Local

LocalGovChat (@localgovchat) is a weekly Twitter chat to help local government communicators connect and learn from one another. Chats are held Wednesdays from 9-10 p.m. EST.

The City and County of San Francisco’s Committee on Information Technology released its new software evaluation policy. Here’s the full text or you can access at the COIT Website.

The City of Manor’s open innovation portal, Manor Labs, has been live for a few months turning ideas into solutions. When talking with other cities, I find that the entire concept of open innovation is a bit misunderstood. It is very easy to put up a voting platform to rate ideas, but what happens afterwards? With Manor Labs, powered by the Spigit open innovation engine, the system is user-driven and self-sufficient. This allows our small agency the ability to process large quantities of ideas with limit staff involvement.

Here’s a breakdown of idea stages and functions.

San Francisco is one of a few major U.S. cities leading the way in the open government, Gov 2.0 movement. SF has opened up data, issued an agency-wide open government directive and continues to pursue innovative opportunities around this effort. (See all SF news at sf.govfresh.com)

Here’s an overview.

San Francisco residents can take full advantage of the city’s open data via Web and mobile applications featured at DataSF App Showcase. Apps offer crime updates, recycling locations, restaurant health inspection scores, BART/MUNI schedules and more. Developers can also submit apps for submission.

According to the site, DataSF App Showcase “celebrates the innovators and innovations who are championing the Mayor’s vision of a more collaborative and open government.”

It seems like today so many agencies are plagued by the expenses of online web development and associated hosting. Manor was no different. Smaller agencies pay thousands of dollars to private companies to developed attractive websites that can be done at a fraction of the cost.

After discussing my frustrations with Luke Fretwell, the founder of GovFresh, he had a solution that would not only work for Manor, but many other cities as well. His idea was to build the entire site on Wordpress, which is an open-source blog publishing application, with full-social media integration. I knew of Wordpress, and had even used it for my personal blog, but have never thought of using it for a government site outside of a traditional blog.

EcoFinder is a free iPhone app that helps San Francisco residents and businesses find recycle locations throughout the city, including electronics, appliance and matresses. Users can filter drop-off/pick-up options by free or pay services.

EcoFinder was created using open data from SF Environment as part of San Francisco’s open data initiative and developed by Haku Wale in partnership with SF Environment, Nextive and AdMob.

Thanks to our friends at Spigit, Manor Labs now has a new look that makes submitting ideas even easier. Expect to see more great changes to the platform over the next few months.

Let us know what you think at innovations@cityofmanor.org.

Beth Noveck (Executive Office of the President/OSTP) and Tim O’Reilly mention Manor and Manor Labs at Web 2.0 Expo NY 09 (36:20).

On October 27, 2009, the City of Manor, Texas launched a new effort to crowdsource innovation in an effort called Manor Labs.

Manor Labs is a platform that allows individuals the mechanism to contribute new ideas and solutions for existing problems. Instead of constricting the innovation process to just agency employees, the City of Manor allows anyone to participate regardless of where they live. The benefit to the end-user is that they are rewarded with “Innobucks” for their participation in the innovation process. These “Innobucks” can be traded in for real products donated by local companies and partners, which provides users a tangible benefit for their participation.

QR-codes are two dimensional barcodes that can be generated for free and subsequently decoded for free on most newer model camera phones. When I first learned of QR-codes I quickly realized the amazing potential they had, however, I was unaware of the significant impact they would have on my own organization.

Following on from my earlier post about local government and Web 2.0, I would like to discuss in more detail about forming a strategy for implementing Web 2.0 in local government.

Joining us to talk about using social media and new technology in a local and state government context are communications specialist Cara Keithley and consultant and social media trailblazer Steve Radick.