Jun
06

The Gov 2.0 Expo Experience

As regular readers of this blog know by now, I had quite a journey getting to present at the Gov 2.0 Expo this year. I’ve spent enough time talking about that preso. Now it’s time to talk about the Expo itself.

There have been metric shitloads of wrap-ups, reviews, commentaries, and think pieces following the Expo. I’ll try to sum up my experience there without repeating too much. (See links below to some of the better wrap-ups.)

First and foremost, I have to give Laurel Ruma, J.B. Wheatley and the rest of the O’Reilly staff huge props for hooking it up for me. Laurel greeted me with a great big hug when I arrived, and her enthusiasm never wavered. The speakers’ lounge gang was a delight as well, providing a great place to meet new connections like David Hale from the National Institute of Health and longtime Twitter pals like Chris Rasmussen.

I expected a lot of cogitation, pontification, and general assholery from this conference… par for the course of most govvie conferences in DC. However, I was pleasantly surprised that the gov in Gov 2.0 was better represented by hyperlocal government (cities, counties, townships) than the federal monstrosity here in DC. While we eventually got to see presos from Price Floyd (Defense Department) and Alec Ross (State Department), their remarks were not near as inspiring as the things coming from local yokels like Joshua Robin (Massachusetts Department of Transportation), Steve Corbett (iStrategy Labs), and Melissa Jordan (Bay Area Rapid Transit). It was really AWESOME and inspiring seeing these representatives and enthusiasts of city and township government speak about crowdsourced apps, programs and ideas that are revolutionizing the way their local governments are engaging with and supporting citizens.

These combined perspectives on citizen engagement of local government really speak to me given my work with Sister Cities International. If it’s one thing my mom taught me (she’s the president of Fort Worth Sister Cities) it’s that the relationships that matter most to government change are those between citizens. And it’s important to remember, government employees are citizens too. People at the Gov 2.0 Expo showed me how true and effective that can be, especially when you activate those citizens’ AWESOME and let them come up with some really badass shi’ to help their local communities and governments.

There were some really great presos that I won’t go into too much detail here, but you should check as many of them out as you can on the Expo’s YouTube channel. I particularly enjoyed the mashup of marketing, Maslow, and media sciences that Dan Zarrella used to scientifically study social media. Kathy Sierra’s talk about passion (and call for a LOLcat Translation Project for the Federal Acquisition Regulation) was much more fun than I’d expected, and surprisingly cooler than Gary Vaynerchuk’s keynote.

Finally, the Expo’s social events were great places for me to connect with people I’d only engaged with online. It was AWESOME drinking beers and shooting the shit with Steve Radick, Chris Ramussen, Steve Ressler, Andrew Krzmarzick, and Steve Lunceford; and meeting new friends like Chris Bennett, Chris McCroskey (hmmm, AWESOME Gov 2.0 peeps seem to go by the names Chris and Steve….), Jacque Brown, David Hale, and the boys from Palantir. As a social animal myself, it was pretty rad to hang out with these cats and others that felt like “fellow travelers” in our particular, individual quests for AWESOME government.

In closing, the source of inspiration for any good Gov 2.0 discussion… TENACIOUS D.

Related articles by Zemanta
Enhanced by Zemanta
Jun
03

An AWESOME Corporate Culture: The Palantir Experience

One of the coolest personal experiences I’ve had of late involved meeting and hanging with a bunch of cats from Palantir Technologies, a Silicon Valley-based company that rocks a pretty cool data analysis tool. I’ve known about their software for some time, and I’ve heard good things about their products and services from some of their clients in the Intel Community and DOD. What I had not experienced, however, was Palantir’s AWESOME corporate culture.

I met Palantir’s Drew and Jon at the Gov 2.0 Expo in DC, where Palantir had spared no expense in setting up the biggest and baddest-ass booth in the entire expo hall. Instead of developing the same old tired convention booth marketing concept, Palantir had designed a cool little area in which to simply hang out and get to know their people. Drew described it as their “mullet booth: business in front, party in back.” While they flaunted the customary multiple widescreens on which to demo the Palantir system, the real draw of the booth was the pleather couches and full-on Wii gaming setup they had going on behind it. Oh yeah, and they were serving their visitors complementary beer. Motherfucker, JAM.

What Drew &  Jon showed me was a corporate culture that valued their people’s AWESOME way more than their products and sales of their products. As I learned, Palantir is all about its people. They let their teams self-organize to solve problems, and they provide tons of on-site perks that enable a creative, fun atmosphere. I got the chance to see this culture of AWESOME in action when I got invited to Palantir Night Live at Palantir’s Tysons Corner office last night.

