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On Tuesday, I had the opportunity to give a lightning talk at the Gov 2.0 Expo Keynote Kickoff. All of the talks were 5 minutes and consisted of 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds. It was definitely a great experience.
The title of my talk was, “You’ve Been Scienced: Communicating Military Science and Technology with Social Media”. I would love to know your thoughts unless they aren’t complimentary.
Yes, I came across this portrait of our 40th President at the very end of the White House tour, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t destiny.
Check out this new story, Armed and Scientific, just released by UCLA Magazine. I was recently interviewed for the “Quick Takes” series, which highlights former students and their work since graduating from UCLA. Much of the article focuses on my experiences at the Defense Department, but the author did include a brief ditty about Science Cheerleader, describing it as “a web-based media platform that… aims to make science more fun and understandable to wider audience.” Woohoo!
By Dan Frankel
Published Oct 1, 2009 8:00 AM
Did you know the Navy is going green? That the Army is working with industry and academia on an advanced battery that will power, among other things, tanks? Or how atomic timekeeping works? You would if you listened to “Armed With Science: Research and Applications for the Modern Military,” a weekly audio webcast that the U.S. Department of Defense launched in January at blogtalkradio.com/ArmedwithScience.
Hosted by neuroscientist Dr. John Ohab Ph.D. ‘07, the show features one-on-one interviews with scientists from a wide variety of government agencies discussing everything from electronic warfare to drug abuse in the military. A new media guru with his own weekly podcast, and nearly 2,400 followers on Twitter, Ohab’s mission is to make the broad topic of science accessible to the broader population.
“We’re primarily going after the non-science audience, people who have an interest in science but no science training,” he explains. “What it all goes back to is communication and information sharing. People say scientists can’t communicate. People say government can’t communicate. By and large that’s not true; we just speak different languages.”
Meanwhile, the program also serves the mandate of making the Pentagon more open and accessible to the tax-paying public. “People think of the Department of Defense as guns and missiles and tanks, and to some extent that’s true, but this is a great opportunity to understand the breadth of science operating within the federal government and to understand how it impacts society,” says Ohab.
Meanwhile, the peripatetic scientist/podcast personality is also fascinated by the ongoing media revolution, using just about every social networking tool he can find to expand his show’s audience. Besides his social network activity, Ohab seeks to expand on the “Armed With Science” dialog through his personal blog, and a key voice for the Science Cheerleader, a web-based media platform that, like Ohab’s podcasts, aims to make science more fun and understandable to wider audience. In fact, some of the questions Ohab asks his scientist guests originate among his Twitter followers.
“We’re sort of on the forefront,” he concludes. “To do something that no one else in the government is doing, that is to host a radio program that discusses controversial topics that have implications for our national security, is pretty neat.”
“Drug Free is the Key” for the Defense Department during Red Ribbon Week, which runs from Oct 25-31, 2009. The week is meant to higlight the Department’s effort to raise public awareness and mobilize communities to combat tobacco, alcohol and drug use among military personnel, civilians and families.
I had the opportunity to help spread the word by contributing to The Sara Bellum Blog, part of a larger effort by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) to provide information to teenagers on the science of addiction. Now, in addition to facts on how drugs can affect one’s body and resources for teachers, you can also find my article, “Are You Good To Go?,” and a cartoonishly enormous picture of my head. Thanks to Dr. Bioephemera for her help in setting up the collaboration.
Click here to read the article. I think you will be compelled to rate it 5 stars. (seriously, do it)
Last week, David Meerman Scott, marketing guru and author of “The New Rules of Marketing and PR,” visited the Pentagon to discuss the importance of social media in the Defense Department’s communications arsenal. He spent two hours with the All Services Social Media Council, comprised of people from across the Department (ten points if you can find my forehead), and led a very interesting discussion about social media strategy and brand journalism.
I had the opportunity to chat with David during a 30-minute car ride, and I couldn’t help but detail all of the social media strategies we use to operate Armed with Science, the Defense Department’s weekly science podcast. He was so impressed with our efforts to provide meaningful information about science and technology through social media that he even mentioned us in a blog entry, Brand Journalism in US Military Humanizes Large Organization.
Click here to read it.
I wrote this for ScienceCheerleader.com on Oct 1, 2009. Tell as many people as you can.
Hooray! October is Energy Awareness Month, a national effort to empower citizens to reshape the energy economy and be part of the solution to climate change. This year’s theme, “A Sustainable Energy Future; Putting All the Pieces Together”, encourages everyone to see themselves as a piece of the much larger puzzle that includes efforts from the Federal Government, private industry, and the general public.
