Guilty Pleasures on the Ipod

As of today, I have 4,483 songs on my iPod.  I use it everywhere I go – at my desk, in the gym, in the truck, while I am DIYing. I would have to say that it is one of my most prized material possessions.  I have clocked myself with it – I can actually run further, work harder and drive faster (okay, not saying this is necessarily a good thing) when I am jacked in.  But, with that many songs in the collection, it is inevitable that I’ve collected a few choice tidbits that might be considered a bit well, odd, to the casual listener.  That is to say, I believe that I have some tracks that others might consider to be pure shite.

Of course I have complete control over my musical stylings and although I am not ashamed to admit it, it does seem to put me in a perhaps somewhat unique category when it comes to my musical tastes.  The vast majority of my music collection is 80s music – the synthpop through the metal years.  I’ve got a bit of blues, a small range of reggae, pocketful of oldies and a few world-music cuts to season the mix. Over the past few years, I have even expanded my horizons to include country, R&B and electronica to really shake it up a bit.

But even in those wide categories, I’ve got a few selections that stand out as obscure, obtuse or perhaps even obstinate. These particular songs hold no real cultural value (other than to show that we can produce some really bad music, perhaps).  But they hold value to me.  Perhaps they represent a specific time in my life, a treasured memory or maybe they just have a good hook and a hot chick is singing.  I dunno.

And so without further adieu, because I know how much you care, below please find a few samples from my list of guilty ipod pleasures.  (Now, if I let you read this, you gotta post a couple of your own too…keep the goodness going!)

Accept – Balls to the Wall

• According to Wikipedia: Released in 1983 on the album of the same name, this became Accept’s signature tune and remains a metal anthem and trademark in the genre.
• My Favorite line: Let’s plug a bomb in everyone’s arse, If they don’t keep us alive – we’re gonna fight for the right (Seriously…what does that even mean?)

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Digital Underground – The Humpty Dance

 

• According to Wikipedia: The group’s debut album, Sex Packets, was released in the spring of 1990 and included “The Humpty Dance,” a humorous dance number that climbed all the way to #11 on the pop charts (The video above was live from the Arsenio Hall show – BONUS!)
• My favorite line: I get stoopid, I shoot an arrow like Cupid, I use a word that don’t mean nothin’, like looptid (Ironically, “looptid” can now be found in many online dictionaries accompanied with the definition of : a word that “don’t mean nothin’)

Spice Girls – Wannabe

• Yeah, okay, if you are 12 or older you know the Spice Girls.  I actually have several cuts on the pod.  If you liked them (go on, admit it, you know you want to), I highly recommend the Ting Tings as a more contemporary spin-off of sorts
• My favorite line: I’ll tell you what I want, what I really really want, So tell me what you want, what you really really want, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna really Really really wanna zigazig ha. (Okay, honestly, what I really, really wanna know is…what the hell is a zigazig ha!?)

Vanilla Ice – Ice, Ice Baby

• According to Wikipedia: Originally released on Vanilla Ice’s 1989 debut album Hooked and later on his 1990 national debut To the Extreme, it is his most famous and popular song.
• My favorite line: Quick to the point to the point no faking , I’m cooking MC’s like a pound of bacon (Now look at that –  he missed a perfect opportunity for cross marketing with those “Pork: The Other White Meat” ad people)

Winger – Seventeen

• According to Wikipedia: Released in 1988, the song charted at #26 on the Billboard Hot 100. Despite its pop rock sound, Kip Winger points out that the tune is musically a Progressive song and that it is actually quite challenging to play and sing simultaneously (mhmm, sure thing Kip, that might explain the literary fortitude of those lyrics then, eh?)
• My favorite line: She’s only seventeen (seventeen), The girl she gives me love like I’ve never seen, She’s only seventeen (seventeen), Daddy says she’s too young, But she’s old enough for me (Okay, when this song came out I was almost seventeen and I thought it was cool.  Now that I am older, and a dad, with daughters, it is yea verily creepy.)

