Municipalist

NASA's social media success

NASA has had a big year with social media. One of their blogs describes it all here.

We have followed NASA's work in this area since 2007. We have interviewed Kennedy Space Center blogger Cheryl Mansfield and Bob Jacobs, deputy assistant administrator for public affairs. And we look for excuses to write about their social media projects as often as possible.

Municipalist's full list of Q & A's with leaders of local, state, and federal government social media projects is here.

Why NASA Tweets

The most-viewed channel on YouTube this week is NASA Television, as a shuttle launch together with events marking the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing turn out to be very good for business. For NASA, though, the Internet has been both a blessing and a pain. Online critics are ever-present. But NASA's work lately to move out among the tweeting and blogging masses has certainly found success. Among its recent online ventures: remodeling its Web site, tweeting from space, and even hosting a tweetup last night here in Washington with shuttle astronauts.

We sought to learn more about all this, and tracked down Bob Jacobs, who has worked for NASA for a little more than nine years. He began his career as news chief and is now deputy assistant administrator for Public Affairs. "It's about closing the distance between you and your audience and getting direct feedback about your organization's work," Jacobs told Municipalist. Follow him on Twitter: @bnjacobs.

How long have you been on Twitter, and is that an official part of your job? If so, how so? What has your experience been with Twitter? NASA's involvement with Twitter really began in mid 2008 with the Mars Phoenix mission and @MarsPhoenix, which attracted much more attention than many of us who had been working to with social media expected. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory took a somewhat unique approach by having the lander tweet in the first person. JPL's Veronica McGregor, who developed this approach, deserves a lot of the credit for demonstrating that Twitter could be a powerful communications tool. Today, NASA has one of the largest and most effective use of Twitter in the federal government, with nearly 50 different Twitter sites sharing a variety of information, including @NASA and the agency's first astronaut to send tweets from space, astronaut Mike Massimino, @Astro_Mike.

Can you briefly describe NASA's use of Twitter, what got NASA started, etc.? And what has been NASA's experience with Twitter, positive and negative? I can't speak on behalf of every NASA Twitter user but we use @NASA as a way to share agency news and information in ways that extend beyond traditional approaches, such as news releases. We use a dual approach to the service. First, it gives us an opportunity to point interested people to images, video, and additional information about different topics. Second, it helps us create a conversation by answering questions and engaging in a dialogue with people who are interested in what we do -- and that interest is considerable.

What are NASA's plans going forward for Twitter, Facebook, blogging, etc.? The answer is really buried in the premise of your question. I don't focus on any specific service. Social sites come and go. The real value in YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and other social sites is that they force us to think about doing our jobs differently. The old communications model of simply issuing news releases and holding news conferences is dying.

With the initial iteration of the Web, organizations learned that a traditional media filter was no longer required. We could speak directly to our stakeholders. But the technology was "transmit only." With the evolution and implementation of Web 2.0, we had the opportunity to engage in two-way communication. However, we also learned that there was a significant audience that didn't want to come to us -- they expected us to come to them, and that's the real value of these sites. We want to be where they want us to be, and we want to be able to engage them in a conversation that allows us to listen and learn as well as educate and inform.

What has NASA learned by venturing into the social media space? By seeing the power of viral networking and communications. Sharing an interesting story and a link to additional information can spread very quickly. I spend a lot of time watching what happens to our information and I am constantly amazed at the speed with which news spreads.

Also, we can get a story out faster using sites like Twitter. Having only 140 characters forces you to be both creative and direct. If you want the information to resonate you have to think about what you write. Agencies who simply "feed" their news releases into these sites miss the value of being in the social universe. It's about closing the distance between you and your audience and getting direct feedback about your organization's work. I've never felt it was my job to "sell" anything. I believe my job is to "clean off the windows" and give people a better view of their space program. Social media can be a valuable tool in achieving that goal.

