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.”‘

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

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