Intergovernmental Teleconference

**Between Federal Officials and State and Local Associations**

**June 19, 2008 - 2:30-3:30 Minutes**

**Attendees**

Marshall Brown General Services Administration

Frank DiGiammarino National Academy of Public Administration

Scott Fraser Environmental Protection Agency

Tom Freebairn General Services Administration

Pedro Flores National Association of Counties

Christy Guillory Council of State Governments

Jana Hrdinova Center for Technology in Government

Darlene Meskell General Services Administration

Lisa Nelson General Services Administration

Andrea Noce General Services Administration

Molly O'Neill Environmental Protection Agency

Doug Robinson National Association of Chief Information Officers

Dominic Sale Office of Management and Budget

Greg Scott Fairfax County, VA

Betsy Steele General Services Administration

Lena Trudeau National Academy of Public Administration

**The Collaboration Project**

The National Academy of Public Administration's (NAPA) Collaboration
Project leaders Lena Trudeau and Frank DiGiammarino met with the
Intergovernmental Teleconference group to discuss how collaborative
technology can be a vital asset for government leaders. NAPA has a
congressional charter to study challenges facing government. It recently
organized a new research effort, which it has branded the Collaboration
Project, with the goal of helping government leaders respond to new
technology and governance trends. NAPA's leaders see a convergence
between the challenges facing government and existing and emerging Web
capabilities, which offer innovative ways for government to tackle those
challenges.

Founding members of the Collaboration Project include EPA, OMB and the
CIO Council. Molly O'Neill, EPA's Assistant Administrator for the Office
of Environmental Information and CIO was also on the call and shared her
vision of why the Collaboration Project was conceived and how she sees
collaborative technology helping to solve government\'s complex
problems.

**Molly O'Neill**

Web 2.0 Tools are important at EPA as they are collaborative in nature
and EPA has a shared mission with other agencies. Using Web 2.0 tools
across agencies and jurisdictional boundaries allows EPA to collaborate
electronically on ideas and saves a lot of time in drafting documents.

The vision for the Collaboration Project stemmed from the desire to use
Web 2.0 tools more often and a need to have a place to formulate how the
tools work, discuss policy issues and how they relate to existing
policies on the books. It is also important to have a place where
government leaders can learn and become involved.

**Overview of the Collaboration Project**

The goal of NAPA's Collaboration Project is to build an independent
forum of government leaders committed to leveraging collaborative
technology to solve complex problems. Project staff is looking to engage
leaders in a robust and exciting conversation about Web 2.0 and how it
can be used to solve some of the critical problems facing America. By
bringing leaders and practitioners together - people who are predisposed
to action -- members will actually help each other make change and
implement solutions.

The collaborative setting will provide an environment where leaders can
overcome cultural barriers and address concerns about security,
governance, and policy. By tackling these challenges upfront, NAPA hopes
to accelerate the process of finding and implementing creative
solutions.

The Collaboration Project website is a free space for sharing ideas,
examples and insights on the adoption of Web 2.0 technologies in the
field of public governance. Everyone is encouraged to use the site and
help create a vibrant community by adding their thoughts and ideas,
challenges and opportunities to this site to help create strategies and
frameworks to enable Government 2.0 transformation.

Although much of the projects' content is open to the public for comment
and collaborative editing, the Collaboration Project is also soliciting
members. The members-only benefits, include: regularly scheduled
physical and virtual meetings where guest speakers address topics of
interest and concern to members; exposure to subject matter experts,
distinguished Fellows and National Academy leadership who can provide
guidance and expertise in this emerging area; interaction with a diverse
group of agencies, thus encouraging collaboration and synergy in
addressing shared challenges; participation in the design and execution
of research; access to a growing repository of white papers, case
studies, resources and tools to support collaboration initiatives in
member agencies; and, access to a wiki-enabled members' site that
fosters real time collaboration among a community of practitioners.

The NAPA collaboration project is working in collaboration with nGenera,
formerly New Paradigm, a Toronto-based think tank led by Don Tapscott.
nGenera is focused on engaging citizens globally to identify and analyze
emerging opportunities and models of collaboration to transform the
public sector. NAPA is collecting cases nationally with emphasis on
overcoming the barriers around the culture, governance and policy. The
two projects complement each other and will share information where
appropriate.

Frank and Lena also referenced a short list of successful virtual
networks that use collaborative technologies.