While scientists and engineers are working to solve many of our energy challenges, there are steps that each of us can take now to lower our emissions while reducing energy and waste disposal costs. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency’s Personal Emissions Calculator can help you measure your own carbon footprint and then take action. The Department of Energy provides an array of low- or no-cost methods specifically geared towards homeowners who want to save energy without compromising their comfort. Google’s Energy Saver Gadget optimizes your computer’s power management settings. The Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Effiency offers a map of utility programs that provide incentives for those who invest in energy efficiency. You can also help by simply spreading the word and making your friends and family aware of their energy consumption.
If protecting the environment, conserving natural resources, saving taxpayer dollars, and creating a better world for our children is not enough incentive, how about a chance to meet The President of the United States? Oh yes!
Last week, President Obama announced the SAVE (Securing Americans Value and Efficiency) Award, which challenges Federal employees to submit practical, environmental-friendly ways of improving government efficiency and savings. Do you have a innovative idea for preserving light bulbs at government facilities? Or how about a brilliant method for reducing the cost of air conditioning? You have until October 14, 2009, to submit your ideas for consideration in the fiscal year 2011 Budget. In November, the winner will have the opportunity to present his or her idea to President Obama himself. Stay tuned for news on whether you will also be drinking beers with him.
I’ll return with more Energy Awareness Month reports throughout the next few weeks, including some behind-the-scenes video interviews with speakers, sponsors, and others attending the four-part energy event, The Road to the New Energy Economy. I’m energized — are you?
This Pentagon Channel report investigates whether neuroimaging techniques can be used to detect deception. Dr. Bhatt previously appeared as a guest on the weekly science and technology podcast, “Armed with Science: Research and Applications for the Modern Military”. The report also features my award-winning acting skills and demonstrates the razor-sharp wit and decision-making savvy required to answer personal questions under pressure.
Dr. Bhatt: Were you born in 1980?
John: Yes.
Virtually no hesitation.
In 2008, Vivek Kundra, then-Chief Technology Officer for Washington, D.C, was looking for innovative ways to use information technology to improve the city’s government. He looked no further than its citizens.
Kundra created a public contest called Apps for Democracy, which challenged citizens to create their own software applications using DC government data and popular products like iPhones and Google Maps. For years, the DC Data Catalogue had provided public data on crime, construction projects, and government operations. Apps for Democracy rewarded citizens that could think one step further and develop the most cost-effective, accessible ways of re-packaging this data for use by the general public and the government.
The city invested roughly $50,000 in Apps for Democracy, and in just 30 days, produced 47 software applications with an estimated savings of $2,300,000. The effort was so successful it even spawned a follow-up, Apps for Democracy: Community Edition, which asked citizens to develop applications for submitting online requests for city services.
Through Apps for Democracy, Kundra established a new model for cross-sector collaboration by engaging citizens to meet the technology challenges of tomorrow. It was participatory government in its purest form. And, apparently, President Barack Obama was paying attention – in May 2009, he named Kundra the country’s first Federal Chief Information Officer and charged him with “directing the policy and strategic planning of federal information technology investments”.
As a critical player in President Obama’s Open Government Initiative, Kundra has focused his efforts on increasing public participation in government and improving the availability of government information. One of the first initiatives is Data.gov, a website that provides free access to over 100,000 machine-readable datasets, widgets, RSS feeds, and other data tools held by the Federal government. This collection includes valuable data on an array topics that impacts our lives, from financial numbers to transportation statistics to the FBI’s Most Wanted List. And the numbers will only grow as geographical, weather, and other scientific data is opened for public consumption.
The data by itself is not particularly useful. The real value comes when citizens evaluate and repurpose this data into “mashups” — applications that combine different data sources together to create an entirely new product. To unlock some of this potential, Sunlight Labs took a page out of Vivek Kundra’s book and held their own contest, Apps for America: The Data.gov Challenge. On Tuesday, they announced three winners: DataMasher allows users to build mashups of state information and visualize them in different ways; GovPulse allows users to filter and act on information from the Federal Registry, the government’s official daily publication for rules, proposed rules, and notices; and, ThisWeKnow combines nationwide data to provide information about your favorite city or region.
The Data.gov and Apps for Democracy efforts indicate that the government is starting to think differently about how it uses the Internets to share information and provide more opportunities for citizens to participate in their democracy. Take advantage of this new approach. If you’re a software developer with an innovative idea, check out Data.gov and let the ScienceCheerleader team know if you create your own Data.gov mashup. And, if you don’t have the necessary computer programming skills (i.e., me), you can still contribute by suggesting data sets that you would like to see, rating and commenting on existing data, and suggesting improvements to the website.
I wrote this for ScienceCheerleader.com. I’m expecting to win several journalism awards.
10-10,000= -9,990
Better luck next time!