Pro setup at Williams Sonoma? Nope. Just Palantir's AWESOME kitchen, complete with daily catering menu for its peeps.

Every month, Palantir Night Live features a rad speaker in the national security, intelligence, tech, or other related community that Palantir touches. Last night it was Michael Chertoff, former Secretary of Homeland Security and Skeletor lookalike. The event is a social one and underlies a key facet of Palantir’s people-based marketing strategy. The draw of this event has little if anything to do with the company’s products and everything to do with its culture. Palantir peeps are young, hip folks who enjoy socially building their business. So that means they value facilitating knowledge exchange (via AWESOME catering and bar service) amongst a variety of people in their social business circle. You saw govvies rubbing shoulders with bloggers at Palantir Night Live.

I would be greatly interested in seeing the sales leads generated from events like these, if those are even metrics Palantir tracks for the success of its marketing events. As a social business, I see Palantir experimenting a lot more in non-traditional selling, i.e. allowing its community of interest (customers, personnel, etc) to recommend the company within existing trust networks.

Skeletor-- er, Chertoff, draws the hotness of DC blogger "K Street Kate."

How well this works for the company’s business development strategy remains to be seen, but I can attest to the AWESOMEness of the culture. Their focus on people really underscores the value of a social business. Palantir doesn’t even use a whole lot of social media marketing because their in-person social marketing works so well.

I should also mention that a couple of my former Detica colleagues got picked up by Palantir when that company was unceremoniously acquired and assfucked. One whose work I respect a great deal told me how much he loves his new job and how he feels great working for Palantir. It’s people like this guy whose trust is based more on social culture than the old work-reward hierarchy that tells me there is something imminently special about Palantir. I would LOVE to work with these cats if given the chance.

For more on Palantir Night Live, check out the Twitter hash #pnldc and @palantirtech.

Related articles by Zemanta
Enhanced by Zemanta
May
27

Video: Du4 at Gov 2.0

The Gov 2.0 Expo has been a pretty amazing experience, speaking aside. I’ve met some really great people working at hyperlocal levels of government on extremely cool, forward-thinking means of connecting with their citizens. Sometimes you have to really have to embed at these events to get a good understanding of their value, and this one delivered.

I’ll write up a more in-depth analysis of the event once I’ve had some time to think on things. But in the meantime, here’s video of my 5-minute presentation from Tuesday’s Keynote Kickoff. (Thanks to the fine people at O’Reilly Media for recording, livestreaming and promoting this!)

Related articles by Zemanta
Enhanced by Zemanta
May
23

I’m Comin’ to Getcha, Gov 2.0!

Just hit SEND on the final “Instituting a Culture of AWESOME in Government” preso to be delivered at the Gov 2.0 Expo this week. I’m up at 5:55pm on Tuesday at the Washington Convention Center. If you happen to be in town and catch me, shoot me a holler on Twitter so we can connect later. There’s a social or some shit like that after the keynote Tuesday, and I’d love to hear how AWESOME my delivery was. ;)

I’m a complete stranger to Ignite-style briefing: 20 slides, 5 minutes, 15 seconds per slide. It’s either gonna be a fun exercise in bullshittery or a complete shit-show. HOWF!

For folks who aren’t going to make it to the Expo, I’ve uploaded the preso here for your viewing pleasure. Please feel free to leave a comment below and tell me what you think. I’m going to try and get video of the actual Day-Of, so be on the lookout for that in subsequent posts.

Instituting a Culture of AWESOME in Government (Du4 Gov 2.0 2010)

View more presentations from Du4.
Related articles by Zemanta
Enhanced by Zemanta
May
09

Developing the Tech Team Preso

I’m using this post as a testing ground of sorts with which to work out the design of my 5-minute Gov 2.0 Expo talk on May 25th, 2010. As a result what you are about to read may seem random and disjointed at first. Fair warning.

I think what I’ll probably do is develop the case study as a full-on post for Must. Be. AWESOME!!! so that interested folks from the expo can come here and read through the entire narrative. What I’ll need to do then is make the 5-minute preso more of a pitch for people to come back and get the full effect. Plus, it’ll be a great place to start a conversation about the Tech Team, share experiences, continue analyzing, etc.