Surf MCs – Surf or Die

• (So obscure they don’t even have a Wikipedia or Youtube entry, but I do highly recommend the high-brow artistry of their video) Suffice it to say they were a mid-80s surf punk/rap group from California
• My favorite line: Sharks on my right, sharks on my left, One false move, we knew it was death, That’s when we heard a terrifying cry ”Hug wood, homeboy – you better surf or die!” (Ouch, seriously make it stop.. I am laughing too hard at my own stupidity)

So there you have it.  A sampling of my guilty pleasures.  I hoped you’ve enjoyed this evening’s edition of Catharsis Theatre. If you took the time to read this far, I have four questions that I would truly love your answer to (come on you music aficionados):

1) Do you have any of these on your iPod?

2) If not, what do you consider to be your guilty iPod pleasure?

3) Have I maligned any of your favorites with this list?  Am I wrong about their cheesboatedness?

4) What am I missing?  What obscure but noteworthy tunes from today or any other time should I be checking out?

Cheers!

Xmas Lights Are Up!

We decided to downsize this year, with the economy being in the toilet and all that.  Ours is the house on the right in the picture below.

Okay, no, that isn’t really our house. But I don’t care who you are, that’s funny!  But, honestly, we did put our outside lights up this weekend.  I was too lazy to take a picture, but it does tend to look more like that one on the left.  We are either the envy or the joke of the neighborhood for getting it done so early.  But hey, it looks good, the kids love it, so what the hell?

New Theme

Yeah, I changed it.  All that black was dreary.  Too pessimistic.  And we all know what an upbeat, optimistic soul I am….

So What Happens If You Get Scared “Half to Death” Twice?

During the recent bewitching season of Halloween, my thoughts of course naturally turned to scary stuff.  And while I pondered weak and weary, I had a thought that wasn’t cheery.  In fact, it made me stop and question my vast intellect on the subject of scares and death. More specifically…what happens if someone gets scared “half to death” twice?

I mean seriously, let’s break this down a bit.  Like a video game, let’s say you start with 100% lifeforce. The  first time you get a big scare, your heart pounds, your pulse races, your armpits stink and you are apparently 50% towards your undesired destination, namely, the netherworld.  But what about the second time?  What happens then?  When you get that second “half to death” scare, is it just like “poof” and then you expire on the spot or does your lifeforce only go down by 50% and gets exponentially smaller each time and virtually never runs out? If that is the case, you can keep getting scared half to death over and over and never push up daisies.  This is truly a complex and thought-provoking issue.  I am surprised I haven’t seen more scientific exploration on this front.

I am not, however, going to spend any time on those people who get “scared to death.”  Cause to write a post about that would just be dumb.

Social Media Policies: Leading Without Bleeding

As I continue to discuss government 2.0 with peers across the globe, I am happy to report that progress is being made! Specifically, I have noticed that the content of the dialog is changing.  For most of the past year, when I was asked to do a presentation on 2.0 for conferences or webinars, the vast majority of conference organizers asked me to focused on the “what” and the “why” of Web 2.0 in government:

“Please explain Twitter, tell me how to set up a blog,” etc.  I was happy to oblige because in order to understand the value offered by these toolsets, you have to have at least a basic knowledge of their general purpose and capabilities.

But in the last few months, I’ve noticed that the focus has shifted to the bigger picture of governance.  Now the conference/webinar organizers are saying “Okay, everybody gets it – Facebook has some viability for us in government.  But how do you control it? Who manages it? Who can post?” Last week, I participated (remotely via SecondLife) as a guest speaker at a conference organized by the Florida Institute in Government. The conference was focused on the challenges of social media in government. When planning the content of my presentation, the organizer asked me to focus specifically on policy development.  How did we work through the process here in Roanoke County? What were the essential components?  How did I “sell” the value of it to my administration and elected officials? And she was dead-on with this line of thinking: the session ran long with questions from the audience, the majority of which were focused on policy versus the specifics of a given technology. Next week, I am scheduled to speak (remotely via videoconference) to a Public Adminsitration graduate class at Syracuse University. Throughout the planning the content for the session, the professor has asked me to focus on “New media policies in the public sector…hoping that you could walk us through your county’s strategy, main elements, how you came up with the different elements, what potential implementation problems might be and adoption constraints that you might have encountered (security, cultural issues, identity management, public record creation, records management, etc.).”  She asked me to participate not just because of my MuniGov affiliation, but because I am just one example of how government are putting their money where their mouth is…not just talking the 2.0 talk but walking the walk.

