The Department of Defense (DoD) Web 2.0 Guidance Forum is a new initiative to solicit input from the public that has been undertaken in the spirit of President Obama’s Open Government Directive. President Obama issued a memorandum on 21 January 2009 entitled, “Transparency and Open Government,” which emphasized the need to ensure public trust and to establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. We are using this blog as an approach to engage the public in Department of Defense (DoD) considerations of web 2.0 capabilities, and are excited to participate in this new facet to the President’s openness and transparency efforts.
The Web 2.0 Guidance Forum will allow the public to comment and make suggestions to key DoD decision makers regarding useage of Web 2.0 capabilities. Involving the public and allowing for suggestions serves two purposes. First, it will act as a “gut” check to ensure public buy-in on possible decisions as they are being discussed. Second, it will provide an opportunity for the public to aid in sensemaking around Web 2.0 definitions and use, and to contribute creative solutions and ideas that may inform our overall approach towards Web 2.0.
The Web 2.0 Guidance Forum is open to the general public for comments. That said, the public stakeholder groups we are most interested in hearing from include the following:
- Families of military serving overseas
- DoD interest groups, including veterans groups, think tanks, academia and others
- The Web 2.0 technology community
- Government-Industry groups focused on how government and industry collaborate, and most importantly
- Soldiers and sailors and civilians currently using Web 2.0 tools
Logistics: The associated topics for discussion will be introduced by a DoD Web 2.0 Forum team member, one at a time. After the third day, there will be a summary entry before moving onto the next topic. Commenting by the public on each topic will be available for the entire duration of the Web 2.0 Forum input process. At the conclusion, the Web 2.0 team will draft a final entry summarizing the conversations and comments and will then notify the Web 2.0 Development Team of the results.
The set of topics we intend to cover, as well as the proposed schedule of events are listed below (there may be minor shifts in the order the questions are asked).
- Friday, Jul 31: (Entry 1) Initial Blog Entry by Tamie Lyles-Santiago, introducing DoD Web 2.0 Forum
- Sunday Aug 2: (Entry 2) Scope of Web 2.0, and near-future direction and impacts
- Thusday, Aug 6: (Entry 3) Summary Entry
- Thursday Aug 6: (Entry 4) Use of Web 2.0 by military families and friends to connect with loved ones overseas
- Monday, Aug 10: (Entry 5) Summary Entry
- Monday Aug 10: (Entry 6) Value that Web 2.0 capabilities can provide to current and future DoD operations
- Wednesday, Aug 12: (Entry 7) Summary Entry
- Thursday, Aug 13: (Entry 8 ) How broadly should SNS and other commercial Web 2.0 services be used by DoD service members and employees and for what purpose?
- Monday, Aug 17: (Entry 9) Summary Entry
- Monday, Aug17: (Entry 10) Use of Web 2.0 for government-industry connectivity to improve innovation and situational awareness of DoD capability needs and industry options
- Thursday, Aug 20: (Entry 11) Summary Entry
We plan on keeping the Web forum available and open for comments through the end of August. At that time, the comment feature for the existing entries will be turned off. We expect additional posts to provide updates on the status of our progress will be added periodic intervals. And most importantly, we are interested in your thoughts.
~Tamie Lyles-Santiago, Office of the DoD CIO (Posted for Ms. Santiago by Noel Dickover)
[...] site runs on the Wordpress blog engine. As outlined in the opening post, the project started yesterday, July 31 and will run through the end of [...]
I’ve been in the web development and web accessibility fields for a while now, so here are my thoughts. I try to make my “web 2.0″ Twitter application (AccessibleTwitter.com) easy to use, web-accessible (Section 508-compliant, WCAG), and always stick with valid, semantic code. Good techniques also include Hijax, ARIA, and progressive enhancement. Of course, always use basic accessibility techniques such as alt text, form labels, table headers, etcetera.
[...] DoD Web 2.0 Guidance Forum. Soliciting public input though Open Government. The Web 2.0 Guidance Forum encourages users to comment and make suggestions to key DoD decision makers regarding usage of Web 2.0 capabilities. The task and goals of this DoD initiative are ambiguous. It will be interesting to track user engagement and the progress of the project. [...]
This is a great post, just wrote a blog about military’s use of SM http://majastevanovich.wordpress.com
I believe that the results of the Web 2.0 initiative will be the only way to give credibility and meaning to the “Paperwork Reduction Act” when translated by the DoD. I’m not sure how well the policy translated into practice by the rest of the federal government, but we’ve got a long ways to go in the DoD. I like the direction I see us headed with the initiatives the Obama administration is pushing. We just need across the board consistency to realize the efficiencies promised by the principles espoused in open/transparent government.
