As my children begin to grow older, I have started to look for ways to share more mature experiences with them. In this vein, I recently began watching TED talks together with my older daughter. I have always enjoyed watching these talks and feel that they are a shining example of how technology can positively impact our lives. The most memorable presentation that I have ever seen was Jill Bolte Taylor’s talk on her experiencing her own stroke and, not long ago, only a very fortunate few would have ever had the chance to see this incredibly powerful and moving event.

Choosing Topics
TED does, however, deal with subjects that are complex and, at times, painful. This being the case, I “screen” talks  ahead of time to try to make a good match for my daughter’s maturity level and her potential interests. Moreover, the complexity is often at a high enough level that it all that I can do to wrap my own head around the ideas presented. I want the experience to be as much about what she feels from watching the video as what she might possibly learn and I look for videos that might be able to strike a reasonable balance.

Extending the Experience
Part of my hope in doing this is to find ways to extend the experience of the video beyond the 15 minutes or so of the talk. I am tackling this challenge in 2 ways. First, at the end of the video, I ask my daughter these four questions (or variations thereof):

1. Was this a new topic/ subject for you?
2. What did you feel when you watched this?
3. Did you learn anything new in the talk?
4. Is there anything that you can or will do differently because of what you saw in the video?

My intent in asking these questions is multi-fold but, if I could boil it down to one single issue, it would be to help her reflect in ways that expand her view of the world and the multitude of perspectives therein.

The second way that I plan on extending these events is to do brief posts about the talks we watch and the answers that she gives to these questions. The hope being that this experiment will spark similar conversations in other families. TED talks need not be the specific catalyst for these conversations, there are many other candidates out there. However, the key issue is a discussion about how we can find positive uses for technology that foster and support real, in-person connections. Technology allows us to connect in many ways - I am only looking to add another.

Several times in the past two weeks, I have had the opportunity to have in-depth conversations with colleagues looking to deepen their knowledge of social media. These individuals had a sincere desire to learn how digital engagement could add value to their work and were willing to reach out beyond their own organization to find new insight.

In all honesty, the fact that these individuals were building relationships beyond their immediate organizational boundaries demonstrates that they already have a mindset conducive to success in social media. However our conversations undoubtedly created additional value through the different perspectives that were brought to the discussion. For me, these individual and small group interactions provide an unparallelled opportunity for everyone involved to deepen their knowledge - regardless of the level they are starting from. 

Similar discussions occur online everyday though not everyone is comfortable having these conversations in a public space and the platforms themselves have limitations that can impact the sharing of information. However, unlike online interactions, finding people to talk to and initiating contact can frequently be the most difficult part of establishing deeper offline relationships.

Given my belief in the value of these interactions, I want to make explicit my willingness and availability to anyone, at any level of government, who would like have a conversation about how social media and digital engagement might be used. Ping me on Twitter or email at mamadouthiam (at) gmail (dot) com and I’ll get back as soon as I can. No topic is off the table and everyone, from the skeptic looking to debate the value of Twitter to the expert trying to build behavior changing networks, is welcome. Feel free to share this offer far and wide as I know that I stand to gain as much from these conversations as I can possibly give.

So, anyone interested in a conversation?

Last August, I wrote a post entitled “Innovation Lab | Who Should Be At The Table” where I laid out some thoughts about the types of people and positions needed to create an environment that fosters and encourages organizational innovation.

Today, I am looking at how the evolving communications landscape requires a fresh look at the skills needed in a modern communications office. This is not at all to devalue the work of individuals in media relations or “traditional” web (hard to believe that you can actually say traditional web at this point) but rather to make sure that communications is prepared for the challenges that are coming and opportunities that are presented. In a world where "65 percent of children entering grade school this year will end up working in careers that haven't even been invented yet” (h/t @EricaHolt), none of us can afford to stand still.