[Report from NASA Tweetup is from Frank Gruber. Live stream of that event is here.]

[Off topic, but interesting anyway: Good piece here on how a mission to Mars would actually work.]

Apollo 11 at 40: The countdown begins

As the 40th anniversary approaches of the launch of the first mission to land on the moon July 16, follow the countdown here at a site set up by the John F. Kennedy Library, which will re-create the Apollo 11 mission in real time.

The project has set up two Twitter feeds: Follow  @AP11_CAPCOM for all the updates from Launch and Mission Control. Follow @AP_11SPACECRAFT for tweets from Michael, Neil, and Buzz.

In the days ahead Municipalist will be taking a look at how NASA itself has gone about telling its own story using the Web.

State Department to Twitter: The world needs you

The U.S. State Department has apparently actually asked Twitter to postpone a scheduled maintenance downtime so that tweets from Iran can continue to the outside world following that country's sham elections this weekend, and CNN is all over it.

The irony is that the Twittersphere was burning up over the last few days with claims that CNN had ignored the Iranian election story on its networks.

The "CNN FAIL" movement now even has its own blog.

More from Reuters on State Department and Twitter.

Among the recommended Twitter users from Iran to follow: @persiankiwi, who as of this moment has more than 22,000 followers.

Continuing its enthusiastic rush to utter irrelevance, the U.S. State Department blog Dipnote is silent on the entire affair.

Obama Web moves inspire some, but not all

Here are good sources for reviews of the Web moves by Team Obama, et. al.:

Transparency Initiatives Launched Today by White House -- Washington Post. More analysis in the Post here.

Federal government launches data.gov: "The site, managed by CIO Vivek Kundra, is intended to let businesses, organizations, and consumers access large sets of government data" -- Information Week.

Data.gov Now Live: Looks Nice But Short on Data -- Read Write Web.

Gov blog widgets: Fun for the whole family

Scroll down this page -- as of today, anyway -- and you will find several widgets from various government blogs. Such as: WhiteHouse.gov, Dipnote from the State Department; Bureau of Economic Analysis from U.S. Department of Commerce; Leadership Journal from Department of Homeland Security; MoDOT Blog from Missouri Department of Transportation; and -- drum roll please -- National Agricultural Statistics Service.

Who actually would place these things on their own blogs? Other than geeks like me, I mean. We have analyzed several of these blogs previously. Widgets for blogs are hot right now -- though Widgetbox download numbers for each of these are not high -- but communities more social in nature are hotter, and so it seems that these agencies need to have presences all over the place. And that's the right idea, I think.

GovLoop rocks on

GovLoop, the Steve Ressler-created "Facebook for feds" now has 10,000 users, in just one year. "The premier social network for government employees" has attracted plenty of media attention and taken off like a rocket.

Details here.

Here is our Q & A with Ressler from August 2008.

Small Business Administration chats monthly on big issues

But is monthly enough? Especially these days? Since 2005, the SBA has run monthly Web chats on a variety of issues important to small business.

Eric Zarnikow, associate administrator for the SBA’s Office of Capital Access, will host the March Web chat Thursday, March 19, at 1 p.m. on “The Recovery Act and Your Small Business.” Zarnikow will answer questions about the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act "that pertain to the SBA and the nation’s small businesses."

Here is an archive of previous chats.

For more info on the Recovery and Reinvestment Act, head to Recovery.Gov.

Geithner's FinancialStability.gov: Not that stimulating

The new Web site set up to inform America about "a comprehensive set of measures to restore confidence in the strength of U.S. financial institutions and restart the critical flow of credit to households and businesses," like the initiative that inspired it, is not quite ready for prime time.

The headline across FinancialStability.gov reads: "This site is coming soon."

The press release reads: "We will begin immediately a process of consultation designed to solicit further input from key public and private stakeholders. Details on all programs will be posted on FinancialStability.gov over the course of the next several weeks."