Collectively, we’ve moved beyond the “what” and the “why” of govt 2.0 and into the stickier realm of “how”. I call it stickier because how we do this stuff – the controls, the process, the procedures – are a sign that we’ve moved beyond the R&D and into the acceptable use realm.  This means accountability, stakeholders and policies that have to be created and <gulp> approved.

Your Social Media Policy can do it all, just like my man Macgyver!

However, social media policies should not be feared.  Believe it or not, they are not that difficult to construct. I’ll grant you that although it can be an arduous process to get them fully vetted, when they are done, they can be used as a shield, a megaphone and a flashlight! They’re like the MacGyver of policies.

Now, my humble apologies here dear reader, but I am afraid that I won’t be able to tell you exactly how your policy should look.  There are too many variables involved (i.e. state laws, political climate, organizational size and culture, etc.) to develop a foolproof checklist for every organization.  However, I have discovered some common elements that seem to be inherent in the successful social media/2.0 policies that I’ve seen in government organizations. Here are a few tips to help you get started:

• If you are still in the “justification” mode, don’t start with a policy.  You need to do some controlled experiments and test the waters first.  Policy development before establishing value will be a death knell for 2.0 in your organization.  Start with some hands-on value development.  (See my earlier post “Incorporating Web2.0 in Your Organization Part 1 – MIX IT UP! ” for some suggestions on how to do this).
• Once you are ready to start on a policy, be sure to think high level. Do not focus your policy on specific technologies or procedures.  One of the biggest values of 2.0 is its nimbleness.  If you tie a document with the weight that a policy holds to a specific tool, you will never be able to keep up with the technology times.  Yes, Youtube might be ideal for your organization now, but you might find something more effective in the future.  Use your policy as a general “big picture” guide to the sanctioned use of 2.0 in general – leave the specifics of use to a separate procedure.  For example, here in Roanoke County we do not mention Twitter at all in our policy.  Yet we have separate procedures that dictate the details like background images, whom we will “Follow”, and our avatar design requirements. Keep it high-level – avoid acronyms, specific technology names or processes used for only a single purpose. Make your policy flexible.  It is not intended to be an engraved headstone but rather a dry-erase board. Expect – heck, plan ahead – to make changes to it on at least an annual basis to keep up with the times and the “organizational acceptance” of it all.
• From the beginning of policy development, you need to involve your organization’s key players.  At a minimum, every policy should govern a workflow process that includes public information/marketing, information technology and legal counsel.  These are the three legs of the 2.0 stool that have to be rock solid for it all to truly work.  Anything new you want to implement on a permanent basis should be approved by these departments.  I know that my colleagues have at times considered me (IT) to be a bottleneck. But IT, like the others mentioned above are here to support and protect you and your organization from harm. So my advice is to get them on board early.  It may take some gentle cattle-prodding to get them to focus on it. Provide them with information.  Answer their questions promptly.  And I have found that providing doughnuts and/or cookies at meetings often helps to grease the skids as well!
• The policy itself is simply a document.  Don’t let it sit on a shelf in a dusty binder.  Exercise the policy by developing a cross-departmental workgroup to keep things moving along.  Start with the three legs mentioned above, but add representatives from your departments that have a direct connection to your citizens (Libraries, Parks and Recreation, Public Safety, Human Resources, etc.)  There are typically folks within these departments that get this stuff, that want to be operating in this space.  A policy, coupled with this workgroup will ensure a balance of governance and innovation within your organization…a true key to success and longevity for your govt 2.0 efforts.
• Next, dress that policy up and take it out on the town!  Don’t let your policy get bored.  Use it as tool of advocacy. By promoting a social media plan that is backed up with the quintessential “big guns” of policy approval, you’ve got a much better chance of making things work across your organization.  The policy is the firm foundation from which you can launch a comprehensive communications plan.  Use it to help you tell your organization, your elected officials and your constituents that “this stuff is here, we are using it (the right way) and it is a good thing!”

I hope these thoughts above give you a jumpstart on your own policy development.  Below are a few examples of social media policies for government organizations that may help even more.  By no means is this a comprehensive list of governments that have policies in place. This is just a sampling to show you that organizations engaged in social media come in all shapes and sizes. Please feel free to shoot me a message and let me know if I’ve missed one you’ve found particularly helpful.

