The Future of Citizens & Government
I had the privilege of attending the Gov 2.0 Expo in Washington DC during May 25th – 27th 2010. The main theme I took away was “Design for the Future”, as stated by Tim O’Reilly. I was thinking more about this when I was spending a blazing hot Memorial Day visiting Arlington Cemetery. I stood there drenched in sweat reading another name on one of the endless sea of tombstones. I thought, here is another person that made the ultimate sacrifice defending my right to freedom. I did not even know this person. Did he die in vain? Am I doing anything to honor this person or any of these people? Are we doing our best today to honor the sacrifices people have made for us and our children? I was near the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier when an image caught my eye. This image was a shadow of a very pregnant woman holding a child on her hip. I looked up at her and saw this angelic being with sunlight bouncing off her hair. She looked very young and rather thin, except for her very big belly. What a beautiful site. I looked back down at her shadow and noticed how strong she looked. I thought about her unborn child and started wondering what the future would be like on this child’s 18th birthday. This citizen may never own a music CD or never know the difference between the web, TV, and a telephone. This citizen could grow up in a world as a constant active participant in government to help shape the world and the local community in collaboration with the connected world.
Ideas on Government Web 2.0 Strategy
The Gov 2.0 Expo: Learning more about the future of Government & Citizens
It’s difficult to pick a favorite session, but I will say it was exciting to hear conversations about WHY Web 2.0 concepts work instead of how to copy Web 2.0 features. My personal highlight was meeting Tim Berners-Lee. He is beyond polite, very earthy, and super smart. The information from his #LinkedData session is very important to understand. He was also on the panel of this very interesting session: “Four Perspectives on data.gov.uk”. Danah Boyd gave us some food for thought in her session “Transparency Is Not Enough”. “Creating Passionate Citizens” by Kathy Sierra and “The Democratization of Content” by Gary Vaynerchuk were very insightful and refreshing. “Government as a Platform for Greatness” by Tim O’Reilly was powerful. I could go on and on, but fortunately O’Reilly has most of these presentations and videos available here.
