T2 Committe schedule for 2010 TRB annual meeting

Mark your calendars for interesting sessions and informative meetings sponsored by the T2 Committee at the 2010 TRB annual meeting.

• Jan 10 2010 9:00 AM- 12:00 PM: Everything You Need to Know About Web 2.0: Using Communication and Collaboration to Improve Transportation, Marriott, Thurgood Marshall East
• Jan 10 2010 1:30 PM- 4:30 PM: Communicating the Value of Research and Accelerating Innovation Implementation for Transportation Professionals, Shoreham, Blue Room
• Jan 10 2010 1:30 PM- 4:30 PM: International Transportation Research Collaboration: Success Stories, Hilton, Jefferson West
• Jan 12 2010 8:00 AM- 9:45 AM: Knowledge Management: Successful Practices for Succession Planning, Hilton, Jefferson West
• Jan 12 2010 3:45 PM- 5:30 PM: Technology Transfer Committee Meeting, Hilton, Holmead
• Jan 13 2010 8:00 AM- 9:45 AM: New Media Communications in Transportation, Hilton, Lincoln East

Want to know more about Web 2.0? Check out T2 Committee sessions at TRB annual meeting

Wanting to get down with the latest in technology? The T2 Committee is co-sponsoring a workshop, “Everything You Need to Know About Web 2.0: Using Communication and Collaboration to Improve Transportation.” The workshop will take place January 10, from 9 a.m. to noon.

What will it cover? Transportation agencies have begun experimenting with Web 2.0 technologies for everything from tweets on road closures to using VOIP services to collaborate with researchers. This workshop provides overviews of many Web 2.0 applications, including social networks, podcasts, blogs, wikis, RSS feeds, and virtual worlds. The workshop will highlight current efforts to improve transportation research by using Web 2.0 and provide participants with instructions to get started using these technologies.

You’ll hear from:

• Andrew Krzmarzick- U.S. Department of Agriculture on Introduction to Government 2.0 and Social Media
• Georgene M. Geary - Georgia Department of Transportation on Using Web 2.0 Tools at Georgia Department of Transportation
• Melissa Jordan - Bay Area Rapid Transit District on Transit 2.0 at BART.gov
• Transportation Security Administration's Blog and Idea Factory
• Kendra Levine - University of California, Berkeley on Mashtrans.org: Looking at Transportation with a Web 2.0 lens

And, if you want to know even more about new technologies and what they will mean for you and your organization, check out the session we are also co-sponsoring Jan 13 from 8 to 9:45 a.m. at the Hilton. You’ll also hear about some of the new media initiatives being sponsored by TRB.

New Media Communications in Transportation

• TRB’s Communication Coordinators Council on New Media Technologies, Jeffrey L. Western - Western Management and Consulting, LLC
• Overview of New Media Technologies such as Twitter, YouTube, Blogs, Web 2.0 , Brian P. Kennedy - AECOM
• Social Media Statistics: Who Is Doing What by Mia Zmud - NuStats, LLC
• Web 2.0 Technologies for Collaboration: Ways to Use Web 2.0 for Collaboration in Transportation and TRB by Lisa Haakon Pogue,
• Twitter for Transportation: Effective Uses of Twitter for Transportation Information, News, and Building Communities by Kendra Levine - University of California, Berkeley
• Sensorpedia: Web 2.0 Methods for Sensor Information Sharing by Bryan Gorman - Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Communicating the value of research and accelerating innovation at 2010 TRB annual meeting

In this and future blogs, we’ll be previewing the excellent sessions and workshops the committee has been busy organizing for the 2010 TRB annual meeting.

