Federal

NIC awarded delaware.gov contract

NIC awarded delaware.gov contract

0 / September 29, 2011 6:30 am

“The First State” will become the twenty-fourth state website to be managed by e-government firm NIC Inc

USDOT in the social media slow lane

USDOT in the social media slow lane

2 / July 26, 2011 6:18 am

The U.S. Department of Transportation is officially nowhere to be found in social media circles, but DOT Secretary Ray LaHood is everywhere, including Facebook, Twitter and Flickr

Everything you ever wanted to know about FOIA in 17 short videos

Everything you ever wanted to know about FOIA in 17 short videos

2 / March 16, 2011 2:41 pm

The Justice Department has produced 17 videos on everything you ever wanted to know about the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)

Build an ‘open source value creation model’ for your agency

Build an ‘open source value creation model’ for your agency

0 / November 4, 2010 12:17 pm

Great FedTalks presentation from David Dejewski of the Department of Defense Business Transformation Agency where he discusses Web 2.0, MilSuite including MilBook, MilWiki, MilBlog and MilTube

Challenge.gov brings citizens, government together for civic solutions

Challenge.gov brings citizens, government together for civic solutions

1 / September 8, 2010 6:55 pm

The General Services Administration has launched Challenge.gov as part of an effort to help “government and the public work together to find solutions.” Citizens can vote to support a challenge, contribute to a discussion board and federal agencies can post their own challenges to the site. According to the Challenge.gov Website, “this platform is the latest milestone in the Administration’s commitment to use prizes and challenges to promote innovation.”

Open San Diego, Go.USA.gov, USA.gov with Captura Group’s Jed Sundwall

0 / August 16, 2010 9:46 pm

We talk with Jed Sundwall of Captura Group about Open San Diego; Go.USA.gov, the .gov URL shortener; engaging Hispanics online, including those who prefer Spanish and prefer English; and the USA.gov and GobiernoUSA.gov social media strategies, and why they’re remarkable

Government, citizen developers join forces to build new Federal Register 2.0 Website

Government, citizen developers join forces to build new Federal Register 2.0 Website

0 / July 27, 2010 8:37 am

The Federal Register has launched a re-design of its Website, federalregister.gov. The new site is XML-based and was developed using open source code (now available on GitHub).

“The Daily Journal of the United States,” the FR is managed by the Office of the Federal Register (OFR) of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) and serves as “the legal newspaper of the U.S. government and contains rules, proposed rules, and public notices of federal agencies, as well Presidential documents.”

GSA launches USA.gov re-design

GSA launches USA.gov re-design

0 / July 6, 2010 7:55 am

The General Services Administration has launched a re-design of USA.gov that includes easier access to mobile applications, government performance dashboards, citizen engagement contests and a simpler navigation structure. USA.gov is the U.S. government’s official information and services site. More on the new design from GSA.

HHS launches Healthcare.gov

HHS launches Healthcare.gov

0 / July 1, 2010 4:55 am

The Department of Health & Human Services launched Healthcare.gov, an all-in-one healthcare information site related to the Affordable Care Act dedicated to helping citizens ‘take health care into your own hands.’

Features include Find Insurance Options, Get Prevention Tips, Compare Care Quality and Understand the Law

FedSpace wants your ideas

FedSpace wants your ideas

2 / June 13, 2010 2:38 pm

The General Services Administration is now soliciting ideas for FedSpace, the intranet for federal government employees. As they did during the Open Government Directive, they’re using the crowdsourcing platform IdeaScale to manage submissions

FedSpace answers, more questions, recommendations

FedSpace answers, more questions, recommendations

2 / May 18, 2010 9:30 am

The General Services Administration recently announced it will create FedSpace, a ‘new social intranet for federal employees and contractors.’ The project will be managed by the agency’s Office of Citizen Services and the initial version is expected to launch late summer

GSA not ‘awesome’ when it comes to implied endorsement

GSA not ‘awesome’ when it comes to implied endorsement

12 / April 26, 2010 12:41 pm

I’m all for public-private collaboration.

GSA’s Office of Citizen Services is one of my favorite ideas for a government agency and inter-agency service. The work it does is fantastic, and its leadership is exceptional.

I’m also a big fan of GovLoop and have a great relationship with founder Steve Ressler. Steve has been gracious enough to feature me as a ‘GovLoop Member of the Week,’ and I regularly try to post updates on what’s happening over there.

Having said that, I’m wary of GSA’s implied endorsement of GovLoop, notably on it’s Resources page (Figure A) and in its recent ‘Government by Collaboration’ newsletter (Figure B) that includes an article by GovLoop with the headline ‘GovLoop’s “Extraordinary Collection of Talent.”‘

Open source headlines from the Open Government plans

1 / April 12, 2010 9:23 am

The Obama Administration’s Open Government Directive ordered Federal agencies to produce open government plans by April 7th, and while some advocates are disappointed, we have before us a bewildering number of initiatives to improve transparency, collaboration, and participation across the Government. It will not surprise you to learn that I spent some time looking for places where open source is being used in these plans

Quick links: Federal agency open government plans

3 / April 7, 2010 2:00 pm

Put down the best-seller and cancel the rest of Spring Break, the White House announced today federal agencies have released their open government plans. The plans are part of the Administration’s Open Government Initiative and should make for great beach reading

White House new media team featured on PBS NewsHour

White House new media team featured on PBS NewsHour

0 / March 30, 2010 8:34 pm

PBS NewsHour features the White House New Media team in a segmented titled Wired White House Looks to Harness New Media

You go gURL: GSA turns on URL shortener Go.USA.gov

You go gURL: GSA turns on URL shortener Go.USA.gov

0 / March 15, 2010 10:00 am

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

Should government outsource long-term or crisis-related social media?

Should government outsource long-term or crisis-related social media?

0 / February 19, 2010 2:17 pm

Just noticed this contract solicitation submitted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency for a ‘professional media services company with experience and reliability in the deployment and delivery of professional broadcast transmission equipment and crews to various locations … used during pre- and post-declared federal disasters to support the OEA in its mission to prepare and disseminate information to the public.’

Having an outside contractor be heavily responsible for this role detaches the agency from its mission-critical work. I can understand services related to training and establishing processes that can then be left for agency employees to execute, but on-call assistance? Long-term or crisis-related social media and outreach should be the agency’s core focus.

What do you think

USA.gov offers $2500 for best video

USA.gov offers $2500 for best video

0 / February 18, 2010 8:13 am

GSA’s GovGab blog announced a contest to solicit citizens videos that answer the question ‘What has USA.gov done for you?’ The contest runs February 22-April 2 and the winner will receive $2,500. Rules at USA.gov/contest. More information at GovGab

GovRx: Prescription for immigrant healthcare

0 / February 17, 2010 8:30 am

Regardless of nationality, people from all over the world are treated in American hospitals. You don’t have to be a U.S. citizen to purchase private health insurance in the U.S. nor do you have to be a citizen to pay to see a doctor. The U.S. has a private healthcare system that is open to everybody, who pays

How open was Obama’s YouTube interview?

How open was Obama’s YouTube interview?

0 / February 4, 2010 3:02 pm

Earlier this week, President Obama took questions from YouTube via CitizenTube. The event was part of an effort to crowdsource citizen questions to the president after his State of the Union speech. According to YouTube, 772,350 votes were cast on 14,456 questions from 64,969 people