This group of Loudoun Blogs represents a wonderful and unique cross-section of the life and business of Loudoun County, VA, and is a very straightforward means for residents and business owners to participate in local community dialogue through “social media”. Like other communities, there are also lots of other Loudoun-centric online forums out there – on individual blogs, bulletin boards , on Facebook and LinkedIn , in Twitter streams and Wikis; thousands of Loudouners discussing topics from pizza to economic development. It’s growing consensus that identifying yourself (vs. anonymity) is much more helpful in achieving respect and social prominence on the web – but revealing your “personally identifiable information” (PII) is a two-edged sword. Hopefully, most of us using social media (or any other communication method on the Internet) understand how and why PII should be protected. The spammers, criminal elements and virus distributors don’t need much of it to make your life mis...

Looking for a Northern Virginia Agile/Scrum Master and Jdevelopers for 2-year local gig...ask at http://www.bstonetech.com/ContactCRM.asp For a very high-profile Education-related effort, upgrade of a significant JEE/Oracle-based data collection/ingest/analysis/OLAP/reporting effort.

Last week’s “Meeting the Open Government Directive ” (OGD) conference hosted by GovDelivery (new owners of the popular GovLoop.com public/private social media forum) showcased a number of very important, relevant initiatives and ideas to help Federal Agencies comply with this important White House mandate. The directive comes from a memorandum signed by President Obama on his very first day in office, to all federal agencies directing them to break down barriers to transparency, participation, and collaboration between the federal government and the people it is to serve. Most agencies have already started their compliance initiatives, creating “Open Government” pages (for example at DHS ) to highlight shared data sources and programs, and all agencies are required to present their holistic strategies (i.e. their “Open Government Plan”) by April 7th of this year. Ideas from the public regarding how agencies should approach their Open Government Plans are currently being accepted throu...

Looking for 2010's most promising high-tech (social media included!) ideas and venture capital investing opportunities? In this Southeast US, Washington DC and Northern Virginia region? 2010 is shaping up to be a huge year for investing potential, especially in new media technologies, and the Northern Virginia/Washington DC area is a hotspot for this facet of regional economic development... The upcoming 2010 Southeast Venture Conference will host some of the most dynamic high-growth companies in the Southeast US, Feb 24-25, 2010 at the Ritz Carlton in Tysons Corner, Northern Virginia . The 2010 (4th annual) Southeast Venture Conference SEVC will feature 60 high growth companies presenting their new ideas and opportunities for investment, representing the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic US regions. The expected audience of 700+ VCs, PE Investors, Ibankers, high growth executives and entrepreneurs will make for unparalleled networking among the region’s top technology and investment le...

I’ve been asked from time to time by businesses about how to educate employees on using Social Media – from two perspectives. One perspective is simply as part of a broader Internet use policy, to help employees stay safe and protect information assets. Another perspective is to encourage employees to support their business in their daily online activities, should they choose to do so. This is essentially giving employees as “social media enthusiasts” the tools and guidance they should get, to help them positively contribute to the overall online marketing efforts of their employer. Following is some template guidance that can be used and shared with employees. Let us know how this can be improved or updated. Additional consulting regarding planning and implementing social media programs for businesses and organizations is available via KME Internet Marketing in DC . Use of Personal Social Media to Support ABC (Employer) This non-legal memo contains straightforward, general advice rega...

It remains true that the most valuable aspect of the Business Process Management ( BPM ) discipline is its ability to help an organization govern rather than just manage, but this ability requires a comprehensive view of the technologies and methods that truly make up enterprise class BPM. It also requires real time, collaborative information sharing from both the governance and participant perspectives. Executing to such a view can help deliver IT Governance Process Integration benefits, in real time. Read more here about this Blackstone Technology Group Enterprise BPM Consulting Services Point of View - by Clay Almy , Directory of Enterprise Integration, Blackstone Technology Group.

Attendance at today's Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA) Bethesda Chapter Breakfast Series entitled "Federal Cloud Computing Environments – Modernizing IT Systems" was very heavy, as viewed from the Blackstone Technology Group sponsored table. The panel discussion and DC Federal IT community networking conversation revolved around the push to promote and adopt cloud computing as part of the Obama administration’s effort to modernize the government’s information technology systems, and to help reduce the $75 billion annual budget for Federal IT in the process. The event panelists held an informative and rigorous discussion about how cloud computing is enabling IT professionals (government and industry) to rethink the packaging, delivery and operation of government services, and is changing the landscape of government IT infrastructure management and streamlining system, network and storage management. Panelists included Casey Coleman (Moderat...