We have three levels of sponsorship, platinum, gold and silver. Individual tickets are priced at $75.00 which includes lunch and ensures an accurate head count. All sponsorship levels include some tickets and marketing and branding opportunities that vary per sponsorship levels. As in the past years, this event is user generated, both in terms of sponsorships and content. We rely on your sponsorships and ticket purchases to provide continuous live stream, HD videos and interaction from the internet before and during the event on a global scale. Gov 2.0 LA would not exist without your continued help and support.

Thank you, and use the link below to choose how many tickets or what level of sponsorship you want, and the checkout process is quite easily done.

Please go to Gov20LA and do it there:

THANK YOU AND SEE YOU IN APRIL!

As we have in the last two years, the event will be fully live-streamed and interactive with twitter, facebook, chat.

We are past the point where the “Gov 2.0″ in our name does more than evoke recognition. It is time to focus not on the theoretical but on the practical. This past year the world has witnessed upheaval and change on a scale that is new to all of us. When we did Gov20LA this year - Tunisia had just fallen, and the crisis in Egypt was just erupting in full; we had a collection of the some the world’s leading thinkers about guess what, social media in times of crisis and governments. It was to be sure pretty amazing timing. Hopefully the drama this coming year will once again be focused on the amazing speakers we will soon be announcing and the world eyes will be watching us with the ability to learn without being present in the room necessarily.

The three themes of this upcoming Gov20LA are going to be:

1. Business inside Government and how it is rapidly becoming different, things like SCRM are being deployed and government is basically being forced to restructure itself.

2. Goverments’ use and management of social media in crisis like the earthquake, hurricanes, riots.

3. Engagement is now being taken as a for granted thing, “everyone has a facebook page” but how real is it and how are crowd-sourcing and public private partnerships re-arranging the landscape?

We are requesting two things from you.

1. If you would like to submit a panel idea or speak please contact us here.

2. We will be issuing a follow up post before January 1, 2012 with regard to sponsorships and corporate opportunities, but if you are interested in sponsoring the event or some part of it, please contact us at Gov20LA@Gmail.com. Once again we appreciate all of the previous sponsors of the past two years, and could not have done it without each and every company and person who stepped up to sponsor the event.

But still the old bogeyman is hanging around. Fear. I have written about the role Fear plays in the gov 2.0 and open gov discussions around the world, but this recent world tour just confirms that fear is still the largest inhibitor to successful implementation of new plans, and actually stops some excellent programs right in their tracks. I have personally witnessed the role fear plays with minister level officials down to low level staffers as well as with political functionaries in multiple countries. I have been in meetings just this year where fear is so palpable in the room; that literally nothing gets done with the exception of voices being raised in anger or out of frustration.

That being said, there are also tremendous advances being made – both those that have been officially sanctioned and budgeted and those where courageous government workers are sticking their necks out to test, take chances and experiment. More and more it is less the top down movements and more the individual workers who are making the real changes. Because a shift in acceptance of a new role; of a new place in the workplace is well underway.

But besides fear, economic concerns are also hitting this movement, both positively and negatively. In USA budgetary crisis are causing ripples up and down the Gov 2.0 movement as it is called here. But at the same time the budget crisis globally is refocusing anew the issue of legacy system investment versus investment in new technologies that are often more cost effective and much more efficient.
So pretty soon we will be crossing the chasm of decision making from supporting older legacy systems and protocols with the need to be competitive on a data basis in an increasingly competitive and real time 24/7 world.

The time to make decisions about abandoning old legacy systems with a sunk investment versus the new-found results and applications available for cheaper alternatives is upon our society, and much like Y2K there is at least partially a ticking clock. This time it is how long will current systems last before not being able to operate in a new world?

In Europe which is also facing severe economic contractions, the funding for these programs is in fact increasing for now, but that may change if the EU financial situation continues to get worse. Additionally, certain European countries need to make a mind shift from cyber space equaling protection of assets versus cyber space being a multilateral space where protections of freedoms are just as important.

Australia is committing funding and new initiatives that will drive the adoption of these practices, including the NBN (national broadband network) which will effectively wire most of the continent to be able to implement egov and open gov quickly.

Canada is struggling with funding issues and a perceived innovation gap – but at the same time it actively encouraging the open gov coalition and just recently announced a new web standards policy and it is clear that there are some powerful ministers and ministries looking to adopt egov and open gov sooner than later.

The UK is getting ready to reveal its next new initiative “GovUK” currently in Alpha, getting ready to be launched in Beta, which will serve a government wide portal along the lines of Govusa, but with a much more direct call to action and a major change in how UK gov websites will be run and maintained in the near coming future.

