small talk 2.0

Last week the Training Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs opened a new Cadet training program. On the second day of the program the cadets opened a fan page on Facebook - another evidence that this generation of diplomats are digital natives. In 7 days, they already have more than 300 fans, and say they are going to tell us about what they study, and also answer questions of those who are interested in a diplomatic career. They also promise to answer questions in English, French and Russian. Visit here: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Jerusalem-Israel/Israeli-Diplomatic-Cadet-Course-2010-qwrs-wrym-mzwr-k/10150096924860381?ref=nf

At this Gov 2.0 Online Conference, you'll hear about open government efforts in Canada, the United Kingdom, and Israel. The speakers will share stories and lessons learned, and answer your questions. I was invited by the organizers to present the Israeli experience in Gov 2.o. I invite everybody to join the conference - register now: http://en.oreilly.com/gov2-international

In the last two years we've seen an uprecedented growth of Gov2.0. One of the most vivid expressions of the collaboration and sharing by governments through the tools of Web 2.0 were social networks of government employees and communities. I am talking about special type of government network that are open for all Internet-users, and in principle, anyone who is interested in Government 2.0 can join these networks. Today there are 3 networks of the national governments: American government community Govloop , Australian public servants and community OZloop , and Israel public sector social network Ovdeimedina . Probably, there are more such networks, and if you happen to know them, let me know. But in this post I will relate only to the above-mentioned networks. Govloop It was the first soical network of any national government. It was created in 2008, and since then succeded to become a real phenomenon of Gov2.0 in the US and abroad. It created a lot of excitement in the web 2.0 c...

From my experience in the Training department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the last two years, I learned that Training Departments could become agents of change regarding Gov2.0 revolution. They can literally push the organizations towards the adoption of the Web 2.0 tools, even without the high-level desicion on such policies. This adoption will have its limits. However, the input of the Training Departments can comletely change the dynamic of the pace of Gov 2.0 within the Government. So, why the Training Department can bring about this change? First, the role of training in modern organizations, government or private sector, is widely acknowledged. In today's world of beta state, of on-going transformation and renewal, training also became beta-state. The technologies change, so does the working environment, and if we want to be up to all these challenges - we should train, all the time. Our first step was to open a new course "Digital Diplomacy in the age of Socia...