I wonder if much of the thinking here to date has included any of the Web genies from the Obama campaign, from Change.gov, or from anybody else around this town who could sit these guys down and inform them that we are ALL "stakeholders," and we all need to be included.

But sadly there has been little evidence of any serious reaching out or engagement with the broader public at large throughout any of this process over the last few weeks, as bills have been rushed to the floor for votes, all in the name of 'desperate times require desperate measures.'

Do you feel like you have been consulted on any of this? Answer that, then ask the same question to the thousands of voters who found a new level of engagement with politics and issues and the process and democracy through MyBarackObama.com.

FinancialStability.gov by its own description is laid out to be a one-way conduit. From the decision makers to the rest of us. That's not democracy. Not anymore. Americans need to demand participation, through the Web, which has become the medium of choice.

Surprise us, Mr. Geithner, and Mr. Obama. Turn this site into a showcase for ideas and problem solving and listening. That would be real change.

Bev Godwin to White House

Just got the word here that Bev Godwin -- yet another Friend of Municipalist -- will become the White House's Director of Online Resources and Interagency Development. We have no idea what that is, but it sounds important, and no doubt it is. Bev is clearly the leader throughout the entire federal government on use of the Web for change.

Bev, director of USA.gov, is a leader among the Federal Web Managers Council, which recently wrote "Putting Citizens First: Transforming Online Government," for the Obama transition team.

Here is our interview with Bev from Dec. 11, 2007. We also wrote about Bev here.

Smoked: Archive from Bush-era anti-drug blog disappears

Those searching for clues about the direction of the Obama administration's policy plans on issues such as medical marijuana will not find any assistance at the blog published by the office of the official White House "drug czar."

That's because the first blog hosted by a cabinet-level agency lacks one thing as of this morning: content.

A total of three posts can be seen at Pushing Back, the blog operated by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). And none of these are dated before January 22. While all the previous 43 categories are still listed, clicking on each takes you to ... nowhere. All posts since the blog went live in February 2005 have been removed.

Under former director John Walters, Pushing Back did just that, vigorously opposing opponents of the war on drugs, directly, including those in the media. The blog hailed what it called successes by the Bush administration such as a 25 percent reduction in use of illegal drugs since 2001 by American youth.

Access forbidden

The night before the inauguration, Change We Can Believe In has begun, apparently. In the next few hours at least, anybody heading for the blog for Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt can save the trip: It's gone. Waiting for visitors there is: "The Secretary's Blog will be available soon as a historical record in the HHS Archive."

Municipalist engaged in an email exchange with a Leavitt staff member back in May 2008, seeking an interview with the secretary to talk about how blogging impacted the secretary's work, if at all. After some back and forth, the staff member, seeming surprised, eventually informed us the answer he got back was no, and that he did not know why.

Can we as citizens seeking to gain better access to a presidential administration learn something from this?

Yes We Can!

Fast Lane, a group blog from the U.S. Department of Transportation, still lives. Though no posts in the new year.

Ooh that smell: Will Obama administration maintain social media momentum of Office of National Drug Control Policy?

[UPDATE: Right on schedule, the objections begin.]

The Web team from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, whose blogger Rafael Lemaitre was the subject of a Municipalist Q & A awhile ago about that office's Pushing Back blog, has added Twitter to its social media public outreach efforts. The name to follow is, helpfully: @DrugPolicy.

Also, on Dec. 12, John Walters, that office's director, answered questions from the public as part of Ask The White House, a regular Q & A session with administration officials -- "the first of its kind in politics" -- hosted by WhiteHouse.gov.

I wonder what will happen with all this when the new administration takes over. The thing I like about Pushing Back is that it is direct and unapologetic and almost gleeful sometimes in how it goes after certain conventional wisdom idiocy in the world out there about drug use in this country. It turns out that there is plenty of good news in the last few years in federal anti-drug efforts. Pushing Back does a very effective job regularly pointing to truths through the noise, and, uh, smoke of those who say the fight is not worth it. Lemaitre and company also regularly take on the New York Times too, so that's a good sign.

