2009 is over and 2010 is already underway.  Department of the Navy CIO Robert Carey wrote a post on his blog last Friday about the challenges facing the Navy in the coming year.  These challenges are especially daunting due to the losses of John Lussier, Bob Grady and Dr. Richard Etter last year.  Below are Robert Carey’s top 10 priorities for the Navy in 2010:

1. Agile Decision-Making: The Navy looks to continue working toward a more agile decision-making model. The Navy “strives to perform like an enterprise, so we can leverage the buying power of the DON or DoD where appropriate.” Enterprise Architecture will be the main tool to drive interoperability and cost management, so look for it to be a major factor in Navy IT budgets in the coming years.
2. NGEN: The DON is in the process of closing the current Navy and Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) and moving toward the Next Generation Enterprise Network (NGEN). The Navy wants to completely phase out any legacy IT projects and begin the process of migrating to NGEN for 2010.
3. Cybersecurity Capability/Investment Model: The DON wants a Cyber Capability Model and appropriate metrics and investment guidance to ensure that their contracting dollars go where they need to.  Increased accountability means increased investment, as their forthcoming Cyber Capability Model will point out cyber vulnerabilities in the Navy’s IT architecture and guide spending accordingly, so watch out for this.
4. Mobility: As ExecutiveGov wrote last week, one of Robert Carey’s priorities is teleworking.  “The power of the smart phone and our ability to securely connect to the network and information needed to perform our jobs is expanding exponentially. This is freeing our workforce from the Industrial Age model of the “desk” and allowing us to securely work from anywhere.”
5. Social Media: Social Media has evolved into “rather standard ways to share information.”  CIO Carey promises to look for ways to leverage social media tools to improve collaboration and communication within the DON.
6. Privacy: Since mobility and social media are priorities, protecting personally identifiable information (PII) has to be a major priority for the Navy. CIO Carey notes that deploying encrypted data cuts the risk of identity theft, and increases the security of Navy IT infrastructure, so look for data encryption to continue to drive spending in coming years.
7. Cloud Computing: The Navy is moving toward the Enterprise User concept, where any authorized Navy employee can engage the Global Information Grid from any device at any location and access information.  Like Casey Coleman told us last year, agility is one of the main value propositions of cloud computing.
8. Cyber Skill Development: From CIO Carey’s blog: “Everyone is a cyber warrior and as such will require better and different training. The Cyber Age is here, and we must accelerate our knowledge of the network as a tool to perform our work.”  Look for cyber training programs to loom large in Navy IT budgets going forward.
9. Identity Management: The Navy, like the federal government at large, is striving to implement an “identity-based physical and logical access standards-based model” that is interoperable across the federal government and allied governments.  Knowledge-based encryption, maybe?
10. Critical Infrastructure Protection: If the BPC’s mock cyber attack showed anything at all, it showed us that we need a standard operations manual in the event of a major cyber attack.  The Navy is working on one now, that will help leverage Navy and Marine Corps cyber assets to ensure that Navy/Marine Corps missions continue uninterrupted in the event of a cyber incident.

First came the technorati. Then the twitterati. Now the goverati have burst onto the Web 2.0 scene. These are individuals from government and industry alike leveraging new technology to better shape government policy and direction. So what can industry do to keep on top of this emerging trend? Who better to ask than Mark Drapeau, a Web 2.0 expert who coined the term “goverati.” Here Drapeau offers six ways your company can join in on the conversation.

1. Accept social media is here to stay. We’ve all heard reports of social media stalling within certain government quarters, the Department of Defense among them. In actuality, DoD is one of the “giant government leaders” in new social media, says Drapeau. So, too, are the intelligence community, the State Department, DHS (especially TSA and the US Coast Guard), and the EPA, he adds. Drapeau anticipates DoD will continue to enlarge its social media presence through internal social networks like Army Knowledge Online and, to some degree, platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

2. Define your goals. Joining the goverati — and being part of the conversation — requires you first define whom you want to reach. Perhaps your goal is to interact with people who might buy your product. Or whom you want to convince to think more highly of you. Or who set government policy. Defining those specific goals will give you a better idea of the audience you wish to reach, says Drapeau.

3. Find the conversation. “The easiest way to get involved in the conversation initially is to find people already having it,” says Drapeau. “If you’re interested in the F-35 fighter, for example, you can find those conversations online, on Blog Talk Radio, Wordpress, Twitter, and so forth,” he says. Good tools to use in your search: Bing and  Google News searches. For “real time” web content, try TweetMeme, which searches Twitter conversations.

