Digital Media Greenlighted Into Government
Posted: October 13, 2009
Image courtesy of GSA
By Thursday Bram
For a government agency to start using a new piece of software is an extremely lengthy process: not only does the agency in question have to figure out the best software for the job, but it must undergo a lengthy and costly review process. Any software that any part of the U.S. government uses must meet some fairly strict requirements ranging from the ability to protect citizens’ privacy to limitations on the makers and sellers of the software. And if software is approved for use at one agency doesn’t always mean that another government agency can start using it.
Those requirements make life harder for both government agencies and newly available Web applications. There are thousands of applications now available that could be ideal for the purposes of any government agency, especially those agencies at the state or municipal level that might not be in a position to use enterprise software. In light of that fact, the Federal Cloud Computing Initiative was developed: among the benefits of the initiative is an effort to create a core set of applications that have already met the requirements for use by a variety of different agencies. The result, Apps.gov, lets government employees browse through approved applications and implement them almost immediately.
Scribd is one of the first applications to appear on Apps.gov. Michelle Laird, Scribd’s director of communications, described the approval process: “Scribd was invited to participate in an approvals process. After meeting the criteria, Scribd negotiated a special terms of service agreement with the GSA for government agencies and their websites — effectively removing the red tape involved and making it fast and easy for government to start using the world’s largest social publishing site.”
A long list of government agencies and offices are already using Scribd, ranging from the office of Arkansas Secretary of State Charlie Daniels to the New York City Department of Education. How these agencies are using Scribd differ: some are using it to share documents with staff, while others are publishing information in an effort to reach the public.
In the long term, Laird sees Apps.gov to be crucial to government communicating with the public: “Federal, regional and local elected officials, government agencies, political action committees and grassroots organizations use Scribd to communicate directly with constituents and build a community of socially minded people. It’s document reader makes it easy to publish documents online and share them with constituents. U.S. Senator Mark Warner, for example, uses Scribd to communicate directly with his constituents in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Senator Warner publishes presentations, committee work, budget requests and key initiatives to his more than 14,000 Scribd subscribers.”
It’s true that social media tools and communication-oriented applications are quickly moving to get involved with Apps.gov. While most of the business applications listed on the site are offered by Salesforce and Google — both big players when it comes to cloud computing — the directory of social media applications is much more varied, with names like WordPress, SlideShare and Disqus.
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