Virtual Worlds and the Rise of the Goverati (Poster and Video)
1
TEMPLATE DESIGN © 2008 www.PosterPresentations.com Less than optimal communications strategy It is hard to even explain to senior management why we need social technologies as its inherent advantages are distilled out into static power point slides due to the lack of access at the office. GovLoop may be an early sign of this change and already boasts over 9,000 members made up of both government employees and contractors. http://www.govloop.com/ Our president is being referred to as the first “wired” president. He is remaking the white house website as a conversational medium and soliciting feedback on how to run his administration. Incredibly, he is even the first sitting president to use email. Virtual Worlds and the Rise of the Goverati Eric Hackathorn 1 , Brandon Lynge 1,2 , Derek Parks 3 1 NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, Boulder, Colorado 2 Contract with Systems Research Group, Inc., Colorado Springs, Colorado 3 NOAA Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, Silver Spring, Maryland http://hackshaven.com/the-goverati/ (watch the movie! ) What is the “Goverati?” “The Goverati is made up of people with first-hand knowledge of how the government operates, who understand how to use social software to accomplish a variety of government missions, and who want to use that knowledge for the benefit of all. It includes high-profile thinkers outside of the government who have an interest in a more open, transparent, and efficient government. Using formal and informal social networks, the Goverati is networking, sharing information, and changing how parts of the government interact with each other and with citizens." Why is it necessary? Why is it important now? Though the idea of the Goverati isn't new, many have said our society is reaching an inflection point where these ideas are reaching a critical mass. Creating an interactive government Unfortunately, governmental policy always seems to lag behind the latest innovations and can blur the path towards the best solutions. Policy protects us from the unknown or harmful, but it is not very good at driving change. As we look to the future, what if the Goverati became more that a marginalized group? What if it became the foundation of a new movement, and by using social technologies our government was recreated by the people for the people? Ten years ago, 80% of the content on the Internet was written by traditional media organizations. Today, this has changed. The market expects -- even demands the opportunity to participate in the conversations going on behind our corporate firewall. This change isn't just reflected in the media, it's beginning to reflect in our governance. What if through social networking tools like virtual worlds the political conversation became two directional? Could we harness the concept collective intelligence in order to improve our governance? James Surowiecki wrote a book called The Wisdom of Crowds. In his book, Surowiecki demonstrates several situations where the many are smarter than the few. “Wise crowds” need: •diversity of opinion •independence of members from one another How can virtual worlds help? 1. Maintaining crowd conditions Virtual worlds allow for large scale interactions while doing a good job insuring everyone is participating. Robin Dunbar, an anthropologist who works at Oxford University, concluded that the cognitive power of the brain limits the size of the social network that an individual can develop. Virtual settings are typically limited to around this number (approx.150) of simultaneous visitors. In essence, virtual worlds do a good job bringing a humanly understandable sized community back to the Internet by increasing the level of interaction. 2. Higher levels of collaboration Virtual worlds allow groups to work together towards a common goal with a higher bandwidth than their 2D counterparts. In this example, a group is building a house from a blue print. What if the goal wasn't to build a house but to engage a group of stakeholders to design a better energy plant, factory, or bill for congress? A collaborative mind-mapping tool where a group can brainstorm ideas in real-time while literally walking through the associated concepts. 3. Conveying a sense of ownership 4. Understanding the data Contact information Virtual worlds increase the sense of personal ownership for participants. Similar to wikis, virtual worlds provide the framework for collaborative design saving revisions as part of the history. By empowering individuals to take a common design in personalized directions virtual worlds convey a sense of personal ownership of a common goal. As part of The Administration's open government initiative there is a push to publish vast amounts of government data in open standards for public consumption. Virtual worlds offer unique capabilities to take that data and visualize it in immersive and easily understandable fashions. 