Arlington County, VA Social Media Policy and Guidelines

Arvada, CO Social Media Policy

Chandler AZ Social Media/Social Networking Administrative Regulation

Fairfax County, VA Social Media Policy

Hampton, VA Social Media Policy

Roanoke County, VA Social Media Policy

Suwanee, GA Social Media Policy

State of Delaware Social Media Policy

State of Utah Social Media Guidelines

Virtually Yours,

Greever

“Yeah, But Do You Have to Be a Wolf?”

That’s a question I get asked with Metamucil-inspired regularity as more and more of our government peers take the plunge into the unknowns of virtual worlds.  For those unaccustomed to the freedoms and idiosyncrasies of virtual worlds, the initial adventure can be quite a sensory overload.  Although most virtual worlds have major characteristics that are rooted in the real world (i.e economics, social interaction, timespace continuum), these worlds do often reject the notion that one needs to be restricted by such trivial things as physics, physical appearance and other such nonsense.

For instance, in the virtual world of SecondLife, where MuniGov has established its Virtual World Domination HQ, your virtual self is free from the shackles of gravity and the restrictions of conventional humanity.  Sure, there are humans every where you look, but they are not alone.  Here humans intermingle freely with dozens of various and intricate subcultures of furries, nekos, dragons, vampires, tinies and many more.  Sounds like a video game, not work, right?  Well, in a sense, you are correct.  Virtual worlds, particularly SL, look and act like a video game in many ways.  You interact with the online world through an avatar that is completely customizable.  You can get a job and get paid with currency that can then be spent on new customizations, new clothes, furniture, etc.  This is much like “leveling-up” after completing a particularly hairy quest in a video game.  But is probably the point at which SL and video games diverge.

In SL there are no defined quests.  There is no beginning point and there are no end credits to strive for.  SecondLife in and of itself is what you make of it.  If you are there to socialize, you will find people who are content to do nothing but hang out, perhaps dance a bit and talk about whatever strikes their fancy.  If you are here to explore and discover new cultures, you will be very happy in SL.  You will find authentic representations of the modern day world, cultures out of history, literature, popular culture and the sheer imaginations of SL’s inhabitants.  And if you are here to learn, you are also very much in luck.  Dozens of universities, hospitals, scientific entities and libraries are deeply invested in SL as a tool for education, knowledge transfer, recruitment and research and development. They have invested time and expertise and they are seeing the payoffs.

Our federal government has an extensive presence in SecondLife. In your SL travels you can find all branches of the military using Second Life for recruitment, modeling and simulation and the like. In fact, the University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technologies recently created a new area in Second Life, known as Coming Home, designed to assist returning veterans and “ease their return to civilian life”.  NASA, the CDC, NOAA and many other govt agencies have committed to exploring and investing in new methods of delivering services and information.  The state of Missouri uses SecondLife as a recruiting tool for its Information Technology Department.  Ontario,British Columbia uses it to simulate the skills needed to be a firefighter, medical technician, civil engineer, economist, and traffic analyst.  I recently attended a detailed, comprehensive paramedic training simulatordeveloped by St. George’s University of London.

The beauty of SecondLife is that is a participant-driven solution.  When LindenLabs constructed Second Life, they made their “grid” as wide open as possible.  Essentially, they constructed a giant sandbox, brought in a megaload of sand, and invited us all to come over and play. They provided the tools and the medium but the constructs were the products of their users.  In many ways, the possibilities are limited solely by the imagination.  From the smallest details – the texture of the floorboards or the shine of your bling – to the expansive training simulations developed by the military, the functionality offered by an easy-to-use scripting language makes nearly all things possible. In SL, you can create complex training scenarios, attractive and appealing recruiting stations or even functional and practical meeting spaces.  And because doing all this is simply pushing around ones and zeros in this pixilated universe, your cost of entry is literally zero and with a small time and financial investment you can build a substantial, practical and user-friendly presence to meet the business goals of your organization. Think complete customization!

Greever Wemyss in Second Life

And I am here before you today and proudly admit that it is this customization that drove me to lycanthropy. I confess that when I first got into SL, I was human for a time.  I spent much of my first few visits exploring several different cultures.  I even managed to pick up a few lines of Elvish when I spent time with them in their forest home.  Trivial?  Perhaps.  But it quickly taught me that a different appearance, while it may appear superficial at first glance, was actually more indicative of the existence of extensive, complex hierarchies.  SL has its own sets of rules, connections, communications and these form a conglomeration of factors ripe for the harvesting of new avenues of two-way communication, immersive information sharing, training simulators, teleconferencing opportunities and much, much more.

