IT leaders in government are wrestling with several competing forces in the Web2.0 world. The greatest force is a push for change towards more user-focused computing.  But a resisting counter force threatens to delay this change.

The counter force here is institutional inertia. Big organizations are just slow to change, and the larger, more complex the organization is the slower it can be to change.  Change in IT is particularly hard since new IT must work with the old IT and since users have varying degree of control over the organization’s IT budgets. All this adds to inertia in the adoption of new Web2.0 service models.

There are ways to address inertia and speed the delivery of Web2.0 concepts in large organization.  Here are a few proven methods:

1) Stay mission focused
2) Make fast gains that scale to the size of the enterprise
3) Leverage out of band networking
4) Address security and policy concerns up front

Here is more on each:

1) Stay mission focused. The greatest cause of inertia in large government organization is the need to keep everyone focused on critically important missions.  Use that fact to help speed the delivery of your Web2.0 project by ensuring everyone understands the mission-focused nature of your project.  You can build an overwhelming case for your project if you logically show a transformational improvement to your agency’s ability to accomplish its goals and support the mission. I’ve seen the power of staying mission focused help small teams make dramatic change at some of the largest agencies in the government, so this is a force you definitely want on your side.  

2) Make fast gains that scale to the size of the enterprise. Make your first Web2.0 project one that will serve a great number of users and help them all do something better.  For example, hosting a blog or wiki server is something that can reach all ends of your enterprise for a relatively low cost and will help you prove to management that you are focused on the mission. By fielding capabilities that can be used by the entire workforce you will be demonstrating to all that Web2.0 has incredible potential.  After fielding blogs and wikis you can move to secure enterprise mashups, a way to bring the true power of Web2.0 to every user in the enterprise. 

3) Leverage out of band networking.  The chain of command is very important in government organizations and all large enterprises, and I would never advocate going around it.  But direct contact with users, vendors and other mission partners is also critical to success of modern IT.  So why not use modern IT to help with your networking?  Interact with your users in their collaborative environment.  And meet them where they connect online… Does your agency have a database of experts?  Sign up.  Do your users and vendors use capabilities like LinkedIn.com or Second Life?  Meet them there. Don’t limit yourself to technical interactions.  Direct face to face connections via conferences and executive networking (like through our own ExecutiveBiz, of course) are critically important to ensuring strategic alignment between IT programs and the workforce.

 4) Address security and policy concerns up front.  A huge concern in all agencies today is the need for protection of the confidentiality, integrity and availability of information.  Web2.0 capabilities can be built with security, but only if that security is planned in from the start.   Policies for Web2.0 capability usage are also important to address.  Management will feel more confident in the program if you can propose sound policies that will accomplish the role out of new capabilities.  For example, what type of postings will be considered appropriate to your agencies internal blogs? And which ones will be considered appropriate to those that face your agencies customers?  Policies associated with Web2.0 capabilities, like all policies, are only effective when made public.  For a good one see the policy for the public facing blog of the US Government at http://blog.usa.gov/roller/govgab/page/policies

All citizens and the entire government workforce can benefit from the introduction of Web2.0 into government IT.  But we should all understand the government IT workforce faces some daunting challenges in fielding these capabilities.  It can take lots of work and lots of prior planning to succeed in this environment.  Success will come sooner by focusing on the mission, delivering early successes, staying connected with all mission partners, and by addressing security and policy issues up front.

Bob Gourley is the former CTO of the Defense Intelligence Agency and is the co-founder and CTO of Crucial Point LLC.  Bob blogs on enterprise IT at http://ctovision.com

Barely a day goes by that we do not hear about the growth of Twitter and the how addictive it can be in terms of its usage. As more people get used to the idea, it acts like a controlled form of Instant Messaging – not as invasive as Skype or AIM and more instant than an email along with the ability to broadcast. Among the many various applications being envisaged, the million-dollar question is whether it will be used in the enterprise or not ? Send 30 minute updates to your team about the status of your project ? Assign tasks to team members on your way home on the subway ? Instant notification of schedule changes ? Will it get the stamp of validity from corporate customers who will use this tool to communicate with their employees or customers ? Amazon and JetBlue are two pioneers in this field who are using it to notify their customers about product availability and flight deals. Viget Labs, a local company uses Twitter internally to communicate among team members and to share information about project status, blogs and articles.
Nevertheless, there are definite concerns about privacy and sharing of corporate information. Viget Labs has laid down policies about sharing of customer information similar to those laid down by many companies for blogging. The social element coupled with the sharing and broadcasting nature of the service that has made the Twitter service so popular, may very well work against it in the enterprise space and slow its growth in the enterprise space.

