Video from the event is online at the Wilson Center website. Unfortunately, I found that I didn’t edit my presentation down enough for my allotted time. I made it to slide 84 of 98 in 20 minutes and had to skip the 14 predictions and recommendations section. While many of the themes I describe in those 14 slides came out during the roundtable question and answer period, they’re worth resharing here, in the presentation I’ve embedded below:
Video of the talk is below, along with the slides I used. You can view all of the videos from the workshop, along with the public plenary on Monday evening, on YouTube or at the workshop page.
Here’s the presentation, with embedded hyperlinks to the organizations, projects and examples discussed:
For more on the “Second Machine Age” referenced in the title, read the new book by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee.
The Google home page currently has a link to ask President Obama a question in a Google+ Hangout. That’s some mighty popular online real estate devoted to citizen engagement.
More signs that it’s 2013 and we’re all into the 21st century: Tomorrow at 2 PM ET, the United States Government Accountability Office will answer online questions about a decentralized electronic currency during a livestreamed event.
Yes, the USGAO is talking to the Internet about Bitcoin.
Using social media to convene and amplify a discussion about a difficult, timely topic is a terrific use of the medium and the historic moment. Here’s hoping that USGAO officials get good questions and give frank, clear answers.
This morning, President Obama moved to curb suits from “patent trolls,” entities that many observers of the technology industry have been warning have increasingly been harming innovation across the United States. As it turned out, those concerned parties have been right to decry the trend: a report (PDF) contained a startling statistic: the number of lawsuits brought by patent trolls has nearly tripled in the past 2 years, now accounting for 62% of all patent lawsuits in America. As Edward Wyatt pointed out in the New York Times, this surge in patent lawsuits is directly related to the passage of a 2011 law that was designed to address the trouble.
The White House announced several executive actions today to take on patent trolls, including a series of workshops, scholarship opportunities, a consumer-facing website and a review of exclusion orders. The administration will also begin a rulemaking process at the U.S. Patent Office to that would “require patent applicants and owners to regularly update ownership information when they are involved in proceedings before the PTO, specifically designating the ‘ultimate parent entity’ in control of the patent or application.”
One interesting additional outcome of the day’s news is that White House Google+ Hangouts matter. Entrepreneur Limor Fried’s unexpected question to President Obama on patent trolls during a White House Hangout in February 2013 led to a frank answer and contributed to the White House’s action today, a connected directly made by the @WhiteHouse Twitter account. Here’s what the president said, back in February:
A couple of years ago we began the process of patent reform. We actually passed some legislation that made progress on some of these issues, but it hasn’t captured all the problems. And the folks that you’re talking about are a classic example. They don’t actually produce anything themselves, they’re just trying to essentially leverage and hijack somebody else’s idea and see if they can extort some money out of them. And, you know, sometimes these things are challenging, because we also want to make sure that the patents are long enough that, you know, people’s intellectual property is protected. We’ve got to balance that with making sure that they’re not so long that innovation is reduced. And, but I do think that our efforts at patent reform only went about halfway to where we need to go. And what we need to do is pull together, you know, additional stakeholders, and see if we can build some additional consensus on some smarter patent laws. This is true, by the way, across the board when it comes to high tech issues. The technology’s changing so fast. We want to protect privacy, we want to protect people’s civil liberties, we want to make sure the Internet stays open. And I’m an ardent believer that what’s powerful about the Internet is its openness and the capacity for people to get out there and just introduce a new idea with low barriers to entry.
I hope President Obama does more Google+ Hangouts and is asked more tough questions regarding drones, patents and other issues on the minds of the People, far outside of the DC media bubble.
Hangouts aside, as Greg Ferenstein pointed out at TechCrunch, the administration is going to need Congress to effectively curb these abuses: the president can’t simply declare an end to this mess: Congress must be involved.
Five relevant bills have been introduced recently, as Michelle Quinn noted out at Politico and Joe Mullen emphasized at Ars Technica, and while the legislative reforms suggested by the White House could make a real difference in curbing the worst of patent troll abuses, it’s not at all clear what this Congress is capable of passing through both chambers at this point.
Timothy Lee, newly ensconced at Wonkblog at the Washington Post, isn’t convinced that such legislation, even if passed, will effectively smash patent trolls. Lee would like to see the federal government fix a broken patent system. Unfortunately for that aspiration, Washington recently passed an America Invents Act and is now moving forward on implementation. It’s not at all clear how soon substantial reform will end up on a president’s desk again soon.
Mike Bracken, U.K. government’s executive director of digital, talks with the Wall Street Journal about how new technologies and approaches can reduce one of the biggest issues in government IT: expensive government IT projects that run long.
