Twitter Helping Respond to Gulf Oil Leak
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.
Budgeting for the Opening of Data
Governing had an article recently about better aligning budget with IT innovations. I thought one portion was especially insightful about the need for data initiatives:
Budget for cross-program initiatives, especially sharing data with communities of interest and the public. Standardized data can allow agencies and the public to report once for many purposes, rather than suffering under requirements for multiple and repeated “single purpose” reports. For example, corporate financial reporting in the Netherlands is now considerably more efficient and effective because firms make available real-time data feeds to replace a series of required reports. Closer to home, the D.C. data feeds and federal Data.gov initiatives are releasing government data to encourage transparency and feedback for better productivity and civic trust. To find these cross-boundary opportunities, the budget process must search for them.
Entrepreneurs and Gov 2.0
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.
National Budget Video Game?
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.
Social Media for Government Communications
Software provider Adobe’s Government Bits Blog has a great post on using social media for government communications:
One lesson from social media is the immediacy and richness of information that can be shared through digital channels. Blogs, online video sharing platforms and Twitter have demonstrated the power and desire by the public to share information quickly and easily.
An example of injecting social media lessons into achieving core agency missions is the French Government, who in partnership with students of EPITA (France Graduate School of Computer Science and Advanced Technologies) created a cross-platform widget, DirectGouv, to increase transparency and communication to the press community and thus, to citizens-at-large.
FEMA’s Social Media Site
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?
Why the Need for Open Records
As part of Sunshine Week, the nation’s new Freedom of Information Act ombudsman, Miriam Nisbet, took part in an exclusive interview with the Associated Press. This question-and-answer really struck me:
Q: Why is this important to the average citizen, someone who doesn’t work for a newspaper?
A: “If people are going to know how their government is operating, what they are doing that affects them, what they are doing on behalf of the people, they have to be able to see the records that reflect that. The documents that are being created, the data that are being produced. Particularly, you look at huge government programs and all the data that come out of that. Those data belong to the people, and they should have a right to see them and then do with them what they want.”
This stuck out to me because we as public administrators often think of only the media, local newspaper, or kooky citizen as requesters of open records. In reality, “Those data belong to the people.”
Code for America and Local Gov Web 2.0
A new group called Code for America (which is backed by Tim O’Reilly) is trying to help local governments “leverage the power of the web.” GovTech has a great article on this new group.
They are on Twitter at @codeforamerica.
Online Discussion with IdeaScale
Here’s a Federal Times article on federal agencies using the IdeaScale platform to do online discussion forums. IdeaScale’s demo can be seen here, along with their OpenGov forum (done in conjunction with the National Academy of Public Administration). And ReadWriteWeb has a good overview of IdeaScale.
Also, IdeaScale is @IdeaScale on Twitter.
Saving Money with an Internal Blog
To follow up on yesterday’s post on using internal blogs, Government Technology talks about how Oakland County uses an internal blog to save money:
Phil Bertolini, CIO of Oakland County, Mich., established a Cost-Reduction/Investment blog in summer 2009 on which employees, regardless of rank, could propose cost-cutting ideas. Suggestions from the blog have slashed $600,000 from the county’s annual IT budget so far.
Detecting Earthquakes with Twitter?
Another of the Governing magazine articles on social media in government: Twitter and Earthquake Detection. This one is a short article about a U.S. Geological Survey system (the Twitter Earthquake Detector) that pulls tweets and other user-made updates (and photos) that specifically relate to earthquakes. The purpose of the project is to allow quicker detection and notification of earthquakes.