It’s great, but is it safe? That’s been the question for Web 2.0, as the U.S. Air Force has eyed the technology in the hopes of boosting its missions around the world Now, it seems, Web 2.0 is getting a chance … cautiously.

“The new techniques, including blogs, wikis and personal profiles, are coming out of an initiative by Air Force Knowledge Now (AFKN), a resource provided on the Department of Defense (DOD) intranet,” writes Stephen Lawson of PC World. “They’re helping service members and civilian employees find the information they need more quickly and are now being shared with members of the U.S. Army, Navy and Marines, according to Randy Adkins, director of the Air Force’s Center of Excellence for Knowledge Management.”

For more details, be sure to check out Lawson’s timely and informative piece here.

Remember back in the day when The 9/11 Commission Report outlined the lack of coordination between different government agencies in “assessing vulnerabilities and handling problems of protection and preparedness”? Looks like government agencies are doing their part for history not to repeat itself. A key part of that strategy is embracing Web 2.0 technology.

Recently, the Information Technology American Association held a conference on that very issue. A key part of the conference focused on what different government bodies could learn from the likes of craigslist, Wikipedia, and MySpace in boosting national security.

“Our collaboration, our bringing multiple brains to task on a product is really powerful. Do we do that? Not as well as we could. Are we heading there? The answer is yes,” said Robert Carey, chief information officer of the Department of the Navy, in an interview with Manuel Baigorri of Medill Reports. For more highlights from the conference, be sure to check out the full story.

USA Today ran an interesting story this week analyzing how society defines flirtation and when something harmless can develop into more serious infidelity. As government decision makers continue to flirt with employing Web 2.0 technologies across their respective Agencies, my guess is that the reporter would have an equally hard time determining whether the relationship had developed into something more substantive.

A recently released survey from CDW Corporation takes a stab at tracking just how far government has come in deploying Web 2.0 and buying into its promises. The results indicate that while government still tracks behind large corporations in terms of believing Web 2.0 applications can significantly improve performance and processes, the gap is indeed closing.

The survey found that “more than 40 percent of corporate IT decision makers across government and corporate sectors have rolled out Web 2.0 tools in their companies, but more than half of them may be hesitant to adopt such applications because of concerns about proper usage and security.” Within the government - where security and usage considerations are heightened - it is not surprising that adoption remains slowed by these concerns.

30 percent of government survey respondents indicated that Web 2.0 was currently in use, compared to 50 percent of corporate respondents and two-thirds of businesses with 1,000 or more employees. According to the survey, the strongest headwinds remain in making the business case to government leadership. Only 22 percent of government respondents indicated that leadership was supportive of Web 2.0 initiatives, well behind the 58 percent enjoyed in large businesses.

Encouraging results for Web 2.0 champions within government is that the survey found that a majority of respondents (61%) felt Web 2.0 would be important in attracting and retaining the next generation of employees - an apparent indication within government that attracting top talent will depend on forward thinking on technology applications. An equally impressive (relative to the private sector) 45 percent also believe that Web 2.0 will improve performance.

Federal Computer Week’s overview of the recent 1105 Government Leadership Summit broke down the challenge even further: government leaders remain challenged by how to integrate the collaboration aspects of Web 2.0 with the security and usage requirements for Agencies. In other words, how can leaders take private sector best practices when it comes to disruptive technologies and make them work in the security-conscious government culture?

One factor that may push more Agencies forward when it comes to information sharing and collaboration is fear over the extent to which retiring baby boomers will exit Agencies and take their massive repository of knowledge with them. Whether or not the boomer retirement will spur calls for enhanced knowledge transfer through Web 2.0 collaboration technologies remain to be seen, but what is clear from the survey is that government leaders are slowly moving from flirtation with Web 2.0 to a more meaningful commitment.

For all its transformative potential, future adoption of Web 2.0 within the Federal government rests on the same business case requirements as any other product or service. And while enterprise wikis and secure video sharing applications are gaining converts in civilian, intelligence and defense organizations, decision makers in the upper echelons are still looking for strong cost and efficiency arguments to turn Web 2.0 applications from “nice to have” to “need to have.”