• Community Managers: I will always defer to Lovisa Williams when discussing the importance of Community Managers but I have been involved in enough online communities to know that without someone to tending to and nurturing the group that it will not thrive. A significant component of modern, successful communications relies on engaging with and empowering interested stakeholders. Skilled community managers can make this happen and can create a vibrant space where information and ideas are shared in ways that benefit everyone.
• Knowledge Development Specialists: One of the essential roles that communications offices provide is as the link between those external to an organizations and the staff and leadership within an organization. With the ever-expanding number of channels and platforms that individuals can use to expresses their opinions, it would be an easy argument to make that modern communications is 50% about putting information out and 50% taking information in. However raw information, whether it be tweets, Facebook posts, blog comments or more structured feedback mechanisms, is often more noise than signal. To transform this information into something meaningful and actionable, more staff is needed to turn information into knowledge.
• Network Analysts: To understand the importance of this issue, all you need to do is watch the TED video from Deb Roy on The Birth of a Word. The tools and science behind understanding how information moves through and across networks will only continue to improve and effective network analysis can help make enormous leaps in predicting and measuring the impact of communications efforts.
• Mobile Technologies Specialists: Although making content mobile-friendly should already be embedded in all of our current approaches, the reality is that mobile technologies are still sufficiently new (and still evolving rapidly enough) that it probably needs to be called out as a separate role. I see this as a rather short-lived position though as mobile content development and delivery should mature very quickly and mobile “optimization” will probably become the norm rather than the exception in the not-too-distant future.
• Social Marketers (and Design Thinkers): Again, I’d prefer to point to the experts much smarter than myself (@chiefmaven, @Nedra and @SocialBttrfly) to help flesh this argument out but, if nothing else, having people on the team that understand that our work is really about people, not audiences benefits everyone.

I fully realize that this list is just a start and honestly hope that the post is able to spark some more robust conversations around this issue. Please drop in a comment or shoot a tweet to me with ideas for other positions or skills that you think are critical to modern communications efforts.

• Grocery Shopping: This information would be useful when paired with other financial data and with any nutritional tracking that I may do.
• Ratings: Having the ability to easily access all of my ratings - books, services, restaurants, hotels, videos, music, etc. - in one centralized location would be a big step forward. Moreover, my recent experience with the Who Gives a Tweet platform showed me the value in examining, from a more meta perspective, my own preferences and biases. How I rate and evaluate different sites, services, business and content provides personal insight on many different levels.
• Social Media Connections & Interactions: Understanding our social graph and how, when & where we interact with friends, family & colleagues will become an increasingly important skill for people trying to navigate a digitally enmeshed world. Comprehensive, unlimited access to the entire catalog of your connections, posts and status updates holds incredible value. (Note: I tested out Tweetstream this week and this only confirmed this assumption).
• Digital Consumption Patterns: Google Reader Trends is a good, though far too simple, step in this direction. For example, I would love to know how much time I spend using individual websites and apps. Imagine if you could easily calculate the cost per unit of time used for the apps you purchase on iTunes?

I had the chance to catch a tweet this morning from Laura Fitton about the MIT Who Gives a Tweet Project and, being interested in the social media research & social network analysis, I could not help but dive in. I found it pretty interesting and thought I would share some of the insights I gleaned.

1. Without context Tweets are mostly meaningless. As Doug Weinbrenner and Nedra Weinreich pointed out in a brief discussion on this, context is critical. Context, moreover, has multiple layers to it. My ratings of Foursquare tweets were universally poor because the spatial relevance was lacking. Conversations primarily directed at particular individuals (but made publicly) rated poorly because of the lack personal relevance.
   
2. Rating other people's content revealed my own biases: We all see the world through filters. For the most part, we are relatively oblivious to them but this exercise provided me with a good opportunity to recognize a few of mine. I saw clearly that I was more interested in reading (and clicking through) Tweets where I agreed with the content.  Although I do try to keep my horizons broad, it is very easy to turn quickly away from opinions different from our own and turn toward those that mirror our own perspective. I also found myself ranking Tweets based on my understanding and interpretation of Twitter etiquette. Good content certainly suffered when it seemed like an author had not followed the "rules". This includes Tweets that I characterize as something more akin to "internal dialogue" - personal grooming questions come quickly to mind here. That being said, although I have my own approach to participating on Twitter, it does not mean that other ways of using the platform are wrong or valueless.
   
3. Randomness matters... but you can give it a hand: As much as context matters, I am an enormous fan of the randomness of Twitter and frequently come across very compelling content and people just by sitting back and watching. However, I did notice that Tweets without sufficient innate context (which occurs frequently on Twitter) rated poorly and that I  quickly passed them over. I think this is an important consideration when imagining how individuals encountering your content for the first time will respond. I know that when I am putting out information that is intentionally "broadcast", I will think more critically about what that Tweet might look like in isolation.
   