Original Pitch

“Instituting a Culture of AWESOME in Government: The Case of the IED Task Force Tech Team”

  • Purpose 1: Demonstrate how gov entities can exude AWESOME
  • Purpose 2: Extract lessons (positive & negative) from case study
  • Contraints: 45-min preso time shortened to 5 minutes — warrants major curtailing in presentation of findings

Major Themes in Research/Interviews

  • Righteous mission: helping to save soldiers’ lives
  • Brotherhood: team exceptionally loyal to one another, inside & outside of work
  • Fellowship: people & job were fun – weekly happy hours & grill-outs
  • Leadership: BG Votel  and LTC Jost took risks, backed up his people every time

Lessons Learned

  • The right mix of personalities will enable AWESOME in any enterprise.
  • AWESOME activity creates swarm of “antibodies” (naysayers, can’t-do’s, etc).
  • People will give 18hrs/day if the activity is AWESOME.
  • Small, super-empowered teams can change everything if given the chance.
  • Cults of personality and rabid positivity will engender loyalty between all echelons.
  • Middle management worked for team members, not vice versa.
  • The business of AWESOME is inherently and unavoidably social.
  • Ad hoc, task force structure engendered agility, effectiveness, & ownership.
  • Permanizing the organization destroyed team cohesion & introduced stagnation & irrelevance.

Unanswered Questions

  • How transferrable is this case to other parts of government?
  • If JIEDDO was borne of the Tech Team / JIEDDTF, then wasn’t the organization a failure? (because JIEDDO pretty much sucks today)

The IED Task Force Tech Team (circa 2004)

A note on formatting: I’m also currently fooling around with Prezi, a new web-based system of designing presentations that purports to help design better presentations by forcing you to think creatively, visually, and using mind-mapping techniques. The videos make it seem pretty cool, and I was considering using this for my Gov 2.0 preso. However, I’m concerned that the Gov 2.0 staff isn’t ready for the newness of Prezi (I’m not even sure of the file formats supported), and I’ve only got a few weeks to play around with it. Further, despite the New York Times‘ recent story on how tired of PowerPoint everyone in the Defense establishment is, everyone’s still using it and everyone’s used to seeing it.

In 5 minutes’ time, I’m not even sure the benefits of Prezi would be worth it. Still, I may do a longer version of the talk in Prezi to post here on the blog at a later date. We’ll have to see what the future demand looks like for this case study.

Related articles by Zemanta
Enhanced by Zemanta
Apr
18

Station Ident: On the Move


Gov 2.0 Expo 2010

Phew! Lots of conferences, workshops, and summits lately. Given that I love connecting and networking with people, I find that even the least relevant of conferences can yield super positive experiences.

Still, time is a commodity, and it’s sometimes hard to determine what’s worth your while. I used to work for a government program manager who used to tell me that meetings and conferences were a waste of time; that you spend more time trying to determine if the event is worthwhile than actually working. We always butted heads about this because my view was that even at the most time-wasting event, you can still find value if you know where to look and you have an objective.

I’m getting ready to board a train to New York for the Social Business Edge conference put on by Stowe Boyd. Despite missing all of The Dachis Group‘s Social Business Summits this year, I’m still convinced that social business is the new big concept for strategic thinkers and planners. Since this is a path on which I intend to take @Du4.llc, I’m willing to “waste” a little time and money connecting with this community, integrating some of their skills into my business offerings, and, hopefully, booking some work.

Here are a couple places you can catch me over the next couple months. Feel free to holler at me if you want to connect in person in and around any of these events:

Thanks for reading and participating. This is Must. Be. AWESOME!!! Dot com.

Related articles by Zemanta
Enhanced by Zemanta
Mar
16

The Courtesy of a Reach-around

A wrench got thrown into my Gov 2.0 Expo preso planning while I was picking myself up a bride Down South. It actually made me question whether I wanted to go through with it at all. However, after some hard thinking, I’m putting on the smiley face and taking my cheek-splitters like a man.

Let me explain.

The Gov 2.0 organizers contacted me about my presentation, “Instituting a Culture of AWESOME in Government: The Case of the IED Task Force Tech Team,” a couple weeks ago. They told me that they were altering the format of the conference and that my presentation was being shortened from the originally proposed 50 minutes to FIVE minutes. Apparently, they thought it would be so much cooler if they bunched in a ton of 5 minute “rapid fire” presos around the keynote address. There were a lot of platitudes about how great my proposal was and how AWESOME it would be condensed to 5 minutes.

How do you “condense” a case study, which by definition is the result of an analysis? It’s like saying, “Hey, dude, I love your book! Can you give me a pamphlet version?” Considering how much effort I’ve already put into researching this topic, a FIVE MINUTE presentation does the material – especially this material – a disservice.