Twitter, Facebook, & other social networking devices will end up being a nightmare for the military – too many viruses and uncertainties that are sure to happen causing computer systems to burn & crash. I certainly believe it’s too risky and the military is asking for trouble. My suggestion is to leave “well enough” alone.
As a social liberal, I appreciate the desire and need for transparency in government – that helps keep our Constitution healthy. As the wife of a military retiree who spent 26 years in the service, I came to have a healthy appreciation for what a military structure is, and the necessity for it. I didn’t early-on, but came to realize that it’s a necessity, based on the mission of any military. As someone who does operational security review in my job, for posting to the Internet and in our publications, I can tell you it’s not a particularly straight-forward, “intuitive” issue. It takes training and keeping pages of what is and is not acceptable close at hand. During the past few years, as our state National Guard (whom I work for) has deployed Soldiers, Iv’e been fascinated with the ability our deployed troops have to reach back and communicate with their families and friends; for the years when my husband went overseas, the communications were letters and the occasional phone call. But even in those somewhat neolithic forms of communicating, my husband was always circumspect and would regularly remind me to be so as well. What I’m seeing now is the burgeoning of communications with fewer and fewer first-level concerns as to what is being communicated. I would submit for thought, that the DoD consider that when they deploy a National Guard member, they’re taking someone who is first a civilian – with civilian families and friends – and expecting them to understand and appreciate the concerns for disclosing sensitive information. It is my thought that too often the excitement of communicating with one’s loved ones can too easily overtake sensibilities concerning the disclosure of information that could be used by our enemies. I’m not sure our active duty troops do any better, but my caution here is the expectation that after fairly suddenly uprooting and transplanting civilians into war zones and then expecting them not to make innocent blunders with operational security when allowed the numerous different methods of communicating on the Internet is setting the bar way too high. You put your military at risk of violating security far too easily, with the potential for punishment, and at the same time leave the door wide open for security violations. Frankly, as one going thru all the now-required OPSEC courses, etc. I find the pushing of social media to be in direct opposition to that. To say the approach is schizophrenic is understatement.
My company – Broadband Mechanics – are vendors of a U.S. Army social network called ROTCLink.com. The purpose of the network is to connect ROTC alumni to current cadets and to mentor and provide them career guidance. This site is a great example of how social media can help the DOD. It’s also a isolated example of running an official military site outside the military firewall.
We are a poster child example of what Vivek Kundra asked for “stop rolling your own solutions and start using off-the-shelf solutions”. We use our platform – PeopleAggregator – for ROTCLink.com.
However I can’t help but think that ROTCLink.com is falling short of the potential. Shouldn’t servicemen and women – in any branch of service – have their own social network on which to converse, entertain, build comradery and community?
I believe that each branch should have it’s own social network and that some sort of ‘meta-network’ inter-operability be established to inter-connect these networks together.
I also think that the recent Marines ban of Twitter and Facebook is a reaction to the lack of direction from up high – as to what policies, purpose ans direction the DOD needs to take with social media.
So hopefully after Aug. 20th clear and direct policies will establish a secure, efficient set of protocols for social media in the DOD.
It is essential that Federal basic research funding agencies interact in various ways with the scientific community and the general public to solicit innovative ideas and to disseminate exciting discoveries. Consequently, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research recently has begun experimenting with Facebook and Twitter, following the lead of OSD and HQ Air Force. Only time will tell whether doing so will prove fruitful, but it certainly will not hurt. I encourage DOD decision makers to keep an open mind as AFOSR and others gather experience with these new social media. Of course, not all scientific breakthroughs should be publicized, and DODTechpedia is an effective alternative for disseminating information exclusively within the DOD.
By the way, this important Forum could be better publicized, as indicated by the paucity of responses so far.
Your tight timeline (3-day window) may be approriate for some tasks, such as internal staff planning. However, I believe it may be too restrictive to adequately ensure target audience participation.
Deployed soldiers often do not have 24/7 Internet access. They may only be able to get online a couple times per week.
It also takes a finite amount of time for word of this kind of initiative to be spread, ironically by social networking & email, so that it permeates the audience you hope to reach.
If your intent is to gather a quality product, I recommend spreading out the windows. Otherwise I fear this may become yet another example of DOD doing a “check the box” study.
I believe web 2.0 integration is best suited to efforts servicing the public on the state level such as DYFS and other entitlement programs. However, a secure healing/coping web 2.0 network for military societal re-entry appears to be a low cost means to support military service men, women and families while garnering statistical data for research into the best ways to achieve optimal service vs. home front support for those motivated to serve their country.
Feedback networks could exist online and also in person through scheduled meetups in libraries or other local venues to support re-entry.
I’m not advocating that those who serve need to get together to read the same book in some sort of book discussion. After all, we can each read the same book and close the cover with a different set of feelings about what we read. In any case, it is still enjoyable to get together and talk about what we learned through the experience of reading the book.
I love web 2.0