Social Media for Goverment 2008 – Recap

Just got back from Washington D.C. where I spoke at the Social Media for Government Conference. I have to say I was a bit worried when I saw all the speakers were from CIA, DOD, Homeland Security, etc. I thought that this would be an audience that would be behind the times for sure. But I was wrong….very wrong. Some examples:

The DOD uses Blogger Roundtables to pitch new ideas and give sneak peeks to Blogger
The CIA uses Wiki’s all over the place. (Video coming soon)
The DOD has a "New Media" Division to deal with everything from Generals Blogging to soldiers on Facebook (their Wikipedia Page was just flagged though)
The NOAA has an island in Second Life
The TSA has a rocking blog (and I met Blogger Bob, he’s the govt celebrity Blogger)

All excellent ways the US Govt is using Social Media for (dare I say it) Social Good. Well not always the good of people everywhere but I won’t get too political. I presented on the Frozen Pea Fund, User Generated Content and the Tweet Up Blood Drive as examples of spending zero money but getting a ton of good ROI. Hopefully I was a good presenter.

Check out photos of the event .

Check out Crowd sourcing vs. Experts here (I was one of the "experts" and I p0wned the crowd….okay not at all)

4 comments

  1. Steve
    July 17, 2008 at 1:36 pm

    Thanks for the recap Dave – you were a GREAT presenter! Your lively speaking style and real-life success stories kept the audience engaged and was a real highlight to the day’s events. I’ve got a history of cancer in my family (my uncle, two grandparents, an aunt, etc.) have all had it and I learned about a lot of cancer-related resources that I’ll be passing along to my family. Love the Sharinghope.tv site! Thanks again for presenting!

  2. Alex Sicre
    July 18, 2008 at 7:47 am

    Great post. Was the CDC there? They are doing some great outreach via social media and texting. We might do a program with them.

  3. jonny Goldstein
    July 18, 2008 at 8:41 am

    Hey Dave,

    Glad to hear more details about how the Feds are getting up to speed on social media stuff.

    Sorry we didn’t intersect. I’m juggling a lot of balls and dropped this one!

  4. Kelly Flynn
    July 20, 2008 at 5:18 pm

    Hey Dave, thanks for getting this post up so quickly! Great job at the conference. You were a lot of fun to work with and always had some innovative ideas that I will be incorporating for future conferences (i.e. not always relying on PPT slides). 🙂

    Thanks again, and I’m already looking forward to the next one!

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