TECHNOLOGY AND THE BUSINESS OF GOVERNMENT

Citizens who enter innovation contests that the government plans to launch this year could rake in cash on top of the prize money that agencies are allowed to award. The White House on Monday released a legal framework for giving away money and other incentives during competitions aimed at improving open government, spurring research and development and addressing national priorities.

In addition to collecting cash for their endeavors, winners also can make money from their intellectual property. Just because the government is entitled to use the winning ideas, the government does not have exclusive rights to the inventions, say some IT industry officials.

Guido Jouret, chief technology officer for Cisco's emerging technologies group, noted that the government's intellectual property guidelines are similar to the non-binding agreements Cisco uses during its own innovation competition. Cisco runs the I Prize contest, which challenges entrepreneurs to submit proposals that have the potential to become billion-dollar business ideas for the networking provider. The grand prize for the winning team is $250,000.

In return, Cisco gets a perpetual, royalty-free, non-exclusive license to distribute the winning product. Because the terms of the agreement are non-exclusive, the winners retain the right to sell the application to other companies.

"A lot of the debates we had with our lawyers were around the intellectual property angle," he said. "We want to be able to come up with great ideas, but not exclusively."

Participants in the virtual online world of Second Life have proven that such free enterprise can unleash a flood of creativity in communities.

"Users control the intellectual property rights to whatever they build, giving them economic incentive to create things. And create they do," the Washington Post reported on Monday. "Newbies show up in Second Life without so much as 40 acres and a mule, so their avatars need hair, and fancy shoes for a concert or suits for business meetings, and a house, and art for the house, and maybe a waterfall for the living room -- virtual goods that cost real money."

The Washington Post also said that Second Life participants "cashed out $55 million of their Second Life earnings last year" in the real world.

Researchers have worked to find a link between violence in video games and aggressive behavior. The findings can be conflicting and confusing.

But that hasn't stopped Venezuela from passing a law banning violent video games and toys that can be used in violent play. The penalty for being found guilty of selling or playing a violent video game? A fine and up to two and a half years in prison.

The law demands video games "promote respect for life, creativeness, safe entertainment, friendship, tolerance, understanding and peaceful coexistence."

No word yet from Venezuelan teenage boys - or their parents who have to listen to the whining.

Live, on-the-ground battlefield preparation is difficult to come by outside of the battlefield itself. Enter UrbanSim, a prototype virtual simulation currently being used to train U.S. Army personnel in complex urban counterinsurgency and stability operations.

Simply put, UrbanSim is a computer game, said Andrew Gordon, a research associate professor at the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies, which is leading the project. But it also is a tool that applies the best practices, components and developers of computer game technologies towards the Army's training needs.

Gordon said one of the key research objectives is story-driven simulation. In other words, the game is modeled on the real-world experiences of commanders on the ground. The goal? To train adaptive leaders capable of handling the primary, secondary and tertiary effects of decisions on a local environment. As an educational tool, the game instructs in civil security, information dissemination and other relevant skills.

The simulation, currently being used at the School for Command Preparation, the Command and General Staff College and numerous operational units, was developed with Army research dollars.

The Agriculture Department is going virtual, and employees may soon be able to conduct business through 3-D avatars rather than traditional teleconferencing, email or good old-fashioned staff meetings.

According to a posting on Federal Business Opportunities, the department seeks a Second Life-like system that can be used behind a secure firewall rather than by the general public. The virtual world would allow several agencies to collaborate easily yet securely, integrate old and new technology and create a network for "collaboration, training, rehearsal, analysis, simulation, experimentation, and socialization."

Virtual worlds aren't new, but the idea that business can be conducted through lookalike avatars in a 3-D conference room is a more recent manifestation of this technology. World of Warcraft is a fantasy fighting game, while Second Life and There.com allow users to create their virtual equivalent and then shop, build houses, get jobs and develop relationships. Second Life's Work Solutions program helps companies conduct sales trainings, simulate emergency evacuations and run virtual meetings. But the platform isn't more forgiving than the real world--if you fall asleep during the boss' speech, your avatar does too.

Agriculture's solicitation closes on Feb. 24.

Do you know a federal manager who recently took risks to push through a bold idea, policy or program that uses technology to make government work better or improve public services? If so, we'd like to hear your story by nominating your colleague for a Nextgov Award.

The Nextgov Award program, developed in partnership with O'Reilly Media Inc. and TechWeb, will recognize government executives who stepped outside their comfortable confines to think and manage differently. They acted boldly to push through an innovative program, policy or new management practice that relied on technology to move government in a new direction, to challenge employees to think and work differently, and that ultimately improved the lives of citizens.

We know there are many managers who have done just that, and we want you to tell us about them by nominating them for a Nextgov Award. The deadline is March 12, but we suggest you don't wait. Visit the nomination page and spend just a few minutes filling out the form. We'll tell the stories of the winners later this spring on Nextgov.

A panel of respected judges will make choose the winners, who will be honored at a luncheon on May 27 at the Gov 2.0 Expo at the Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. The expo is co-sponsored by O'Reilly Media Inc. and TechWeb, and Nextgov is the premier media sponsor.

Nextgov has launched the Nextgov Awards, an inaugural program to recognize federal managers who have shepherded a program, policy or management practice that is not only innovative, but bold and brave.

Yes, we know, there are a lot of awards programs in government. But when we asked federal managers and industry executives what is missing, they told us unanimously: No awards recognize federal employees who took on risks -- personal, political and otherwise -- and boldly acted to see their idea to fruition. Or if their idea died, at least they took on entrenched bureaucratic interests in an attempt to make government better through the use of technology.

We invite you to visit our awards page to learn more and to nominate someone who fits the criteria. The technology isn't the reason for the award, but the bold idea must rely on it in some way. And we encourage you to tell us a story about the individuals you nominate. We want you to wow us because we know there are dozens of stories of federal employees trying to improve government and the lives of citizens, but they are up against big odds. Yet, they have acted bravely and with resolve to bring about change. We want to know about them, the drama they faced and the results they achieved. And, of course, the technology they used.

The winners of the Nextgov Awards will be honored at a luncheon at TechWeb's Gov 2.0 Expo in May. (Nextgov is a TechWeb partner for the event.) We'd love to see you there.

More to come.

The administration quickly should spread hand-cleaning and other public health messages through social media to prepare young people for the expected 2009-H1N1 epidemic, a presidential advisory group reported on Monday.

The recommendation by the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), a group of leading scientists and engineers appointed by the president, was part of a report on steps officials can take to minimize the impact of the H1N1 flu on the country.

"We strongly suggest that communications efforts be launched prior to September 1," the report states, adding that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should use traditional media and social networking.

"With respect to new media and social networking, we suggest that CDC reach out to key companies (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Google, Apple) and other innovative entities and individuals. ... In this outreach, CDC could benefit by working closely with the federal chief technology officer [Aneesh Chopra]," the report recommended.

And the report gets even more specific about social media, or "Web 2.0," advertising strategies for spreading relevant messages, such as "Keep your hands clean" and "Stay home when you're sick":

"Beyond simply transmitting CDC's own messages, we believe there are opportunities to engage and encourage the creativity of the social networking community to create content and collect information. Members of [a flu work group assembled by PCAST] were impressed by a recent paper by researchers at Google and CDC demonstrating that an analysis of Google searches related to influenza-like symptoms was able to identify outbreaks earlier than conventional surveillance systems. Examples could include: 1) websites with information about initial self-diagnosis and treatment, up-to-date information about the epidemic, and perhaps even ways to share personal information that could help inform national surveillance; 2) mobile phone "apps" with similar content; 3) videos that convey messages in unusual ways; and 4) Facebook quizzes on influenza, shared among friends. In support of efforts to fight the influenza virus, we advise the use of communications tools designed to facilitate their "going viral." Such tools are more likely to be created by members of the public than by the government. However, it may be possible to encourage such efforts through contests and other mechanisms."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has become the star of the Government 2.0 movement recently, as the agency has been wildly successful in deploying social media to raise awareness of recent public health crises, including the peanut butter/salmonella outbreak and the recent swine flu scare.

Now the agency has decided to let everyone just how well they've been doing by publishing the metrics for its various Web sites. And what do the numbers show? Surprisingly, the public is turning to CDC for a whole lot more than just information on the latest pandemic.

The most popular feature on the site after the homepage is actually CDC's Adult Body Mass Index calculator, which uses a person's height and weight to determine if they are overweight or obese. Also popular are pages on travelers' health and sexually transmitted diseases.

What these metrics show is that CDC has successfully positioned itself as one of the most trusted sources for health information on the Internet, which is exactly what the agency has been trying to do by reaching out via blogs, Twitter, Widgets and Second Life. By leveraging the public attention during the recent health scares, CDC has managed to penetrate its market and raise its online profile in a way that few if any other agencies have achieved.

To be fair, it has taken some rather unique circumstances for that to happen, in the form of two major public health crises. Furthermore, a huge part of CDC's mission is to keep the public informed and provide reliable health information, two areas where the Internet and social media can be extremely helpful. It is admittedly more difficult to get people to visit the Web site of an agency whose mission is more inwardly focused.

Or is it? CDC clearly understands something many agencies don't: that the public is actually interested in getting its information directly from the source, which in many cases is federal agencies. If the public is willing to follow CDC's Twitter account for information about swine flu, why wouldn't the same people be interested in following the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for the latest on weather and climate change? Likewise, agencies like TSA and EPA have used blogs to open a dialog and increase public understanding of their policies. Why couldn't the Treasury Department or the Securities and Exchange Commission use a similar approach to help the public understand what they are doing to stabilize the financial markets?

These examples show the value of simply re-packaging information that agencies have always made available and using more user-friendly and innovative ways to distribute it. There is a wealth of information available on agency Web sites, but so much of it is difficult to access or time-consuming to wade through that the average citizen simply doesn't bother. If Obama Administration officials are serious about using technology to increase public engagement with the government, they would be wise to start building on the success that agencies like CDC are already experiencing.

While the fiscal 2010 budget plan for federal IT investments cites efforts to build Recovery.gov, a federal site for tracking stimulus spending, it is silent on the extent to which subcontractor funding and performance will be disclosed. Lawmakers and interest groups are seeking more specifics on such transactions.

The budget also proposes to overhaul USASpending.gov, a Web site that is supposed to disclose all federal loans and contracts. Before he was elected, then-Senator Obama co-sponsored legislation to create the searchable site, but lawmakers recently have criticized the site for lacking information on subcontracts.

Visitors to USASpending.gov will be able to download data "to combine into different data sets, conduct analysis and research, or power new information-based products and businesses," according to an analytical perspectives section of the budget that was issued this week.

In other words, citizens, nonprofits and the private sector would be able to layer the government data on top of other Web tools, or "mash-up" the data, to see links between lobbyists and contract awards, taxpayer dollars and return on investment, and other measures of accountability.

The budget reaffirms that work is underway on Data.gov, a downloadable, comprehensive repository of all government data that does not compromise security or privacy. But, again, details are scant.

The budget is clear on its endorsement of the use of social networking tool in agencies, referring to this as "Web 2.0 in Government."

Syndicated news feeds, "video-sharing" sites such as YouTube, podcasts, web page bookmarking, widgets, virtual worlds and "micro-blogs" such as Twitter, are among the interactive gadgets cited generically in the document.

"Existing government websites need to be revitalized with community-driven features and functionality," it states, adding that agencies should "push" opportunities for participating in policy making to site visitors.

For those of you who missed this, President Obama held his first online town hall meeting today and it was broadcast live on whitehouse.gov. According to the White House, almost 93,000 people submitted more than 104,000 questions, which the public voted on.

Given the limited advance notice and the estimated 67,000 people who tuned in, we would have to declare the event a success, with a few caveats.First, it's not quite clear that the questions asked were the ones that received the most votes, especially since at least two of the questions Obama answered came via Internet video. However, the questions that were asked stuck pretty closely to the topics that were most popular online: education, health care, outsourcing and legalizing marijuana.

In many ways the event unfolded like a traditional campaign stop, with the president responding to the public's questions at length and sticking to his talking points on the issues. Things improved a bit when Obama started taking questions from the audience, which forced him to answer their questions more directly. He told a Michigan native that he would be releasing an extensive plan to help the auto industry in coming days and revealed that he "really likes nurses." (No idea how audience members were chosen or whether he knew their questions in advance.)

Still, the fact Obama even addressed questions from online voters is a huge step forward in terms of granting access to regular citizens. While a cynic could argue that the online format is somewhat easier to navigate than a traditional press conference, with its absence of combative reporters and follow-up questions, just the image of Obama allowing regular people to question him on his policies makes him seem like he has less to hide than previous presidents. The fact the exchange was broadcast live for all to see only enhances that.

Hopefully today's event was only the first step in what will be a continuous engagement between the administration and citizens. Perhaps the White House should take a lesson from the more than 3.6 million votes cast and start allowing citizens to weigh in on legislation before Obama signs it, as promised during the campaign.