we go from here?

Perhaps, it’s time to convene a CityCamp, an international unconference series and online community focused on innovation for municipal governments and community organizations.

I’m going to share this with my County Manager…what will you do for your community?

Location:Chuluota,United States

I can’t believe over a day has passed since I witnessed history at the launch of STS-135, the final mission in NASA’s 30-year space shuttle program, on July 8, 2011. I have to admit as I intimated in my last post that I did not think it would actually happen on that originally scheduled date after learning that the weather forecast allowed only a 30 percent probability for launch. But, as we were told, a break in the weather during the 10-minute launch window wasn’t too much to expect and NASA management knew that when it ordered “tanking” (fueling) Atlantis early on launch day.

We had been told to check if tanking had been announced before making the trek to Kennedy Space Center (KSC) so after my wife woke me shortly after 2 am (I MIGHT have overslept if she hadn’t ), I was on the road by 3 am and made it to Gate 3 of KSC IN LESS THAN AN HOUR because I was so early! Hardly anyone else was on the road and I expect that those I encountered were either press or NASA personnel (those who weren’t already at work)

As a matter of fact, I was so early that I couldn’t get into KSC because my Tweetup credentials did not allow entry until 5 am. I decided to head for NASA’s Press Accreditation building (where I had picked up those prized credentials on Wednesday) to wait because it was also closer to Gate 2, a gate which only allows employees to enter KSC, which we had been advised to use. When I got there, a large subset of fellow Tweetup participants were already there. As I waited, I noticed a line of cars building on State Road 3 in front of the parking lot so I realized that it could be difficult for our convoy to exit the parking lot onto SR 3. I went to talk to one of the security guards at the checkpoint which had been established on SR 3 and we worked out an arrangement where we would line up our cars in the parking lot shortly before 5 am and he would enable us to get out of the parking lot without having to wait for any cars to pass on SR 3. I am so glad I thought of that and I think my fellow tweeps were as well!

As a result, we were at the KSC press site shortly after 5 am and that’s when our 6-hour wait to witness history began. NASA had another full morning of program for us (Elmo didN’T join us this time ) so the time passed as we enjoyed ourselves with other activities such as the memorable group picture above (I’m in the SECOND row right of center next to the girl with the lime-green shirt in the first row) and the Astrovan carrying the STS-135 crew to launchpad LC-39A as we cheered them on. Not quite as momentous, I noticed I had made my 26,000th tweet (it’s taken me a little over 4 years) about an hour before launch. Most memorable, we heard from Doug Crippen who was on Columbia for STS-1 in 1981!

As launch time approached, we moved out of our “TWent” to view the launch and I chose a vantage point away from the crowd because I wanted to capture the SOUND of the launch rather than merely its imagery. When I witnessed the launch of STS-133 from Titusville earlier, I was disappointed that I could not hear the shuttle’s engines!

I used Audioboo on my iPad and recorded on my Flip camera as well. I’m so glad I brought the Flip for backup because for some reason still unknown to me (I think there’s a time limit on length of a boo), Audioboo stopped recording before the launch. One of the reasons why I stayed closer to the TWent was to stay within range of the WiFi which NASA had so graciously provided in the TWent. Next time, I think I’ll just use Griffin Technology’s iTalk app and then upload the sound file later. That app has worked very well for me when I podcasted my classes earlier. Here’s what I managed to get with the Flip and here’s someone else’s which is much better.

After the launch, we hung out to wait for the traffic to clear…I still haven’t heard any estimates of the size of the crowd. By mid-afternoon, I decided to leave after our NASA hosts told us they would be taking down the WiFi (I know I’m so predictable) and that was just as well because the trip home at that point was uneventful except for its ease! I didn’t even have to use my original plan to head north to enter Seminole County via State Road 46. Instead I went west on State Road 50 toward Orlando (it was a mess after STS-133) and I encountered no traffic until just west of Christmas so I just turned off at Christmas to head north for Seminole County. That was the same route I had used earlier that morning.

So as you can see, it was a very good day. I witnessed history as I would want my descendants to note. Nevertheless, if I ever have any grandchildren, I would want them to know that this day wasn’t nearly as memorable as the day on which their parents were born and I became a father!

I wish you the same joy as well!