Finally, I actually think there could be value in a more user-focused derivation of this work. Personally, I would love to have some better tools engage with a small group of individuals around organizational accounts on social media. I am imagining here a continuous, distributed focus group with engaged stakeholders able to consistently interact with, crtique and evaluate content. Is this a bad idea?

So, have you checked this tool out? Have some of your own thoughts, love to hear them!

I've seen (and read) quite a few top ten lists over the past few weeks as many are reflecting on the successes and failures of the past year. I thought I would take a slightly difference approach by looking back over some of the issues, events and changes that were most memorable for me this past year.

 Most Memorable #gov20 Figure
There is a very long list of individuals that deserve mention and credit here. The short list includes @lovisatalk, @digiphile, @adrielhampton, @govloop, @S_Horv, @JohnFMoore, 
@BevUsa, @gwynnek, @levyj413, @cdorobek, @amandare... and I could fill a page with many others. It would also be easy to acknowledge a very high profile, public individual like @todd_park. His boundless energy and relentless drive to improve how government works provide an aspirational model for everyone in government. However, David Hale (@lostonroute66) has an approach and an attitude that really resonates with me, thus putting him in a class by himself. Pillbox is undeniably an awesome application, but it is the story that David tells behind the making of Pillbox that is truly special. His unwavering commitment to understanding and involving all potential stakeholders in a project (esp. the end users) is something that all of us should be taking to heart and trying to emulate every day.

Most Memorable Presenter (and Conference)
I was fortunate to participate in some pretty solid conferences this past year. Among others, I was part of a panel at SXSW on how social media was used as part of the response to H1N1 and I was able to attend CDC's Conference on Health Communications Marketing and Media for the first time. However, I will never forget the Living with Cerebral Palsy in the Web 2.0 Era session by Glenda Watson Hyatt at the Center for Health Literacy Conference. Glenda's message about how social media has measurably improved her life - both online and off - was powerful. Her forceful and exuberant personality are tremendously life affirming and I encourage everyone to pay attention to what she has to say.

Most Memorable Book
I made a conscious choice this year to read more books and, without reservation, it was one of the best decisions I made. I read far less online and had to do some very heavy feed pruning, but the richness and depth of the content that I did read more than made up for not being on the bleeding edge of awareness around social media and emerging technology. I read books across a variety of form factors - audiobooks, Kindle iPad and iPhone apps and softcovers - each of which has its own set of positive and negative attributes but all of which fit my needs at some point. The most memorable for me (by a slim margin over The Talent Code) was Peak by Chip Conley. Much of the book is focused on improving customer and employee satisfaction (and, as a natural extension, overall happiness & well-being). The book provided some excellent insight into these areas which hold particular interest and importance for me.

A few weeks ago, the open government virtuoso David Hale slapped a #publicservice hashtag on a tweet and it got me thinking about the evolution of Public Service. A considerable amount of reflection led me to the following thoughts on what Public Service 2.0 means to me:

1. 360 Degree Collaboration: Good ideas come from everywhere within an organization and being equally open to bottom-up ideas as to more traditional top-down mandates expands the universe of solutions. Public service in this new era focuses more on the merit of the given idea than the author.
2. There is Always Room for Better: It is difficult for me to imagine any work with which I am involved where there is an absolute end point and where there is no more room for improvement. Continuous iterative improvement is the new norm where projects begin and evolve incredibly fast.
3. Great Expectations: There should be no slack cut for government. We may be playing catch up in some areas but the goal is that the work we do is on par with or surpasses similar work done by any organization in any sector. 

There are certainly many more facets with which Public Service 2.0 can (and has been) described but I also want to touch on a few of the hazards as well. 

1. High Tech can't succeed without High Touch: We need to remember that the tools that we are using to achieve a more participatory and collaborative government are merely tools and that the core of what they are enabling is greater interaction and engagement with real people.
2. Inclusiveness is not an Option: Every effort should be made to make sure that our efforts are as inclusive as possible. This is not just a question of doing the right thing or doing what is required by law but it is a fundamental recognition that only through embracing a diversity of opinion, perspective and experience will we reach our highest goals.
3. The New is not the Enemy of the Old: It can be tempting to think that newer processes, tools and approaches are inherently superior to more entrenched systems. This is not always the case and it is essential that in the rush to move forward that it remains a priority to learn from and preserve those ideas and processes that have proven value. Sometimes leaving things as they are can really be the greatest good.

So, move forward but do so deliberately. And do so with humility, perspective and the full realization that, in the broadest sense possible, this is a team effort.