Be sure to attend the workshop, “Communicating the Value of Research and Accelerating Innovation Implementation for Transportation Professionals” on Sunday, co-sponsored with the Committee on Conduct of Research. Co-chair Larry Orcutt has put together an great chance to get to know the NCHRP Project 20-78: "Communicating the Value of Research Training," and an NHI course, "Leap Not Creep: Accelerating Innovation Implementation." Transportation professionals will learn to overcome typical communication challenges and institute best-practice activities in the research process, which results in successfully conveying the value of research to key audiences and leads to innovation. A panel of practitioners will share innovation success stories, including:

• Committee member and the committee’s TRB Communications Coordinator Ann M. Overton, Virginia Transportation Research Council, will lead with ” What Works in Communicating Transportation Research: View from the Field”
• Kim Hilsenbeck, NuStats Partners LP will introduce us to the NCHRP project with “Communicating the Value of Research: Overview”
• “Introduction to National Highway Institute Course "Leap Not Creep: Accelerating Innovation" will be given by Joseph P. Conway, Federal Highway Administration.

Some of the innovation success stories will include:

• Finding the Spotlight by Ellen Oman, Washington State Department of Transportation
• Innovation Success Story: Creating and Sustaining Innovation Culture at Utah Department of Transportation by Committee member Rukhsana Kahn Lindsey, Utah Department of Transportation and Jim McMinimee, Utah Department of Transportation
• Moving from Research to Services for Traveling Public: Unique Public-Private Partnership Path by Thomas West, California Center for Innovative Transportation.

Great example of showcasing the value of research

Recently I attended a program at NASA. It was a pleasure to see government agency staff truly excited about their agency and its mission. But, the most exciting aspect of their presentation was an excellent sample of communicating the value of technology transfer. Take a look at their site, NASA @ Home and City, to see, hear and experience the results of NASA research. The site vividly showcases technologies developed by NASA that have been applied to technologies from cosmetics to wireless headsets to freeze-dried foods. The site also provides additional information on these technologies and you can truly see that “space is everywhere you look.”

Great example of showcasing the value of research

Recently I attended a program at NASA. It was a pleasure to see government agency staff truly excited about their agency and its mission. But, the most exciting aspect of their presentation was an excellent sample of communicating the value of technology transfer. Take a look at their site, NASA @ Home and City, to see, hear and experience the results of NASA research. The site vividly showcases technologies developed by NASA that have been applied to technologies from cosmetics to wireless headsets to freeze-dried foods. The site also provides additional information on these technologies and you can truly see that “space is everywhere you look.”

News from members

Steven Jones will be leaving Ireland and returning to the faculty of the University of Alabama (UA) in January 2010.

Jennifer Sheldon has resigned from the committee as she has accepted another position within the University of Washington and will be transitioning from the Transportation Northwest Center and transportation research to the medical research world. We wish her all the best.

Announcing the committee's new strategic plan

Since the committee’s summer meeting in Washington, DC members and friends have been busy updating the committee’s strategic plan and planning TRB annual meeting sessions for 2010. As usual, there was lots of energy at the end of September confirming speakers and refining descriptions. We have a terrific workshop on communicating the value of research planned. The workshop also incorporates the National Highway Institute course on technology transfer, “Leap, Not Creep: Accelerating Innovation Implementation.” We are also sponsoring a session on new media and what it means for transportation. The next blog will go into more depth on the workshop and sessions coming up. In the meanwhile, take a look at the committee’s strategic plan and give us a comment on two.

Gov 2.0

The federal government has a Facebook page. Mission: A Facebook page for information about how government can best use Facebook.

Committee member blogs for Put the Brakes on Fatalities Day in Kansas

People from various organizations will be blogging about ways to put the brakes on fatalities starting Monday, Sept. 14, on the Kansas Transportation Online Community (KTOC).

A total of 20 people will share experiences and information about improving safety on our roadways. Some of the bloggers will include KDOT Secretary Deb Miller, Trauma Coordinator at Stormont Vail HealthCare Darlene Whitlock, KHP Technical Trooper Tim McCool, Sgt. Lance Smith with the Reno County Sheriff’s Dept. and State Director of Safe Kids Kansas Cherie Sage.

This event is taking place as part of the national safety campaign Put the Brakes on Fatalities Day. Whether you are in a car or truck, on a bike or even walking, the goal is for everyone to safely get where they are going.

