Website Inputs (Follow-Up)
Over the last week, you guys have presented some really great ideas for the website RFP development folks at HQs.
Based on these comments, I’ve compiled and bucketed the inputs into the categories we received from the folks at HQs (below). Most of the inputs were either under a “Generic” header or under the “Database & Apps Development” & “Content Management” sections. Please leave a comment and let me know if anything is miscategorized or if you have any additional inputs. The original categories were:
1. Hosting
2. Bandwidth
3. Content management
4. Database and Apps Development
5. Search
———–
Generic
- Solicit input from advertising/marketing/psychology professionals in design
- Content should be compelling and useful
- RFP should include financial incentives
- Design/content should push to increase number of visitors/members to site, as well as the number of active members (i.e. those who log in frequently, maybe once per month)
Content Management
- Website should be a place to obtain information on common engineering/science problems, which can be used by college students/professionals for research, training, etc.
- Include a rating system that is easy to use and easily seen
- Create a section that allows NASA to connect with professionals in all industries, where internal innovation/process/technical issues can be made public, so that NASA can invite collaborators to help generate solutions
Database & Apps Development
- Develop games that children/site visitors can play while surfing – content of games may not necessarily be related to NASA, but should be exclusive to NASA’s website
- Integrate social media tools (Twitter, Facebook/Good Friends Connect, Facebook applications, iPhone applications, etc.) and incorporate more outreach. This should not be just a destination site, but an outreach opportunity that allows fans, friends, followers, and colleagues to be informed about latest innovations wherever it is they spend most of their time. By branching out and “appearing” in places target audiences frequent, not only will visitorship increase, but brand awareness will, as well. These networking tools can also help NASA identify technical and business collaborators who could help to solve pressing issues that may arise (similar to the anecdote related in the following article: http://blog.wired.com/defense/2009/01/sat-shoot-down.html)
- Create NASA-inspired games/”widgets” that people can interact with on iPhones and similar technologies. Mobilizing NASA would be moving ahead of the curve – look at opportunities that showa nd remain true to NASA’s innovation.
- Take out any requirements for using Flash-related design – too long to load and can limit content
7 Responses to “Website Inputs (Follow-Up)”
Leave a Reply
Ahmed on January 22nd, 2009
Hi,
I’m wondering when is the final RFP going to be available? And where will it be posted. Thank you.
Chris Pitre on January 22nd, 2009
If even half this list was included in the RFP requirements, NASA would be already off to a good start. Congrats on affecting change w/in NASA!
rquintanilla on January 23rd, 2009
The compiled list is very eloquent Madi. I think you did a great job.
How much is HQ willing to invest in this type of development?
I like the idea of participatory exploration, but unfortunately I could not come up with any specific ideas of completing NASA missions through this methodology. I have however put a lot of thought into collaboration and the use of Web technologies to collaborate. Here are some more ideas that I think will aid in participatory exploration if they were incorporated. I apologize for adding them so late, but I remembered them when I was congratulating you for such a good job.
More Ideas
1) Have chatting technology embedded in the website, such that no additional software is needed to be installed.
2) Software used should maximize use of open-source technologies. Especially for wiki/Sharepoint type software. An example wiki server software that is equivalent to Sharepoint is Mindtouch Deki (http://wiki.developer.mindtouch.com/).
3) Using Torrent type technology, allow portions of the NASA website to be installed on external mirror servers (voluntarily). By allowing mirror servers, the amount of bandwidth for NASA can effectively be increased immeasurably. (I don’t know if anyone has ever used this methodology to create a cluster like server. I just think it is a natural progression of the Torrent technology. )
4) Using open source technology will require a bit more work (i.e. man hours) to get together. However, since the goal should be to maximize the number of collaborators, the man hour cost associated will be returned by allowing more people to join. Using Sharepoint or commercial technology costs on a per user basis. Further the development that goes into the open source software can be given back to the open source community (which coincides with the participatory exploration spirit).
5) One idea that I have desired for some time is the compilation and development of open-source software that is required to complete an entire engineering design. This includes open-source software for PLM (Product Life-cycle Management), CAD, CAE, CAM and configuration management software. Also including open-source versions of Matlab (Scilab), Mathcad, and Labview. It is currently difficult to compete with industry for these type of software. I believe that if this type of software is compiled into a useful and user-friendly form, the open-source community will help advance it relatively quickly. ( I am certain that there is more engineering/science software I am unaware about and excluded). It would also be cool if all these different file types could be compiled in one common website for NASA projects (think about the hassle that would be greatly reduced in comparison to the method currently used).
Skytland on January 23rd, 2009
Here are a few thoughts that haven’t been covered yet that we may want to consider.
