For those of you interested in attending gov 2.0 Summit, early registration ends today:

For the last couple of years, Mind & Media has been taking steps to become a green organization and we’ve found out that doing so is not only good for the environment but it’s also good business.  As we take steps to become more energy efficient and implement conservation measures up and down the organization, we are not only seeing the expected savings (of energy and $$) but also realizing some unexpected gains.  As a conservation mindset sets in among the staff, we are realizing that a “no waste” ethos is becoming a part of the way that we conduct business and that this new way of seeing the world is also improving efficiency and increasing productivity.

When we first embarked on this path, we did some research and also wrote an action plan (something we always do for our clients), which served as our playbook going forward.  I’m proud to say that we’ve instituted most of the suggestions in our own internal guide and some that are outside of it (for example, we’ll be painting the roof white, which not only reflects 98% of the sun that hits it but also has the added bonus of extending the natural life of the roof…resulting in less expense and less waste).

As I was reviewing the guide yet again, I thought it might be a good idea to share it with the world…so here it is…attached to this blog post.  Enjoy…and if you have any questions, feel free to ask.

It’s Easy Being Green! Recommendations for the Greening of Mind & Media

Government 2.0 Camp is happening right now and if you’re not there, no mattter…you can keep up with everything that’s going on through Twitter.  Follow the tweets at: #gov20camp.

And if you want to stay tuned post barcamp, follow the conversation at Government 2.0 Club.

Are you going?

The Bethesda Chapter of Young AFCEA (Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association) has been hosting a great series, “Federal Web 2.0 – Virtual Podium Series” by bringing in some key players in Government Web 2.0.  In the latest webinar, Lynn Dean, Manager of Strategic and Web Communications at TSA talked about some of the major challenges of Web 2.0, and establishing a blog on a Government website.  One excellent hint was to remember that, since the change in administration; you “Have the President on your side.”   The TSA blog, Evolution of Security, also has its bloggers on Twitter, @TSABlogTeam.  It is great to see the Federal Government getting creative, removing roadblocks to Web 2.0 technologies, and developing policies around them.

One of the presentation’s main points was that you must educate yourself and others to recognize the importance of using blogs and other social media to communicate with your stakeholders.  GovLoop has a great forum on “must reads for Social Media/Government Web 2.0,” including a list of resources they have put together.

Lynn Dean’s presentation can be found on the YAFCEA Bethesda Chapter’s website.

Since I am a big film buff and am interested in anything and everything about film (including making them), I was recently reading “The Art of the Documentary,” by Megan Cunningham.  The book explores the current state of documentary film-making via interviews conducted with various directors, cinematographers, producers and editors.  One of the more interesting interviews (to me), was the one conducted with MTV Executive Producer and Director Lauren Lazin, and this is the question that really caught my attention:

By using music, graphics, and fast-paced cuts, MTV has been credited with shortening a generation’s attention span.  Do you agree with that assessment?

Lauren Lazin’s answer (and I’m paraphhrasing) is that this is a chicken-and-egg question.  In her opinion, the audience at the time was actually demanding faster-paced cuts because simply put, they had the capacity to absorb and process more information more quickly and furthermore, they actually desired that the information be presented that way (whether they knew it or not).  And I agree.  I believe that MTV and CNN were simply reacting to the zeitgeist of the moment.

With today’s growing list of new social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Friendster and Squidoo, plus hundreds of blogs and Ning sites popping up all over the place, plus smart phones and IM (and I could go on) it might seem as though an entire generation’s attention span has been shortened and segmented even further. But what does this mean?  The implication in the question above is that this is a bad thing but I don’t agree.  I simply think that this is the way that a whole new generation of people want to engage with media.  I simply believe that it’s the current zeitgeist.  What do you think?

Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend a superb webinar hosted by the Young AFCEANS, Bethesda Chapter. Jeffrey Levy, EPA’s Director of Web Communication, provided wonderful insight on how his agency used a mix of Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 to promote Earth Day in 2008 and how he’s taking those techniques and elevating them in 2009. He offered some interesting suggestions for how to build traffic and promote the mission of an agency/organization through widgets, podcasts, Flickr photo contests, and viral videos. I’d encourage those interested in more effectively reaching out to the public in cost-effective ways to check out his presentation and attending the next seminar in the YAFCEAN webinar series .

I spent last Monday and Tuesday at the Interact08 conference in DC which, in short, brought folks together to talk about web-based marketing. I was surprised—considering the choice of host city—that none of the discussions or presentations touched on the federal sector. Looking at the speaker list, I probably should have known—big dogs of marketing, advertising, and web development with private sector clients that probably outspend the DoD pushing sneakers and hamburgers. But still, we were in DC, and there are plenty of federal government dollars supporting marketing campaigns no matter that they may be less glamorous.

On day one I was a little annoyed, feeling like none of the content was relevant to me and my federal clients. The examples and strategies were, as I first saw them, simply too cool to fly in the federal sector. Too cutting edge. Too risky. Too expensive. Too original. On and on. I debated returning on day two, but, hell, it was paid for.

I went into day two looking to maybe just meet some folks, but somewhere between coffee number 11 and the lunch I found purpose. Maybe it was better speakers (Brent Canfield from RTCRM was awesome!) or topics, but I ended up jazzed and inspired. Most of all, I came away wanting to do the stuff I was hearing about, but in my sphere, the government sphere. Possible?