4. Observe the conservation. “The most productive thing to do is listen a lot and get a sense of where people are at,” says Drapeau. That requires doing a little investigative work, he adds. Facebook lets you see who your friends’ friends are, Twitter lets you see who other people are tweeting, and blogs let you see who’s commenting on blogs. “Collect that business intelligence, then use it to try to find people useful to your specific goal,” says Drapeau. For example, you might find someone tweeted about the F-35 fighter. Don’t stop there. “It’s a fair bet that if someone tweets about fighter jets all the time he’s interacting or following people on Twitter interested in a similar topic,” says Drapeau.

5. Be authentic about who you are. “People really value authenticity and transparency when it comes to online conversations,” says Drapeau. Both create context. “People respect if you’re a senior government official and you have to hold back a little bit or if you’re the marketer for Lockheed Martin people will get where you’re coming from … they take that into account when analyzing your point of view and, similarly, you do that when you read their blogs,” he adds.

6. Skip the self-promotion. “If you went to a cocktail party and all anyone ever did was talk about their product you wouldn’t want to talk to that person very long,” says Drapeau. The same is true of a Facebook fan page wall or Twitter account. “There might be a small niche of people who want to hear that all the time but most people don’t,” he says. It’s about balance. “I tweet out the links to my own stories but you can’t just do that constantly,” says Drapeau. A good rule of thumb, he adds, is to serve as an information aggregator. “If you’re the marketing person for a company you might consider being sort of an information aggregator about things peripherally related to what you do and that affect business,” he says.

Learn more

Learn how new media is being used by the federal government, and what industry needs to know to keep on top of this emerging trend. Mark Drapeau weighs in Thursday, Oct. 15. Details here.

Share your comments here.

Getting your company’s message out there isn’t just the job of your corporate communications team. It’s your job, too, says Rick Kiernan, vice president of strategic communications for L-3 Communications (right). That mission-critical task matters now more than ever, he adds. “The lifeblood of any organization is its people, their ability to communicate internally and externally will affect your business,” he says. How well that communication plays out depends in part on you. Stepping beyond the parameters of your role and helping communications carry the company’s message forward is essential, says Kiernan. “The more your media spokesperson understands the company’s personalities and programs, the more they can exercise preventive rather than redemptive messaging,” he says. Check out Kiernan’s three-step process.

Your communications team: Three ways to help

1.) Establish lines of communication. “The more you establish rapport with your spokesperson, the more they can be a conduit for internal and external audiences,” says Kiernan. That requires making it a habit to stop by their office on a regular basis and keep them apprised of any issues — things like payroll, contracting, and business development, for example — that your immediate team may currently be facing. Whatever the issues of the day, the more your spokesperson understands upfront, the more they can represent your company in a holistic way, in real time. Oftentimes, by contrast, supporting functions — HR, contracting, business development, and finance — tend to work in a compartmentalized fashion. Based upon your ongoing feedback, your spokesperson can facilitate integrating a dialogue across the entire organization.

2.) Develop a sense of what’s newsworthy. “In my experience people make news, not processes,” says Kiernan. “I’m less likely to get calls from the media about processes,” he adds, “but I will get a call about someone who may have achieved something.” Ultimately, it’s not the process but the end result that’s generally newsworthy. So, if something is coming down the pike — say, an audit, or a change in benefits, a new office opening (or closing), any process that may affect people in a real way and either enhance or deflate your company’s image — notify your media spokesperson in advance. Doing so ensures they don’t have to start with a blank sheet of paper or chew up time seeking context when responding to media queries. Or as Kiernan puts it, “If you want me there for the crash, I have to be there for the takeoff!”

3.) Engage in reputation management. “The reputation of a company is validated by the behavior of individuals,” says Kiernan. “They become the disciples … they can have as much impact, maybe more, than any multimillion dollar marketing campaign,” he says. That’s especially true in an age of social media, when an impromptu tweet can carry as much weight as an official press release. As employees become an extension of the media, it’s more important than ever to foster open lines of communication. “If you have a more transparent environment — a well-managed intranet site, for example, where employees can easily weigh in — air will circulate through the organization in a more open way,” says Kiernan. Brown bag, non-mandatory lunches are also a good way to foster that transparent work environment, he adds.

How else can executives help their communications team get their company message out there? Share your comments here.

Rohit Bhargava, who leads the marketing team at Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence, is the author of the new marketing book Personality Not Included, a unique guide for organizations on becoming more authentic. He is frequently featured in media worldwide and speaks internationally on the importance of personality in business. And on June 26, executives throughout the area will have a chance to hear Rohit speak about the latest trends in marketing communications and social media at Digital Media Conference, to be held Thursday, June 26, 2008 at the Ritz-Carlton in Tyson’s Corner, VA.

Tell us a little about your background.

Rohit Bhargava: My background is mostly agency based. I’ve worked for a number of different marketing agencies and I spent five years working in Australia. I have worked across a lot of different industries doing marketing strategy. The focus has usually been on interactive work, and I have experience working at an ad agency as well as a PR agency. Before that I worked in a small business and did the start-up thing as well.

