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Thanks for sharing Jeff. You've sparked a lot of ideas...

It is a continual challenge for people in our line of work to stay aware of what is going on, so we can talk about options and strategies with the organizations we partner with. What I always tell people though, is to focus on their policy/mission goals, and not worry about the technology. If they can make sure that they're always contributing that "subject matter expertise" and advocating for the kind of experience their users/site visitors expect and need, then it really helps us choose the right tools for the job.

I think the behind-the-scenes techniques for content-syndication, web services and lots of other new ways that smaller and smaller bits of content get shuffled around the web, they're all a great opportunity for organizations to share and partner with each other. One organizations site/information might be really interesting, but what if it was somehow cross referenced with data from another related organization? There are a lot of exciting possibilities this new technology brings.

The biggest challenge is managing that data...so many of these systems and processes are heavily data driven, and a lot of organizations have most of their data trapped inside spreadsheets, or old Access databases that a summer student whipped up many years ago, etc, etc. From that point of view, the biggest service many organizations can do for themselves is not to get carried away with the latest techniques, but to first get their own basic IT house in order, develop a comprehensive IT plan, and implement some best practices for managing the flow of information within their own office.