Just as many organizations have adopted blogs to communicate with their customers, its easy envision it being used similarly to reach out to the Twitter generation . Typically, organizations will more easily adopt it to use it to connect to end consumers but the value that it brings for use internally among team members or a project is rather limiting.

United States Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff recently launched a blog in what he hopes will “open a dialogue with the American people about our nation’s security.”

Started in the middle of September, the blog, described by the Department of Homeland Security as a Leadership Journal, has picked up steam to several posts a week from the Secretary as well as other contributors, such as FEMA head R. David Paulison and US Customs & Border Protection Commissioner W. Ralph Basham.

The most recent post to date is from FEMA’s Paulison as he headed toward the wildfires in California. In a way, the blog acts as a window into the day to day activities of the country’s top government officials. “I’m writing this from the air as I make my way to southern California with Secretary Chertoff to take a closer look at the areas impacted by the wildfires,” Paulison began as he outlined the steps FEMA was taking to help those affected.

The blog is a unique and at times surprisingly frank outlet for Secretary Chertoff who often comments on articles in the mainstream media. “I am particularly inspired by immigrants and their children who have made this nation their own…” he wrote. “I was reminded of this while reading an outstanding op-ed piece by Jason Lim in last Sunday’s Washington Post.”

In other postings, he seems agitated as he responds to less than favorable assessments in the press. “The New York Times editorial staff …hyperventilates today about our efforts to apprehend criminal gang affiliates in the New York area as part of a nationwide initiative to take dangerous illegal aliens off the street,” he wrote in early October, “…I can’t imagine any community that would urge us to leave illegal alien criminals alone.”

As of today, Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt is the only other of cabinet secretary with a blog. Secretary Leavitt’s site “is the result of the Secretary’s continuing desire to engage Americans in the exchange of ideas on health care and the provision of human services.”

In the spirit of collaboration, both blogs allow comments. Though, both sites employ a moderation policy that reviews all comments before they’re posted. A technorati blog search revealed that both sites have received a steady stream of inbound links and the comments are generally positive in nature. “Mr. Secretary, Thank you so much for keeping us informed - I know how busy you are..” wrote one reader in response to Secretary Leavitt’s 8/16 post on pandemic flu.

Keep an eye out for more from Secretaries Leavitt and Chertoff, as well as other cabinet secretaries to take the plunge into the blogosphere.

I just finished reading a fascinating report by David Wyld called The Blogging Revolution: Government in the Age of Web 2.0. Not only was it academically rigorous, but it was also a fun read. Now that’s a rare achievement. Wyld is the Robert Maurin Professor of Management at Southeastern Louisiana University, where he directs the College of Business’s Strategic e-Commerce/e-Government Initiative. He is also a noted speaker, and will be presenting as part of a government track panel at the upcoming Web 2.0 conference.

According to Wyld, public officials are just beginning to have blogs, despite the fact that blogs have become popular on corporate and individual Web sites. However, a handful of officials do have them, including members of Congress, Congressional committees and caucuses, governors, state legislators, mayors, city managers, police and fire chiefs, and college and university presidents. Wyld’s report includes links to dozens of their sites. And of course, we are seeing blogs used in the 2008 presidential campaigns; Barack Obama’s blog is probably among the best known.

Blogs aren’t just for individual public figures. Some public organizations are beginning to have blogs. Wyld illustrates this using the U.S. military, which is trying to deal with terrorism in the Information Age through the use of STRATCOM. One core function of STRATCOM is to allow blogging and chats between everyone from generals to privates. The system radically cuts through the hierarchy that normally defines military culture by allowing anyone—at any level—to respond directly to others’ questions.

Wyld is an expert on what government officials should and should not do when setting up and running and a blog, and believe me, he’s seen it all. A few of his key recommendations include making a serious time commitment, posting regularly, writing it yourself, and allowing comments. (He also recommends not posting angry messages at 2 a.m., but you’ll have to see the report for his juicy example.)

Allowing comments is the most delicate area. According to Wyld, Mayor Bill Gentes of Round Lake, Illinois, says, “I allow uncensored comments so I get the negatives, positives, and the inane!” But Gentes loves the format and feels it allows for an honest exchange. However, a much more common model in both the public and private sector for comments is to have registration, moderation, comment policies, and CAPTCHA technology. Without these measures, anonymous negative posters can hijack your blog; this very thing happened to one unfortunate school superintendent, as Wyld illustrates in a case study.

I highly recommend his report, and I know he’ll be an informative and engaging speaker. To hear from David Wyld in person, come to the Web 2.0 conference and attend his panel on Current Web 2.0 Initiatives within Government Agencies.