Russia has a small but extremely active egov movement, and there are surprising strides coming out of Russia, including a gov 2.0 proponent now running for the Duma on an open gov platform. But given Russia’s history of top down management of its people and government, the egov movement in Russia struggles against the state dominated ownership and manipulation of both the media, and the infrastructure necessary to provide open gov, like ISP’s government maintained choking of internet access and the ability to shut off the internet from the people in a very dramatic fashion.

What I have learned mostly though, is that the breakneck pace of change that has been rattling the government and e-government spaces since 2008 is having real results globally. I will leave it to others to pick apart my statements or point to specific case studies. But reality is social, mobile, cloud are here and have forever changed how governments interact with themselves and with us.

As published on Silberberg Innovations

Times change. Social media is no longer just a buzzword, but really a part of daily life. It might even be like a utility in the near future, something the average person literally cannot live without. Now the new thing is a play on the old one, “You’ve got Klout.” Or do you? Or do you have Peerindex? Do you know your grade on Grader? Do you know what your Kred is?

It’s ok, most people have no clue. But you need to get a clue. It might seem like fun and games as in the social media stock market “Empire Avenue.” But the reality is people are watching. Employers, potential employers, clients, friends, enemies, ex-spouses, competitors, the police, governments, and of course giant database companies. It is like credit scores were maybe 25 years ago: they mattered but they did not rule your life like credit scores such as FICO do now. Social media influence and “credibility” are of increasing importance. So these scores, whether real or gamed; whether you subscribe or not, matter.

Klout did it again. They went and changed everyone’s numbers. Yes, everyone, even if you are not registered with them. They still monitor you, like a credit rating agency in real life. But most of the other analytical tools that measure social media don’t change as radically or as often as Klout. So what? Consistency is the key to listening and monitoring. These changes affect people’s reputations and people have little direct control over how those changes directly affect them. Klout risks losing market credibility with such wild changes to peoples numbers, without any charts showing historical records and how those numbers changed according to algorithmic changes as opposed to changes in the users social media behavior.

People are upset as evidenced by the thousands of tweets and posts on facebook; at least who follow this or care. But it affects all of us; at least all of us using the internet. It affects all of us with an email address attached to any social network, and therefore what people see in Google and Bing searches when they look you up. It really affects us because there are no standards being applied to the social analytics we are talking about, so numbers vary widely between the providers, and as Klout has demonstrated twice in the past 3 months can vary widely within one service.

Think about the big picture. Do not just rely on one of these services, but you should be actively checking on the health of your reputation. There are ways to make changes, but it requires one to pay attention first. You need to. Others are already.

Government 2.0 initiatives have been in full force since late 2009, early 2010. In 2008, however, the U.S. Government had not yet passed the Open Government Directive or the Joint Chiefs of Staff Open Source memo milestones. Officials were scared of change. Social media was a big angry beast that was not understood, not clearly developed in a government sense and something just to shy away from.

But we have moved to a point where major federal agencies not only have printed and published guidelines and existing working programs – but we are witnessing global cooperation on the Government 2.0 stage and collaboration is now fostering success. In late September of 2011 there will be a meeting of over 20 countries dedicated to Open Government and Government 2.0 around the globe. This is an exciting time for people like myself, advocating, pushing, pulling and even getting yelled at to accomplish change.

But still fear lingers, its wraith like fingers coming in the dead of night, or in the depth of a boardroom on a sunny day. Social media has its heroes and demons alike that is clear. But mobility, social connectivity and the desire for more transparency and openness create strange bedfellows. Just when an agency indicates a real need for Gov 2.0 – someone inevitably throws cold water. Sometimes freezing cold water, but still the movement continues, and the forward progression of the adoption of a new way of business for government continues uni-directionally.

My solution for fear based discussions about Gov 2.0? Look around. See all the successful implementations of open data, of social connectivity for Government and Citizens alike and see the results. It is not hard to find an example of government agencies adopting various parts of this big picture. Just ask your local fire department how they are using location based services. Or ask your local police department how they monitor social media for evidence of crimes. Look at the military using social media in offensive, defensive methods as well as for recruiting and publicity. Look at how the FBI regularly uses social media to tell the story about what they do. Look at the State Department’s continual innovations in new uses of mobility and social media. That is how your agency overcomes fear brought on by a sudden onslaught of Gov 2.0.

President Obama recently held the first ever Twitter town hall for a President of the U.S. While he was busy answering questions there were teams of people assessing questions and assisting in the background. The assumption in this situation was that the twitter accounts that were being used to ask questions were actually from real people.