Plan for the future, now. As the web moved to “web2.0″, nasa.gov was stuck in web1.0 (pushed web, text/graphics based, flash). Although it looked nice, it was/is very hard to expand. I’m all about adding the bells and whistles for web 2.0 (two way comm, blogs, wikis, video, podcats, sharing, personal publishing, portals, presentations) but lets write a requirement that plans for web 3.0 before it gets here. Allow for the development and implementation of applications for the website. As things like 3d portals, open avatars, interoperable profiles, integrated games, virtual worlds and whatever else we can’t even imagine now become more prominent, we’ll want to be able to scale and expand the website accordingly. The requirement(s) should setup nasa.gov as a ‘framework’ that can be expanded by not only the “webmasters” and “editors” but anyone with the knowledge and know-how.
Develop a readily available, easy to use, customizable template system so that once we role out the new nasa.gov website, it can be immediately reproduced by the other 9000+ NASA websites (centers, programs, projects, and anyone in between). The goal here is to actually have 1 NASA website that is flexible enough for people to use it do what they need to do. The key to this is that we should lower the barrier for entry such that anyone with a need or desire can participate. Today, there is little need for web programming know-how to do most things online (take facebook or as a great example). What we need to do is make it easy to either clone the nasa website for specific purposes (instead of being so frustrated that you don’t even know where to start that you just make your own webpage), or make it easy for people to generate content within the nasa.gov website, or both.
Use nasa.gov as a hub and leverage external websites to pull users to the site if they are interested in more information. I know we are discussing the requirements for nasa.gov, but it’s a good time to address the incentive structure around the use of the web at NASA. As the web becomes more and more a platform for people connecting, communicating and working, we need to set up incentive structures so that NASA employees can use the web for the benefit of NASA. The fact of the matter is that employees will use 3rd party applications. So, lets take advantage of this army of resources and mobilize them by using nasa.gov as the prize. If you give a great talk, lets post it on youTube and pull it back into NASA.gov (like TED.com). If you use facebook, and start a NASA group and have success, let use that as a funnel system to draw users back to nasa.gov for more information (vs. trying to shut down the group or de-incentivizing “official” involvement in facebook). If you have a personal twitter account, but happen to be a NASA community employee and have had success with communicating NASA to a non-traditional audience, lets take the opportunity to incentivize that work and highlight it on the nasa.gov website. If you develop a really cool app (think whirlwind), lets put it on the frontpage of nasa.gov so the world can access it.
InfiniteFrontier on January 23rd, 2009
Totally disagree with removing Flash. In fact I think what needs to happen is that Flash needs to be implemented in more intelligent ways. For example, right now all videos on nasa.gov need to use Microsoft Media Player to play. What modern website does that? Look at the most popular video playing sites on the internet and what do they use? They all use Flash Player. With Flash we can allow people to embed the NASA videos in other locations (blogs, forums, social media, etc.) and let the NASA content spread virally.
InfiniteFrontier on January 23rd, 2009
Also, I’d like to second all of Skytland comments. I agree 100%. I especially agree with this comment: “If you give a great talk, lets post it on youTube and pull it back into NASA.gov (like TED.com). ” NASA.gov needs to be a destination site for people and something like TED.com for NASA makes perfect sense. If anyone wants to learn anything about Aeronautics or Space their first thought should be to go to NASA.gov
Dunbar on April 24th, 2009
Hey, I’m sorry to be so long in responding, but I’ve had to maintain radio silence while working on the draft RFP for the next web contract. (It’s online at http://i3p.nasa.gov in the Technical Library. Look for the WEST contract PWS to see the statement of work.)
Because so much thought went into OpenNASA’s web inputs, I wanted to offer a detailed response, which Madi is graciously going to post for me. Briefly, I agree with many of the points, and I’ve outlined how I think we’re already doing a lot of them. Others we’re just starting on, and still others go beyond the scope of what we’re doing, or what we in Public Affairs should be doing. I only took issue mildly with a couple of technology suggestions.
Madi is also going to post two other documents that may interest you: a terrific overview of the site by Jim Wilson, our senior producer, that also explains some of the background of how we got here; and my pitch on the new contract from Industry Day. The latter contains a section on metrics near the end that may surprise you.
We are soliciting input on the new contract from NASA and industry. NASA employees should get in touch with their center CIO office, which is charged with collecting all such feedback from within NASA and getting it to the teams. Contractors and other industry reps should submit questions and comments through the I3P web site above.
Thanks again for all the thought you put into these suggestions. They were very helpful both in validating what we’re already doing and pointing out directions we should explore.
I look forward to hearing more in the days to come.