The Obama administration is marked by a promise of Change. That Change starts with the new WhiteHouse.gov. Just like his campaign strategies, Obama is incorporating Web 2.0 into how business will be conducted in the White House. Macon Phillips, the newly appointed Director of New Media for the White House, is steering WhiteHouse.gov in a whole new direction, one that centers around, and puts citizens first.

According to Phillips’ blog, their initial new media efforts will center around three priorities: communication, transparency, and participation, which will be conducted through Web 2.0 strategies.

Lines of communication are being opened through blogs, and government business will be made public for Americans to review.

“Citizen participation will be a priority for the Administration, and the internet will play an important role in that. One significant addition to WhiteHouse.gov reflects a campaign promise from the President: we will publish all non-emergency legislation to the website for five days, and allow the public to review and comment before the President signs it.”

This citizencentric methodology shows a movement towards what this government was fundamentally created for…. a goverment of the people, by the people, for the people.

This Change is off to a promising start…….

Rivet Logic will be conducting a joint webinar with Alfresco on November 11th on Web 2.0 powered collaboration. Topics of focus will include how we’ve used Alfresco to build content-rich Web 2.0 collaboration platforms, with examples from real life case studies.

Join us to learn about building scalable yet cost effective solutions that leverage the value of content through a robust content repository like Alfresco. Some new Alfresco 3.0 features and highlights will also be covered.

Register here:
http://www.alfresco.com/about/events/2008/11/web2collab11nov08/

With the baby boomers fast approaching retirement, the workforce is making room for a new slue of younger Gen Y employees. What affect will this have on the technologies enterprises currently employ? Along with the influx of a younger generation of workers, will come an increase in the adoption of new technologies. This younger generation of workers grew up using computers and the internet, with “blogs”, “social networking”, and “instant messaging” a part of their daily vocabulary. Gen Y comprises the bright minds of tomorrow. They’re not going to want to work in an environment where the technologies are behind. They’re going to expect the tools at their companies to mirror what they use in their personal lives. Gen Y is going to change the Web in more ways than one.  It would in a sense almost force enterprises to come up to speed with Enterprise 2.0 technologies to recruit and retain the best of this generation.

Out with the old, and in with the new!

With cloud computing and Web 2.0 being all the rage in today’s tech world, it’s no surprise that somewhere would emerge a product that utilizes both technologies. Introducing WebOS, “a software platform that interacts with the user through a web browser and does not depend on any particular local operating system”. What does that mean? It basically means that you can run a desktop through a browser, almost like remoting into your computer, except this “desktop” is hosted by the provider.

Although I was familiar with the concept of WebOS, I never really paid much attention to it until a friend brought it up and said he’d be playing around with Cloudo. I decided to see what the craze was all about. After viewing a demo of Cloudo, I must say I’m impressed by the concept and see where it could eventually lead. I don’t think WebOS would ever completely replace personal or work computers, but I do foresee WebOS being a great collaboration tool. It reminds a little of Facebook, but on steroids. In addition to photos, you can store documents, music and all other files in a file system structure like your current desktop. Since everything is online, documents and files can easily be shared between friends or colleagues.  And the best part is, Cloudo features an open platform, so developers can develop their own apps or widgets, which can also be shared.

Although some of the security concerns involving WebOS may not make it immediately practical for enterprise use, what if enterprise versions of WebOS became available? Enterprises could build their own custom WebOS tailored to their business and only allow employees, customers, and partners access. It would behave similar to portals, but on steroids.