The National Park Service launched their official mobile (iPhone iOS) app in August 2011. It is available free from the Apple iTunes App Store as a 13.9 MB download. I’m reviewing the latest, 1.0.2 version which is compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad devices running iOS 3.2 or later. The National Park Service (NPS) has flyers available with QR Codes that make it easy for folks to download the app while on the National Mall. At just under 14 MB the app download does not take too long using a 3G connection.

The app starts quickly and on first use asks your permission to use your current location. Users will want to grant permission as this app is designed to guide you as you travel about the National Mall and Memorial Parks in Washington, DC. The home screen brings up a rotating set of beautiful photographs of monuments with the NPS branding and navigation overlaid. The app has a strong visual appeal, good typography and uses the popular Glyphish Pro iconography.  Rather than using a “More” as the fifth navigational element the designers decided to add four additional nav icon links as shown is the screenshot. This is a bit unconventional but it does work well in this implementation.

The Overview provides a good summary of the National Mall and Memorial Parks (NAMA). A minor quibble I have is they provide links to “our outdoor activities page to learn more” and a link to the NAMA website. Both webpages are displayed in a web viewer and are not sized for mobile devices (mobilized). Why send users of your iPhone app to your website? A better choice would be to offer the content within the NPS app itself.

You only get one chance to make a first impression and the NPS has done an outstanding job with their first app.

The Events and News feature pulls from a NPS feed, which is an intelligent method to keep the contents of a native iOS app up-to-date without requiring a new version in the App Store. The first News item caught my attention as it invites you to a “Public Meeting on Washington Monument Screening Facility.” However, clicking on the item does not reveal the date, time or location. NPS needs to think about adding more useful content to their News feed. The Events feed contains links with more details but I would have preferred to see the events in reverse chronological order. The oldest (October) events were on the top and the current upcoming events were near the bottom of the list.

The Postcard feature is fun and worked well. I was able to take a neat snapshot with the NPS branded boarder around the photograph. You can email the souvenir photo right from the app. I appreciate how the NPS designers were thinking about how and what their audience would want to do with this app, and providing a souvenir photo is brilliant.

The core of the app are the sites and monuments. The NPS provides several ways to discover our national treasures. Map and Sites are two direct methods. The later is an alphabetical listing of each of the locations. Clicking on any of the sites brings you to the details page of that site.  The Map view allows you to explore sites via a Google Maps mash-up. It’s easy to use your fingers to scroll and zoom to see where monuments are located. Using this Map view you can see your own location relative to the monuments that are nearest to you (assuming you are on or near the National Mall).

Each monument has a detailed page that offers an Overview, Info, Album, Events and a button to add the site to your My Tour. This allows you to build your own tour of monuments to visit. The Album button allows you to view photographs of the monuments as well as historical figures and artifacts. I was pleasantly surprised to see that audio and videos of NPS Rangers are also provided in some of the Albums (see Lincoln Memorial). The inclusion of the audio and video was an excellent choice. The Rangers give their own personal statements on why a given monument is important to them. Ranger Elmi Kawther who is from Africa, had a heartfelt message on what the Lincoln Memorial means to her.

It appeared that the photos were loaded over the Internet which may help keep the size of the app small enough for a convenient download.

One feature that I would like to have seen – given the overall high quality of this app – is a way to “check in” to the locations I was visiting. Perhaps an integration with Foursquare would make this a truly killer app. If not Foursquare, then perhaps a checklist of sites that I’ve visited with virtual badges or pins as a reward for visiting a set of monuments.

Location-aware social features could work well with the Tours feature built into the app. The NPS pre-built five self-guided tours that give walking distances between each location. This is another really neat feature and instead of randomly wandering around the Mall, this feature allows you to visit sites based on theme or how much time you have available.

The Park Lens feature uses the built-in iOS compass capability. Holding your phone up to a location lets you augment what you see with additional content. Have no doubt, this is a technically sophisticated feature. It is clear that the iOS developers know what they are doing.

I did experience one app crash after watching a video. This is not uncommon for technically ambitious apps that are only a few months old. I suspect that user submitted crash reports will help to squish any remaining bugs.  While hooking my iPhone 4S up to a MacBook Pro with XCode, the console logs suggested that the app checks to see if I had Twitter available for use, which was surprising as it doesn’t (yet?) integrate with Twitter or any of the other social networking apps such as Foursquare.

All in all, the National Park Service hit a homerun with their official National Mall and Memorial Parks iOS app. They are to be commended for not rushing and putting out a half-baked, poorly conceived app. You only get one chance to make a first impression and the NPS has done an outstanding job with their first app. I can’t wait to see what they do for an encore. Perhaps versions for other popular sites such as the Grand Canyon? We can only hope!

Smartphones, and their mobile applications are quickly becoming ubiquitous. The technological adoption of the mobile Internet (smartphones) mirrors that of the television during the 1940s and the Internet during the 1990s. Meaning, rapid adoption. The message for the U.S. federal government is clear – make your websites and data mobile accessible.