Lemaitre told us today he is a career employee, "which means that my job status remains the same despite the change in administration," he said. "As far as future plans go for PushingBack, it's a bit premature to know. I can't speak to what will happen since the new team has not yet arrived, and I certainly can't speak for them anyways."

Guess what I think.

NASA supporters: Will showing up at Change.gov help your cause?

NASA Watch says so. We wonder just how all the thousands of questions and "votes" there about whatever will be turned into plans or policy. To find more NASA-based questions at the Obama transition site, a NASA Watch commenter suggests searching for "Constellation," NASA's program to get back to the moon and beyond.

Also recently tweeted from @NASA: The Mars Rovers continue to rock and roll across the red planet, five years later.

The Smithsonian should establish its own vibrant Web community, to save its wrecked soul

Intriguing piece here from the Washington Post about the board of regents of the Smithsonian Institution this week hosting an open meeting -- for the first time -- and taking tough questions, from a live audience as well as from real-time emailers. This in the wake of a very public scandal leading to the resignation in 2007 of the previous head of nation's largest museum complex, after the Post had detailed lavish housing and office expenditures by the then Secretary of the institution Lawrence Small.

The Post reports the questioning was rigorous [watch it on C-SPAN here] and the board was invited to resign, since it hired Small. Now, we wonder: Can such a body/institution effectively mitigate or better manage such hostility? The board did hold its regular meeting in private earlier in the day. Which sounds just bizarre. This institution, whose museums are for the most part free because of the good graces of the American taxpayer, holds business meetings behind closed doors?

What the Smithsonian needs is a vigorous online presence, including plenty of space for its passionate supporters to speak and be heard and connect not just with the organization's clueless leaders, but with each other. See? The sucess of My.Barack.Obama.com taught me at least one thing.

The place has made efforts in this regard in recent months. We have noted the recent establishment of the American History Museum blog. Other Smithsonian online efforts have included establishing presences at Facebook and Flickr, sending out tweets, etc.  This is a great start. A lively online community of its own cannot promise to solve anything, but would be a cheap and valuable way for a wildly inconsistent organization to listen and find ways to avoid the landmines it cannot seem to avoid.

Wildly inconsistent because as all of this controversy continues to smolder, Smithsonian museums are being renovated and updated spectacularly. The 21-month-old is particularly enamored of the recently renovated ocean hall exhibit at the Museum of Natural History. I visit Smithsonian museums regularly, and am a dues-paying associate. I love some of them, and am routinely demoralized by others.  But I root for them. And so do many people across the country.

So, to sum up: We want a Smithsonianapedia, but with plenty of social features, blogs, chat, video, text discussion areas, live events, author interviews, debates, free online courses in American art, American history, and science, as well as lots and lots of those gorgeous butterflies. Per a request from the 21-month-old.

We realize we ask all this from an organization that for 150 years cannot figure out how to fix the roof.

Also: No word on whether the board's public flogging Monday night included any questions aimed at this revelation, regarding Small's eight-year tenure as president of an institution in the news recently:

(In 2006), a federal investigation into Fannie Mae's business practices found that Small was prominent among executives there who encouraged employees to hit profit targets so that managers, including himself, would receive larger annual bonuses. Regulators say Small advocated tactics that violated generally accepted accounting rules and misled investors.

I'll be on the one to start that thread.

Delaware, USA.gov top Brookings rankings of government Web sites

Delaware.gov and the U.S. government's official Web portal, USA.gov, topped the federal and state rankings of government Web sites in the annual study by Darrell West, who recently moved from Brown University's Taubman Center for Public Policy to the Brookings Institution. The study evaluated 1,537 state and federal websites against 18 best-practices criteria, such as online publications, disability access and foreign language or language translation to gauge the state of e-government in the United States. State and federal agency sites were ranked in its report, State and Federal Electronic Government in the United States, 2008, which was completed during June and July of 2008 at Brown University but published by Brookings.

