Thomas goes to Washington

Last year I had the opportunity to attend the gov 2.0 Summit & the gov2.0 Expo Showcase as part of my responsibilities as Senior Director, Applied Collaborative Tools with the Canadian Government. My objective of attending was to meet new people and learn from others experiences. I accomplished both in spades, including chats with Beth Simone Noveck,  Andrew McLaughlin, Anil Dash and Tim O’Reilly and other luminaries in the Gov 2.0 world.

Afterward I shared my impressions with a presentation entitled Thom’s Top Ten , this was delivered via the normal lunch and learn process in the corporate boardroom with the added twist of a web conference. The web conference added 60 or so people from across Canada to the 40 or so in the room. By all accounts it was well received, some folks even tweeted their praise.

This year I am attending gov 2.0 Expo as a private consultant, the Executive Interchange program I was participating in having ended. So now my objectives are the same except that I have a new perspective. I am still looking for ideas to share and ways to make government better, but I am also looking for projects to get involved in. I am excited to be attending and look forward to meeting up with both old and new acquaintances.

Looking at the attendee directory, I don’t see many Canadian Public Servants on the list. This is unfortunate given the fact the highest ranking public servant in Canada has called out for more use of Web 2.0 tools.  I will do my best to share what I learn with my friends on the inside.

If you are attending the Expo, look me up, I would love to chat. If you are not attending, let me know if there is someone I should look up on your behalf, or give me a question to ask or issue to investigate. If I get some good answers, I will blog about it. Whatever happens I promise to share what I learn with a new and improved Thom’s Top Ten.