Agencies

Challenge.gov brings citizens, government together for civic solutions

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

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.

GSA launches USA.gov re-design

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.

FedSpace wants your ideas

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

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

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

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.

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

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?

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

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.

NASA Nebula sends government to the cloud

GovFreshTV talked with NASA Nebula CIO Chris C. Kemp about Nebula’s role in cloud computing.

Cabinet members brief Amercan citizens in Year One videos

President Obama’s Cabinet taped ‘Year One’ videos to highlight their respective department or agency’s 2009 accomplishments and or goals for the next year.

What do you think? Which are most informative? Authentic? Is this an effective way to familiarize citizens to public servants and put a face on government?

5 more sites crowdsourcing ideas for government

Here are 5 more sites crowdsourcing citizen ideas to improve the way government works. See also 6 government sites crowdsourcing citizen ideas.

CDC’s social media efforts featured in Advertising Age video

Advertising Age video highlights CDC’s social media efforts with Twitter, e-Health cards and dealing with related culture and leadership issues.

Net neutrality discussion on C-SPAN’s The Communicators

Scott Cleland, Chair of NetCompetition.org, and Markham Erickson, Executive Director of the Open Internet Coalition, discuss the FCC’s Net Neutrality proposals on C-SPAN’s The Communicators.

OpenNASA takes one giant leap for transparency

OpenNASA, an employee-established public blog, is a “collaborative experiment in open, transparent and direct communication about your space program.” Team openNASA shares lessons learned, and what others can learn from them.

FCC Chairman Genachowski on CSPAN’s ‘The Communicators’

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski discusses universal broadband, spectrum policy, net neutrality, indecency and media ownership rules on CSPAN’s ‘The Communicators.’

Quotable:

It’s such an important time with respect to communications. Our communications infrastructure is increasingly essential to the daily lives of every American. It’s how we communicate with each other. It’s how we work in our businesses. It’s how we participate in our government. It’s how we create jobs and contribute to economic growth. I see our communications infrastructure as our platform for innovation and opportunity for the 21st century, and that’s what really drives what we’re trying to accomplish at the FCC of course, because the FCC is the federal agency that has to deal with this landscape. At the highest level our goals are, one, to promote investment throughout the communications eco-system, two, to promote innovation and thereby promote global competitiveness of the United States, three, to promote competition because that’s how we’ll get the most innovation and investment, and four, to protect and empower consumers.

Spacebook lead Emma Antunes talks social media, collaboration

Emma Antunes, project leader for NASA’s internal social network, Spacebook, discusses innovation, collaboration, social media, user engagement, team work, knowledge management, and her expectations for Spacebook.

Social Media Flu Fighters

One of the aspects of Gov 2.0 that I think is making excellent progress is in the area of healthcare and social media. Not only are private healthcare organizations beginning to embrace this technology, but government agencies are also beginning to make use of these powerful tools.

Efforts to distribute accurate information about the dangers of swine flu and the importance of vaccination are hampered by the sheer complexity of the message. Social media tools are being utilized to assist in this effort. Using Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and blogs, the government is actively engaged in social media to harness the power of this platform to reach a new audience and provide real time information. Social media is a powerful new method of healthy communication.

Gov 2.0 Hero: Beth Beck

As Space Operations Outreach Program Manager for NASA Headquarters, Beth Beck has one of the best jobs in the universe. Beth shares her affinity for iPhones and chaos via social media.

What was your path to Gov 2.0?

WIRED Magazine is my bell-weather for all things new. How does that apply to Gov 2.0? I find that we, the generic government, usually lag two years behind industry in our application of new products or processes. WIRED showcases all things trendy, giving me a jumpstart on ideas for cool new applications and products. I can try out new technology and software in prototype projects and once we’ve worked out the kinks in the system, others can follow.

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