So after a few months in world, I made a conscious decision that I was no longer going to be human.  I decided that it was very important to make a strong first impression on the new govt types that came in world to see what things are all about.  I wanted to convey that you can get both things in world.  That is to say, when new govt users speak to me, they hopefully hear and feel the conviction in my voice and see the practical potential of SL.  I want them to see that someone who is extremely serious and committed to exploring the real world potential of virtual worlds can appear as a wolf; call it going for the “shock value” I suppose. If they see that if I can be a wolf, I could just as easily wear turn out gear and learn how to fight a fire, design a 3D tourable mock-up of a new library or sport my scrubs and learn how to perform an appendectomy. So yes, I my friends, am an admitted canis lupus.  Mind you I am not frequently prone to scratching for fleas or howling at the moon, but there is definitely a distinctive furriness to my face.

No doubt my appearance will turn away some of the less visionary members of my government peer group.  But I am okay with that.  In my mind you have to start with a certain amount of open-mindedness to consider virtual worlds or any 2.0 tools in general for that matter. So, if you are perhaps interested, I would encourage you to try it out.  Come to one of our weekly virtual govt meet-ups in SecondLife. (Wednesdays at 7PM EST on the Public Works Island). Mingle with your govt peers from across the globe and see what  an open mind and a blank (and free) canvas could do for your organization.  And although I find mine to be a great conversation piece, the tail is completely optional!

The Perils of DIY: You Win Some, You Lose Some

Yesterday was a wash. That’s it plain and simple. It was a wash as in a good thing…I was feeling good and clean about the job I did. And it was a wash as in a bad thing…I was feeling like my good feeling just got washed away.

“What has brought you to this melancholy state dear scribe?” you ask.

Allow me to expound…

I woke yesterday morning to the sound of dripping water in the upstairs hallway. (Never a good sign, particularly with laminate flooring). The water was coming from the edge of the AC return in the ceiling. Again – not good. Our unit in the attic is old…like 20+ years old. Did I mention this is not good? I called in to work, re-arranged some meetings and donned my workclothes. I hauled down the access ladder and headed up to trace the origins of my newly developed indoor pond. I discovered two problems. Turns out, the primary drain line for the unit’s condensation line was clogged with sediment (rust and such) from the unit. The p-trap in the line was so clogged that the condensate was running back into the unit. And to make matters worse, the unit was not seated properly so the second condensate drain, which runs straight to the drip pan as a “back-up” plan was basically worthless because the angle was bad. So the condensate decided to run up the vent work until it could find an opening…which happened to be at that return in the hallway. Now, I won’t bore you with too many details about how I spent all morning trying to find a way to compensate for the fact that the ABS piping on my unit has been replaced with PVC and CPVC which is not exactly the same size and how the flex tubing wouldn’t work because their wasn’t enough of a lip on the remaining ABS pipe, etc. Suffice it to say, after spending $23 and half a day of work up to my elbows in soggy insulation, high on rubber cement fumes and dripping more sweat than the unit itself, I got it fixed. All cleaned up…no more leaks, no major damage and most importantly, no heinous HVAC repair dude bills. Good, right? Great I say!

Alas, this is where my story takes a bitter turn.

After I cleaned up, put away the tools, showered up and was prepared for a nice afternoon telecommuting on my laptop from the quiet solitude of my basement, the mail arrived. My wife was full-on squealy and begged me to come up to see her surprise. Since I was still on a post-successful repair job high (or perhaps it was still the rubber cement), I obliged. The nails she ordered to go with our hardwood floor had arrived. We are prepping for the install of new hardwood floors on the main floor of our house. There is hardwood there already, but it isn’t her style and it wasn’t installed properly so there are buckles and gaps. So in our garage we have two pallets of New England White Pine 6″ tongue and groove planks ready to go. Think Little House on the Prairie style. When I say this is an “old school” style…I mean, literally, think of an old schoolhouse and you’ll get the idea. So of course this flooring can’t accept just any old nail, right? Well technically, it can, but not according to my wife’s design diva mind. So she ordered custom face nails. Yes folks…I did say custom nails. And by custom, I mean Made in the USA, hand cut, wrought iron nails with funky heads so misshapen they make Quasimodo look like quite the catch. They are essentially small railroad spikes. She got us 10 pounds of the stuff. Two boxes…$45 each. And that was with the discount and free-shipping codes she found. <sigh>

Now don’t get me wrong. These nails are way cool. Who knew you could still get that kind of stuff? When all is said and done, they will no doubt look awesome in the floor. My wife knows her design stuff inside and out. It just would have been nice to savor that sense of accomplishment and thriftiness for more than say…an hour! So that is why I consider the day a wash….it was good…it was bad.