It was a rainy day in central Florida with a torrential downpour throughout much of the day at Kennedy Space Center (KSC)! The weather outlook for scheduled L-0 (July 8, 2011) is uncertain so as I write this post, I am hoping to get at least a little sleep before I check to see if NASA tanks the shuttle so that I know to begin my trek to KSC with as many as a million other people.

Most of those folks won’t get as great a view of the launch whenever it happens (I’m so glad I live near!) nor will they have the opportunity we had today to witness the retraction of the Revolving Service Structure at launchpad LC-39A (see photo above) in advance of preparing Atlantis for launch. While that was certainly the highlight of the day, we had a full day filled with activities as diverse as NASA briefings mixed with astronauts hamming it up with Elmo from Sesame Street! See my social media aggregation at NASAtweetup.info to get some sense of our day. My own lifestream (including my Flickr set) is on the “curator” tab.

Although I think I fell asleep (I woke at 3 this morning!) after dinner shortly after I got home from KSC, I’m going to get at least a little sleep now…hoping for good weather although a delay would give me a chance to recuperate!

Location:Saturn Causeway,Cape Canaveral,United States

It was a good day. I picked up my credentials at Kennedy Space Center Press Accreditation and got a commemorative t-shirt at Space Shirts to wear on day L-0 because we’re wearing our NASAtweetup shirts on day L-1. Being an Orlando Newbie, I also learned my way around the Space Coast much better!

The highlight of the day was a tweet by Robert Scoble which shared the social media aggregation NASAtweetup.info which I built as a Netvibes public page. As I explained in my previous post, I am now turning my attention to its original purpose to aggregate the content generated by the NASA Tweetup tweeps. I have seeded the first few tabs, e.g. Twitter, with widgets where I already expect to find relevant content and I’ll be adding more later today as I learn more from my fellow tweeps about where else they intend to share their unique experience. Whether you’re a Tweetup participant or a viewer, check out the “General” tab to maximize your NASA TweetUp experience!

Watch with us as history is made at the final launch of NASA’s space shuttle program!

Let me know IF the NCAA goes after NASA’s Final Four.

As day L-3 closed and L-2 beckoned, I was exhausted trying to “drink from the firehose” of the closed Facebook group for STS-135 NASAtweetup. To help my fellow tweeps, I’ve been highlighting some of that content at my social media aggregation NASAtweetup.info as we prepared for this historic event. I’ve prepared a 30-second video to explain my intention.

My original motivation for the aggregation is chronicling the event itself so I have to turn my attention to that task. Stay tuned for a post about that.

For some time, I have been aware of my selection for the NASA TweetUp for the FINAL shuttle launch. For various reasons, I haven’t said much publicly about this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be part of history!

Especially, I’ve been working on a social media aggregation http://NASATweetUp.info after not having done any for over a year so I’m a little “rusty”, but I finally have a version which is ready for “soft” launch. On the “General” tab, read “How to participate” which explains how you may either merely access or contribute (via crowdsourcing) content.

Although I’ve been aware of NASA TweetUp as an avid Twitter user, STS-135 is the first launch for which I actually applied for NASA TweetUp. For STS-133, the first launch after my recent move to Florida, it completely slipped my mind! I resolved to apply for STS-134, but did not realize that the application window was only 24 hours so I missed that opportunity. Realizing that STS-135 was my last opportunity to apply for a shuttle launch, I applied shortly after NASA began accepting applications and subsequently learned, to my absolute delight, that I was one of the fortunate 150 successful applicants out of more than 5500 tweeps!

As I have learned more about my fellow participants, I have been impressed by the diversity and passion of the group. I am humbled by how much some of them know about the shuttle program as well as how far some of them are traveling to attend (someone is coming from Australia!) since I live so close. I knew much more about the Apollo program which occurred while I was a student at Purdue, “mother” of astronauts, and I did see an Apollo launch many years ago. That memory has caused me to wonder if I’m the oldest participant after I realized that some of my fellow participants weren’t even born yet when fellow Purdue alumnus Neil Armstrong first walked on the moon! I’ll let you know if I find out.

Likewise, I witnessed STS-133, my first shuttle launch, from the beach in Titusville so I was somewhat “disappointed” that I was unable to HEAR the shuttle because I was so far from the launchpad. I have been assured that I will not be disappointed this time because we will witnessing history from the press viewing site which is only 3 miles from the launchpad! I hope the crowd noise doesn’t drown out the shuttle!