The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) maintains USA.gov and a listing of mobile applications built by federal agencies. I plan to review a different mobile app each week. For the first review, I’ll start with an app that I know quite well, the Transportation Security Administration’s “My TSA” mobile web and iPhone app.

The MyTSA app was launched in time for the Fourth of July travel rush in 2010. The launch was timed so that it was part of the initial launch of apps.usa.gov – the Mobile Apps site for the USA.gov portal.

There are currently two versions of the app, an iPhone (Apple iOS) version and a “mobile web” version that will work with all devices that have a web browser. TSA currently is working on an Android version but no availability date has been released by the agency. This review is based on the latest (iOS) 1.2.2 version of MyTSA.

TSA realized that many travelers have questions about the airport security process and rules while they are traveling or en route to an airport. So the MyTSA app was conceived to be a “trusted traveler’s companion”.  MyTSA provides real-time operating status for U.S. airports from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA); a tool to find out if an item is allowed in your carry-on or checked baggage; information on ID requirements, liquids rules, and tips for packing and dressing to speed through security.

The home screen of the app contains a wealth of information in an attractively designed layout. A nifty feature of the iPhone version is that it automatically geo-locates the nearest major airport and brings up FAA airport delays, TSA security checkpoint wait times and current weather conditions and temperature. Based on user feedback, TSA added a “Settings” page whereby you can choose to geo-locate to either the closest major airport (default), the closest airport (includes all mid and small airports) or you can set your favorite airport to always appear on the home screen.

The “Status” feature shows airport delays either in a List view or a map view using a Google Maps mash-up. You can pinch-and-zoom to drill down to a specific geographical area. Zooming in on the map view brings up all 450+ airports.

A very popular feature is the “Can I Bring?” which lets you search for any item to see what the security policy is regarding the item. TSA added a type-ahead (predictive searching) feature to help users correctly spell the item. Currently there are over 3,400 items listed in the “Can I Bring?” database (all of which have the correct spelling).  If you search for an item not in the database you have an opportunity to submit the item as a suggestion for TSA to add it to its database. Considering that TSA started with around 800 items during the initial launch, the vast bulk of the items in the database are from passenger suggestions. This has turned out to be a great method to crowd-source a database of searchable items.

Another popular feature is the “Guide” which contains guidance on topics such as acceptable IDs, liquids, special medical needs, helpful tips on packing and what to wear, traveling with food, traveling with children and a section on the new TSA imaging technologies.

Experienced travelers appreciate the “Wait Times” feature that shows recent passenger submitted security checkpoint wait times. As these wait times represent crowd-sourced content, the data tends to be spotty. As the displayed data is limited to the latest 25 times over the past 30 days, some airports only have a few listed times. This feature will grow in usefulness as more people use the app. TSA architected the backend web service in such a way to allow third-party app providers to contribute wait times directly from their own mobile apps.

A recent update from TSA includes a few new features. There are now embedded videos – streamed from YouTube – so you better have a WiFi connection as the video performance over 3G is not that great. Videos include a welcome message from TSA Administrator John Pistole, information about Advanced Imaging Technology and other useful tips to take the stress out of your checkpoint experience.

Current weather conditions and a seven day weather forecast are now part of the application. The weather screens are very attractive and easy to use. TSA uses the iOS “pagers” feature to swipe through the weekly forecast. The weather information is pulled directly from live feeds maintained by NOAA’s National Weather Service. I find myself using the MyTSA app each morning just to get a good local weather forecast. This feature alone makes the app a worthwhile download.

One of the cool elements of this app is how TSA cleanly integrates open government data from the FAA, NOAA and the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS). The BTS provides airport on-time performance statistics which TSA uses to show percentages of flight delays for arrivals and departures and the reasons for the delays. Perhaps a motivating factor for this data is that very few of the aircraft delays are because of security. Most of the delays are because of air traffic, carrier or late aircraft.

The MyTSA app has been prominently featured and mentioned on the White House webpage for Open Government Initiatives, the Campaign to Cut Waste, and the White House Blog post, “Top 10 Must-Have Government Apps”. In addition to kudo’s from the White House, “My TSA” was named Best Government Mobile App from the American Council for Technology and Industry Advisory Council (ACT-IAC) at its 9th Annual Excellence.Gov Awards event in Washington, D.C. in March 2011.

InformationWeek recognized TSA as one of the Top 15 Government IT Innovators during the 23^rd annual InformationWeek 500 Conference in September 2011. TSA was recognized for the deployment and enhancement of the My TSA mobile application.

The White House recently announced that it has moved to Drupal, an open source content management system (CMS) to power the WhiteHouse.gov website. This is great news as it legitimizes the use of open source within the federal space. Federal CIOs should realize that most of the web is powered by open source software including premier web properties such as Google and Facebook.

WhiteHouse.gov is now powered by Drupal.

The new White House system runs on what is called a LAMP technology stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP). The LAMP stack is all open source. It is widely considered secure, offers high performance and is stable.  The White House chose Red Hat Linux as their supported distribution, and for enterprise search they are using Apache Solr. After the story was announced via the AP, Tim O’Reilly blogged the details of the technology choices and the reasons for making the switch.