Millions of people around the world are aware that the U.S. Department of State is using Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Between them, the U.S. Department of State, U.S. embassies and consulates now collectively manage:
125 YouTube channels with 23,940 subscribers and 12,729,885 million video views
195 Twitter accounts with 1,403,322 followers;
288 Facebook pages with 7,530,095 fans.
The U.S. Department of State also maintains a presence on Flickr, Tumblr, and Google+, and an official blog, DipNote. Its embassies and consulates also maintain a presence on these social media platforms and produce their own blogs.
What many U.S. citizens may not realize is that U.S. foreign service officers are also practicing public diplomacy on China’s Weibo microblogging network or Russia’s vkontakte social network. The U.S. Department of State also publishes social media content in 11 languages: Arabic, Chinese, Farsi, French, English, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, and Urdu. Many embassies are also tweeting in local languages, including German, Indonesian, Korean, and Thai.
That’s a lot of talking, to be sure, but in the context of social media, a key question is whether the State Department is listening. After all, news about both human and natural crises often breaks first on Twitter, from the early rumblings of earthquakes to popular uprisings.
This morning, three representatives from the U.S. Department of State shared case studies and professional experiences gleaned directly from the virtual trenches about how does social media is changing how public diplomacy is practiced in the 21st century. In the video embedded below, you can watch an archive of the discussion from the New America Foundation on lessons learned from the pioneers who have logged on to share the State Department’s position, listen and, increasingly, engage with a real-time global dialogue.
Suzanne Hall (@SuzKPH), Senior Advisor, Innovation in the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affair, U.S. Department of State
Nick Namba (@nicholasnamba), Acting Deputy Coordinator for Content Development and Partnerships, U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Information Program
Ed Dunn (@EdAndDunn), Acting Director, U.S. Department of State’s Digital Communications Center
The C-SPAN coverage of the resignation of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and tributes to her in the United States House of Representatives included something new: the House-controlled cameras provided an unusual display of extra TV camera shots in the House chamber, including the Giffords family in the House gallery.
In general, the viewing public does not get to see what’s happening elsewhere in the House. “These additional angles added much to the public’s appreciation for this Congressional action,” said Howard Mortman, communications director for C-SPAN, “and might lead one to ask, why not permit such camera shots every day?”
Mortman also alerted me to another interesting development: According to a new Roll Call story, journalists now can bring their laptops into the press gallery and use them to report on what’s happening. Reporters have to ask to do it — and they’ll need to have fully charged laptop batteries — but Superintendent Jerry Gallegos told Roll Call that he will allow laptops in for special events.
“It won’t be something that at this point we’ll be doing on a daily basis, just because power is an issue out there,” he said. “But because the House changed their rules allowing BlackBerrys on the floor … it didn’t make sense for Members to be able to tweet and not be able to have reporters get the tweets.”
It’s not the first time computers have graced the gallery, Gallegos said. The decision to allow laptops goes back to then-Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). But the gallery staff tired of arguing with testy writers about why plugging multiple power cords into limited outlets and running wires across the floor is a fire hazard.
“Early on, they weren’t going to be able to operate without plugging in,” he said. “It was very obvious that was going to create a safety hazard.”
Thankfully, battery technology has evolved since the 1990s and the House Chief Administrative Office equipped the chamber with Wi-Fi in August. So, Gallegos said, “It just seemed like now was the time.”
Even if the laptops run out of battery power or have connectivity issues, however, reporters will now have another option: Mortman tells me that iPhones, iPads, BlackBerrys and other smartphones will also be allowed into the press gallery of the U.S. House on a “trial basis.”
As a result, we should expect to see more livetweeting and Facebook updates from journalists on-site. That said, there’s a major caveat: Mortman said that the trial will be monitored to ensure that no photos or video are recorded.
Given the role that smartphones now play in the professional lives of journalists of all beats, political, tech or otherwise, the limitation on pictures and video is notable. There’s a good chance that the trial could be tested, as soon as a newsworthy event occurs off the C-SPAN camera. Late last year, during a debate over the payroll tax, House staff shut down C-SPAN cameras. Government staff acting to limit the capacity of a journalist to record a debate between elected representatives in the People’s House might raise valid First Amendment questions.
“One day, hopefully, the House (and U.S. Senate) will also allow in independent media TV cameras,” said Mortman.
Update: In the context of fauxpen data, beware “openwashing:” Simply opening up data is not a replacement for a Constitution that enforces a rule of law, free and fair elections, an effective judiciary, decent schools, basic regulatory bodies or civil society — particularly if the data does not relate to meaningful aspects of society. Adopting open data and digital government reforms is not quite the same thing as good government, although they certainly can be and are related, in some cases.
If a country launches an open data platform but deprecates freedom of the press or assembly, questions freedom of information laws or restricts the ability of government scientists to speak to the public, is it adopting “open government” — or doing something else?
E Pluribus Unum 