Ah well, if you look at it another way, we saved money on the attic job and we’ll save money on the floor job by doing both ourselves. So I suppose I should consider the day a positive. Of course, the alternate downside is that when these floors are all installed and looking all authentic-like, then I’ll have the added bonus problem of trying to get the kids to stop calling us “Ma” and “Pa”!

White House Deputy CTO Gets a Second Life

On Monday, July 20, Second Life will be hosting a simulcast presentation from Beth Simone Noveck, deputy Chief Technology Officer at the White House responsible for Open Government. Ms. Noveck will be presenting her new book, WIKI GOVERNMENT: How Technology Can Make Government Better, Democracy Stronger, and Citizens More Powerful. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A, in which participants from both Second Life and in person can ask questions of the author. The event will begin at 12:00pm EST/9:00am PST on Monday, July 20, 2009 and will take place in Second Life on MacArthur Island.

According to the book’s summary, “Ms. Noveck’s Wiki Government insightfully demonstrates how technology, along with citizen participation, can help the government become more open and effective at solving the complex social and economic problems we face today.”

These kind of small incursions by the nation’s senior technology executives into the virtual realm provide me with some hope that eventually, with some refinement, some standardization and some positive educational opportunities, more of our peers in the government sector will sit up and take note of the broad and deep potential that maintaining a presence in a virtual environment can have for us in the public sector.

Virtual worlds are not going to solve all of our problems, but they certainly will go far in creating that “open and effective” government that we strive for.  Requiring minimal funding and relying on platforms that exist today, virtual worlds afford a prime opportunity to extend two-way channels of communication and provide a permanent collaborative realm in which citizens can come together with each other and their governments to design and build products, open dialogs and fulfill concepts that can result in innovative solutions of which we can all be proud.

This Monday’s upcoming virtual simulcast of Ms. Noveck’s presentation will certainly be interesting to watch.  I am curious to see how many other SLers will opt to show up and hear what she has to say, and how the feedback and Q&A from the SL audience will differ from her real world audience.  If you are there, please shoot me an IM and let me know what you think too.  I’ll be the wolf in the top hat (Greever Wemyss).

Virtually Yours….

~G

MuniGovCon’09 – A Belated Recap of a Virtually Historic Event

Well, it occurred to me this week that it has been nearly six weeks since the MuniGov2.0 group pulled off our very first organized project – MuniGovCon’09. I’d be remiss (and perhaps flogged) if I didn’t do a post on the conference and what it meant to us and the growing 2.0 movement in government. It turns out that I had to miss the conference due to a last minute family emergency, but I was there in spirit, my peeps were representin’ and we got it all on film for eternal posterity. You can view all of the speaker sessions on the MuniGov2.0 Blip.tv channel.

This was a virtual government conference held entirely in the virtual world of Second Life. The theme of the conference was introducing Web2.0 to the government realm. Based on our estimates, this conference would have cost us $165,00 (USD) to pull off in the real world. By offering it virtually, we estimate that we saved each attendee at least $1300 to attend a similar real life conference of this caliber (and we gave out the souvenir t-shirts to prove it!)

By the time the conference time rolled around, we had nearly 170 registrations. And although we don’t have an exact number, we estimate that the number of attendees was actually at least double this. Many organizations filled a real-life conference room and watched the conference on the big screen via the virtual eyes of a designated avatar. As you’ll note from the session videos, we certainly had a fair share of technical hiccups throughout. We knew this was inevitable, given the heavily concentrated noob herd that the conference attracted. However, your friendly and courteous MuniGov2.0 hosts and our speakers showed tenacity, resourcefulness and perseverance in working through the problems and still putting on a good show. And if you were in that audience – thank you for showing patience with us and thank you for being willing to help us try out this new avenue for collaboration and discussion!