Blogs will be posted by 9 a.m. each work day. The last blog will be on Oct. 9 by Larry Emig, a KDOT retiree who began Put the Brakes on Fatalities Day in 2001. Oct. 10 is the official day celebrated as Put the Brakes on Fatalities Day though the safety messages are promoted all year long.

People are encouraged to sign up for KTOC and offer comments on the blogs. Anyone can read information on KTOC, but to offer comments you must log on as a member. KTOC can be seen at http://ktoc.net/Default.aspx.

Calling for posters on Web 2.0 in research and comunications

Innovative Applications of Social Media and Web 2.0 Technologies in Transportation Research and Communication

Sponsoring Committee
ABG40 Committee on Library and Information Science for Transportation (LIST)

Call Description
The Committee on Library and Information Science for Transportation invites you to submit proposals for a poster session on "Innovative Applications of Social Media and Web 2.0 Technologies in Transportation Research and Communication” at the TRB Annual Meeting in January 2010.

Background
Carrying forward a theme begun with LIST’s 2006 presentation session on wikis, blogs, RSS and podcasting, and continued in 2007 and 2008 with LIST sessions on the application of social media technologies, the committee is issuing a call for posters related to Social Media and Web 2.0 technologies for the TRB Annual meeting in January 2010. The goal of this poster session is to complement programs being developed by other TRB committees exploring practical uses and limitations of these technologies

Definitions
“Social Media” is defined as both the online content created by people using scalable self-publishing tools and technologies, and the shift in how people discover, read and share news, information and other content; it's a fusion of sociology and technology, transforming monologues (static one-to-many communication) into dialogues (dynamic many-to-many communication), and in the process democratizing information.

“Web 2.0" refers to the second generation of Web development and design trends, characterized by innovative online technologies that facilitate communication, collaborative information sharing, interoperability, and user-centered design via new Web applications. The trend has sparked a rapid evolution of web-based communities and hosted applications (all examples of “cloud computing”), including social-networking sites, virtual reality worlds, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, and content mashups.

Description
The poster session will focus on applications that utilize Social Media or Web 2.0 elements to improve access to transportation research, or which facilitate communication in the transportation sector in new ways. Posters can showcase successful efforts, programs or initiatives by individuals or agencies. The poster session will highlight methods, tools, and programs that TRB attendees can consider to improve the ways in which transportation research and information is communicated and shared in their organizations and with other stakeholders. The audience for this session is all transportation stakeholders: state DOT practitioners and decision makers, universities, consultants and others interested in recent advances in the delivery of information services to save time and money, and improve quality of transportation research. Please review TRB's guidelines for poster presenters at http://www.trb.org/Guidelines/PosterPresenters.pdf .
(Note: A paper is not required for this session, an exception being extended for this call by TRB). Files and information from the poster session will be posted on the LIST committee Web site (http://sites.google.com/site/trblist).

About LIST
The Library and Information Science for Transportation Committee (ABG40) serves as a forum for transportation librarians and the transportation research community on developments in information science and their applicability to transportation. The committee facilitates diffusion of national library and information science innovations throughout the transportation community by monitoring the use of new resources and tools in the transportation arena, defining critical research and training issues relating to their implementation, and promoting the benefits of these capabilities.

Call Organizer
Jennifer.Boteler (Jennifer.Boteler.CTR@dot.gov), (202) 493-3071

We will accept poster proposal ideas submitted by or on behalf of government or education agencies. Please submit an abstract with enough detail to review your proposal to review committee chair Jennifer Boteler (Jennifer.Boteler.CTR@dot.gov)

We will convene a working group of reviewers to judge submissions and notify those selected in late September. We require an abstract for each poster selected, which can be submitted by following the link below. Those selected must present in person at TRB, however, partnering with colleagues is strongly encouraged.

Submit your poster proposals no later than Friday, September 11, 2009 by going here .

Applied technology in Boston

This story has been sent from our special correspondent, committee member John Stevens. It tells how Boston is using mobile technology (GPS and cameras in cell phones) to report problems to city government.