As I bask in media attention for my Project Calliope, it's worth noting I'm not the only Antunes getting media coverage in the space/IT world. This is one story of 'the other Antunes', and of NASA's Spacebook.
NASA created an internal social network called Spacebook. As with any social media project that makes it past its first year, it has morphed from its original intent into a compromise of various agencies. But what was its original point, its creation story?
At inception it was intended, as written in Federal Computer Week:
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has developed a homegrown social-networking application that provides all NASA employees with the types of features found in Facebook but in a secure environment.
Seems quite simple. Simple enough that a mere daytime astronomer coined the name for it (yes, it was obvious, but I still think it's clever). Its instigator, Emma Kolstad Antunes, had a hype-free view of social media. Again from FCW:
I see social media as an extension of existing tools. If you look at how e-mail revolutionized the workplace, social media is just an extension of that. People already work together, so how do we make that even easier for them?
Spacebook had a great debut video at WhiteHouse.gov.
After Spacebook's debut, Emma went on to other tasks. Spacebook's creator is a lot more than just Spacebook, that's just the project that gathered media attention. From the 2009 Gov2.0 workshop:
Emma Kolstad Antunes is an IT Specialist for NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Office of the Chief Information Officer. An early adopter, she has been the Center’s Web Manager since 1995, and also serves as the lead for NASA’s Web Managers group.
What will be Spacebook's future? That's up to NASA now.
As you leave this story, there are three lessons you can walk away with. That social media is not a novelty but an extension of our natural drive to connect with others. That NASA's main strength is not technology, but smart people. Or that, if you want to marry an interesting person, astronomy is a great field to choose.
Alex
Tuesdays at The Satellite Diaries and Friday at The Daytime Astronomer (twitter @skyday)