This assumption about reality is probably false, at least a bit. There are already concerns surrounding this twitter town hall, with the possibility of fake accounts being used to pose questions. This follows news of Fox News Twitter account being “hacked” to send out tweets about the assassination of President Obama. While this is a horrifying example, FOX did correct itself and issued an apology to the White House. However, most of the faked social media accounts are maintained by people or smaller groups without the resources or ethical obligation to either correct false information; or potentially even with the desire to create harm.

As early as 2008, people started focusing on the issues around fake social media accounts, with the initial emphasis being on identity theft and how to protect one’s own name. Now the issues are being elevated to politics, security, and even warfare.

The Obama administration is exploring lots of different uses of social media. So are other government agencies. It turns out there are even government contractors who have not only developed software platforms to create and maintain fake social media accounts; but are now attempting to sell such platforms to the government and corporations. The “HBGary” story is just one example of this recent trend. It turns out there are lots of companies making tools like this. But not many are making solutions yet.

There are many stories appearing in multiple media outlets about the emerging problem with faked social media accounts. Even the Pope has weighed in about the problem of faked social media accounts giving the whole issue a level of realness not seen for other technology issues. When the Pope weighs in on something like this it should make people think about it. The U.S. Military has publicly acknowledged that it too has been involved in this, recently hiring a company to do just that.

How to solve this? This is a good question. It is my opinion that we won’t see “solutions” to this problem until a faked social media account is used to enact murder, kidnapping or some other nefarious act and the media hops on this as “what can people do about this?” Already smart law firms are creating practises around “fixing the problem of fake social media accounts.” If one google or bing searches the term “fake social media accounts” there are thousands of stories about the negative side of this, very few mentions if any of ways to combat this emerging problem.

Governments and the people they serve around the world are struggling to adapt to a new reality of real time information, demands for openness and transparency and more efficient service delivery. There is tremendous enthusiasm and interest in the utilization of social media, mobile and open data tools to remake the term “Government” as we know it.

Until recently, the majority of Government 2.0 initiatives were undertaken in places like the United States, Britain, Australia, Germany and Japan to name the leaders. The continued blossoming of this movement is taking hold in many other countries too like Brazil. Coming soon to Sao Paulo, Brazil is the next part of the dialog continuum.

Some recent examples of Open Government, and Gov 2.0 initiatives in Brazil:
http://www.webcitizen.com.br/en/tag/gov-2-0-summit/

and

http://shareable.net/blog/city-budgeting-gov-20-a-match-made-in-heaven

and

my friend Michael Walsh had this to say about Plone use in Brazil in a recent blog on Govfresh.

More on Gov 2.0 in Brazil:
http://www.brasil.gov.br/sobre/science-and-technology/open-source-software/open-source-software/br_model1?set_language=en This is an example of how the Government of Brazil is using Open Source software and solutions as an early adopter of the Open Government movement. So this makes Microsoft’s involvement even more inclusive and shows the depth to which this global company is looking outside itself as part of the effort to bring Government 2.0 and E-government to a reality around the world.

Government 2.0 requires the input, participation of many parties – obviously governments, also the big and small companies that service them, and of course the people. As a result there have been many conferences and “camps” that have sprung up to address the educational and collaborative needs of this emerging industry.

Microsoft is sponsoring Govcamp Brazil this coming June 8, 2011 with the idea of creating an open learning environment for anyone interested in Gov 2.0 in Brazil. While the event does require registration, it is open to all, whether Microsoft devotees or open source advocates. In fact, Microsoft is actively seeking the participation of as broad a group as possible to facilitate a collaborative dialog and create a new level of understanding. This represents a major part of Gov 2.0 - openness.

Rodrigo Becerra of Microsoft provided this insight:

“We believe that local communities have the passion, skills and insight to drive Gov 2.0 and OpenGov efforts on their own and we simply want to be able to provide a platform upon which they can dig deep into these issues. This is a space for creating connections to happen between citizens, organizations, groups and governments that may otherwise not exist. We have done them in Berlin, Mexico City, Colombia, Moscow, Russia, Toronto, Sydney, Wellington, Boston, Lisbon and will sponsor the Brazil event in the coming month. We specifically have local organizing committees run each event. We conduct them all in local language and invite social media, competitors and partners to revel in the discourse to help drive the progress of the Gov 2.0 movement.”

As the founder of Gov20LA in Los Angeles, California, I am thrilled to see how far and fast the Gov 2.0 movement is growing around the World. It is really encouraging to see this transformative change happening in places not often thought of for progressive thinking with regard to Government.

In full disclosure: I am an adviser to the Brazil Govcamp and am very excited to see what develops in this first ever Gov 2.0 Camp in Brazil.

But it slammed home all by itself. It. What it? That if America has shifted from an economy of making things to an economy of servicing things, then you would think we would be getting good at it.