More than just security, though, the White House saw the opportunity to increase their flexibility. Drupal has a huge library of user-contributed modules that will provide functionality the White House can use to expand its social media capabilities, with everything from super-scalable live chats to multi-lingual support. In many ways, this is the complement to the Government as Platform mantra I’ve been chanting in Washington. When you build a vibrant, extensible platform, others add value to the foundation you establish; when you join such a platform, you get the benefit of all those features you didn’t have to develop yourself.

Interestingly, Chris Wilson writing for Slate, has a different take:

I wish Drupal and the White House nothing but happiness. But I have a feeling this story ends badly. If the administration had conducted a few polls among the swing demographic of Web site administrators, it would have realized that Drupal is pocked with political landmines. To wit: Drupal represents everything the Obama team does not want to project.

Unfortunately, Wilson doesn’t offer any alternatives. The only real open source choices in my mind are Drupal, WordPress, Joomla! or Alfresco.

Many large organizations use WordPress MU to engage with their audience.

WordPress started strictly as blog software but has evolved nicely into a Web CMS. Many large organizations use WordPress MU such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, CNN and 10 (UK Prime Ministers site) to name only a few examples. My feeling is that for something as complex as the WhiteHouse.gov, WordPress does not have the robust features needed for enterprise-class CMS. Although it should be noted that the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) runs on WordPress.

Joomla! Is popular but has the reputation of not being secure enough. Which leaves us with Alfresco, an enterprise CMS that is used by the likes of FOX to power Fox.com.  Alfresco uses J2EE and Java instead of Apache and PHP. Alfresco is built by a team of original leading members from Documentum® and Vignette with 15 years experience in Enterprise Content Management (ECM).  Alfresco could have been a real viable alternative although the number of qualified developer partners is rather limited compared to Drupal.

My take on all of this is that the White House made a solid decision in choosing Drupal. What I would love to see is for GSA to offer Drupal as a platform for agencies that need a robust CMS but don’t want to manage their own LAMP infrastructure. Along with Drupal if GSA would offer WordPress as a platform (with agencies having their own unique URL), that would be heaven.  Hopefully, GSA CIO Casey Coleman is working on this platform as a services (PAAS).

"Nic" claimed "TSA agents took my son"

On Thursday night, a popular “mommy blogger” who goes by the name “Nic”, started posting to her Twitter account about her terrifying experience at the Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson airport. Friday on her blog “My Bottles Up” she claimed that, TSA agents took her son.

My son was taken from me.

Taken.

My son was taken from me by the TSA agents at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson airport yesterday.

Due to the reputation-based nature of Twitter and blogs, her story spread like wildfire on Twitter and in the blogosphere.

For most organizations, this would amount to a major public relations disaster. However, for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) they had prepared for this type of challenge. Former TSA Administrator Kip Hawley had asked for a blog so that the agency could get “its side of the story out” without having to use the traditional methods of press releases and media interviews.  So, in January 2008 TSA launched its blog with a great deal of skepticism from the public and media.

Shortly after the launch, “Blogger Bob” was recruited from the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG) to be TSA’s fulltime blogger-in-residence. The culture at TSA was such that when Blogger Bob suggested using Twitter to augment and support the blog, he was given the green light. He tweets under the Twitter account, TSABlogTeam.

The point of this is that it is too late to start using social media tools like blogs and Twitter in the middle of a PR crisis. You must already be familiar with the tools, the social media customs, and have established yourself as honest and transparent.

You must be willing to admit when you’ve made a mistake, learned a new lesson, and be willing to stand up for yourself when someone is wrongly accusing you of something that is simply not true – as was the case with Mommy Blogger “Nic”. Over time, you establish a reputation and (hopefully) credibility.

What really happened at the ATL checkpoint?

Since Blogger Bob and others at TSA use and monitor the social media networks, it did not take long for TSA to catch wind of the mommy blogger’s allegation. TSA reviewed the security tapes to find out what really happened. Did TSA agents take her child away from her for over five minutes as she had claimed?

Absolutely not. On Saturday, TSA posted a new blog story that contradicted her account and posted an edited video to prove the point. When several commenters questioned TSA’s edited account, later that evening TSA posted on YouTube the unedited versions from nine different camera angles.

An anonymous commenter on the TSA blog outlined the events like this:

Faced with the incontrovertible video evidence, Nic issued this (rather weak) apology on her blog.

Other bloggers have taken up TSA’s defense and suggested that she was an attention whore, others that mommy blogger was looking to make a quick buck.   Personally, I think the woman is mentally unstable. She recounts in her story how she is subject to massive panic attacks: “I had an emergency Xanax in my jeans pocket. I always carry an emergency Xanax in my pocket. The result of severe anxiety.  I took the pill, but it did very little. I was so traumatized that it would’ve taken probably 4 Xanax to get my blood pressure back down to a normal level.” Clearly this is a person with issues.

To sum things up, whatever the motivation is of someone who wants to “dis” you, your brand, and your reputation– you must be using social media to quickly respond. In the case of the TSA, they had the video evidence which made for a conclusive rebuttal of her fabricated story.