If you’ve spent any time in front of a computer in the last two years you’re likely to have come across a variety of new tools being touted, sometimes loudly, as the ultimate solution for any business. Often under the dubious moniker Web 2.0, this menu of tools ranges from blogs and podcasts to RSS feeds and Wikis.

If these gadgets bring to mind images of giddy teenagers and personal diaries you’re not alone. A recent Information Week survey found “half of business technology pros are either skeptical about blogs, wikis, online social networks, and other new Web tools, or willing — but wary — about adopting them.”

In an effort to shed some light on this area, we drafted a brief Web 2.0 lexicon of sorts. Use the links and examples in these definitions as stepping stones to explore these tools. But, as with any Web 2.0 application, we’d like to collaborate with our readers to add and refine this list. What new Web 2.0 tools is your business using?

Blog: short for “weblog”, a blog is simply defined as a web page that contains time stamped entries in reverse chronological order, with the most recent entry on top. Blogging’s main appeal is in the software services like WordPress, TypePad, etc. These services are usually free and dont’ require a great deal of computer expirence. No longer reserved for computer programmers with knowledge of HTML, now anyone with an Internet connection can join in the conversation.

Blogroll: a list of blogs or websites recommended by the blog’s author. Be sure to visit these sites; you’ll get a sense for the what blogger regularly reads and these sites are typically related to the authors’ topic in one way or another.

News aggregation: think of it as your inbox to the Internet. Aggregators gather information from multiple web sites, typically via RSS (see below). An aggregator can you save you time as you surf the web. Rather than constantly visiting your favorite websites individually and checking for new content, and aggregator can pull unread content from an infinite number of sources and compile the relevant materials into one, easily managed source. Visit Bloglines and Google Reader for examples of popular RSS aggregators. Setting up an aggregator is as easy as creating an email address and it’s the best way to monitor what’s being said about you, your company, topic, or industry.

Podcasts: Podcasts are simply the audio version of text-heavy blogs, with regularly updated clips, usually available via a podcast catcher like Itunes. Despite the name, you don’t need an Ipod to listen to podcasts. You can play podcasts directly through your desktop speakers.

RSS: stands for Really Simply Syndication. A universal format that allows other websites, such a news aggregator, read and compile information. Take a look at CNN’s RSS page for an example of this tool in action. This allows users to track new content on the Internet based on keywords or topics.

Social bookmarking: just like you’d bookmark your favorite webpage, social bookmarking is the collective equivalent of adding your favorite webpage to your personal bookmarks. Sites like DIGG and del.icio.us allow users to see what websites and blogs are popular among a large pool of people. Click here for a full list of social networks sites.

Tagging: keywords that describe the content of a particular blog post, podcast, or website. Tagging helps organize web 2.0 content so that it’s easily searchable. An example of tagging is right here on this blog. At the end of every post, we categorize the topics within the post – as seen on the categories list on the right hand column.

Wikis: any system that allows for collaborative editing and publishing. Google Docs, which allows for multiple users to edit the a document at the same is an example of a Wiki in its most basic form. Wikipedia is the shinning example and likely the reason the World Book Encyclopedia sales are falling flat. A word of caution though, Wikis can be created and edited by anyone. Generally, the wisdom of the crowds theory holds true, but it’s important to check the content against scholarly journals, news outlets, etc.

Does your company use social networking sites to share ideas? Do you allow employees to blog on behalf of the company? How about a weekly podcast from the CEO? If you have a Web 2.0 story to share, join the conversation by posting a comment.

Ted Leonsis, Washington Capitals owner and Vice Chairman of America Online, Inc has agreed to be the keynote speaker at New New Internet’s Web 2.0 for Business Conference this November.

Ted doesn’t just give lip service to social media tools like blogging. He lives and breathes Web 2.0. His blog, Ted’s Take, is a perfect example of how blogging should be practiced.

There are many C-level bloggers out there and more joining the conversation everyday. All too often these blogs are simply reworked press releases or stale talking points. The content on Ted’s blog is an honest look inside AOL, the Washington Capitals, or whatever else is on his mind. There’s a steady flow of continuously updated content that’s interesting, honest, and engaging. It’s refreshing to get such a transparent perspective and it’s something that can really only be achieved through blogging.

Here’s Ted on why he started his blog:

“A blog can be entertaining, it can be informational, and it can be enlightening. But the most important part of a blog is that it can be activating. It allows others to look at your thoughts and follow your life and then launch their own ideas, comments and perspectives on what you’ve seen and done.”

That spirit of online collaboration is what makes his blog so popular and why we’re thrilled to have such a social media expert join us for the New New Internet, Web 2.0 for Business Conference. Click here to register and be sure to post your comments on Ted Leonsis or any of your favorite blogging experts in the Washington D.C. area.