325 Broadway R/GSD6 Boulder, CO 80305 T: (303) 497-6831 E: virual.worlds@noa a.gov Today, the public demands transparency, participation, and collaboration in ways government does not yet provide - mostly because the needed tech because the needed technologies have not yet been vetted through our bureaucracy. We’ve created one too many committees, left out the citizens, and now we are late to the party. Virtual worlds have the ability to create communities and foster smart crowds in ways never before seen on the Internet. This presentation covers four advantages including: 1. maintaining optimal crowd conditions 2. increasing the level of collaboration 3. conveying a sense of ownership 4. understanding the data Virtual world examples NOAA is working on a massively multi- player simulation where each user controls a small planet. A player invests resources in energy, agriculture, production, and other areas seeing how their choices effect the quality of life on their planet. The goal is to teach users about the complexity of the trade-offs involved in sustainable living. Each world is networked with other players to encourage competition and to identify the best solutions. What would happen if NOAA were to ask a large enough segment of its customers to take a guess about tomorrow ‘s weather? What if we offered incentives for the closest predictions and created a type of futures exchange around weather modeling? Under the right conditions, could we improve our scientific understanding by taking into account the input our combined social network? Second Earth Second Life + Google Earth in a collaborative GIS mashup Science On A Sphere Extending real life programs into a virtual space NOAA’s Virtual Worlds Program http://hackshaven.com/the-goverati/ THERE IS HOPE! random views other groups keyword tracking @replies Dunbar’s Number Scoble’s Number Hutch Carpenter, Spigit T hink Ba lm Innovation Community New Medi a Consortium RL Architecture Group in SL Wikitecture Group in Second Life http://www.goverati. com/ -Mark Drapeau
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4_PibfgQhw What is the Goverati? Mark Drapeau defines it as made up of people with first-hand knowledge of how the government operates, who understand how to use social software to accomplish a variety of government missions, and who want to use that knowledge for the benefit of all. Today our society faces numerous challenges from the economy to the climate. As a democratic society we must engage the general public and crowd source the solutions. That said, we have a long way to go and the Goverati can not do it alone. Do you want to be part of the solution? Moreover, how can your government enable you to execute on your ideas?
Transcript of Virtual Worlds and the Rise of the Goverati (Poster and Video)
TEMPLATE DESIGN © 2008
www.PosterPresentations.com
Less than optimal communications strategy
It is hard to even explain to senior management why we need social technologies as its inherent advantages are distilled out into static power point slides due to the lack of access at the office.
GovLoop may be an early sign of this change and already boasts over 9,000 members made up of both government employees and contractors.
http://www.govloop.com/
Our president is being referred to as the first “wired” president. He is remaking the white house website as a conversational medium and soliciting feedback on how to run his administration. Incredibly, he is even the first sitting president to use email.
Virtual Worlds and the Rise of the GoveratiEric Hackathorn1, Brandon Lynge1,2, Derek Parks3
1NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, Boulder, Colorado2Contract with Systems Research Group, Inc., Colorado Springs, Colorado
3 NOAA Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, Silver Spring, Maryland
http://hackshaven.com/the-goverati/ (watch the movie!)
What is the “Goverati?”
“The Goverati is made up of people withfirst-hand knowledge of how the governmentoperates, who understand how to use socialsoftware to accomplish a variety ofgovernment missions, and who want to usethat knowledge for the benefit of all. Itincludes high-profile thinkers outside of thegovernment who have an interest in a more open, transparent, and efficient government. Using formal and informal social networks, the Goverati is networking, sharing information, and changing how parts of the government interact with each other and with citizens."
Why is it necessary?
Why is it important now?
Though the idea of the Goverati isn't new, many have said our society is reaching an inflection point where these ideas are reaching a critical mass.
Creating an interactive government
Unfortunately, governmental policy always seems to lag behind the latest innovations and can blur the path towards the best solutions. Policy protects us from the unknown or harmful, but it is not very good at driving change.
