Craig Newmark flew straight to Los Angeles from Dublin in order to share his thoughts on using technology and social media to improve government at the Gov 2.0 Camp LA this past weekend. Newmark, who writes frequently on the topic and has recently been quite active in bringing attention to problems in the Veterens Affairs area, came to speak from a customer service perspective. Although I've seen Craig speak a few times about that, he always adds new anecdotes and provides additional angles on the problem showing how much he thinks about it on a regular basis. But for him, it boils down to the basics. "A lot of customer service is obvious stuff. It's just listening to people." This was the afternoon core conversation on Saturday. (See my earlier post about the conference in general and what transpired the first morning.)

My trip to Gov 2.0 Camp LA commenced with a comedy of errors: lost luggage, a flooded hotel room and flooded streets due to the rains. After a night of little sleep, I arrived at the BlankSpaces co-working location to the company of like-minded people from diverse professional backgrounds but all joining the search for using technology and innovation to improve government. In camp style, we each used the 3 word model to describe why we were there. I thought the focus really centered around engaging new paradigms since people from government, major corporations, start-ups, film industry and media were all together to learn and share ideas.

While there was no shortage of technical expertise present, most of the concepts discussed spoke to a high level of education and interest in the Gov 2.0 space, with sessions ranging from how to properly define gov 2.0 to specific tactics to use in social media within government. The biggest takeaways from the event: focus on people, build replicable solutions, and engage in expansive, multi-pronged outreach and public awareness campaigns.

In the coming weeks, O'Reilly Media will publish Open Government, a collection of new essays on how technology can make DC more transparent and efficient. Today, O'Reilly released a sneak preview (PDF) of the book that features the first eight chapters. My chapter is included; its entire text is below.

• Obama meets the Lakers. Keep in mind that the President is about 6' 2".
• FEMA Director Craig Fugate, whom we interviewed here on modern disaster response, somehow snuck onto Twitter when we weren't looking.
• ProPublica tracks which federal agencies have pre-met tomorrow's deadline to have an Agency.gov/open website up and running, as per the White House Open Government Directive.
• Event notice: New York City's New School asks whether unlimited knowledge, in a democracy, can be too much of a good thing.
• The National Archives builds its Flickr commons.
• And New York's Big Apps contest names its victors. The winners: an "augmented reality" Android app for finding subway stations, a "Yelp for taxis," and a web guide to the city's many schools. Lesson: New Yorkers care a lot about transportation, and whatever energy is left over they dedicate to their kids.

• And inside the rehearsals for #demonsheep.
• How to run a money bomb.
• How to run a text-to-screen campaign. (Thanks Antonella Napolitano)
• John McCain relaunches, and key features include a "supporter wall" made up of fan videos and a live event stream, a la the White House. (Thanks Shaun Dakin)
• The Milky Way Transit Authority releases a new map.
• Ezra Klein makes the case against negotiating in front of the camera.
• Book review: SMS "uprisings" in Africa.
• A microsite summing up DC's reaction to snow.
• "Any system of government is simply an application of technology."
• Sneaking Cory Doctorow into Burma.
• Obama holds far fewer news conferences than his predecessors.
• And Andrew Sullivan argues in favor of question time. Anyone else think this accent gets more British when he's on the BBC?

• What White House advance looks like on "game day."
• Could Obama take Wolverine? And other colorful questions that the folks from YouTube say they might have asked Obama.
• New York City's website has something where you can look up parking signs by street location if, saaaaay, you might be too lazy to get out of bed on a cold morning check whether you've parked in an alternate-side spot.
• George Packer would like to tell Twitter "stop!"
• A look at Plouffe's return video.
• The current state of Cuba's relationship to the Internet. (via @evgenymorozov)
• How to comply with FEC regulations, now in map form. (Thanks Shaun Dakin)
• Facebook has its DC coming out party.
• Ann Curry + Twitter + Haiti = read this.
• Letters: Data.gov needs better data.
• Here's what Bloomberg spent on online ads.
• Lessig and Change Congress launch Fix Congress First to focus their efforts on the Fair Elections Now Act that would provide public funding for candidates who based their fundraising on small donors.
• And designing social interfaces for mobile.

• In case you've been thinking that the world hasn't changed much in the last few years: Davos does social media.
• The Navy CIO goes deep on how and why he's embracing 2.0.
• The White House puts a new batch of visitor logs up online.
• It ain't Habermas.
• This was only a matter of time: Corporation X for public office! (Thanks Shaun Dakin)
• Luntz liked "question time," even though he got called out by the President.
• And web traffic to the U.S. Geological Survey’s Earthquake Hazards Program (earthquake.usgs.gov) multipled five times after the Haiti quake, to more than a million hits a day.

6.3 million: that's how many people viewed Obama's 2008 race speech on YouTube. 8.7 million clicked to see him dance his way onto the Ellen show.

By the time the Democratic and Republican national conventions of 2008 rolled around, Obama's team had uploaded about 1,110 videos on the candidate's YouTube channel -- more than four times what the McCain campaign had uploaded.

Is there a secret to moving a video messages online? What's the right mix of content, quality and, yes, quantity?

Join the PdF Network on Thursday, February 4 as Kate Albright-Hanna, formerly Director of Video for New Media, Obama for America, and now at VBS.TV, shares tips on building the right mix of compelling video content online.

Thursday, Feb 4th at the PdF Network
Digital Conversations: Using Online Video to Grow Your Campaign
1-2 p.m. EST

Join the call!

Check out our upcoming PdF Network calls...

• Creating jobs? Ha! Peter Orzag threatens to put political bloggers out of business.
• Gotta stay competative: How to write that political blog post that will light the web on fire. (via Atlantic Wire)
• David All on what the GOP has been up to online.
• The DNC's up-and-coming wing gets its own web home.
• The White House's chief photographer posts a retrospective of year one.
• Notice how Scott Brown emails about "the movement"?
• Become the Republican New Media Caucus' friend on Amplify to see what articles from the web they're clipping. Rep. Bob Latta likes stories about the iPad.
• House members want someone to look into how they got hacked.
• James O'Keefe offers an explanation of what he was up to, complete with a new-found aware that federal buildings are touchy about security.
• How British conservatives are taking to digital.
• What matters more, politics or tech?
• Finally, get out your calendars. The February 8th edition of Google's "DC Talk" series will be on the intriguing topic, "Democracy Online -- Can the Internet Bring Change?"

(With Micah Sifry)

Every year at the annual Personal Democracy Forum, we pick a theme to help give our ongoing conversation a focus. Two years ago, it was "Rebooting America." Last year, it was "We.gov." This year, we've decided to borrow a little inspiration from our friends at Edge.org and go with a big question: Can the Internet Fix Politics?