News

August 2009

The TSA’s Tweeting, But Not All Agencies Feel So Social, Weekend Edition (NPR)

Interview with Dr. Mark Drapeau, Advisor to Strategic Social

Earlier this month, the Marine Corps pulled the plug on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. It said the sites were a potential security risk. Other government agencies are also figuring out what to do with Web 2.0. Several of them, like the Transportation Security Administration, now have their own Facebook fan pages and Youtube channels. Guest host David Greene talks with Mark Drapeau, who researches and writes about social networking at National Defense University.

Information Fuels Social Media, Federal Computer Week

By Matt Bigge

Web 2.0 evangelists, such as our friend and esteemed adviser Brian Solis of FutureWorks, have stressed that social-networking tools such as Twitter, Facebook and others are just that: tools. Good content or information is still necessary to make those tools successful. Period.  Take for example a recent article in Defense Systems that says that 10 percent of the visitors to Health.mil are under the age of 25, yet 80 percent of the people in the military are between the ages of 18 and 25. The Health.mil site is interesting and is fairly easy to navigate. But it fails to highlight the various ways that warfighters and their families can take advantage of the tools to get the latest information on military health insurance, health care tips or other useful insight.  Read the remainder of the article at Federal Computer Week.

July 2009

Hot, Flat and Shrouded, Washington Life Magazine

By Dr. Mark Drapeau

In his best-selling book The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman notes fundamental changes at the intersection of emerging technology and human behavior that have enabled massive 21st century globalization. Among them are collaborative Web technologies, the ability to discover an abundance of information, and personal digital devices like iPods and BlackBerries. The surfacing of such inventions has led to changes not only in running businesses, but also in organizing movements. As billions saw last year, a relatively untried junior senator from Illinois rose to become the leader of the free world. But in a flat world, you don’t need to be a senator to lead a tribe, and you don’t need to be powerful to become a household name.    Read the remainder of the article at Washington Life.

Trust, but verify, Web 2.0 Sources, Federal Computer Week

By Dr. Mark Drapeau

Have you ever thought about who controls popular applications such as Facebook and Twitter that facilitate informal social networking and information sharing? They belong to private companies, and the government does not always have contracts with them to govern their use of information. Their software resides outside of the government. Informal communications among government employees, or between these employees and contractors or ordinary citizens, can have many benefits. But there are also pitfalls, particularly for those relatively new to the culture of social technologies.    Read the remainder of the article at Federal Computer Weekly.

Social Media: Threat or Revolution?, Federal Computer Week

By Matt Bigge

In this online era of social media and interactive social networks, the wartime phrase “loose lips sink ships” has become outdated. The new game in town is transparency, which works against the grain of this aging culture of secrecy. From World War II to the present day, we embraced secrecy in the belief that we could defend our interests, control powerful technology and maintain world order through a complex and pervasive system of security. History has proven us wrong.   Read the remainder of the article at Federal Computer Weekly.