What are some social media or other tools your clients, both in the government space and beyond, are starting to embrace?

Rohit Bhargava: Blogs are certainly the most visible. I think that when it comes to social media what a lot of people don’t think about is that it can take many forms of people sharing opinions online, whether it’s a blog or something as obvious and ubiquitous as an Amazon review. All of that is social media to a sense because people are sharing their thoughts and opinions and ideas with one another and being influenced by that. I think that no matter where you go online, whether you are in government or whether you are just online surfing, you’re exposed to all of these opinions and that is what we’re seeing out there.

Tell us about your book. How long did it take you to envision and write it?

Rohit Bhargava: End to end the book process was about a year. What I ended up focusing on was not so much about social media or blogs or anything as specific as that, but something which I saw as a broader trend in business of all sorts, which is this idea that personality matters. Personality is the way that brands interact with their customers and it’s the way that ideas come to life for people. Whether it is a brand in the traditional sense or whether it’s any sort of organization or entity that people need to have some sort of belief or interaction with.

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No where is the changing online landscape more apparent than in the newsrooms of the major daily newspapers across the country. With more competition for attention than ever before, reporters and editors are struggling to create a product that both adds value to the collective conversation and is financially sustainable.

The 2008 Annual Report on the State of Journalism, conducted by the Project for Journalism Excellence highlighted that last year, despite efforts to partner with web 2.0 companies, many news organizations struggled to grow in this online space.

Unlike some other popular Web sites, online news providers are not financially capitalizing on the growing digital audiences. Despite the increase in digital readership, the news sites seem to be stuck in the old delivery model common with traditional print outlets.

AOL Executive Ted Leonsis recently published a 10 Point Plan to Reinvent The Newspaper Business. His first point is for newspapers executives to “get out of the newspaper business,” rather those execs “should turn over the reigns to young execs, women and people with diverse backgrounds, who are web based and new consumer savvy and will NOT be wed and enamored with the print-based delivery system of the past.”

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There was an interesting article in this morning’s Internet Travel News about the power of social networking as a marketing tool. It caught my eye, not so much because of what it had to say to travel industry professionals in particular, but because it portended a marketing “tidal wave” for all industries. This was a timely confirmation that the subjects being covered in our November 1 Web 2.0 for Business conference are right on target. It also echoed Brian Lustig’s excellent August 14 post on consumers driving Web 2.0 applications.

This morning’s piece in the Travel News examines research conducted by Cindy Estis Green, managing partner of The Estis Group in Potomac, Maryland. Green just completed a comprehensive report on how social media and social networking represent the future of marketing for the travel industry. She spoke on the topic yesterday at an industry conference at the Washington Convention Center.

Her views extend to every business sector. Green stated, “There is a tsunami coming that few fully anticipate and it will dramatically change the marketing landscape in all industries, not just travel.”

Green continued, “It’s not just about a new set of media, it’s a sea change in consumer behavior. Social media opens the door for this new marketing model and as far as the consumers are concerned, the train has already left the station.”

Here’s an interview with Green, in which she explains how companies are moving toward this online, community-based form of networking:

Social media and networking tools are Web 2.0 applications that allow companies to engage with their customers. As I mentioned, my fellow bloggers have already done a superb job pointing out what some of these tools are and how they’re being applied. However, you might be surprised at just how many options exist:

• Blogs
• Profiles on social networking sites like MySpace, TripAdvisor, A-Space, other industry-specific sites, etc.
• Wikis
• Bookmarks, including Digg, del.icio.us, etc.
• Search-engine optimized press releases and articles
• Widgets
• Podcasts, videos, and photos
• Tweets (like blogs, with instant messaging)
• Voting on content
• RSS feeds
• Mashups
• Brand education tools
• Contests, games, and special events

These cost-effective tools should make marketing departments salivate. They make a high impact on a low budget and are easily accessible to even small businesses. Green points out that their real power comes through when they’re combined as part of a comprehensive plan.

One of the many things this MBA researcher did for her report was to poll travel executives about the expected impact of social media. The results are revealing:

• 65% – Deepen brand relationship with customers
• 55% – More targeted communications to niche markets
• 46% – Better understanding by staff of customer needs
• 42% – More recognizable brand image
• 41% – Improved revenues 

The numbers remind us that marketing using social media can be targeted to meet specific company goals. At the same time, Green says that this new form of customer engagement isn’t about the same old “pushing and pulling” of the old days. Marketers and executives will be challenged to use social media in a way that furthers their agenda, but leaves room for flexible customer involvement.

Green’s full report is called “The Travel Marketer’s Guide to Social Media and Social Networking,” and can be purchased in late September or early October. To buy a copy, contact either the Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI) or the Travel Industry Association (TIA).