Critical Website ‘A Good Learning Experience’

Posted on October 15, 2010 by Chris

Have you faced an angry or overly critical website in your jurisdiction? They seem to be springing up everywhere.

The City of Beaumont, California, found itself in a similar situation, and did something positive in response. I especially like this quote, from the Public CEO story:

“I think it’s a good learning experience,” said City Manager Alan C. Kapanicas. “Either we’ve done something wrong and we’ve got to fix it or we’ve got to explain what we did right.”

And in response?

In response, the city posted its 1994 contract with Urban Logic Consultants. It was a move designed to increase transparency, as BCRG has advocated for years, said Bingham.

The city’s also has a page on its website for “Myths and Facts about Contract Employees,” refuting the serious allegations without citing the citizens group by name. See the webpage here.

What a way to handle criticism! It all starts with a mindset similar to this city manager’s.

Twitter Helping Respond to Gulf Oil Leak

Posted on May 6, 2010 by Chris

RT @Twitter: Tweet with #BPspillmap to report an incident to the Louisiana Bucket Brigade or check out reports so far on this map: http://bit.ly/aeQb0Y

Twitter announced yesterday on it’s official Twitter account the integration of Twitter and the Louisiana Bucket Brigade. The Louisiana Bucket Brigade is a system created by students to allow everyday citizens to report oil in places they frequent, because of the Gulf Shore oil leak.

What is the Oil Spill Crisis Map?

This map visualizes reports of the effects of the BP oil spill submitted via text message, email, twitter and the web. Reports of oil sightings, affected animals, odors, health effects and human factor impacts made by the eyewitnesses and the media populate points on a this public, interactive, web based map. The information will be used to provide data about the impacts of the spill in real time as well as document the story of those that witness it.

Who made this?

The Oil Spill Crisis map is brought to you by the Louisiana Bucket Brigade and was developed in partnership with students of Professor Nathan Morrow of Tulane University. This technology, utilizes the Ushahidi (http://ushahidi.org) crisis mapping platform to map eyewitness accounts of the oil spill disaster. Ushahidi was first used and developed by Kenyan bloggers to display reports of post-election violence. Since then Ushahidi has been used in other emergencies like the Haiti Earthquake (http://haiti.ushahidi.com/) response, Washington DC’s winter blizzard (http://snowmageddoncleanup.com/) and in Atlanta (http://crime.mapatl.com/) to track crime. The Oil Spill Crisis map is first application of Ushahidi in a humanitarian response in the United States.

How Social Media Can Effect Govt Change

Posted on April 30, 2010 by Chris

Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist and an government 2.0 advocate who we’ve covered before, has another post on Mashable entitled, “How Social Media Can Effect Real Social and Governmental Change“. He discusses accomplishing everyday tasks, improving government from the outside, and open data and government data. A must read.

In-Depth Pew Study about Government Online

Posted on April 30, 2010 by Chris

The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project just released a study entitled “Government Online.” It is a very detailed report on citizens’ usage of government websites and interaction with government on and off official websites. For example:

These results should not imply that Americans are not involved in online discussions around government issues or policies—these conversations are simply taking place within the broader online environment rather than on “official” government blogs or fan pages. In the twelve months preceding this survey, one in ten internet users (11%) posted comments, queries or other information related to government poli- cies online, while 7% of internet users uploaded videos or photos online related to a government policy or issue. An additional 12% of internet users joined a group online that tries to influence government policies, and 3% participated in an online town hall meeting. Taking all of these activities together, nearly one quarter of internet users (23%) have posted comments or interacted with others online around government policies or public issues.

Another area I thought interesting was the discussion of minority usage of online government interactions:

The report also finds that 31% of online adults have used social tools such as blogs, social networking sites, and online video as well as email and text alerts to keep informed about government activities. Moreover, these new tools show particular appeal to groups that have historically lagged in their use of other online government offerings—in particular, minority Americans. Latinos and African Americans are just as likely as whites to use these tools to keep up with government, and are much more likely to agree that government outreach using these channels makes government more accessible and helps people be more informed about what government agencies are doing.

This is a rather long report, but I recommend you read it (here’s the pdf), but in case you don’t, I will likely post more information as I digest it all. And, the O’Reilly Radar has a good overview also.

Local News and Issue Reporting

Posted on April 26, 2010 by Chris

EveryBlock, a hyperlocal news aggregator (explanation), is expanding into the government 2.0 arena with the integration of SeeClickFix (Wikipedia). SeeClickFix allows citizens to report issue (non-emergency issues) to local governments and community activists. EveryBlock covers the new integration on their blog:

Our friends at SeeClickFix run a site where you can report non-emergency community issues, like potholes, graffiti or street light outages. They’ve shared their data with us so that EveryBlock users will get notified whenever an issue has been reported nearby.

See the great coverage in ReadWriteWeb:

Everyblock aggregates public records, blog posts and other content about very specific geographic locations, automatically. SeeClickFix acts on a similarly hyperlocal basis, giving its users the ability to report issues to their local government using their smartphone.

Entrepreneurs and Gov 2.0

Posted on April 22, 2010 by Chris

govfresh has a great list of entrepreneurs that are changing the way government work. Many of their companies have been featured on this site, but you should check out the list for new ideas for your organization.

Making Staff Just a Click Away

Posted on April 21, 2010 by Chris

The Alliance for Innovation writes about how the City of Surprise, Arizona, created a new page to make contact city staff and leaders easier:

“Surprise is city of connection and opportunity, and our new streamlined directory makes it easy for our residents to connect with the right person in city government,” says Interim City Manager Mark Coronado. “We continue to drive Mayor and Council’s goal of constantly improving our open and transparent relationship with residents.”

