Last month I wrote about how Drupal supports five of the most effective open government sites in Five Government Sites Using Drupal Effectively for Open Government Initiatives. This month, I discuss how Drupal is close to being the perfect Gov 2.0 solution for savvy agencies – and soon, perhaps, a default solution for open government web initiatives.
“Open source and open government are not the same,” I’ve been reading recently. When discussing the role of open standards in open government transparency projects, Bob Caudill at Adobe, is concerned that open source and open standards are being conflated. He likes open standards just fine, but …
GSA announced it has officially opened up its URL shortener Go.USA.gov to anyone with a .mil, .gov, .fed.us or .si.edu email address. The site lets users create trustworthy short .gov URLs on Twitter and other online services with character restrictions and was developed by the team behind USA.gov along with members of the Drupal community.
Video of New York State Senate Director of Technology Innovation Noel Hidaldo’s (@noneck) IgniteNYC presentation, ‘Government 2.0: An Empire State of Mind.’
I was recently interviewed on Federal News Radio on their In-Depth with Francis Rose program, where I had the opportunity to discuss open government. We discussed the idea that technology should be viewed as a “vehicle” rather than a “destination” and that the real role of technology in open government is that of an enabler of mission success.
I’m finding more and more that these conversations are evolving beyond discussions about government data publication to a focus on how technology, information and behavior can open up government and make it more effective for people who are at risk or in need.
A wrap-up of this week’s posts:
Microsoft Senior VP & General Counsel Brad Smith discusses the future of cloud computing in government on C-SPAN’s The Communicators. Smith addresses citizen privacy rights, cost-savings, service provider challenges, consumer awareness, data portability and other cloud computing related issues.
The City of San Francisco has launched PolicySF, a Website to ‘help communities share good ideas with one another.’ The site provides ‘policy toolkits’ with FAQs, processes, sample policy documents and ordinances on SF-specific initiatives. Other governments can also share their ideas.
Fresh from: Sunlight is a new GovFresh feature that highlights the latest transparency and open government news directly from Sunlight Foundation and Sunlight Labs. Contributors will include Sunlight’s best and brightest, including transparency hunk Jake Brewer.
Government transparency is that rarest of political phenomena — a great idea with support across the political spectrum and popularity among the public. Yet, here we are in the 21st century with every tool we would need to make government more transparent and accountable, and still we are operating with a government that often behaves as it did in the 19th century.
So, transparent government is a good thing, but we do not yet have one. Now what?
Ingres Vice President of Product Management Deb Woods discusses Open Source for America and government policy issues around open source. Ingres is an OSFA founding member and Woods serves on its Steering Committee. She also runs the open source blog and podcast Out of the Woods.
LocalGovChat (@localgovchat) is a weekly Twitter chat to help local government communicators connect and learn from one another. Chats are held Wednesdays from 9-10 p.m. EST.
As someone who’s been around the block more than once in the technology industry, I’ve had the opportunity to witness a plethora of developments, ideas and concepts, some good, some not so good. One particular debate, or perhaps, a point is confusion, is around the word ‘open’.
Facebook Public Policy Director Tim Sparapani discusses privacy and free speech issues affecting his company and opening a Washington DC public policy office on C-SPAN’s Communicators.
Edmonton’s Chief Information Officer Chris Moore discusses three ‘big things’ they’re addressing regarding open data, including collaboration, the role of government, non-profit organizations, universities and private sector.
A wrap-up of this week’s posts:
Here’s video from yesterday’s Open311 press conference in San Francisco, including Vivek Kundra, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, SF CIO Chris Vein and O’Reilly Media’s Tim O’Reilly.
While there’s a push for citizen ideas using collaboration tools, the trend towards open analytics should be just as important, because it exposes what information real users want and where the agency should focus more of its attention. This should be standard practice for all Web/IT departments, so making this information public is as simple as posting it to the agency blog.
Deloitte has put out a video, New Media Risks and Rewards: People First, Mission Always, featuring Steve Lunceford Deloitte Senior Manager (also founder of GovTwit and co-host of Gov 2.0 Radio). Video highlights social media tips for agencies, including start small, have an executive champion, get key contacts collaborating early and focus on the mission first.
Although it may be simple to conflate the Apps for Democracy and Apps for America contests with the exciting new Apps for Army contest, they really couldn’t be more different. Together they represent an exciting experiment in what it takes to pull communities together around a problem. Though they all offer cash prizes to the winners, they each took a slightly different approach, with different results.
