If social media is having such a strong impact in diplomatic circles, specifically, China and Iran as discussed in today’s NextGov article: http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20090708_6453.php, what is the potential impact for influencing how the US government operates, communicates and sets policy?

Social media has the power to inspire action...think flash mobs experiments by Bill Wasik in New York City (http://www.whyy.org/podcast/070709_110630.mp3), the recent Obama campaign that inspired record numbers to get involved in the election process, etc.

So what else can social media do? Can it bring more cooperation between the government and the private sector in terms of policy and process? Can social media actually help the US government deliver better services to the public?

Have our communications paradigms really changed enough to embrace this new methodology? Sure there are plenty of bloggers in the public sector, many government contractors have blogs associated with their web site and there are a growing number of bloggers within the government:
http://www.uscg.mil/comdt/blog/
http://www.collaborationproject.org/display/home/Home
http://blogs.nasa.gov/cm/blog/Goddard-CIO-Blog.blog/posts/post_1244861198431.html
http://boeingblogs.com/randy/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/CH2M-HILL-OMI/85162552199?v=app_23798139265

… but isn’t the strength of social media the ability to cut across borders and boundaries of both organizational and social structures? Isn’t that where the real power comes in? It is our hope that sites like Government Futures can and will lead the change in our communications practices, specifically those among government and the private sector, to be inclusive and truly collaborative.