I wrote the organizers back expressing my discontent but also offering an alternative: how about I come up with something else related to creating AWESOME culture in government that I could adequately fit in the time limit? Apparently, the organizers really wanted the IED Task Force Tech Team case study but felt it wasn’t topical enough to warrant a full panel. They adamantly demanded I present the same topic as originally proposed. Basically, do it or hit the road, jack.

Now this all sounds like inside baseball and dirty laundry, but I’m recounting it to demonstrate something. Despite the sheer shittiness of the situation, it forced me to sit down and think hard about what I was being asked to do. Is it worth taking a stand against this tomfoolery? Should I risk standing behind my material if it means getting kicked off the ticket? Is it even possible to give a good presentation on my original topic under these new circumstances? Am I betraying my AWESOME if I cave to these new demands? In this case, can you still be AWESOME living on a compromise?

At the end of the day, I accepted… and here’s why:

  • I can’t trade the exposure I’ll get at this conference at this stage of my career.
  • It will be an even more challenging exercise boiling my preso down to something entertaining and valuable.
  • I think I can still deliver an AWESOME preso.
  • Who knows what I can get away with on the day of?

Don’t be mistaken though: I’m not compromising on this. I’m acceding to the organizers’ demands. I think that’s an important distinction.

All that said, though, I’m still gonna fucking ROCK this expo. Fifty minutes, five minutes, whatever. It’s just less time into which I gotta pack a more concentrated dose of AWESOME.

So bring a spare pair of panties– IT’S ON.

Related articles by Zemanta
Enhanced by Zemanta
Feb
05

The Gov 2.0 Expo Is About to Exhibit a Slight Case of AWESOME

A couple months ago, I told y’all about submitting a proposal to the Gov 2.0 Expo occurring in May. It is with glad jazz hands that I can tell you my proposal, “Instituting a Culture of AWESOME in Government,” was accepted by the Expo committee! I’m now listed as a speaker alongside some pretty frickin’ AWESOME company (like Gary V!).

As promised, I’m going to blog about this experience. It’s really the first time I’ve ever had the chance to analyze and put forth a case that’s totally unique (at least in my opinion), so I’m really excited about the opportunity. I am deep into collecting data for the case study, and one method I’m using to do this has been reaching out to former members of the IED Task Force Tech Team for stories, pictures, and other info that may help my analysis. It’s been a BLAST reconnecting with these guys. We had a lot of fun back in the Tech Team days, which is one cornerstone of that experience’s AWESOMEness.

I have gotten a crap-ton of fun stuff so far, a lot of which I hope makes it into the final preso. But to give you a tease, here is the first logo one of our Tech Team brethren, Shane Gilmore, cooked up back when we first went joint.

JIEDTF2

Related articles by Zemanta
Enhanced by Zemanta
Dec
08

Instituting a Culture of AWESOME in Government

There’s been a slow, creeping movement in DC these past few years to renovate the way we think about government. The Gov 2.0 Summit and Expo, put on by O’Reilly Media and TechWeb, drew a monstrous crowd of people last year to explore challenges, requirements, and strategies for adapting the phenomena we associate with the social media movement to the government of the future.

I just submitted a Must.Be.AWESOME!!! pitch for the Gov 2.0 Expo in May 2010. My topic is called Instituting a Culture of AWESOME in Government. The approach I intend to take on this preso involves analyzing a case study of how  AWESOME can exist and flourish in government today. I chose to use a very specific case study, one near and dear to my own heart: my experience with the IED Task Force Tech Team from January 2003 to April 2006.

Du4 pretending to be King Shit at the old Tech Team trailer

Du4 pretending to be King Shit at the old Tech Team trailer

My intent behind examining the Tech Team stems from the entire team’s own reminiscences about our time there. Not a single one of these exceptional people would tell you that working on this team was anything less than AWESOME. The team’s mission was to seek out, evaluate, and rapidly equip lifesaving counter-IED technology to American soldiers serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. There were long hours and a lot of opposition to our methods (our approach basically bucked and made irrelevant the entire Army acquisition system), but our cause was just and we celebrated it joyfully every day.

I’m really looking forward to digging into this study. It gives me a chance to catch up with a lot of my original teammates, all of whom left an indelible mark on me due to their profound professionalism and loyalty. I loved working with these guys, and I’d lay down in traffic for ‘em any day. That’s the kind of culture we need to instill in government today.

With some luck, my submission will get picked up by the Gov 2.0 folks, and I can get to work putting together a badass preso. I’ll blog about how it’s going as new developments occur; maybe something I’m looking into will help YOU in instituting a culture of AWESOME in your own organizations.