PBS NewsHour features the White House New Media team in a segmented titled Wired White House Looks to Harness New Media.
How open was Obama’s YouTube interview?
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.
5 government sites using Drupal effectively for open government initiatives
By now, most people in the Gov 2.0 community have heard of Drupal, the popular open source social publishing system powering close to 500,000 websites ranging from big government to Britney Spears. Drupal has seen steady growth from its inception as a Belgian grad student’s experiment in 2001 to one of the most heavily used open source content management systems in the world, downloaded by a quarter million people per month. A growing trend the Drupal community is following closely this year is government interest in the platform to further open government initiatives and broaden adoption across government.
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?
New White House iPhone app parody commercial
Everyday Banter created a parody video of the new White House iPhone app. (HT OhMyGov!)
Best line: “Haven’t heard from Obama in the last six minutes and need to make sure he’s still in charge? There’s an app for that.”
i1600PennsylvaniaAvenue: White House launches iPhone app
The White House launched a free White House App for the iPhone. The app delivers livestream video from speeches and press briefings, blog updates and latest official White House photos. Citizens will be able to watch the upcoming State of the Union speech directly from their iPhones.
You can download the White House app at iTunes. Details at the White House Blog.
Gigglegate: What was so funny?
John Stewart’s Daily Show coverage of the White House Open Government Directive hones in on what everyone’s asking:
‘What was so funny?’
Quotable:
Huge event yesterday. ‘Open for Questions,’ a new experiment in open government debuted on the whitehouse.gov Website, hosted by Kevin Smith, Mike D, and Indian George Clooney. It was, as you can imagine, HIGH-larious.
In the spirit of open government, we’d like an official response from the White House.
Guesses on Gigglegate?
New GovFresh White House Open Government site
You can now follow the latest news related to the White House Open Government Initiate (OGI) on GovFresh at whitehouse.govfresh.com.
The new site includes:
- Latest OGI GovFresh posts.
- Links to OGI Twitter and official RSS feed.
- OGI ‘Chatter’ from Twitter, the White House blog and elsewhere on the Web.
White House ‘Transparency and Open Government’ memorandum
On January 21, 2009, President Barack Obama signed a ‘Transparency and Open Government’ executive order. Here is video of the signing and full text of the memorandum.
White House announces ‘Open Government Directive’
The White House today announced its Open Government Directive, instructing agencies to open their operations to the public and providing a framework for doing so. The directive was accompanied by a Open Government Progress Report to the American People.
From the White House:
The three principles of transparency, participation, and collaboration are at the heart of this directive. Transparency promotes accountability. Participation allows members of the public to contribute ideas and expertise to government initiatives. Collaboration improves the effectiveness of government by encouraging partnerships and cooperation within the federal government, across levels of government, and between the government and private institutions.
Full text of White House ‘Open Government Progress Report to the American People’
From the White House’s new ‘Open Government Progress Report to the American People:’
For too long, the American people have experienced a culture of secrecy in Washington, where information is locked up, taxpayer dollars disappear without a trace, and lobbyists wield undue influence For Americans, business as usual in Washington has reinforced the belief that government benefits the special interests and the well connected at the expense of the American people.
This progress report offers the American people a snapshot of the progress to date, highlights of the Administration’s new open government policy framework—the Open Government Directive —together with a road map for what’s to come.
Full text of White House ‘Open Government Directive’
Full text of the White House’s ‘Open Government Directive’ sent to the head of every federal department and agency, instructing agencies “to take specific actions to open their operations to the public.”
White House ‘Connect with your government online’ video
Just found this White House Blog post (Your Government: Open for Business in New Ways and New Places) and video from Bev Godwin (@BevUSA), White House New Media Director of Online Resources & Interagency Development.
The video, featuring Macon Phillips, White House New Media Director, highlights how government is using new media as a resource for citizens.
Video: White House 2.0 via Center for American Progress
Video: White House 2.0: Peter Swire on Web 2.0 Technology and the Government (via @amprog)
White House Advisors on Open Government Initiative
On January 21, 2009, his first full day in office, the President issued a Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government and called for recommendations for making the Federal government more transparent, participatory, and collaborative. On May 21, 2009, the Administration kicked off an unprecedented process for public engagement in policymaking on the White House website. As Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to the President said, we are proud to announce an important next step in this historic call to action one that will help us achieve a new foundation for our government a foundation built on the values of transparency, accountability and responsibility.
