We're live blogging Human Capital Institute's 2010 Government Talent Management Summit. Up next: Social Media, Apps, Open Source and Innovation: Implications for Federal Workforce Management with presenter Dave McClure, Ph.D., Associate Administrator of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies, GSA
Social media in the government has exploded in the last couple of years. The industrial revolution of data is here. To quote Ray Ozzie, “Data is the flint for the next 25 years”. Dave says the government is just beginning to understand how to use social media to empower their workforce and delivering better services to the citizens. There is a tsunami of information coming at us every day. Our ability to sift through it is important. In the information revolution it is quite clear we have changed paradigms from technical folks running databases and assembling information into one location to one where we are delivering it to the user directly. An administrator wants accurate info instantaneously – our workforce in government expects to have tools and information at their fingertips, social media allows us to do this.
The general public also had different expectations. www.data.gov is extremely popular. 80 countries have emulated this with their own websites. The public has an appetite for information available to them at their terms. Maximum content sharing and flow of information and knowledge as big an issue outside your organization as within it. Some examples of how social media is taking over:
- Youtube is now the second largest search engine in the world
- 1.5 million pieces of content is shared daily on facebook
- Online newspaper readers are up 30%
- 250 million visitors each month to myspace, YouTube and facebook
- Mobile devices will be the world’s primary connection tool to the internet in 2020
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Search analytics is alive. We can now spend less time looking for information and then analyzing it. Structured searches tied to trusted and well indexed government web sites such as the new GSA search engine for the federal government www. search.usa.gov
The President signed the Open Gov Initiative within 48 hours of being in office. Benefits include:
- Transparency – promotes accountability
- Participation – allows people to contribute ideas/expertise government benefits from broad knowledge sharing
- Collaboration – encourages cooperation within government and with industry
GSA’s role in this is to leverage these technologies government wide. GSA has addressed procurement, privacy, security, accessibility, usability and other important issues.
For more information you may visit www.gsa.gov and Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies