Archive for Social Media
“How Web 2.0 tools help victims of Hatian quake”
Posted by: | CommentsAli Manouchehri (CEO, MetroStar Systems) and Sean McDonald (Director of New Media Business Development) were recently interviewed by Chris Dorobek and Amy Morrison of Federal News Radio’s “The Daily Debrief” (airs Monday – Friday 3-7pm). They were talking about MetroStar Systems’ current effort to support to our clients who have an operational presence in Haiti helping and providing aid after the recent earthquake that has caused a major humanitarian emergency. MetroStar Systems is offering pro bono services by monitoring, sorting and filtering information and communications coming in via social media networks and tools (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, blogs) about the Haiti earthquake and the people who need aid in order to provide useful and actionable information to the proper authorities.
Source: www.FederalNewsRadio.com
You can read the web article “How Web 2.0 tools help victims of Hatian quake” and listen to an MP3 of the interview to learn more about these efforts.
How can you help? A great benefit of technology and social media tools is that it makes it easier for us to help those in need. Here are some resources, links and information on how you can assist earthquake victims:
The following organizations are accepting SMS donations (U.S. only):
- SMS text “HAITI” to 90999 to donate $10 to Red Cross relief efforts
- SMS text “YELE” to 501501 to Donate $5 to Yele Haiti’s Earthquake Relief efforts
- SMS text “GIVE10″ to 20222 to donate $10 to Direct Relief
For more information and ways to donate, you can visit the websites of these organizations that are providing support and aid to the earthquake victims and international relief efforts:
- American Red Cross
- UNICEF USA
- Yele Haiti
- Doctors Without Borders
- Direct Relief International
- Ushahidi
Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Haiti and all of those who are helping with this humanitarian emergency.
CongressCamp Unconference Notes and Thoughts
Posted by: | Comments
I attended a couple of sessions at the Congress Camp ‘unconference’ a few weeks ago at George Washington University.
I had never attended an unconference before so part of my reason was to get a feel for what they’re all about. My weekend itinerary was jam-packed so I was only able to attend 2 sessions and lunch but even so it was definitely worth my time to come out.
Engaging Citizens in Subcommittees
The first session I participated in was focused on the question of how to get citizens engaged in Congressional Subcommittees when legislation is getting drafted. The major issue was that drafts of legislation are usually written under tight deadlines and as a result Congressional staffers often have difficulty performing the requisite research for the bills. The result is that staffers often rely on lobbyists and small groups of experts to provide input for drafting policy. Citizens rarely gain any influence into the process.
But now with advent of Web 2.0 tools Congressmen have the opportunity to solicit and incorporate citizen input into the subcommittee legislation creation process.
- How does one determine the location and identity of participants?
- How to verify the expertise or quality of user submitted opinions, data, content?
- How to incorporate citizen input in a timely manner?
- How to moderate comments and user forums?
The consensus from the participants was that the technology exists to answer all of the major questions. The major challenge then is to craft technical solutions to mitigate the human challenges to citizen participation.
My take on things was that crowdsourced input could be filtered by a rating/moderation system. Some of the participants brought up concerns about the quality of citizen content but the answer to that is that no system is going to be 100% clean and tidy, and at the very least there’s a chance of finding outstanding citizen ideas and solutions if they are engaged (as opposed to now where there is little to no chance of this).
A good idea that came from the session was that one need not to use an approach the relies totally on random citizen input nor totally on expert opinions. A hybrid approach of sorts could possibly get the best of both worlds.
MetroStar to Liveblog Final BlogPotomac
Posted by: | CommentsThese three things I know to be true: Death is inevitable, the tax man will come, and MetroStar will eventually succumb to the liveblogging bug. Can you blame us? The call is from the very last BlogPotomac (ever!). Who are we not to pick up?
Yes, folks, this Friday, October 23rd marks the end of BlogPotomac. For those of you who may not have heard about the unconference, it is a staple of the DC Social Media scene. Organized by Geoff Livingston (@GeoffLiving) of CRT/tanaka and Livingston Communications, it is a gathering of social media rock stars to discuss and share their ideas on best practices and future outlook.
I had the benefit of being at the last BlogPotomac, and I still notice myself shaking my head in amazement every time I reflect on the experience. As my first real foray into liveblogging (see the post here), it was quite well received, convincing me of two things: (1) that I would definitely be attending the final one, and (2) I’ll have the laptop and air-card fired up and ready to liveblog again.
So, if you’re reading this close to when I’m publishing it, hurry, as there are still a handful of tickets left. If not, fear not! Just be sure to redirect your web browsers right here to SuperNova on the morning of Friday, October 23rd, the year two thousand and nine, (show starts at 8:45 AM) and keep on refreshing, as I will be giving you the up-to-the-(handful of)-minute(s) skinny on what’s being said, and who’s saying it.
In the meantime, check out http://www.blogpotomac.com/, follow @blogpotomac on Twitter, and set your Twitter searches to #blogpotomac. And meet me right back here on Friday.
MetroStar CEO interviewed by Federal Computer Week
Posted by: | CommentsMetroStar Systems‘ CEO Ali Manouchehri was recently interviewed by Doug Beizer of Federal Computer Week in an article titled “5 Reasons Why DOD Should Embrace Social Media (and 5 reasons why not)”
Source: http://www.fcw.com/Articles/2009/09/07/DOD-and-Web-2.aspx
The article lists 5 reasons why the Department of Defense (DOD) should embrace social media…
- Web 2.0 technology improves collaboration.
- It streamlines internal and external communications.
- It costs little or nothing to use.
- It has the potential to attract young recruits to DOD.
- It’s highly portable.
and 5 reasons why the DOD should not embrace social media…
- Sensitive information is on the public Internet.
- The tools can make it difficult to comply with federal regulations.
- The technology lacks standards.
- Sharing personal information can put employees at risk.
- The tools demand a lot of bandwidth.
Expanding on reason #4 of why the DOD should not embrace social media, Ali Manouchehri “suggests allowing employees to post to public sites such as Twitter and Facebook without some kind of parameters is dangerous. For example, a DOD employee could put himself and others at risk by tweeting about his day. ‘Adversaries with poor intent can target federal workers by knowing their routine through following them through a social-media outlet,’ Manouchehri said. ‘Protecting your privacy is certainly an aspect to take into account, and the risk can be detected, mitigated and deterred by following mission-oriented rules of engagement.’ ”
In the article, reporters Doug Beizer and Amber Corrin interview a broad range of government, university and industry experts to present both sides of the argument of why or why not the DOD should embrace social media. The article provides a great starting point for discussion since both sides of the argument have valid points. You can read the full article by visiting this link: http://www.fcw.com/Articles/2009/09/07/DOD-and-Web-2.aspx
MetroStar’s X-Life Games Blogged by ZDNet
Posted by: | CommentsThis morning, ZDNet’s Between The Lines Blog wrote a blog post, “Tech startup creates State Dept.-approved educational games for Middle East“, about MetroStar Systems’ free mobile games project X-Life Games.
We welcome your comments letting us know your thoughts on the article and the overall concept of the game. You can also join in the conversation at our X-Life Games Facebook Fanpage. 
