Photographer: Ben Schumin

A little venting about my experience on the metro this afternoon. So on the metro this afternoon (Yellow Line – 2:50pm at L’enfant plaza) in my car there was a woman whose backpack was stuck in the metro car’s doors.

No one stopped to help her and the announcement of door’s closing kept repeating. I got up and yanked on her back and pulled the doors to no avail. I yelled to the back of the train, to push the call button for the driver’s attention and to let them know what car number we were in.

The driver of the train never opened the doors full again when “trying to clear” the doors, instead chastizing the passengers for not getting out of the doorway in time and also if we miss getting on a train with our entire party to stay behind for the next train to come. I think this is irresponsible and I am glad a second gentleman came to help the lady and I get her bag from the door. Most of the car just sat and ignored my yelling to press the call button, at the opposite end of the car.

But once finally someone understood our car was the hold up to not moving, action was taken to push the button. A stark difference from the article I read yesterday about an Orange line last week where a group of passengers aided a fainted woman, called the box and unloaded her off the train, only causing an additional 10 seconds on the platform.  Our issue, caused another 3 minutes.

All in all eventually people came around to helping out and the situation was resolved, but by our actions, not metro. The lady who was stuck thanked me and the people who watched told me good job as I left the train. I did not do it to be thanked, nor as I tell this tale to you now. I did it because I noticed a woman in need of help and it was the right thing to do. Please share your stories of your metro woes and good experiences if you like.

And please, maybe we can keep a count of how many escalators are out of service and where, or maybe you can link me to where they keep track of this. I mean its a great workout for me to do the stairs, but there are worse-off people with knees more crazy than mine.

The goal of the 2010 WIRe conference is to propel the Intelligence Community (IC) beyond the static use of tools toward a more dynamic point of cultural transformation and repurposing of the ways that we utilize online intelligence. As we investigate the differences between how the IC and the rest of the world use social media, we will pinpoint best practices across the social networking spectrum and examine how constantly evolving Web and social media tools impact the intelligence mission.

Who Should Attend:
The 2010 WIRe conference will foster networking opportunities for members of the IC, Department of Defence (DoD), military, and academic communities, as well as Government contracting and industry representatives.

This event is completely unclassified.

Just announced: WIReCamp — a networking & open brainstorming session during the WIRe conference next week! Bring your fresh ideas 4 #gov20

This moderated networking event will take place during the conference between 12-5pm each day. I am looking forward to moderating the event. Hope you can come with your ideas.

I will be attending this event, always moving forward in making Government more efficient and less redundant.

I am also looking forward to seeing Dion Hinchcliffe and Marcia Conner speak as well as the progress for the Apps for the Army and IDEO presentations.

If you are in the United States Government, Contractor, or state or local… DHS included, please think about registering and attending. Its not too late.

Finals in Washington DC

NBC had some great coverage about the event I judged as a preview for tonight’s finals. Take a look, I show up in the video at the end showing my love for STD!!

And Mitt Umlaut, I will be looking for you tonight

Full-screen

930
815 V St NW
Washington, DC 20001
(202) 393-0930

That’s me on the right in the green scarf, catching up on some blogging w/@robotchampion.
Photo by Planetrussell

On day one we started off with your name, who are you with, and three words that described you or the name of a session you would like to propose. My three words: Geek Girl Supreme as recently dubbed by Adriel Hampton on the Government 2.0 show on Blog Talk Radio.

I spent most of the two days working as the Blog Coordinator for the event. And for the sessions I did attend, I tried to keep to some light housekeeping in which to make sure the presenter instructions where followed and the sponsors were thanked. I did manage to find time to actually moderate a session on Citizen 2.0. I didn’t want to be the focus of the session to be on me, since there were a lot of great minds in attendance. I have touched on Citizen 2.0 in the past and from the session at Government 2.0 camp there seems to be many ideas of what an individual defines for this moniker.

Now there have been a multitude of blog posts already by my colleagues and friends and new faces in the past couple weeks. I took my time to post this reprise because I wanted to make sure it didn’t get lost in the fold. As this is not so much about the content, but about the event itself, the best practices and lessons learned going forward.

I think I would break up my review of the event in some pros and cons:

Pros

• So many sponsors – it made the event free for attending, provided food, provided the venue
• Parking – I got great spots both days. The first day I parked in a two-hour zone and did not get a ticket (musta been luck – because every time I am in Old Town Alexandria, I get a ticket)
• So many attendees – so much interest. Really gives me the fire in my belly that its not just those of us in the Beltway that want to change our aging institutions.
• Kick off of the Government 2.0 club – for those of you that bravely stayed until the long at last end, on day two we crowdsourced our charter.
• Networking – I finally got to meet Chris Dorobek and Jeffrey Levy in person because of this event. We all thought bringing us together in the same room would never happen and be a sure sign of the end of the world.
• Knowledge Capture – while we didn’t get it all, this was the first unconference that I had seen that was completely transparent and information was going up as it happened, rather than later in the night. For 48 hours and weeks to follow, information is still being generated about sessions and the event itself.

