Creating sustainable, meaningful civic contributions to government is something I’ve addressed before, and it’s something that continues to elude us in the form of civic applications and hackathons, despite the overwhelming attention given to each.
Since 2008, there has been a wave of voting law changes that impose barriers to the ballot box. Georgia Rep. John Lewis, a veteran of “Bloody Sunday,” called the new laws “the most concerted effort to restrict the right to vote since before the Voting Rights Act.” The right to vote is being chiseled away [...]
There’s been a great deal of discussion lately around the topic of government innovation, especially here in San Francisco, with the appointment of a new chief innovation officer, a new “civic accelerator,” a new venture with a consortium of Bay Area technology companies and a new technology and innovation task force led by SF Mayor Ed Lee.
A recent Seth Godin blog post resonates with me and reflects how I’ve always approached GovFresh and will continue to do in 2012.
New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg has a blog post on how cities are collaborating to better leverage data analytics and maximize taxpayer return on investment. The post cites examples from major American cities and how they’ve leveraged data, especially 311 logs, to realize efficiencies.
When I talk to city and local government technology leaders about their challenges and lessons learned, I’m often surprised they don’t openly and regularly share their experiences with the civic technology community or, in general, the citizens they serve.
In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, SF city attorney and mayoral candidate Dennis Herrera said, if elected, he would create an innovation department and appoint a Chief Digital Officer to lead the city’s web and social media strategy that embraces open engagement with citizens.
There’s a lot more to democratic government than holding elections and town hall meetings.
Government Technology announced its list of 2011 Best of the Web Award Winners today, and I’m completely confused as to how they came to these conclusions.
The civic hackathon – a gathering (either virtual or physical) of technologists for a few days or weeks to build civic-themed software – remains one of the more durable manifestations of the open government movement.
In a new blog post, Gartner’s Andrea Di Maio asks if it’s time to pull the plug on government Websites?
Whether it was written out of naivete or for the intent of sensationalism, the other Vivek, Vivek Wadhwa, misses the mark in his Washington Post piece The death of open government.
When President John F. Kennedy famously proclaimed “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country,” a sense of civic pride was embedded into our patriotic psyche and Americans were given the money quote needed to do more than just complain about their government.
Today is GovFresh’s second birthday, and I wanted to take a moment to thank everyone and take stock of all that we’ve been part of since its inception.
There are a number of fundamental problems I have with ForSee Results issuing quarterly citizen satisfaction reports of federal government Websites.
There’s no question Newark Mayor Cory Booker deserves the accolades he’s received for responding to constituent needs during the recent blizzard that hit the East Coast. It’s inspiring to see a politician step out from behind the desk and photo opps to do something tangible and meaningful where people can witness it firsthand. Who doesn’t love a diaper-delivering mayor?
Steven Johnson, author of Where Good Ideas Come From, has a fantastic article in Wired about 311 in New York City (What a Hundred Million Calls to 311 Reveal About New York). Jason Kottke references the post and shares a point his friend makes that I’ve never really thought about.
37signals points out Apple’s use of the word ‘integrated’ as opposed to ‘open’ in the ongoing ‘open’ versus ‘closed’ debate (Apple changes words in order to change the debate), and it has important relevance to the open government movement.
Two articles today from O’Reilly Media’s Alex Howard (US CTO pitches open government, innovation and health IT to Silicon Valley) and Politico’s Tony Romm (D.C. crowd’s path to Silicon Valley) touch on how the Beltway is reaching out to Silicon Valley’s tech community. Howard’s pieces revolves around U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra and Department of Health and Human Services CTO Todd Parks ‘DC to VC‘ visit to the San Francisco Bay Area, and Romm’s is more of a ‘Silicon Valley as political ATM’ angle.
Help government communicate better
Measured Voice President Jed Sundwall writes “Why We’re a Civic Startup” on the company’s blog to highlight why it applied to the Code for America Accelerator program.