Would you be surprised to find a federal agency hanging out online with fans of hot rap music artists like Kanye West, Drake and Kendrick Lamar?

      That essentially is what the General Services Administration is doing in its quest to get more innovative.

      The GSA just inked a deal with the founders of the popular Rap Genius rap music annotation website to allow federal agency use of the website’s extension, News Genius, to enable public annotation of federal government documents--including documents for small business contractors.

      And that is just one of the new initiatives that federal officials have launched in recent weeks offering innovative new resources for small federal contractors, small businesses and entrepreneurs.

      The federal officials are aiming to foster new ways of interacting with those communities, involving more information sharing and feedback.

      Agencies including the GSA, Small Business Administration and the Defense Intelligence Agency have debuted several new online applications intended to ease the path for small vendors seeking government work and also to build more cohesive and effective interaction between agencies and small and prospective contractors.

      Here are some of the initiatives highlighted in a recent Social Government forum hosted by the GSA of nearly 100 federal executives focused on digital innovation for entrepreneurs and small businesses:

• The SBA hosted its first live Twitter chat for young entrepreneurs in February that reached more than 1 million participants.
• The GSA announced the first fruit of its new “18F” program to generate innovation in government: the new application FBOpen (https://fbopen.gsa.gov/) was created to help small contractors search and find federal opportunities by keyword.
• The Defense Intelligence Agency reported on its new Needipedia project, in which it publicly invites white papers from any technology company that can meet its needs as described on the Needipedia website (see link below).
• The GSA announced its new partnership with Rap Genius online website to create News Genius, a platform for public crowdsourcing of annotations, images and comments on federal documents. Among the first documents the GSA uploaded onto the platform and made available for annotation were on the GSA’s mentor-protégé program.

      “These are tools to help small businesses look for work in the U.S. government,” Adam Neufeld, chief of staff at the GSA, said at the social government event.

      The White House and GSA are working on a very broad innovation agenda, including open government, open source software, APIs, open data, big data, data visualization, cloud computing, gitHUB, “IFTTT,” useability, mobility and the Internet of Things.

      Programs for small businesses, vendors and entrepreneurs, a subset of the whole, are proliferating.

SBA’s live Twitter chat

      For example, the SBA held its first live Twitter chat with young entrepreneurs on Feb. 19 with a huge turnout. Successful entrepreneurs, business leaaders, “SCORE” mentors and other specialists were on hand to help out.

      “It went really well. We had a reach of more than 1 million,” said Brittany Borg, entrepreneurship education coordinator with the SBA, said at the forum.

      Having that many people interacting at once posed some challenges. “Because the conversation was moving so quickly, the new tweets moved straight to the bottom of the feed,” Borg said.

      Another challenge for Borg was getting over the fear of being questioned on literally hundreds of topics, in real-time, in a highly public forum--but she got over it.

..the SBA held its first live Twitter chat with young entrepreneurs on Feb. 19 with a huge turnout. Business leaaders, ‘SCORE’ mentors and other specialists were on hand to help out.

      “I realized that if I do not have the answer, then I engage, talk to the people, and tell them I will find out who has the answer and get back to them. We let them know we are real people,” Borg said.

      The chat was so successful that the SBA is planning to do more of them, she added.

GSA’s search engine

      The GSA last month introduced its “18F” innovation incubator and announced its first release--the FBOpen search engine tool to help small federal contractors find more opportunities from federal notices, as an alternative to FBO.gov.

      FBOpen consists of an open API server, data import tools and sample applications “to help small businesses search for opportunities to work with the U.S. government,” states the FBOpen site on gitHUB (https://github.com/18F/fbopen). GitHUB is an online exchange where software developers share information.

      The advantage of FBOpen is that it is easier to use simple keywords to find specific opportunities than it is on FBO.gov. For example, a user can enter “touchscreen” into FBOpen to find opportunities involving touchscreen technology.

DIA’s Needipedia

      Seeking to stay on the cutting edge of new technology, the DIA’s Office of Innovation last fall formed the Needipedia website to invite white papers on its most current wish list of needs.

      The Needipedia website (http://www.dia.mil/Business/Needipedia.aspx) currently lists more than 15 needs, including needs for better analysis, contingency response and human intelligence development.

      Innovators are invited to submit white paper responses, and the agency has held a number of meetings with the submitters to follow up. Ultimately, the goal is to use the white papers as the basis for contracts to fulfill the stated needs, said Chase Fahrner, small business specialist at the DIA.

      “If it’s a good idea, we’ll want you to submit a proposal,” Fahrner said. “Instead of using the normal acquisition processes, the DIA’s innovation office is trying to switch it around.”

GSA’s News Genius

      The GSA is now a verified user of the Rap Genius’ spinoff News Genius, which was created to allow for public annotation of government-related documents, including regulations, speeches and news announcements (http://goo.gl/zTjOFX).

      The GSA, U.S. Geological Survey and several other agencies are experimenting with the innovative crowdsourcing platform, which is open to the public.

      Federal specialists, outside experts and the public are allowed to annotate federal documents to help explain, clarify and further elucidate the meaning. For example, on a USGS document on amphibians, users have added pop-up images of the creatures being discussed (http://goo.gl/Bn0KHo).

      The GSA posted a document about its Mentor-Protege program which, to date, has 41 annotations that are accessed through pop-up links. The goal is to enhance open government, advance plain language and bring more clarity and ease of understanding to government regulations and communications, GSA officials said.

      “We think this is the next big thing for government,” Justin Herman, GSA’s digital government lead, said about News Genius at the recent forum.