Wednesday, November 29, 2023


A strategic approach to using Twitter for government and the new CIO of New York Senate

I know we’ve all long been trying to make sense of Twitter and on how best to capitalize from its increasing potential. Being a researcher, I definitely hear alot of strategies but very rarely do I get to see these strategies clearly in action.

By Liz Azyan , in General , at March 30, 2009 Tags: , , , ,

I know we’ve all long been trying to make sense of Twitter and on how best to capitalize from its increasing potential.  Being a researcher, I definitely hear alot of strategies but very rarely do I get to see these strategies clearly in action. And some of this is because of issues like this. Though Barnet Council has clearly become one of the front runners and we should definitely applaud their ability to become agile and fierce. Here is a recent article about Barnet Council and social networking sites.  I remember Thomas Gensemer (Managing partner of Blue State Digital – Agency that ran Obama’s social networking campaign) saying …

“There’s an organizational resistance to change …. You need actually have to commit organizationally and say win or lose, this is where marketing is going, where membership communication is going and we need to figure out what the five year plan is, not the five month plan”

So having what Thomas is saying in mind, in terms of having a 5-year plan and not the 5 month plan, here is a Twitter Strategy table of what I would classify as a very strategic approach to using Twitter. I found it through the New York Senate’s CIO office webpage twitter stream, which you might want to start following. 😉

Here’s a snapshot of the table

You might be interested to know, the newly appointed New York Senate CIO is Mr Andrew Hoppin was advising President Obama’s NASA transition team not too long ago. Now after being approached by Andrew Rasiej, a fixture in political tech circles, he is now looking upgrade the New York State Senate and bring it into the 21st century with technology. Here is a fascinating article about him in The New York Observer: Albany’s King Geek.

So you might be wondering, where am I going with this… Well I’d like to put it this way… LGEO Research is going international! As part of my recent win to go to Washington DC to attend the Politics Online Conference with FutureGov, I have taken it upon myself to also fly to the big apple – NYC and meet some gov techy people there too (and of course to do some sightseeing as well while I’m there 😉 ).  And luckily enough, Mr Andrew Hoppin has kindly agreed to meet me for an interview (Thank you Andrew! :)).  I’ll hopefully get to videotape the interview and share with all gov techies here in the UK through my blog.

Saying that, I’d like to ask my readers for some help. I’m hoping to ask some insightful questions and was wondering if you guys wouldn’t mind helping me out? You can either write it down here in the comments section or write it to me at liz.ainaz@gmail.com.

I’m looking forward to your questions! Hope the Strategic Twitter Approach table helped you decide what your organization’s strategic approach! Please look out for the interview here on LGEO Research sometime in April.

Here’s a little bit about Mr. Andrew Hoppin taken from his website.

I’ve taken on the newly created position of Chief Information Officer of the New York State Senate, which has recently changed hands to a Democratic Majority for the first time in 43 years.  We’re hard at work on a technology-driven effort to aggressively improve government transparency & efficiency in Albany.

In other realms of life, I have also helped to launch and am a consultant to DEABrasil, an online political campaign technology company, Mission AdWorks, an online advertising network for socially responsible businesses, and a new line of business for Earth Aid Enterprises.

Previously, I co-founded and helped to manage the NASA CoLab at NASA Ames Research Center, which aims to increase efficiency and transparency at NASA by building new partnerships between NASA and external communities of practice such as the entrepreneurial technology community, the global open-source software movement, and constituents in the virtual world of “Second Life.” CoLab was extensively covered in the media by CNET, WIRED, MSNBC, Seed Magazine, theBBC, Federal Computing Week, and many other outlets.

As an entrepreneur, I co-founded and directed business development for GoodStorm (now Zazzle), a progressive eCommerce venture that helps organizations raise money to support themselves, Trellon, a leading open-source software consulting firm for online community building, and Moonfront, an aerospace design consulting firm. I also directed business strategy for CivicSpace Labs, a developer of software and communities for online organizing and advocacy, and, as a consultant, executed marketing campaigns for leading technology startups such as mobile messaging provider Jaiku (now Google) and online geographic data provider N Space Labs. I have also served as an online strategy consultant to leading technology-driven non-profit organizations such as the Craigslist Foundation.

As a grassroots political organizer, in 2003, Ifounded the largest local group in the Draft Clark movement, New York for Clark, and later joined the Wesley Clark for President campaign staff to help manage the campaign’s voter data and the nation’s first open-source campaign software volunteer program. He also co-created the “RootsCamp” political meeting series in Second Life in 2006, and the Yearly Kos “virtual convention” in Second Life in 2007.

I serve on the Advisory Boards of Netroots Nation (formerly Yearly Kos), the Space Generation Foundation, Yenza and the New Organizing Institute, and also represent the Space Generation Advisory Council at the United Nations Economic and Social Council (UN ECOSOC) in New York.

I’m a graduate of the NASA Academy and the International Space University, and hold bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Brown University and Berkeley in Planetary Sciences and Environmental Science, Policy, and Management respectively.

Here’s a video interview of Andrew Hoppin about NASA Colab I found on YouTube.

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