Our speakers at the event were certainly well-received by the crowd. We had all levels of government and higher-education covered with intriguing ideas and engaging topics that seemed to be very popular with the audience. We even had an interactive Q&A session that engaged the audience with a panel of government 2.0 enthusiasts focused on several social media related topics. (Again – you can see all the sessions at our blip.tv site).

If you want more detail on the conference itself, I’d encourage you to take a look at Pam Broviak’s blog post about it (hers was much more timely than mine). If you are in Second Life, you can also visit the MuniGov2.0 Center to view some excellent billboards that highlight the dynamic demographics of the conference attendees. And while you’re at the center, you can take a stroll through the Technology Showcase – a virtual mini-exposition highlighting the wares and services of some of the vendor members of MuniGov including CDW-G, ActiveGovernment, Microsoft and Earth911.

During our post conference wrap-up, we gathered tremendously valuable feedback from the attendees in the form of a survey, and we documented a lengthy list of lessons learned from the MuniGov members who pulled the conference together. All of this feedback will guide us in the development of future events and gatherings to make them even more valuable for the participants. For example, we are working now on a regular schedule of Second Life Orientation sessions exclusively for government participants.

And finally, this post would not be complete without a special shout-out to the MuniGov peeps who stepped up to really make this thing happen. This conference was a culmination of the efforts of many members of the MuniGov group, without whom this would have not been possible. I would like to personally recognize my fellow ringleaders in this endeavor:

• Barry Condrey, CIO for Chesterfield County, VA (who also stepped in to be my stunt double for the keynote when I had to unexpectedly bail at the last minute)
• Leslie Fuentes, IT Director for Hampton, VA
• Robert Menter, Human Resources Analyst Virginia Beach, VA
• Lisa Nelson, Program Manager with the Intergovernmental Solutions Group of the General Services Administration
• Jeff Jacob, Junior Applications Analyst from Nanaimo, British Columbia
• Joe Mangano, Bus Dev Mgr, Vertical Solutions, CDW-G
• Beck Sullivan, Manager of Interactive Communication Services, Municipal Association of South Carolina
• Sonya Shoreman, Public Information Officer, San Diego County
• Wayne Chronowire, Detective Sergeant, Wells, ME Lynette Shaull, Web Content Coordinator, City of Winston-Salem, NC
• Michelle Gardner, Coordinator of Administrative Services for the John Scott Dailey Florida Institute of Government at the University of Central Florida
• Paulette Robinson and Jim Rich and the rest of the folks from the Information Resources Management College of the National Defense University, who were gracious enough to lend us their experience and this excellent venue for the event.
• And of course my founding partner in all this, Pam Broviak, a Public Works Director and City Engineer in IL

If you are not a member of the MuniGov group, I would encourage you to register today. Pam Broviak and I started MuniGov2.0 back in Sept of 2008 with the purpose of bringing together like-minded government people who were interested in exploring the possibilities that the tools and concepts of 2.0 could bring to us here in the public sector. I am happy to report that as of today we are over 430 members strong with a diverse membership from all levels of government in several different countries and from a dozen different disciplines! We have a very dynamic Web site, an active list serve and some very productive meetings in SL each Wed evening at 7PM EST/4PM PST. In addition to the group meetings, access to the list serv, etc. we also offer every member organization free use of the Munigov facilities, including your own customizable govpod – a virtual office that you can use as a home base while exploring SecondLife. If you are interested in membership, you can sign-up on our Web site.

Poison Ivy Sucks Monkey Butt

A vignette in which I recall to the fair reader an accounting of my mistakes and lessons learned in a lackadaisical stream of consciousness format…

My new house has a big, hilly yard (mistake #1).  It has lots of flowerbeds.  These flower beds are very steep.  They need mulch. Mulch gets weeds.  Weeds need to be pulled. New mulch needs to be put down.  Mulch is ground up hardwood bark.  Poison ivy grows on vines on hardwood bark.  I put down 108 bags of mulch last weekend (mistake #2).  It was hot.  I wore a tshirt and shorts (mistakes #3 and #4 respectively).  I did not wear gloves (mistake #5).  Mistake #1 + Mistake #2 + Mistake #3 + Mistake #4 + Mistake #5 = Miserable Stupidity 4 Me in the form of a incessantly nasty and vile poison ivy rash.  Conclusion: Poison Ivy Sucks Monkey Butt. (It was very, very tempting to hyperlink that phrase to something fun).

