A charter member of the federal Web Content Managers Council, co-founder of the Social Media Subcouncil, a creator of the recent Government 2.0 Camp, and Director of Web Communications at the Environmental Protection Agency, Jeffrey Levy is one of the most prominent voices in government Web 2.0. He is a public servant who would rather act than analyze. "We have to be more agile," says Levy, "trying stuff out at low cost, learning, revising, and trying something else. Don't wait for the perfect, $300,000 plan supported by two years of focus groups."

Levy's preference for action is enlivened and motivated by a sense of wonder at the world around him. "A general pattern in my life is a wide-ranging interest in the new and unusual," he says. With that mindset, there's no time to waste allowing the "perfect to be the enemy of the good," and there are always new projects to start.

That's especially the case each April at EPA. For Earth Day this year (April 22), Levy and his team of "amazing people" launched "Pick 5 for the Environment," an experiment in social media that invites the public to engage in EPA's mission to protect human health and the environment. Citizens are asked to choose five environmental actions from a list of 10 and commit to doing them - actions like "Use less water!", "Save Electricity!", and "eCycle!" Participants also have the opportunity to explore and provide input using email, Flickr, YouTube, and a blog. Levy believes in practicing what you preach. "We're using free tools, and launched three weeks after we thought up the concept. If it flies, wonderful! If it flops, we evaluate why and try something else."

Jeffrey Levy joined EPA in 1993 to help protect the ozone layer, he noted in a post on EPA's "Greenversations" blog. As a Presidential Management Intern, he wrote ozone regulations and co-chaired an international committee on the same topic. In 1994, a friend told him about a breakthrough in Web technology that enabled text and images to be displayed on the same page. For the first time, he realized the Internet could replace the printed fact sheets his office was always distributing. It was hard to believe, but it was for real, and it was called Netscape 1.0. "Thus was born 15 years of fun," Levy recalls.

The fun was laced with weeks and months of dead-serious work, as Levy led EPA's Web response to the September 11th attacks and Hurricane Katrina, two experiences he considers the most rewarding of his federal career. Just two days after Katrina, he met with an interagency group to coordinate the several "lanes" of information the government would provide via the Web. "The lack of organizational egos was inspiring," he remembers. "That collaboration eventually led to the first federal hurricane response widget, which got picked up all over the Web."

Levy believes the biggest obstacle to fully leveraging Web 2.0 and social media in government is the tendency of people to dismiss it "as a toy or a fad for kids." That's why he advocates a mission-first approach. "We need to demonstrate these are real tools for real agency goals," he says. "Then the objections will melt away." To that end, Levy is excited about "Regulations 2.0," a concept in which social media tools are used to solicit comments and discussions among the public and finally to "explain in plain terms what the policy will be." He enjoys helping others learn how to use the Web to engage citizens. "Teaching a class of interested people is magic. I often get as much out of it as I hope they do."

Levy serves on the government-wide Federal Web Managers Council, which last fall tasked him and Joyce Bounds from the Department of Veterans Affairs with starting the Social Media Subcouncil, which now claims more than 30 members. "Our goal is simply to help government agencies at all levels use social media well," he says. "There will be best practices and learning we can help spread." True to the spirit of social media, the Subcouncil encourages input and collaboration from the community at large, and maintains a wiki for that purpose.

Levy worked with three private-sector experts to organize the Government 2.0 Camp that took place March 27-28 in Washington, which he describes as "Wiki meets conference." "The most amazing two days I've ever spent at a conference," says the organizer who capped his experience by leading hundreds of his colleagues in singing "We Will Rock You." The camp lives on in the online Government 2.0 Club, where, among other things, participants will collaborate in writing "Government 2.0 Camp—The Book," which is intended to help communicate the value of government 2.0 beyond the "goverati" community.

You can find Jeffrey Levy online everywhere you'd expect: Facebook, GovLoop, Delicious, LinkedIn, and Twitter, where he is "astounded" to have more than 3,000 followers.

Levy is the father of two daughters, a house-greener (see "Greenversations"), an award-winning amateur photographer and a "lapsed private pilot" who hopes to return to flying someday. In his college years at Cornell University, he studied physics to discover "why the world worked as it did." But summers at camp and rock climbing in college instilled in Levy an appreciation for the outdoors, and after graduating, he worked for three years as a contractor for EPA. Encouraged by his foray into the public sector, he earned a Master's Degree in Public Administration at the University of Washington.

Today, Levy is "very serious about public service" and doesn't intend to hang up his federal ID anytime soon. "My grandfather was a federal employee for 41 years," he says, "and I intend to break his record."