The top state sites from the study: 1. Delaware; 2. Georgia; 3. Florida; 4. California. 5. Massachusetts; 6. Maine; 7. Kentucky; 8. Alabama. 9. Indiana; 10. Tennessee.

The top federal sites: 1. USA.gov; 2. Department of Agriculture; 3. General Services Administration; 4. Postal Service; 5. Internal Revenue Service; 6. Department of Education; 7. Small Business Administration; 8. Library of Congress; 9. Department of Treasury; 10. Federal Reserve Board.

Hat tip: USA.gov's DotGov Buzz.

New Smithsonian blog focuses on American history

The Smithsonia Museum of American History has started a blog. This museum has always been one of my favorites here in D.C., more for its collection than its presentation. The place has badly needed a makeover and new attitude for decades, and it finally has happened. Allegedly.  The remodeled museum, closed for two years, opens Nov. 21. The space will include a remodeled Star Spangled Banner viewing gallery, the flag that inspired the writer of the national anthem.

State Department blog DipNote turns 1 today

Details here. We have not been that supportive over the months. We want the thing to be better. We want it to be quicker. When the world is blowing up someplace, why does it take days and days for DipNote to weigh in? Where is Condoleeza Rice? Where is the energy, where is any evidence of a major commitment here to something other than a very, very careful, at times self-flattering operation?

How many blogs named Fast Lane can you name?

First there was GM's highly-rated FastLane Blog. Then there was the National Science Foundation site called FastLane, " ... an interactive real-time system used to conduct NSF business over the Internet." Finally, we have The Fast Lane, the official blog from the U.S. Secretary of Transportation.

In the interest of increasing our traffic, we have decided to follow this strategy, and will soon be changing the name of this blog to MyBarackObama.com. Or maybe WeLoveSarahPalin.com. Or WhiteHouse.gov. Or DrudgeReport.com. Let us know which one you like.

FDIC's new site tries to get us to stay calm

Our money is safe! Hallelujah! Great, eh? Turns out this deal called the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is protecting bank deposits up to $100,000 for individuals. Even better: FDIC has decided to hire personal financial guru Suze Orman to front a new Web site debuting this week to tell us all about it!! To calm us down!! You fill in your data and it tells you how you are doing!!! Like we NEED CALMING DOWN. Where in the world did they get THAT IDEA?

Note to the FDIC: Where have you been? Talk about an institution that should be blogging, in good times and in bad. Why wait for the crisis? Suze: Love the watch.

Note to State department blog: Get to work

Lethal bombings (plural) outside the American Embassy in Yemen, and zip about it at this hour on Dip Note, the official blog of the U.S. State Department. Go to the main state department Web site: We see nothing there either, though a news crawl across the top may reference it. We found no reason to stick around to find out. We have noted this before. The point is not that the State Department's own sites need to become news organizations. But they certainly can and should join and work to shape the conversation about this, which is flying across the Internet all over the world. We previously mentioned this trend with state department sites here concerning the invasion of Georgia and here with violence at the American embassy in Belgrade.

The State Department needs to hire somebody who knows how to do this. The world is moving on. Dip Note may be the most important government blog in this country, given the need for this country to continually, moment by moment, talk as well as listen to the world. Get going. Get it done.

The Pentagon seven years later

The office I worked in seven years ago is just a couple miles from the Pentagon. I saw the sky filled that day with a sandy brown smoke, as fighter jets circled high above my building. Today, the Pentagon Memorial will open. Here is a set of photos from the site from the Washington Post. Every visitor to the area should check it out. The Post also has created a lovely interactive graphic from the memorial, with details about each victim, several of whom were toddlers.