As we look to the future, what if the Goverati became more that a marginalized group? What if it became the foundation of a new movement, and by using social technologies our government was recreated by the people for the people?
Ten years ago, 80% of the content on the Internet was written by traditional media organizations. Today, this has changed. The market expects -- even demands the opportunity to participate in the conversations going on behind our corporate firewall.
This change isn't just reflected in the media, it's beginning to reflect in our governance. What if through social networking tools like virtual worlds the political conversation became two directional? Could we harness the concept collective intelligence in order to improve our governance?
James Surowiecki wrote a book called The Wisdom of Crowds. In his book, Surowiecki demonstrates several situations where the many are smarter than the few.“Wise crowds” need:
• diversity of opinion• independence of members from one another• decentralization• a good method for aggregating opinions
How can virtual worlds help?
1. Maintaining crowd conditions
Virtual worlds allow for large scale interactionswhile doing a good job insuring everyone isparticipating.
Robin Dunbar, an anthropologist who works at Oxford University, concluded that the cognitive power of the brain limits the size of the social network that an individual can develop. Virtual settings are typically limited to around this number (approx.150) of simultaneous visitors.
In essence, virtual worlds do a good job bringing a humanly understandable sized community back to the Internet by increasing the level of interaction.
2. Higher levels of collaboration
Virtual worlds allow groups to worktogether towards a common goal witha higher bandwidth than their 2Dcounterparts. In this example, a groupis building a house from a blue print.
What if the goal wasn't to build a house but to engage a group of stakeholders to design a better energy plant, factory, or bill for congress?
A collaborative mind-mapping tool where a group can brainstorm ideas in real-time while literally walking through the associated concepts.
3. Conveying a sense of ownership
4. Understanding the data
Contact information
Virtual worlds increase the sense of personal ownership for participants. Similar to wikis, virtual worlds provide the framework for collaborative design saving revisions as part of the history. By empowering individuals to take a common design in personalized directions virtual worlds convey a sense of personal ownership of a common goal.
As part of The Administration's open government initiative there is a push to publish vast amounts of government data in open standards for public consumption. Virtual worlds offer unique capabilities to take that data and visualize it in immersive and easily understandable fashions.
325 Broadway R/GSD6Boulder, CO 80305
T: (303) 497-6831E: [email protected]
Today, the public demands transparency, participation, and collaboration in ways government does not yet provide - mostly because the needed tech because the needed technologies have not yet been vetted through our bureaucracy. We’ve created one too many committees, left out the citizens, and now we are late to the party.
Virtual worlds have the ability to create communities and foster smart crowds in ways never before seen on the Internet. This presentation covers four advantages including:
1. maintaining optimal crowd conditions2. increasing the level of collaboration3. conveying a sense of ownership4. understanding the data
Virtual world examples
NOAA is working on a massively multi-player simulation where each user controls a small planet. A player invests resources in energy, agriculture, production, and other areas seeing how their choices effect the quality of life on their planet. The goal is to teach users about the complexity of the trade-offs involved in sustainable living. Each world is networked with other players to encourage competition and to identify the best solutions.
What would happen if NOAA were to ask a large enough segment of its customers to take a guess about tomorrow ‘s weather? What if we offered incentives for the closest predictions and created a type of futures exchange around weather modeling? Under the right conditions, could we improve our scientific understanding by taking into account the input our combined social network?
Second Earth
Second Life + Google Earth in a collaborative GIS mashup
Science On A Sphere
Extending real life programs into a virtual space
NOAA’s Virtual Worlds Programhttp://hackshaven.com/the-goverati/
THERE IS HOPE!
random views
other groups
keyword tracking
@replies
Dunbar’s Number
Scoble’s Number
Hutch Carpenter, Spigit
ThinkBalm Innovation Community
New Media Consortium
RL Architecture Group in SL
Wikitecture Group in Second Life
http://www.goverati.com/ -Mark Drapeau
