Tag Archives: crowdsource

Emerging Technologies Go Local

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O’Reilly Radar has a great article on Government 2.0 in local government:

The primary benefits of Gov 2.0 that IT professionals cite include improved e-services to the public, resident participation in government, and collaboration between agencies. That snapshot of Gov 2.0 evolution offers ample perspective on the challenges for Gov 2.0 at the federal level.

Cities like New York, Boston, San Francisco, Portland, Ore. and the District of Columbia, have all been hailed in the media for innovative use of open data, new urban mechanics, adoption of Open311, and improved e-services. Promoting government transparency through technology is a leading topic of interest for local government officials, though implementation still lags that interest in many counties. Abroad, the growth of government 2.0 in Australia and development of open government in Britain are key case studies to watch, particularly data.gov.uk. Last weekend’s CityCamp in London drew hundreds of citizens, technologists and government workers together to talk about the next steps.

The article even connects government (and web) 2.0 to the foundations of democracy:

“The most powerful force in American democracy is the connection between and among citizens,” said David B. Smith, NCoC’s executive director in a prepared statement. Civic life in America now includes a digital component that allows people to share news and co-create in unprecedented ways. What citizens and local government do with that force is the next great question.

NYC Wants Citizen-Created Apps in Challenge

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New York City is having its second app challenge, known as BigApps.  According to the BigApps website:

The NYC.gov Data Mine can be found at http://nyc.gov/data. You are required to use at least one data set from the Data Mine in your application. NYCEDC and DoITT coordinated with over 40 City agencies and commissions to provide the datasets, with 15 new city agencies, including the Department of Environmental Protection, School Construction Authority and Campaign Finance Board, participating in DataMine for the first time. CompStat and City budget data, taxi and limousine trip data, complaints to the Department of Buildings, and real-time traffic information.

The best apps in the challenge will win $20,000.  Last year’s winners were Big Apple Ed, Taxihack, WayFinder NYC, and NYC Way.

Twitter Helping Respond to Gulf Oil Leak

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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.

ICMA Local Govts Share Photos on Flickr

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The International City/County Management Association (ICMA) has had a Flickr account (a photo sharing social network) since 2008.  Today ICMA has announced that they are looking to share your photos of government in action:

In partnership with 3CMA, ICMA is seeking to capture the essence of local government through photos! Join 3CMA and ICMA on Flickr by submitting original photos of “local government action.” These photos will be used to enhance marketing materials for 3CMA, ICMA, and participating jurisdictions, as well as give the general public another way to see what’s going on in our local governments.

This is a pretty neat idea, to crowdsource (or city source, if you will) finding good photos for marking materials.

You can submit photos through their online form.

Twitter Case Study of USGS

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Twitter recently posted a case study of the U.S. Geological Survey’s use of Twitter for earthquake detection (which we recently covered here).  The brief description:

One of the U.S. Geological Survey’s unique responsibilities is the monitoring and reporting of earthquakes, which affect the daily lives of people around the world. By mining real-time tweets, the USGS expands its suite of seismically derived information and obtains first-hand accounts of shaking seconds after an earthquake occurs.

Smart Phones Helping Us Serve Citizens

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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.

Online Discussion with IdeaScale

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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

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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?

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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.