And if you have time today, as you watch live coverage from the Pentagon and downtown New York City, do something seriously patriotic and sane: Check out the work of Popular Mechanics magazine, which a few years ago utterly debunked the 9/11 conspiracy theories.

Other useful 9/11 sites: Not built yet, but its Web site contains 800 oral histories: National September 11 Memorial and Museum at the World Trade Center ... More than 150,000 digital items are stored at the September II Digital Archive ... And another fine commitment to sanity can be found at Debunking 911 Conspiracy Theories.

Weighing the risks of Web 2.0 use in government

Federal Computer Week empanels a forum to address a big issue: What are the risks of Web 2.0 for government? On the panel: Bev Godwin, who answered some questions from us back in December. The panel was asked to address various comments to an earlier story on government and Web 2.0 use, including:

Do not use Web 2.0 terms, such as blogs, when using these technologies because many of them have become pejorative terms in agencies, and people who are still getting used to the technologies often come with preconceived notions of what they are and what they can do. Instead, it’s better for agencies to simply consider them as tools, just as any other technology tool or utility.

Exactly. We addressed this recently here. One term we are disgusted with these days is "the blogosphere," which has little relevance to the vast majority of people inside and outside of organizations who use blogging, and who have zero interest in becoming part of some juvenile secret club that insists on using techie language, links to each other almost exclusively, and has become every bit the echo chamber that is 'mainstream media' these days.

FEMA: Get a blog!

With two huge storms bearing down on the United States, where the hell is FEMA? Meaning: Why no blog? Why apparently no contact with the social Web whatsoever? When The Chosen One finally gets elected, will part of the promised vast new Web strategy include this mandate: the Federal Emergency Management Agency, among all federal agencies, will blog, all day, all night, and will use RSS, audio, video, chat, cellphone alerts, Twitter, and whatever else out there to engage the citizenry of this country?

Especially for those in hurricane zones. This cannot happen soon enough.

Library of Congress controversy: Fans of LOC blog are ready for detailed analysis

Talk about a flip-flop: Municipalist wonders if our favorite Library of Congress blogger will be addressing this.

Hey Matt, just know this: We're with you!

[In other, calmer LOC news: 2008 National Book Festival is Sept. 27. We'll be there.]

Q & A: GovLoop founder Steve Ressler

GovLoop calls itself "the premiere social network connecting the government community." We first noticed GovLoop here. The community was founded a couple months ago by Steve Ressler, whose day job is IT specialist in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Ressler is also co-founder of Young Government Leaders, a professional organization of more than 2,000 government employees across the U.S. Ressler said YGL's mission "is to educate, inspire, and transform the next generation of government leaders, offering professional development, networking, and leadership opportunities for its members."

Ressler has published articles on generational issues and Web 2.0 in various publications including Federal Times, The Public Managers, and as part of the Government 2.0: Wikinomics, Government, and Democracy series. He has also presented on these topics at a range of venues including Harvard's Kennedy School, Brookings Intitute, and the Government CIO Summit.

Mr. Ressler received the 2006 Rising Star Award and the 2007 Federal 100 Award for his service in the government IT community. He is a 2004 master's graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and a past recipient of the DHS Graduate Fellowship.

What is the brief history of GovLoop? In 2003, I co-founded Young Government Leaders (YGL). While with YGL, I began to meet a range of interesting people in the government community that had great ideas and wouldn't qualify as young feds. These ranged from more experienced feds, state and local govies, professors and students, good gov't organization, and even the occasional well-meaning contractor. So I decided it would be great to have an online social network connecting all these great people and start sharing ideas. It took a few months to turn the idea into the actual GovLoop.com site and I launched the site by word of month starting at the beginning of June (2008).

How does the site work? Who can participate? The site is basically a social network for the government community. You create a profile, connect with friends, and join groups. Additionally, a range of people post interesting content in the blogs and forums from government career advice, best practice, and even our very own government sports blogger. Finally, there are a range of resource from a calendar of events to links to important government career resource material.