However the stark reality exists. People have become rude. Manners have fallen by the wayside. The economic strains and other societal forces combining with everyone’s head stuck to their electronic tether have created a downward spiral of customer “service.”

At the 2010 Gov 2.0 LA; Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist and I had a discussion about bringing customer service best practices from business to government. But in light of the current state of things in the U.S.; I now believe more is needed.

If America is to be a service economy and succeed, and even innovate, then we need to buckle down and focus. People, if you have a job, be happy, do the best you can do, smile, and treat people the way you yourself would like to be treated. Plain and simple. Anything else just creates confusion, bad feelings and ill will towards your brand, or yourself. If your job is to service people, then remember that the people actually come first, not some script handed to you by a supervisor who could care less.

Some of my colleagues at Constellation Research Group are the worlds leaders on customer experience having led some of the biggest brands to success. When you look at their research and other writings on these subjects, it becomes clear that if America is to succeed as a Service Economy, than we need to take seriously the training, human relations and communications components that make the difference between world class service and customer service failures. We need to be creating educational tools that start to train young people in schools. Maybe it might even be time to institute manners classes and help people manage expectations of their own behavior in a service environment. Certainly, if our future is service then we need to be raising the level of service all across our economy.

Republished from Silberberg Innovations

One of the by-products of the strife, conflict and chaos occurring in the Middle East has been a laser like focus on the role that social media has been playing in the drama unfolding daily in a new country, almost country by country. One facet that has made social media have the impact it has had is the shortness of messaging allowed by services like Twitter and now Facebook as well as other sharing sites.

As anyone who has used Twitter more than once knows, the easiest way to submit a long link (url-uniform resource locator) is to shorten the link using anyone of other popular shorteners available for free and in paid versions. If you use a client like tweetdeck, the odds are you use a shortener powered by something ending with .ly (the extension) When you shorten, you cloak the real url, and re-direct the user to another – which in itself is a recipe for disaster. When you add in executable code that can be like a payload – with ddos, malware or other problematic attacks embedded. Your computer could turn it on without you even knowing, simply through the act of the redirect itself.

(Now I am about to say some things that will get some people annoyed so a disclaimer of sorts: I am not attacking any company nor service with the .ly extensions. Rather I am asking some questions in the hopes of helping to create some constructive answers and help allay some fears in the user base.)

This is an even huger problem as the .ly extensions are clearly and most definitely controlled by Libya. It is up to the Government of Libya to approve, deny or block content and users of .ly extensions according to both Islamic law and Libyan law. Libya is violently cracking down on it’s citizens and is using threats of and actually shutting down the internet. Why should Western companies think they are going to stay away from these troubles?

So not only is there a threat of shutdown – there is the more pernicious problem of the potential abuse of any redirect necessitated in any shortener program. These shorteners start executable code on your computer to do the re-direct. You don’t always know where you are being sent. Recently the Isreali government demonstrated that DDOS and other malicious code can be inserted into the backend of shorteners, a stern warning any government should be paying attention to. The United States Government recently issued it’s own shortener, based on Bit.ly professional (paid) version with some changes to the T.O.S. and other things. They have a secondary company supporting this. To the credit of the GSA, when I inquired through a tweet about the use of .ly shorteners with regard to Government agencies and the current crisis, I got a real response within minutes showing Gov 2.0 in use. However I seriously question the reliance on a company that is in turn relying on an extension controlled by a brutal dictatorship with no regard to human rights let alone western corporate rights. There are other shortener companies that do not rely on the .ly extensions. Why create a potential back door for mischief? I talked to many federal workers today, and received many emails and direct messages with varying degrees of use/non-use of the .ly extensions. One thing became very clear. In this age of Gov 2.0 and Web 2.0 - we need to be careful to guard against the rush of technology leading to rash decision making.

There has been a spate of recent stories about the problems with shorteners in general, and .ly extensions specfically, long before the current problems heated up. So I would suggest to the U.S. Government, and to other Governments, that they look seriously at using non .ly related shorteners, and come up with a way to take the mischief component out of the equation, in a bid to make the internet a safer place while still keeping the immediacy of the message intact.

Update:
Bit.ly has issued some statements on Quora as well as it’s own website with regard to the status of the .ly extensions. There still seems to be confusion over what would happen with a full shutdown, as there is a 28 day report period after which Icann will not take further information from a non addressing extension. At the same time, there are multiple hosting points, and of the 5 for .ly only 2 are in Libya. So while this provides some clarity – it does not address the payload issue, or why the shortener industry decided to rely on .ly extensions which still fall under the Islamic/Libyan law situation I laid out above.

re-posted from www.silberberginnovations.com