Thanks goes out to Twitter_Tips for a link to Government agencies on Twitter: a few comprehensive sites posted by lindyjb which includes the following:
Showing posts with label Twitter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Twitter. Show all posts
Monday, 19 January 2009
Friday, 16 January 2009
Last September in "Ambient Awareness. The cloud killer app? " and " The Cloud Wins in Minneapolis at the RNC! ", I wrote about how the cloud infrastructure and microblogging could be used tactically to great effect. Although its clearly still in an early phase, some government entities are now experimenting with Twitter. In the article "Governments use Twitter for Emergency Alerts, Traffic Notices and More" pilot uses include:
Even the Environment protection Agency has gotten into the act with "Greenversations".
I guess this is part of the change we voted for :-)
- Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) updates its Twitter page with bulletins about structural fires, the number of responding firefighters, and injuries and casualties;
- Portland (Ore.) Police Department tweets about crime reports and sometimes asks the public for leads in cold cases;
- The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) updates its feed with traffic alerts and route changes for ferry vessels; and
- The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) tweets trivia questions and hypotheticals.
Even the Environment protection Agency has gotten into the act with "Greenversations".
I guess this is part of the change we voted for :-)
Wednesday, 10 September 2008
Ambient Awareness: the ability to acquire, process, and act upon application specific contextual information, taking the current user preferences and state of mind into account. 
“It’s like I can distantly read everyone’s mind,” Haley went on to say. “I love that. I feel like I’m getting to something raw about my friends. It’s like I’ve got this heads-up display for them.” It can also lead to more real-life contact, because when one member of Haley’s group decides to go out to a bar or see a band and Twitters about his plans, the others see it, and some decide to drop by — ad hoc, self-organizing socializing. And when they do socialize face to face, it feels oddly as if they’ve never actually been apart. They don’t need to ask, “So, what have you been up to?” because they already know. Instead, they’ll begin discussing something that one of the friends Twittered that afternoon, as if picking up a conversation in the middle."
In the September 5th New York Times article, "Brave New World of Digital Intimacy", Clive Thompson really got me thinking about how cloud computing, social networking sites like Facebook and adhoc information networking tools like Twitter are combining to mold our future social interactions. This social transformation may also provide new tools to address situational awareness requirements within the national security community.
While a Twitter stream of consciousness may, on the surface, seem useless, the paradox of ambient awareness may make such technologies incredibly useful. As Clive Thompson says in his article:
"Each little update — each individual bit of social information — is insignificant on its own, even supremely mundane. But taken together, over time, the little snippets coalesce into a surprisingly sophisticated portrait of your friends’ and family members’ lives, like thousands of dots making a pointillist painting. This was never before possible, because in the real world, no friend would bother to call you up and detail the sandwiches she was eating. The ambient information becomes like “a type of E.S.P.,” as [Ben] Haley described it to me, an invisible dimension floating over everyday life.
“It’s like I can distantly read everyone’s mind,” Haley went on to say. “I love that. I feel like I’m getting to something raw about my friends. It’s like I’ve got this heads-up display for them.” It can also lead to more real-life contact, because when one member of Haley’s group decides to go out to a bar or see a band and Twitters about his plans, the others see it, and some decide to drop by — ad hoc, self-organizing socializing. And when they do socialize face to face, it feels oddly as if they’ve never actually been apart. They don’t need to ask, “So, what have you been up to?” because they already know. Instead, they’ll begin discussing something that one of the friends Twittered that afternoon, as if picking up a conversation in the middle."
To me, this is the essences of situational awareness. An ability to sense and understand your environment and the actions of others in that environment. Clive goes on to explain that sociologists have found that “weak ties”, such as those created by twittering, greatly expands an individual's ability to solve problems.
Laura Fitton, a social-media consultant, with over 5,300 followers on Twitter, brags that she can solve any problem on Twitter in six minutes!
Yes. This certainly is a brave new world.
Tuesday, 9 September 2008
Little did I know that while I was watching the Republicans cheer their standard bearer inside the Xcel Energy Center that the cloud infrastructure was outside defeating the forces of civil obedience!
From "The revolution will be Twittered":
"Riot police were dressed in black body armor from head to toe, equipped with advanced communications systems and the latest in crowd-control weaponry. However, the greatest advancement in the age-old grudge match between an angry citizenry and the state was not found on the side of the police and it did not come from the millions of taxpayer dollars. A free and public social-media website called Twitter, which publishes brief messages sent in from cell phones and computers, was a game-changer for protesters, organizers, and journalists covering the event. ....What developed was an ad hoc information system that provided a vast amount of first-hand accounts, insight and the opportunity for rumors and misinformation. By the end of the convention there had been 1,375 sources posting more than 17,000 messages about the events inside and outside the convention sight [sic]"
This wouldn't be possible without wireless connectivity, a virtualized IT infrastructure and open source application technology. In short, it wouldn't be possible without the underlying cloud computing technologies.
From "The revolution will be Twittered":
"Riot police were dressed in black body armor from head to toe, equipped with advanced communications systems and the latest in crowd-control weaponry. However, the greatest advancement in the age-old grudge match between an angry citizenry and the state was not found on the side of the police and it did not come from the millions of taxpayer dollars. A free and public social-media website called Twitter, which publishes brief messages sent in from cell phones and computers, was a game-changer for protesters, organizers, and journalists covering the event. ....What developed was an ad hoc information system that provided a vast amount of first-hand accounts, insight and the opportunity for rumors and misinformation. By the end of the convention there had been 1,375 sources posting more than 17,000 messages about the events inside and outside the convention sight [sic]"
This wouldn't be possible without wireless connectivity, a virtualized IT infrastructure and open source application technology. In short, it wouldn't be possible without the underlying cloud computing technologies.
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