This point was made matter-of-factly by Tim Schmidt, CTO at the Department of Transportation, at last week’s Advanced Learning Institute Social Media for Government conference. Speaking April 16th at the Advanced Learning Institute’s Social Media for Government conference in Alexandria, Va., Schmidt hinted that a certain level of fear will always exist when it comes to high level decision makers embracing unfamiliar technologies. This was true in the early days of email and the Internet, and is once again playing out with Web 2.0.

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ExecutiveBiz members have had the pleasure of interacting with a long line of IT thought leaders. One of note is Chris Rasmussen, a great advocate for information sharing and collaboration within the federal space and a master of the use of new tools to get groups working together on hard problems (read more about Chris here). Chris will speak with members again on 24 April 2008 at The New, New Internet.

Federal users are making increasing use of Web2.0 capabilities, and we look forward to hearing Chris’s views on where this is all going. We are already seeing that some of the nation’s hardest problems, like those the intelligence community must address, are being tackled with Web2.0 tools and techniques. One recent development is a YouTube-type capability for the intelligence world called “iVideo.” (see Federal Computer Week’s article on “YouTube for the intell community” for more info). iVideo is based on Adobe technologies, and provides users from around the globe the ability to securely upload video and other media for the use by others. We can expect the use of iVideo will grow dramatically, like the adoption of other advanced Web2.0 tools provided by the Office of the Director of National intelligence (ODNI).

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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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Unless you are the Lone Ranger, Rambo or Superman, you have to work with others to get the hard things done. And the harder the thing is you need to accomplish, the more important collaboration becomes. Fortunately for today’s executive, there are some great new Web2.0 tools that can help you connect with others.

Popular social networking tools include LinkedIn, Plaxo, Spock, SecondLife and Facebook. The following are some personal thoughts/perspectives based on how I use those tools:

LinkedIn.com is good for keeping up with the careers of friends and associates. It has also been of use in helping me introduce myself to others since I can connect to a new associate via LinkedIn and they can see my extended profile. Conversely it helps me learn a bit more about who I might be meeting with so I frequently check LinkedIn before I meet with someone new. If an executive was only going to pick one online social networking site to use I would recommend this one.

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In the context of enterprise IT, a “mega trend” is a long term movement in time that drives large masses of people and is a forcing function for strategic directions. One of the mega trends sweeping over us all right now is Web2.0. This trend will continue to impact government in 2008. Here are a few probable ways:

• Enhanced innovation: Most large organizations, including government, find the most innovation where there is interaction with others. Innovation frequently seems to come from the edge. With more Web2.0 in government, there will be increased interactions among users internal to government and with citizens. Every interaction is an opportunity to learn of an unmet need which is an opportunity to fuel innovation.

• More deployment of applications for (and by) users: The trend toward enabling users with tools that let them create their own solutions will continue in 2008. Enterprise mashups based on enterprise data is already an expectation among the workforce, but the deployment of this capability in government has been slow to start. As government organizations see how others do it the deployment of secure enterprise mashup capabilities should accelerate.

• Expect less emphasis on huge integrations and more on what Forrester has been calling “dynamic apps.” These are applications designed for people and built to enable people to change them. As John Crupi, CTO of JackBe has noted in his recent post on “What’s Out, What’s In”, “Knowledge workers need ad-hoc and situational data which is dynamically integrated in small amounts.” Government IT departments will begin to deliver on dynamic apps in 2008.

• Enhanced retention and enhanced job satisfaction. People stay in their job for a wide range of complex reasons. One factor in job satisfaction (and dis-satisfaction) in the government workforce has been the relative inability of big IT departments to deliver modern tools to users so they can efficiently accomplish their mission. As more government enterprises deliver secure mashup capabilities, the ability of the government workforce to efficiently and effectively accomplish their mission should increase, which should have a positive impact on retention, fueling additional benefits to the mission of government.

Really we all know the best way to predict the future is to make the future. My hope is that enterprise IT departments from throughout government are planning now to enhance the delivery of Web2.0 capabilities into their environments. Doing so will make it a brighter future for all of us.

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

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.