Who Is To Blame?
During the long and scritchy-scratchy hours since my nature lesson, I pondered the options available to me if I was to follow the litigious wanderings prevalent in our culture today.  I came up with a long list of people to blame and seek reparations from…

• Realtor – He never told me that the property had posion ivy! I think that violates some kind of full disclosure code of ethics
• Home Inspector – For God’s sake man…I don’t care about faulty wiring or leaky pipes – point out the dangers lurking in the yard!
• Employer – Hey – when I moved up here to take this job, nobody warned me about this kind of dangers lurking in the area.  Doesn’t just living here qualify for hazardous duty pay?
• My Boy Scout Leaders-  Who cares about tying a damn knot or spotting a Black-throated Huet-huet…why didn’t you point out that creeping death on the oak over there? (And incidentally it must be noted that the stupid black-throated huet huet doesn’t even have a black throat!)
• Mulch Manufacturers – Hey people…how about a little Quality Control before you chuck stuff whilly nilly into your Fargo prop grinder thingie eh?
• Walmart – I am aghast that there is no warning label on the bags.  I mean come on – if Mickey D’s can cough up the sense to put “Caution: Hot” on a cup of coffee, I think you could spare the ink  to post “Warning: There is Some Nasty Crap in this Bag” on the side of your tidy little 2 cubic foot bags TYVM!
• Kids – Damn…why did I ever allow them to go play on the first nice weekend of the year and leave the painful stuff to me?
• Wife – She had to have the yard look nice…

After much pondering over who I was going to haul down to the courthouse first, I eventually came to the inevitable conclusion that perhaps what lead me to my current state of misery is that fact that I am just an idiot.  This is truly a disappoint for me on many levels.  I had even developed several Cochranesque witticisms that I was prepared to woo the jury with (i.e. “If I’ve got a rash, you must give me cash“). But eventually I gave up on this line of thought and resolved myself to finding an ideal regimen to get me through the hardship.  Here is what I’ve learned, in hopes that the fair reader will gleen some knowledge (or at least humour) from my misery.

1. The stuff secreted by the plant is called urushiol.  Only 1 nanogram (billionth of a gram) needed to cause a rash. 1/4 ounce of urushiol is all that is needed to cause a rash in every person on earth. 500 people could itch from the amount covering the head of a pin. This stuff takes up to two weeks to even show up!  It spreads like a well…a rash.   And hopefully you don’t any inappropriate touching with it on your hands.  (And no, thankfully I didn’t do any digging for gold before I got it off my hands).

2. If you get it really, really, really bad, you can go to the doc and get a steroid to help reduce the discomfort.  But the steroid can cause all kinds of nasty temporary side effects that may be even worse for you.  I opted not to get the steroid because I am tough.  Okay, honestly I was just too lazy to go to the doctor.

3.  Calamine lotion helps, but of course you then look like a piece of very, very underdone salmon that just swam up the Pepto Bismol stream.  And Lanacaine is good too, if you don’t mind smelling like a very, very nasty science experiment.  Benadryl allergy medicine helps too, but it might make you very,very tired or very, very hyper.  It didn’t make me either of those, but it did cause me to repeat useless adjectives very, very often. Taken in combination (as I did) these meds make for fun days at work.

4. Sweating is bad.  Twenty minutes into my first post-incident run, I tried to convince myself that the painful heat on my skin was just a cool burning and that it was much better than being itchy.  Soon after I just gave up on trying to fool myself and focused on showering. Alas, showering was bad too.  Cold, hot, warm…they all were just as bad as the sweating.

5. Some rash locations are worse than others.  Between the fingers is really bad.  But fortunately I didn’t get it on my neck or the rest of my hands (much).  I am at least able to go to work and look relatively normal, aside from the occassional jittery scratch fest.

6. To date, I don’t believe I have done enough scratching to warrant permanent scarring, but then again, I have fantasized lately of putting some 60grit sandpaper on the belt sander and just throwing myself on it in some misguided hara-kiri ritual.  Sweet pain! And any disfigurement will be okay with me cause we all know how chicks dig scars, right?  

Bottom line regarding poison ivy: I recommend complete and total avoidance.  Barring that, start a blog just so you can whine to your sporadic and likely unsympathethic audience about your plight to help you cope.  Works for me!