Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Collaboration Opportunities in Government

To get an idea of the magnitude of the potential collaboration opportunities in government, you could look at any one of hundreds of intergovernmental organizations that provide forums for sharing information and networking. For example, the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies lists hundreds of state agency members, interested stakeholders, and organizational partners that all share common interests and face common challenges. The internet offers opportunities for leveraging these communities in ways hardly imagined. In turn, this association is a member of multiple both broader and narrower in scope, such as the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network (just look at the list of partners). Web-based networks, like the Wildlife Disease Information Network are just beginning to understand and leverage some of the Web 2.0 concepts that enable organizations like these to accomplish things that have never been done before on such a scale. For example, look at this aggregation of avian influenza surveillance data drawn from the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Early Detection Data System (HEDDS). WDIN has also produced v. 2.0 of their Global Wildlife Disease News Map. KML file is also available so you can port the data into Google Earth. This specific area is on of over 100 collaboration opportunities that I have identified in a draft collaboration plan addendum for our State eGov plan that I want to use in developing our Web 2.0 strategy.

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