Code for America recently identified the top cities and counties on Twitter. Go have a look at the list, because you might be surprised at how many are smaller cities. And if you are looking for how to use Twitter in your local government or agency, this list would be a great place to start your research.
This morning, NASA Astronaut Douglas H. Wheelock checked into the location-based social network, foursquare. The surprising news? He checked into the International Space Station. And it’s getting a whole lot of press, from places like the AFP, PC Mag, and TechCrunch.
NASA is making a full-court press with the use of social networks. Check out their Connect and Collaborate with NASA website. There they link to organizational and personal accounts on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, foursquare, Gowalla, ustreamTV, and Myspace.
NASA has quite a collection of social network profiles. I wouldn’t expect any local government to rival this, but look at NASA’s profiles, and see if you can learn something from how they use Twitter, Facebook, and the like.
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.
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.
The City of Edmonton, Alberta, is using the Second Life virtual world (explanation here) to extend the city and interact virtually with citizens.
Federal agencies such as NASA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have a presence in Second Life, but most cities haven’t gone there for various reasons.
Edmonton is not the first to get into Second Life, but it’s believed to be the first city to officially recreate itself (geography, terrain and major landmarks). Moore believes the interactive platform can encourage tourism and economic development. Virtual Edmonton is set to launch in August.
“I treat it as a platform from which we can understand and experiment,” Moore said. “Because it’s not behind our firewall, it lives in a place where we can easily interact with the community. Will it be the platform that we stay on forever? I don’t know. But it’s a really easy place to start.”
The Center for Digital Government has announced the 2010 award winners in their Digital Counties Survey.
Projects that were motivated to bring transparency got high marks from the judges, and one such project put Montgomery County in first place in the 500, 000 or more population category. The county measured its IT functionality against benchmarks and published the data on its portal, unlike some other applicants, said Sander.
Another area of particular interest among judges was deployment of technologies that reduced energy usage in concrete ways. Chesterfield County had such a project with its automation of park lights. The upgrade eliminated the need for a worker to drive to various parks in order to turn off lights, which eliminated the possibility they would be on unnecessarily and saved money, Sander observed.
He says using social media to distribute crime and other such alerts will be the committee’s main goal. Once the alerts go live, residents will be able to sign up for, Twitter alerts, Facebook messaging or even text messaging and e-mail,” Burch said.
His group is getting input from officials at the sheriff’s office who said the committee will be groundbreaking in keeping residents alerted to crime.
“Especially if we have suspects, suspect vehicles, we can get that information out to the people, what to look for,” said Cabarrus County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Chief Paul Hunt.
But the social media alerts won’t just be useful for crime Hunt said. “In like a flooding situation, which we have had that out in that area,” he said.
via Town to use social media to communicate public safety alerts – News14.com.
Tweeting the Water Story. Boston had a major water system failure, and this journalist stayed informed through the whole event with Twitter. Very interesting, and it shows how we need to be using Twitter during an emergency to get correct information out to the public.
Governing has a great article about governments using the cloud and takes a good look at how Scott County, MN, utilizes the Amazon Elastic Computer Cloud. The benefits?
And the fact that Amazon is such a trusted name helped too. When county officials and IT folks discussed the deal with a few Lawson reps, Ellsworth says the risk of using Amazon as a provider came up “and was dismissed very quickly, simply because of the name and that’s their business — and their business lives and dies by their own internal security.”
Should a disaster happen, the county would now recover its data and applications from the Amazon cloud. The cloud updates itself every hour, so minimal information should be lost if something unfortunate happens.
Is your organization utilizing the cloud in any way?
About a month ago, PBS had a great interview with the new media team in the Obama White House:
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.
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.
The Emerging Media Coordinator at the Defense Information School, Staff Sgt. Joshua Salmons, was recently interviewed at SmartBlogs. I found this especially interesting and relevant to all of us:
Social media has some of the same vulnerabilities, sure, but there are tools to mitigate risk just like with e-mail, computer use or the chance that a spouse will give away information on the phone. Short of locking up all employees in the basement, there will always be security risks. Social media does have its own set of vulnerabilities, but to write it off as a lost cause because of the risk is overreacting, in my opinion.
A very interesting perspective on social media in the military. He responds to many of the criticisms of social media, a must read.
Edelman Digital, the digital and social marketing arm of Edelman PR, has a great post on their blog about keeping up with all of your social networks:
Managing all of these networks often presents two options: either set them all up to post to each other and get the same content and updates on every network, or spend an inordinate amount of time typing made-up words into your address bar.
If you’ve got the right tools in hand, though, your task becomes a little easier. There are a few great applications out there that will help you manage all (or at least some) of your social networks all in one place, making interacting and connecting much simpler and more efficient.
Some of the tools they suggest? TweetDeck, Brizzly, and Seesmic.
O’Reilly Radar has a great interview with Price Floyd, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs and the person in charge of the military’s social media presence:
At the Defense Department, what we have done is embraced social media, and the technology behind it, to engage with all our audiences. That’s everything from veteran’s groups to foreign publics to people who follow me on Twitter. And it’s a two-way engagement.
O’Reilly poses interesting and important questions, including whether social media means losing control of the message.
You should read this great interview of someone who deals every day with social media and its interactions with government.
And while you’re at it, make sure to check out the Department of Defense Social Media Hub.