The new City Directory, which includes staff contact information and numbers to local utilities, is among many new improvements to the web site, all designed to improve connections to government information. Other recent additions include a Google site search and the “It’s Your Money” city finance site. The city’s commitment to openness was recently recognized by Sunshine Review with a perfect score for the openness and transparency of surprise.gov.

Check out their Connect/Contact page here.

Pawlenty Holds Facebook Town Hall

Posted on April 20, 2010 by Chris

This afternoon we have another link from OhMyGov! Last week Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty held an online town hall meeting on Facebook. And some stats:

Gov. Pawlenty saw his Facebook fan numbers surge to over 35,000 from around 31,000 in the days before the event, a campaign spokesman told OhMyGov.

During the 2 days last week when Pawlenty was promoting the town hall, he received 1,039 “likes” on posts related to the event and 527 comments, for a total of 1,566 citizen “touches.” Not all were unique, to be sure, but it’s a nice base of activity that, remember, gets broadcast to all of his fans’ friends too. The town hall had over 1,000 confirmed guests.

Over 1,000 confirmed guests is pretty incredible. And what about the town hall itself?

The range of questions posted on his Facebook page ran the gamut from sensible to downright strange. One participant offered this suggestion and question on how to solve Minnesota’s budget problems: “Two large oil fields have been discovered in North Dakota and Montana – how can Minnesota profit from oil in North Dakota?” We assume that T-Paw, as he likes to be called, took a pass on that one.

Overall, the post-town hall meeting comments on the Governor’s Facebook page were overwhelmingly positive. From Roberta Folino: “very good town hall meeting and I actually had my question answered,” and from Patty Rosehill: “good beginning – looking forward to more of these town hall meetings.” Of course, keeping a positive spin on developments is made easier on Facebook since only “fans” can comment on your page.

What an accomplishment. Governor Pawlenty said about his first online town hall, “I think we should (have) more Facebook town halls in the future. Thanks to all who participated and we’ll do the best we can to get more questions in during future events.”

National Budget Video Game?

Posted on April 16, 2010 by Chris

A USA Today article on Wednesday had an interesting bit buried deep within the text:

[Former White House Chief of Staff Erskine] Bowles has been in touch with Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer about creating a deficit-reduction video game that would enable anyone with a computer to take a stab at balancing the budget, much like the 1994 commission did.

Updated for 2010, Kerrey says, such a game could “go viral.”

The tech site Gizmodo picked up on the video game mention.

While it might not “go viral,” this might be a good way for the ordinary citizen to understand the Federal budget issues.

Giving the White House Feedback Thru Twitter

Posted on April 15, 2010 by Chris

ExpertLabs and the American Association for the Advancement of Science have teamed up to help the White House identify major goals:

The White House wants to identify Grand Challenges in science and technology that will help inspire a new era of innovation. And they’re asking for your ideas, right on Twitter. These challenges will inspire innovations that create jobs, improve education, power clean energy, transform health care, and more.

Here’s how to help:

Think big! Imagine an ambitious science or technology challenge (something huge like the moon landing!) which you think can inspire great new ideas and inventions.

Reply to the @whitehouse tweet with your idea, or a link to ideas you find interesting. Use the hashtag #whgc.

Encourage your friends and followers to respond, too!

This is a pretty neat way to use the social networking site Twitter to help the country. And you organization could do something similar by polling Facebook friends or Twitter users in your community.

And just so you know this is real, here’s the tweet from @whitehouse:

What Grand Challenge should be on our Nation’s to-do list? Reply w/your idea now! http://bit.ly/dy9fkL #whgc

Open Source Innovation

Posted on April 2, 2010 by Chris

Stephen Goldsmith, who we recently highlighted, discusses “open sourcing innovation.” He writes about increasing the number of governmental innovators, in a very interesting article.

FEMA’s Social Media Site

Posted on April 1, 2010 by Chris

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has a great site for it’s own social media accounts and explanation of what they do. Check it out here, and read FEMA’s factsheet on social media usage here.

About this page, FEMA writes:

FEMA has been engaging in Web 2.0 tools and on social media sites nationwide as part of its mission to prepare the nation for disasters. FEMA’s goals with social media are: to provide timely and accurate information related to disaster preparedness response and recovery; provide the public with another avenue for insight into the agency’s operations; and engage in what has already become a critical medium in today’s world of communications. FEMA’s social media ventures function as supplemental outreach, and as appropriate channels for unofficial input.

All FEMA social media accounts outside of the www.FEMA.gov domain carry the branded femainfocus look and feel. This provides consistency and accountability for content in that the public and our partners can rest assured it is the authorized FEMA account and that the information is accurate. Citizens can engage more easily with the emergency management community through social media sites, and increase their role in disaster preparedness, response and recovery.

FEMA has wholeheartedly engaged social media, how does your organization stack up?

Smart Phones Helping Us Serve Citizens

Posted on March 18, 2010 by Chris

Along the same lines as yesterday’s tweet from the Newark Mayor, today we have a great article in Governing from the former Mayor of Indianapolis. Stephen Goldsmith, director of the Innovations in American Government Program at the Harvard Kennedy School, writes about how “smart phones are revolutionizing how governments serve its citizens — and it’s just the tip of the iceberg.” The article is titled, “Phone + GPS + Camera = Revolution“. This is a very good read.

PS- You can follow Stephen Goldsmith on Twitter, he’s @S_Goldsmith.

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Tag Archives: citizen input