First, what makes that level of work possible? What factors support the creation of best of the best marketing? After listening to the slew of speakers I’d say:

• Trust between the client and vendor
• The client’s willingness to accept risk, meaning an acceptance that original ideas may fly or not
• Time to dream, execute, measure and revise and
• Money to get it all done

So, if those four things are necessary to generate killer marketing, can it be done in the government sector? I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about how agencies, with non-government clients, work versus companies focused on federal government clients. The most glaring difference is the inherent competition injected into federal contracting. Certainly the system is designed to eliminate preferential treatment from buyer to seller, which is good if you imagine someone awarding a billion dollar airplane design contract based on who’s his favorite golf partner. But think of the drawbacks. Does the nature of government contracting allow for all four of those factors? Can you develop trust, take risks, and spend time brainstorming as partners when the bid,  proposal, and contracting process is drenched in oversight and mandated recompetes?  Or when RFPs must be so clearly defined that deliverable are pre-determined?

Keep in mind I’m not talking about multi-year billion dollar aircraft design and production contracts. I’m talking about marketing, recruiting, and public awareness campaigns that are often doled out based on specific deliverables as opposed to being based on mission or measurable results. Budgets reset each year. Contracts recomplete. Agency leadership turns over. That environment runs counter to long-term, successful marketing efforts. It seems to me that in order to sustain top notch marketing campaigns the sphere of each effort has to get bigger. Imagine an SES being able to plan out a three- to four-year strategy knowing that one partner will be along for the whole effort. Or even (bite my tongue!) that an SES could choose to work with a vendor with which s/he has a previous successful relationship. In such a scenario there could be all four factors: trust, acceptance of risk, time, and money. And with that come innovation and excellent work.

Ypulse, which touts daily news and commentary about Generation Y for media and marketing professionals, just concluded their College Mashup conference on Friday. The focus was on how to connect with today’s totally-wired college student. Something that may be of interest to marketers, sure, but should also be on the minds of employers, too. For employers trying to fill the void left by retiring Baby Boomers, recruiting IS marketing. So what messages work?

An event sponsor, Survey U, offered up some stats related to what these kids want in their advertising. So if you want their attention, check this:

60% of respondents said being truthful is extremely important, while only 15% gave the same importance to being stylish, and only 8% felt it was extremely important to exude cool. That’s great news.

Say you’re recruiting for a federal agency; it will be much easier to talk honestly about a job offering or agency in general than it will be to try to inject style or coolness into public service.

Honest language is more evergreen, too. Imagine trying to write messaging that exuded cool. Sure, I know there is a massive ad industry trying to do that very thing day in and day out, but they don’t sleep. When you try to exude cool, you risk your message being oh so not cool by the time it hits the audience.

Style and cool are two things that move very quickly and are hard to nail just right. But honesty? Hopefully that comes pretty easily.

Sometimes it’s when you experience something that affects how you experience it. Timing is everything, right?

Today my friend, a fellow new parent, sent me to Gever Tulley’s TED presentation titled 5 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do. Obviously that was meant to be taken for what it was, an enlightening commentary on countering the ever-tightening safety regulations that, to paraphrase Tulley, are essentially stunting our children’s educational experiences. I couldn’t help taking more from it, due largely to when I watched it.

There’s been a lot of talk around Mind & Media lately, and in the press in general, about the impending retirement of baby boomers. The federal government in particular is facing huge a wave of boomer-based workforce retirement, with a younger generation that just doesn’t have the numbers to fill in. In response, we’ve had agencies turn to us, as far back as 2003, to help recruit job candidates and train existing workers. After a few years of navigating those waters, I couldn’t help draw some comparisons to Tulley’s talk.

As Tulley tells it, we are ever-increasing the safety measures around our children to the point of immobility. Society as a whole is so concerned with a bruise-free existence that experimentation and experiential learning are stifled, and real breakthroughs in understanding and education are missed. Secure, sure, but stunted.

Back to the fed. They need to recruit and train to tackle an impending disaster. Online media should be the cornerstone of those efforts, but all too often agencies are cocooned in safety and security and watch-dogging to the detriment of the effort.

No hard data to back up this claim, but I’m certain that folks who access federal agency websites or intranets actually use the public Internet as well. They’ve heard of YouTube, they’ve seen a Flash animation, and they’ve listened to streaming audio. To pound it home, do you think 20-something college graduates may be familiar with such things? Graduates who may consider employment in the federal workforce? They live it. They expect it. They want to be engaged. And yet use of, and access to, the so-called new media is often outside scope for federal agencies.

Some examples: I’ve come across folks within federal agencies who want us to stream media for their audience but can’t access the media while at work due to policies that forbid it. I’ve had folks request we use Flash animations to aid in training, only to find that they are unable to install Flash player on their agency computers. And I’ve seen just-in-time online training get mired in months of legal review. Not so just-in-time anymore, eh? What’s frustrating is that they are workers in those agencies who get it and who want to evolve the media that is coming out of those agencies. It’s just an uphill climb.

Perhaps federal agencies are scared of new media or dynamic websites, what with viruses, bandwidth constraints, employees watching streaming music videos, and what have you. Maybe they don’t know how to leverage the technology. I understand the gargantuan federal government isn’t nimble, but a systemic shift in thinking is necessary if they are to compete for recruits or are going to effectively train the workforce that remains after The Great Retirement. Static doesn’t do it anymore. Static content doesn’t attract, engage, or help retain. It sure as hell doesn’t compete. Agencies may consider it playing with fire, but, hell, if we can let our kids do it, how bad can it hurt?

It’s time to let folks get dirty, get a little banged up. This is no time to be timid.