What are you giving up for Lent?

 Lent is traditionally forty days in Lent which are marked by fasting, both from foods and festivities, and by other acts of penance. The three traditional practices to be taken up with renewed vigour during Lent are prayer (justice towards God), fasting (justice towards self), and almsgiving (justice towards neighbour). Today, some people give up a vice of theirs, add something that will bring them closer to God, and often give the time or money spent doing that to charitable purposes or organizations – Wikipedia

 

I have been thinking about what I should give up for Lent. It is a fairly hard thing to nail down something that is substantial to me, but also practical for my life. I have been playing with giving up caffeine, but it that is almost insane!!!! I think that my addiction to caffeine would have repercussions on my physical and mental functions. I believe that I will be sick for the first week.

I have also thought about giving up fast food, but there is a main issues with this idea, how do to classify what is fast food and what is not? At first I was thinking anything that has a drive through, but that would rule places like Sony’s, and Starbucks. Plus, when bringing this idea to my boss he suggested that Publix’s (or anything similar), pizza, sub places all cold be termed as fast food. Another reason I was thinking that this might be a terrible idea is because with the baby coming I think it might be hard stay away from fast food. People bring over food or needing to grab something quick because we do not have time to cook.

In reverse I am going to take up something for Lent too. I am going to do a mile every day for 40 days. That means walking with the wife, soccer, running at lunch, etc… This goal is just to make sure I get ATLEAST one mile worth of exercise every day.

Here are some questions for you:

What is Fast Food?

What are things that you have or have heard others give up for Lent in the past?

What are you giving up for Lent? Is there something that you will start for Lent?

One way Web 2.0 social media could help federal, state, and local government.

There are so many ways for government to waste money, but learning a little from social media websites, like Facebook, governmental offices could learn to solve problems through crowd sourcing existing staff from around the nation. The government has a wide range of technologies that it uses from Mainframes to SQL servers to Helpdesk software. Even though government agencies are very diverse, most have core sections (Finance and Accounting, Human Resources, Legal Department, Information Technology, and Specialized Staff found within the different divisions of government) that have similar technology support needs.

Technology Support Needs:

1. Server Teams:
   

   1. Email
      

   2. File Storage
      

   3. Active Directory
      

2. Database Engineers:
   

   1. SQL
      

   2. Oracle
      

   3. DB2
      

3. Programmers:
   

   1. Java
      

   2. VB
      

   3. HTML
      

   4. SQL
      

4. Network:
   

5. Client Helpdesk Support:
   

   1. PC support
      

   2. Phone Helpdesk
      

With tightening budgets and layoffs, CIO’s are fighting a delicate balance of low staffing and still keeping a high level of customer service to the end users of the technologies they support. One way that could help with this dilemma is to have a social media website for government technology staff to bounce ideas off each other. If you look at websites like Facebook and Twitter, you will see that in today’s world, most questions can be answered by asking your friends online. With government there are issues that arise when looking for answers online. The first is that government has many policies when it comes to privacy. You cannot just ask, “What is the best way to encrypt Health information” to the general public.

Another issue is environment. The public sector has a lot more flexibility when it comes to install applications within a production environment. Purchasing requirements is another issue with government. There are times, which even thought the software you have been recommended will do the exact job you need, you cannot purchase it because of money or the company is not on the government approved vendor list.

Even with all the restriction put on the public sector there is still the opportunity to use the functionality of social media sites to enhance technology support within the government. I purpose that the government build a password protected, Facebook like, site where government employees can discuss issues with others government employees. A good example of where this could really work is within the core technology support areas.

A Government Technology site could not only help solve problems with common issues quicker, it could also save tons of money in time and resources. Let take for example email. This is the life blood of most communications within the public sector. By having 60 or 70 dedicated government email specialist from around the nation all in one group you could solve common issues much faster than calling a vendor for support (although I am not saying get rid of the vendor). Not only could you solve issues faster, but you can also help prevent them by discussing best practices with people that understand the constraints of government.

This only one way to integrate Web 2.0 in to government, there are many other applications that can be used to help organize and solve issues.

Finding yourself and everyone else.

So, I have been trying this new service from Google called Latitude. Basically, it is a location based social media service that lets you share where you are and what you are doing. Latitude can be used through your phone or the web. The service will be within the RC33 release for Android (Google’s mobile OS). Google announced that this service will also be coming to other mobile devices (iPhone???). After giving Latitude a try (less than a day) on my iGoogle page, it appears to do the basics of every other location based social media application.

 

There are a couple things I can already see that Latitude needs. First, Twitter integration. I would like to be able to update my twitter and have it up Latitude. Even better I would like to use Twinkle on my iPhone to give location data and Twitter updates. Next, it appears right now it I can only update it through my iGoogle on the web. Give me a static Latitude webpage like Calendar, Docs, ect…. Also, when inviting people from my Gmail account please give me a “select all” button for my contacts list! Lastly, integrate my contacts list from all my other social media networks. I need Latitude to grab my Twitter, Myspace, Facebook, Linkedin, and Ning contact list for inviting people.