In his weekly address on April 18, President Obama fulfilled a campaign promise and appointed Aneesh Chopra, Virginia's Secretary of Technology, to be the nation's first Chief Technology Officer. Chopra will work with Federal CIO Vivek Kundra to "give all Americans a government that is effective, efficient, and transparent."

The President also appointed Jeffrey Zients Deputy Director for Management at OMB and Chief Performance Officer. Prior to joining the administration, Zients was Founder and Managing Partner at the investment firm Portfolio Logic.

OMB released its second set of guidelines for federal agency reporting under the Recovery Act. The guidelines instruct agencies to make decisions that are transparent and merit-based and to optimize economic benefits in harmony with the administrations other policy goals. The new guidance "supplements, amends, and clarifies" the initial Recovery Act guidance issued by OMB February 18.

The new guidance finalizes data elements for recipient reporting. Recipients will provide greater detail in weekly reports including information about contracts and subcontracts. Agencies will no longer be required to submit monthly financial reports, but weekly reports to OMB will continue and become more detailed, including information on performance and agency oversight of spending. OMB has also developed a standard process for posting data on Recovery.gov.

OMB also issued Interim Guidance Regarding Communications With Registered Lobbyists About Recovery Act Funds on April 7. The sample interim guidance should be adopted by agencies and distributed to their employees. It outlines the actions employees are required to take whenever they receive or participate in oral communications with any outside persons or entities regarding Recovery Act funds.

The Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board and OMB have partnered with the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) to host an online dialogue aimed at improving the effectiveness of Recovery.gov. The dialogue, which began April 27, will continue for one week. The Recovery Board is charged with maintaining Recovery.gov and providing oversight for the $787 billion in stimulus funding provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The online dialogue, which encourages participation from the public, business, and government, will seek to determine "what ideas, tools, and approaches can make Recovery.gov a place where all citizens can transparently monitor the expenditure and use of recovery funds."

The GSA Office of Citizen Services has announced new terms of service agreements with Facebook, the social networking site, and four other popular Web-based media providers. Any agency can use the new terms, which a coalition of agencies led by GSA negotiated over a six-month period to satisfy the requirements of agencies across the federal government. The new agreements resolve the legal concerns found in many standard terms and conditions that pose problems for federal agencies, such as liability, endorsements, advertising, freedom of information, and governing law.

Having a terms-of-service agreement with Facebook makes it easier for government agencies to create Facebook pages and use them to dramatically increase access to information, offer education on government services, and further empower citizens to interact with government.

This first round of agreements also facilitates agencies' use of YouTube, the well-known pioneer in online video hosting; blip.tv, a service for hosting Web-based, serialized shows; Vimeo, a social networking site that focuses on independently made video; and Flickr, a service for hosting photography and video. GSA is currently in talks with a number of additional providers.

Twitter, the popular microblogging platform, did not require a new agreement because GSA concluded that its existing terms of service are compatible with federal requirements.

Use of social software, "if deployed, trained on, monitored, managed, and utilized properly," will yield numerous national security benefits, according to a paper released this month by the National Defense University's Center for Technology and National Security Policy.

Written by NDU Research Fellow Mark Drapeau and Linton Wells II, formerly the Principal Deputy Secretary of Defense for Networks and Information Integration and Acting Defense Department CIO, the paper's findings are also broadly applicable outside the national security arena.

"New social software technologies offer organizations increased agility, adaptiveness, interoperability, efficiency and effectiveness," they conclude. "Social software can be used by governments for content creation, external collaboration, community building, and other applications."

"The proliferation of social software has ramifications for U.S. national security, spanning future operating challenges of a traditional, irregular, catastrophic, or disruptive nature. Failure to adopt these tools may reduce an organization's relative capabilities over time. Globally, social software is being used effectively by businesses, individuals, activists, criminals, and terrorists. Governments that harness its potential power can interact better with citizens and anticipate emerging issues."

The paper frames the potential of social media in four categories: internal agency information sharing, information sharing with agency partners, crowdsourcing and gauging public sentiment, and empowering people outside government.

Incorporating social software into the government's day-to-day work practices will "improve understanding of how others use the software, unlock self-organizing capabilities within the government, promote networking and collaboration with groups outside the government, speed decisionmaking, and increase agility and adaptability," the authors contend. The capability of social media tools to foster connections should also "decrease the probability of being shocked, surprised, or out-maneuvered."

The Departments of Veterans Affairs and Defense have taken the first step toward the creation of Joint Virtual Lifetime Electronic Records for military personnel, President Obama announced April 9.

The new records are expected to streamline information sharing between VA and DOD and will "ultimately contain administrative and medical information from the day an individual enters military service throughout their military career, and after they leave the military."

