2010 Digital Counties Survey Award Winners Announced
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.
Social Networks for Public Safety Alerts
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.
Government in the Cloud
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?
How Social Media Can Effect Govt Change
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
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.
Social Media Criticisms and the Military
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.
Local News and Issue Reporting
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.
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.
Study on the Impact of Government 2.0
SmartPlanet reports on a study by Grant Thornton and FreeBalance on the impact of government 2.0. The conclusions?
Government 2.0 — enabled through social networking tools — provides benefits such as reduced cost of engagement through more productive tools and processes, simplified knowledge creation and retention though usable applications, easier knowledge sharing, and enhanced information discovery through transparency and data mashups. It all sounds like good mom-and-apple-pie stuff, but is it actually being put to use?
The Grant Thornton report says yes.
And on better using social media and government 2.0?
To help government better take advantage of social networking technologies, Grant Thornton suggests that government organizations better incorporate “design thinking” (Government 2.0 mindset) as a supplement to “management thinking” (Government 1.0 mindset).
“Design thinking” uses a collaborative and iterative style of working that builds up ideas – the best ideas surfacing from a pool of many.” The consultancy also recommends that government managers embrace “viral” change, versus the more static, top-down command-and-control decrees. “Change Management in the Web 2.0 era is more peer-to-peer, viral – change is pulled by participating constituents, employees, customers.”
These are conclusions that many of us have already realized, but I think the study is a good reassurance of where government 2.0 is going.
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.
Giving the White House Feedback Thru Twitter
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
Government Nominations for Webby Awards
The Webby Awards are awards for internet excellence, and are given out by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. There is a special category in the Webbys for government websites, and you should take a look. Nominated are the websites for the Air Force, Census 2010, NASA Home & City Version 2.0, NASA, and San Ramon Valley Fire.
Head over to the Webby Awards site, and you can vote for the People’s Voice Winners in each category (but make sure you vote in the Government category).
Any thoughts on the best site? Let us know in the comments.
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.
Gov 2.0 and the Digital Divide
For a little thought-provoking scholarship for your weekend, look at govfresh’s post on government 2.0 and the digital divide. Kevin Curry looks into our continued usage of electronic means of government, and the issues that causes when many of our citizens do not have broadband internet.
Do you have any thoughts on the digital divide? Are you avoiding government 2.0 because of citizens without computer access?