Pretty much anyone in the government community can participate. It only takes a few minutes. Members range from fed/state/local employees to public policy students/professors to those good government groups (i.e. ICMA, AFCEA, YGL, etc). Finally, I do allow contractors to join although I explicitly ask them not to participate in business development or marketing. Governments employ a large amount of contractors and we need to partner with them and share ideas, however be careful around procurement laws and refrain from marketing and business development.

What are you goals for the site and how have they been met to date? The goal was pretty simple - I wanted to begin to connect the government community. And I've been blown away by the response - over 700 members in a few months from all sectors of government in the U.S. and located across the world (lots of Department of State people stationed all over the world). While numbers matter, more importantly we have the right types of people on the site - the people passionate about government and innovation - which I find exciting. Personally, I've met a number of really interesting people through your site including great bloggers (such as yourself), thought leaders (Mark Drapeau who is writing about Gov 2.0 for Mashable), and really smart govies trying to make government a better place.

What reaction have you gotten so far? What do participants say about the site? I've gotten nothing but great reaction. Usually people respond and say they wonder why a site like this hasn't been created before. I see a lot of spontaneous connections being made as well as sharing of information and ideas. As a government, our agencies can often see like black holes without a personal face so it's great to have a state employee of Iowa connect with a Department of Defense employee over a common interest in new technology.

Why join an online community, anyway? I think it's a great way to stay in touch with colleagues and potential colleagues. It's exciting to connect with others passionate about government and I get great career advice that I use in my day job constantly. I believe that it is important to have another safe place outside of your day job to share your ideas and collaborate without the politics and hierarchies inherent in an office. Plus, it's quick, easy, fun, and you can do it while watching the Olympics.

Dipnote Blackout ends with a whimper

It took nearly eight days, but the Dipnote Blackout is over. The "U.S. Department of State Official Blog" breaks its silence on the invasion of Georgia this way:

Earlier this week, Russia attacked Georgia in response to a Georgian attempt to quell dissension in a breakaway province.

Gee. Really?

C'mon folks. You can do better.

Georgia government blog stays active, as U.S. State Department blog takes it easy

A blog purporting to be from Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia is staying busy. Dipnote, the blog purporting to be "The U.S. Department of State Official Blog" is not. As of 11:45 a.m. Eastern time here in the U.S., number of posts to Dipnote mentioning Russia's invasion of Georgia: zero.

But it turns out that the U.S. State Department does know how to blog. Here is a regularly-updated blog from John Matel, whose title is provincial reconstruction team leader in Al Al Asad, Al Anbar Province, Iraq. Informative, and worth a read as you root for the success of this work.

But why can't the State Department make the translation, from Iraq to this ugly but still horrifying war in Georgia? Why not post updates and stories from U.S. diplomats on the ground there? Answer questions from readers, engage, listen, push back, participate?

We have the statement. We want the discussion.

The main State Department site, attractive and efficient, seems to be updated regularly. Dipnote is linked prominently on the right side of that main page, as if to suggest: Click here from some value add. But there is no value. And no add. State Department tweets are silent as well.

Here is the only Georgia government Web site Municipalist can get to based in Georgia, with the ".ge" URL. We have not done an extensive search yet. Many Web sites within Georgia are under attack. From somebody.

SEC: Corporate blogs now meet our standard for disclosing company financial info

With a headline that long, who needs to read the post? TechCrunch tells the tale in detail. TC's hope: "Can we now kill the press release?"

Here is the Security and Exchange Commission's statement.

Now we need to get the SEC's site itself to become more Web 2.0 savvy. Suggestions?

State Department blog is silent yet again on another major crisis

Where is the "U.S. Department of State Official Blog" on the shooting war going on between Russia and Georgia? Hours after the rockets began to rain down, no posts at all on this. We have the frustratingly brief statement from the Secretary. But why not make use of the blog for this?

There is precedent.