**TSA IdeaFactory**

On April 25, 2007, TSA launched IdeaFactory, an employee collaboration
tool designed to tap the collective wisdom of the TSA workforce. Through
the site employees can offer an idea for others to evaluate. If an
employee sees an idea he or she thinks ought to be considered by TSA
leadership, he or she can vote for it. Ideas with the most votes rise to
the top and are more likely to be considered for implementation. By
March 2008, employees had submitted over 4500 ideas, and TSA had
implemented approximately twenty ideas nationally. The IdeaFactory is
set up like a wiki. Ideas, comments and suggestions are posted on the
site, voted on and acted on when appropriate. Specific problems are
addressed and communities established to get things accomplished.

**Virtual Alabama**

Virtual Alabama went live in August 2006. By November 2007, there were
over 1800 online users contributing the best available data from each of
Alabama\'s 67 counties. Powered by Google Earth Enterprise, it is a
powerful example using web 2.0 mash-up techniques. The program pulls
data from various places and presents it in a very user-friendly
display. The State of Alabama has employed the tool to provide enhanced
coordination and awareness to first responders. The ability to
seamlessly aggregate data in an intergovernmental environment offers
promise for performing collaborative analysis, expanding the reach and
impact of service delivery, managing stakeholder expectations, and
tackling other challenges that increasingly reach across the traditional
boundaries of government

The power of Virtual Alabama was seen during the recent outbreak of
tornadoes. Within 5 hours of the tornadoes officials could pull up maps
to see the damage using before and after photos. Officials were able to
overlay this information with budget data, like the value of property
and what the people paid for the house, and get a firm grasp on the
damage.

The system was developed for a fraction of what such a powerful tool
might otherwise cost. The state developed the program with four people
and invested about \$150,000 in software. There have been some
additional costs \-- the state has had to invest in additional servers
because of the nearly 2,700 people using the system. Officials in
Alabama believe they have only begun to scratch the surface of what
Virtual Alabama will do for them.

**Puget Sound Information Challenge**

For the 2007 Environmental Information Symposium, Molly O'Neill, EPA's
Assistant Administrator for the Office of Environmental Information and
CIO wanted to sponsor a project that would allow attendees to experience
firsthand the potential of Web 2.0. Bill Ruckelshaus, Chair of the Puget
Sound Partnership Leadership Council, subsequently approached O\'Neill
about his organization\'s pressing need for information collection ahead
of a strategic plan to be written with the goal of raising funds to
clean and restore this Pacific Northwest waterway. O\'Neill and
Ruckelshaus agreed that a collaborative site launched during the
conference could be leveraged to achieve both of their respective
organizations\' goals.

The Puget Sound Information Challenge was officially introduced by Molly
O\'Neill during the first day of the conference. A video presentation
hosted by Ruckelshaus invited participants to identify and share the
best available information resources, tools and ideas on Puget Sound
environmental protection efforts. While emails outlining how people
could contribute to the wiki were immediately sent out to conference
participants following her announcement, EPA did not engage in any
further efforts to advertise this project.

The wiki site pulled content through RSS web feeds, which were then
tagged through Flickr, YouTube and other selected sites. Although the
initiative was not launched until just prior to the start of the
Symposium and was not given significant promotion, the results of the
challenge were impressive, with more than 175 content contributions and
over 18,000 page views.

**Politicopia**

State representative Steve Urquhart of Utah was seeking a way to
encourage greater political dialogue among Utah\'s constituents.
Representative Urquhart founded Politicopia, a new e-democracy
initiative, which serves as a continuous virtual town meeting. The site
was set up using a simple wiki-based platform, which enables focused
debate on current and potential state legislature bills, as well as on a
variety of broader political issues.

Within days after being created, citizens began using Politicopia to
shape debates in the state legislature and legislators responded
accordingly. Users were quick to provide summaries of bills, pro and con
arguments, comments, links, and more. Two weeks prior to a school
voucher vote, Politicopia attracted 150 comments on the issue - helping
to clarify the financial impact of vouchers. The voucher bill passed by
one vote with two representatives explicitly citing the dialogue on
Politicopia as having a strong influence on their vote. Wiki sites
similar to Politicopia are now being created in Rhode Island, Indiana,
Montana, Connecticut, Kentucky and Pennsylvania.