The Magic Words

Sanjay Koyani had to go to his boss at the FDA and convince her that they needed a Twitter account. He had to use the magic words. "It's going to be a pilot."

I loved this...we have discovered the magic in those words too!

Twitter: The FDA did start a Twitter account to get out the updates from a recent Salmonella outbreak. They ended up with 10,000 subscribers.

Widget: They also created a searchable database of which products were being recalled (there were over 3000) and then for the first time shared the code as a widget so others could put the database on their websites.

XML: this is a little beyond me but the basic idea is they shared the database as XML which means they shared the actual data. This will allow others to create new content and products: combine data with maps for instance.

Sanjay talked about the Wisdom of Crowds...the many will always be smarter than the few. If you are willing to share control, people may create things you never dreamed of ( I mean that in a good way!)