Cons

• Credit to the unsung volunteers – I am not discounting anything Mark, Maxine, Jeffrey, and Peter have done to get this effort underway. But there was a group of us over a dozen that made all the logistics happen and helped the event run smoothly. Everyone had a role and if I new everyone’s name I would list them. They made sure there was water, wifi, pizza, candy, the works. If you thought something was nice about the amenities of Gov20Camp, it was because of one of them. In so many of the post-publications I had not seen a mention of a hat-tip to those volunteers. So here’s to you (imagine me singing the bud light real American hero tribute to you)
• Unfocused – Government 2.0 is a big big subject as so many of us define it so many different ways.
• Large Participation – so many people made it hard to effectively network
• Too many sessions – with what seemed to be over 100 sessions over the two days there was so much to choose to participate it was just as bad as going to a conference like SxSW Interactive. The schedule was overpacked. It was also repetitive. We could have used the first hour sessions to really modify the schedule even more and narrow down the rooms. Some topics repeated, which is good and bad. I did like that on day two, we learned from day 1 and made the gallery an “open room” for ad hoc discussions. This is something I initiated at WIReICES last fall. Having an open room during our conference. I admit I got the idea from the open sessions I had seen at Web 2.0 expo in San Francisco in 2008.
• Knowledge capture – even with prior planning from lessons learned at other events, the moderators and presenters in some rooms failed to heed instructions on the yellow note we gave to them. I know this was an unconference, but some protocol does work. We had a wiki, a blog, google forums. There was just so much information spread throughout that was not interconnected. I have been trying in the weeks since to help bridge that gap.
• Too Much Web 2.0 and not enough Enterprise 2.0 – I took a break from my normal push of Enterprise 2.0 discussions except for the Wikis in room 205. I know I know my stuff when it comes to wikis and the Enterprise, so I tried to be more of a listener. I did end up participating more in that session and I am glad I did. Great connections. But again, I purposefully took a step back from talking about the Enterprise, because I didn’t want to come off as a vendor or someone selling a solution. However, I kinda regret not pushing for that in the end because I saw much about external facing solutions and not enough internal solutions for communication, collaboration, and transparency. This drives me even more to have the specific Enterprise 2.0 Conference for Government this fall as I have previously talked about. I am also looking forward to the Government 2.0 summit in September.

I have been both a participant and an organizer of BarCamps and Unconferences before. This way by far the biggest one I had been too, but IMO wasn’t really the first unGovernment unconference. I have to believe outside of the ones I had organized and participated with some of my Government customers (on a smaller scale), that some where else, some other Government organization had tried something like this.

I think we could definitely do this event again. It should be yearly and not just DC centric. Although this area is the Mecca for Government. I would be interesting in knowing if anyone would want to see this be hosted in other cities. So if we do it again next year in March, who would be the host city? What would you like to see different?

http://www.government20club.org/2009/02/government-20-camp-pre-camp-field-manual/

Event: Government 2.0 Camp

Date: Friday, March 27, 2009 at 8:00 AM – Saturday, March 28, 2009 at 6:00 PM (ET)

YES THIS IS A FULL TWO DAY EVENT

Location:
Duke Ellington School of Arts
3500 R St NW
Washington, DC 20007

For more information click here: Government 2.0 Camp

And neither did some of the women in the room that came out to the event. It was a small gathering and its main purpose was to talk about the planning and ideas for the conference in New York to be held later this year. One of the immediate ideas was to move the conference from October to December 2008, for several reasons. The women in the room agreed that the elections are a big factor not only in technology and the DC area, but going forward as a country have many ramifications.

It seemed I was the only semi-associated Federal Government (albeit contractor) in attendance. But my cause was heard, maybe its because I am not afraid to speak up and actually would be happy to speak at any event should I be asked (this was a side [tangent] conversation of course that happened and we will continue to address).

I will probably help develop a track at the conference around Enterprise 2.0 in Government or quite possibly just speak about my experiences as a woman climbing the corporate ladder to become the Director of Technology for Navstar, Inc.

I have also agreed to help with the marketing and promotions of the event, as those of you who know me, know of my former life in the music industry. As such, this was something I was very good at and still continue to use these skills in my evangelism of social media in Government. So who knows, I might even take up the committee lead on that. We are coordinating the planning of the event through a wiki and I do believe I know my way around a garden

Most of the other women, were from non-profit organization such as DC Web Women, Women in Policy and Technology (WIPT – yes they are aware of how the acronym sounds), Care2 (OXFAM), United Way, and Women Thrive WorldWide, just to name a few. I think I made some great new friends and contacts and I am more inspired now for the cause to raise awareness for women in tech and all geekdom.

I want all my female readers to reach out to me in some shape or form if you consider yourself a geek in any way (not necessarily in tech, but maybe a scifi or D&D geeks). This blog is your sanctuary and I will help you find ways to find other women like you.

If you would like to find out more about this event, please feel free to contact me or search for yourself, by googling “She’s Geeky”. Hope to see you out in December in New York.

DC Meetup

2007-07-21 17:00 EDT

Who should come? You should. Really.
If you are interested in Wikipedia or other Wikimedia projects, regardless of your level of experience or involvement, or if you are otherwise involved in with free content you are invited and welcome.

What, Where, When, and How?

• What? : DC Wiki(p|m)edian meetup

• Where? : Uno Chicago Grill, Union Station, Washington DC
• When? : Saturday, July 21. 5 PM — until it ends
• How? : See the directions.