OFA 2.0 and other acronyms

Two posts at techPresident introduce a few new acronyms in the wake of this weekend's meetings of Obama workers across the country.

OFA 2.0 -- Obama for America 2.0


The true power of what was built by the Obama campaign is not just in the numbers of emails collected or donations collected, but also in the number of people activated and connected to each other. Individuals, and small house-party meetings, inputting their data up to a central office don't add up to as much power as a visible, multi-centered, network of individuals and groups talking to each other and hammering out common plans. By merging its organizing smarts and its technological smarts, the Obama movement has the potential to be something much greater than its parts. It remains to be seen whether it will live up to that potential.

The caption of the picture, which is on the CommunityOrganize Ning site, reads "Learning how connected we really are. Each district had a ball of yarn that traveled to other attendees that they knew in other districts to show the power of our network in the room."

GSA -- General Services Administration (No, this one's not new. But it will puzzle together with what's coming next....)

The GSA runs USA.gov, ostensibly the online portal to the government (and yes, we're descending into acronym hell, so try and bear with us) for people who want to do business with the Feds. Contained within the GSA is official guide for running a Federal government website - the aptly-named WebContent.gov.

FWMC -- Federal Web Managers Council

The FWMC runs a management group and listserv for 700 government managers across the country - thus serving as the central power for what can be, what must be, and what will be in terms of social media and citizen-oriented public sector web operations. Its membership includes the White House, the State Department, Justice Department, Treasury and every Federal agency on down the line. When Barack Obama's digital media team sets out to change how the Federal government interacts with nation's citizens - and Change.gov is pretty clear on its ambitions - this is the legacy bureaucratic it will begin with. And it's likely the new national Chief Technology Officer will take over the Federal web guidelines.

CTO -- Chief Technology Officer

That new Obama CTO will undoutedly benefit from an online survey run by Jed Sundwall and the Captura Group on government usage of social media - you can take the survey here, and it's pretty comprehensive. The survey reveals that one of the goals of the Obama technology platform is already well along: "Use cutting-edge technologies to create a new level of transparency, accountability, and participation for America's citizens."

Ya'll got that?

Good!

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Go!