Steal This Idea

There is one part of the live edition of Steal This Idea that makes audiences sit up and go, "hmm."  Images from what Mashable considers the most beautiful social networks wash over the audience, followed by a question - do any of your sites looks like any of these?

1. Virb
2. Trig
3. PureVolume
4. my9rules
5. Pownce
6. Flickr
7. Threadless
8. shelfari
9. Beautiful Society
10. Humble Voice

Do they?  See for yourself.  And consider that design does matter if public agencies are to serve (and be seen as relevant) by the demographic cohort that is native to the net.

(And thanks to Brett Taylor from Dallas County for prompting me to call out the Top 10 here.  As far as I know, Brett is no relation to my alter ego.)

That's Hunter, as in both verb and noun.  As a verb, I sneak around looking for the next great idea to steal.  As a noun, I am named for the late Hunter S. Thompson, the father of all things Gonzo, under which it is better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

Go ahead, steal an idea... or as much loot as you and your unindicted co-conspirators can carry.

Yeah, all you can carry, nugget by nugget.

- Hunt

Imagine a new hire going missing in action.  You approved a telework agreement with her.  You thought shes was going to work from home.  But she ends up with a group of self selected freelancers who work alone, together.  (This video was produced by American Public Media's Marketplace and provides another clue to the future of work.)

Since its debut on April 22, the presentation has change a little but all the best parts are in this PDF file.

I have been picking up stuff all my life,  some of it was even legal.  I'm not really a conference kinda guy myself bit it seems to me that you go to conferences to pick stuff up -- maybe a little something overheard in the hall, or something smart somebody said.  Anyway, those are "nuggets" -- collect enough of them and all of a sudden it is a good day.  I've collected a bunch for you ... look for the little nugget boxes all around my blog ... feel free to add more by using the Comments link at the bottom of this or any other post.

What have we learned?

What a finished portal should be and do:

• Approachable, Findable (Search) and Actionable (Transactions)
• Clean and crisp design that helps users confront complexity that lays behind it
• Integrates a wide universe of providers (Central supply and vast network of interdependent stores)

What have we learned?

Listening as an act of governing:

• Dare to open all channels to listen.
• Provide privacy notice at point of collection.
• Make sure the basics work.  If they don’t, fix them.
• If they do, take a fresh look at search, look and feel, media, folksonomies and social.
• Rethink portal as the non exclusive front door to the information, applications and transactions behind it.
• Give tools and templates away in a subversively helpful way.
• Use maps as the ultimate WYSIWYG interface – extending value of your GIS and making mash-ups routine.
• Solve intractable problems (land reform and use, regulation) through geospatially aware applications that are available to everybody, all the time.

What have we learned?

Opening up communication:

• Make connections (Call centers and web draw from common data)
• Make connections (211, 311, 411, 511, 811, 911 more than the sum of the parts)
• When it becomes mission critical, it better be recoverable. In developing call centers, get FTEs rather than existing employees because customer service experience doesn’t always come naturally ….

What have we learned?

Toward data-driven decisions:

• Open expert systems to new universe of users.
• See to the edges of your organization and extend value of formerly discrete data by dashboarding it for decision makers, case managers and project teams.
• Remember this is not a toy: The dashboard is the “same page” you’ve been waiting for.
• Share common directories for the mundane (address changes) to the sublime (who knows how to do what?)

What have we learned?

Alphabet Soup: Choose Your Recipe – then make some soup.

• Face up to the fact it gets harder in a networked world and a federated government
• Build on 40 years of big iron discipline
• Choose your religion (EA, SOA, ITIL, COBIT, ISO, PMOs)
• Integrate into consolidation efforts