California

Fostering civic innovation in California

Alissa Black joined the New America Foundation in April to lead the newly-formed California Civic Innovation Project, focused on building “communities of practice within California’s local governments and identifies best practices to improving service delivery, opening new channels for public voices, and bridging the state’s digital divides.”

Instead of butting heads, citizens and government can start mixing minds

MindMixer is working with the San Francisco, Los Angeles and other local communities to help crowdsource ideas for civic improvement. CEO and Co-Founder Nick Bowden discusses his venture and the value of government-citizen collaboration.

Hacking taxis and ‘making life in SF a little better’

Last February, officials from San Francisco collaborated with the California College of the Arts and Mix & Stir Studio for the SF Taxi & Mass Communication Challenge, a 24-hour hackathon focused on “design-driven technology solutions to real world problems.”

Oakland launches 311 app powered by SeeClickFix

Oakland, Ca. is the latest major U.S. city to launch a 311 application that allows citizens to report issues directly to government from their smartphones.

San Francisco posts Open311 RFP

San Francisco has published a request for proposal to integrate Open311 with the city’s CRM software, Langan. Bid submissions are due February 3.

How San Francisco can get its gov 2.0 groove back

There’s been a great deal of discussion lately around the topic of government innovation, especially here in San Francisco, with the appointment of a new chief innovation officer, a new “civic accelerator,” a new venture with a consortium of Bay Area technology companies and a new technology and innovation task force led by SF Mayor Ed Lee.

LA beta tests first website redesign in 14 years that looks just like the one done 14 years ago

Government Technology reports that Los Angeles is beta testing a new website, the first major redesign in 14 years, but a cursory review of the homepage leaves me wondering why the city spent $100,000 on a usability expert to get essentially the same site it’s had since 1998.

Open source government

San Francisco Director of Innovation Jay Nath’s TEDxSoMa talk from earlier this year:

SF Mayor Ed Lee at 2011 Web 2.0 Summit (VIDEO)

O’Reilly Media’s Alex Howard interviewed San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee this week at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. Lee discusses open source, open data, apps, mobile and bridging the digital divide.

Bring the IT Dashboard to San Francisco

San Francisco has led the nation with Gov 2.0 innovations, like Twitter311 – connecting the City’s 311 Call Center to Twitter — allowing residents to contact the City about potholes, graffiti and interact with government in real time with a tweet, DataSF.org – the City’s one stop shop for government data that has empowered developers to create incredible apps that bring city data to life, and Open311 the first national API in government.

Reno readies for world’s biggest little hackathon

The world’s biggest little city is about to get its code on.

SF CIO, Innovation Director discuss city’s tech progress, innovation

San Francisco Chief Information Officer Jon Walton and Director of Innovation Jay Nath discuss government innovation and the work they’re doing within the SF Department of Technology.

Does government innovation need its own department?

In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, SF city attorney and mayoral candidate Dennis Herrera said, if elected, he would create an innovation department and appoint a Chief Digital Officer to lead the city’s web and social media strategy that embraces open engagement with citizens.

Gov 2.0 Radio: Reno.gov Web Manager Kristy Fifelski

Kristy Fifelski of GovGirl.com and Reno.gov joins us on Gov 2.0 Radio to discuss Reno’s planned inaugural civic hackathon, her GovGirl video series, the upcoming National Association of Government Webmasters conference and the new NV.gov.

How to present to your city council like Steve Jobs

Apple CEO Steve Jobs recently presented to the Cupertino, CA, city council on the company’s plans for building a new campus.

Open data and SF Environment

SF Environment Internet Communications Coordinator Lawrence Grodeska discusses his agency’s approach to open data on GovFreshTV.

Routesy founder talks open data, gives advice to civic developers and government

GovFreshTV talked with Routesy founder and developer Steven Peterson about his experiences creating the app and asked him to share his advice to civic developers and government.

In New York and San Francisco, TransportationCamp aims to build a better to and fro

Transportation enthusiasts will gather in New York City and San Francisco over the next few weeks for TransportationCamp, a series of transit-meets-tech unconferences organized by the non-profit OpenPlans.

B’more Open: Is Baltimore the new San Francisco?

From open data to open source procurement policy to open311, San Francisco has led the open government way, but with the recent departures of former mayor Gavin Newsom (now California lieutenant governor) and former chief information officer Chris Vein, it looks as if Baltimore is on its way to becoming the new San Francisco.

Building Gov 2.0 community in San Francisco

Building Gov 2.0 Community in San Francisco: Abhi Nemani of Code for America, Jay Nath of the SF Dept. of Technology, and Chris Heuer, co-founder of the Social Media Club, join Gov 2.0 Radio to talk about building sustainable Gov 2.0 community at the grassroots level.

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