A $25 billion increase in the VA budget over the next five years includes expanded funding for integrated, paperless healthcare technology that will run more efficiently, add convenience for veterans, and reduce medical errors.

On March 31, the Treasury Department launched a new site, FinancialStability.gov, to maintain transparency and accountability for federal funds allocated under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (EESA), which includes the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). The site is similar to Recovery.gov, which provides transparency regarding the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The site includes an interactive map of the United States that displays a state-by-state listing of banks along with the amount of federal funding each has received. The site also features a "Decoder" for difficult financial terms, downloadable bank surveys and reports, bank contracts with the government, a newsroom, and more.

The ruling communist party in Moldova, a small, rural country sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine, achieved better-than-expected results in the April 5 national elections. Over the following two days, however, surprise turned to anger, bringing out 10,000 to 15,000 protestors, some of whom clashed with police and ransacked parliament.

News of the protests spread quickly via text messages and the Internet and was fueled by Twitter, a popular microblogging site. Protesters on site and distant observers organized their Twitter posts, known as "tweets," using the #pman hashtag, which takes its name from Piata Marii Adunari Nationale, the main square in Chisinau, where much of the protest took place.

IT contractors believe "changes in agency strategies/initiatives with the new administration" to be the top challenge confronting them over the coming year, according to a survey published March 31 by Market Connections, Inc. Most respondents, 59%, believe their budgets are likely to increase over the year, though they are divided over whether the Obama administration will provide them with more opportunities or more obstacles.

The survey was conducted February 25-March 9. Of the 228 respondents, one third work for organizations classified as small businesses.

IRMCO Award. The U.S. Department of Transportation Multimodal Hazardous Materials Intelligence Portal Team received the 2009 IRMCO Award for working collaboratively to improve government service to citizens.

Customer Service Awards. The Centers for Disease Control, the Social Security Administration and the Small Business Administration were awarded 2009 Citizen Service Awards. The awards were announced at the 2009 IRMCO Conference.

CIO Council Leadership Awards. The CIO Council presented 2009 leadership awards to three individuals and one team at the Senior Executive Dinner at IRMCO. Winners were: Eric Markland, Next Generation Enterprise Network Fleet, Department of the Navy; Steve Rosen, GSA Federal Asset Sales; Dan Slick, Enterprise Architect, Department of the Navy; and the GSA Federal Acquisition Service Managed Trusted Internet Protocol Service Team.

CIO Council Azimuth Awards. Marty Wagner, former Associate Administrator for the GSA Office of Governmentwide Policy, was awarded the 2009 CIO Council Azimuth Award for Government. John Thompson, CEO of Symantec Corporation won the Azimuth Award for Industry. The awards were presented at a luncheon March 26 at FOSE.

Federal and Industry Eagle Awards. Molly O'Neill, former EPA CIO, was awarded the Government Eagle Award at the 2009 Fed 100 Awards Gala. Brad Boston, Senior Vice President at Cisco Systems, Inc., received the Industry Eagle Award.

Excellence.gov Awards. The National Institutes of Health Blueprint for Neuroscience Research was named Best Overall Award Winner at the April 14 Excellence.gov Awards Luncheon. Awards also went to the Office of Personnel Management (Excellence in Business Processes), Department of Energy (Excellence in Leveraging Technology), Library of Congress (Excellence in Transparency), and Department of the Interior (Excellence in Acquisition).

Top 50 Innovations in Government. The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University honored 21 cities and towns, seven counties, one school district, 11 states, eight federal agencies, one tribal government, and one regional authority with Top 50 Innovations in Government awards.

Sunlight Foundation Apps for America. The Sunlight Foundation, a non-profit organization that promotes transparency in government, has awarded Apps for America awards to 16 Web applications that use open source applications to "open up government." First place went to Filibusted, a site intended to hold Senators accountable for blocking legislation; Legistalker, which shows the latest online activity of members of Congress, took second place; and there were four third place winners and 10 honorable mentions.

Nominations for NASCIO's 2009 Recognition Awards for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Information Technology are due June 3.

Also available in pdf 400 kb

Government Web Managers 2-Day Conference
Washington, DC
April 28-29

Knowledge Management Conference
Washington, DC
April 28-29

NASCIO Mid-Year Conference
Baltimore, MD
April 28-May 1

Digital Government Society of North America 2009 Conference
Puebla, Mexico
May 17-20

ACT/IAC 2009 Management of Change Conference
Norfolk, VA
May 31-June 2

Excellence in Government Series: New Leadership: People, Policy, Programs
Washington, DC
July 20, 2009

Excellence in Government Series: Driving Federal Performance
Washington, DC
October 5, 2009

ACT/IAC Executive Leadership Conference
Williamsburg, VA
October 27-29

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