GovFresh - Gov 2.0, open gov news, guides, TV, tech, people » New York

Government 2.0: An Empire State of Mind

Luke Fretwell — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 00:29:41 +0000

Video of New York State Senate Director of Technology Innovation Noel Hidaldo’s (@noneck) IgniteNYC presentation, ‘Government 2.0: An Empire State of Mind.’

Open government means open analytics

Luke Fretwell — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:14:29 +0000

While there’s a push for citizen ideas using collaboration tools, the trend towards open analytics should be just as important, because it exposes what information real users want and where the agency should focus more of its attention. This should be standard practice for all Web/IT departments, so making this information public is as simple as posting it to the agency blog.

Collecting ideas and opening public data is a great step, but understanding how citizens are using government Websites, whether they’re finding the information they need, and whether government is responding appropriately by making it easier to access is a much more large scale, proactive, real-time open government practice.

The New York State Senate releases a publicly available bi-weekly Web analytics report that highlights Web site traffic and activity. The report can be download in .doc or .xls format or viewed at the Senate’s Scribd account. The executive summary and granular analyses provides interesting trend information valuable to private citizens and other public agencies.

Here’s why this is important and why all agencies should do this:

Forces your agency to actively evaluate and iterate Web and social media strategy.
Shows the public you’re paying attention to user activity.
Other agencies can glean information and leverage as strategy.

Here’s the New York State Senate’s most recent report:

Weekly Report 2-13-10

5 more sites crowdsourcing ideas for government

Luke Fretwell — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 19:00:55 +0000

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

OpenInternet.gov

OpenInternet.gov is a place to join the discussion about the important issues facing the future of the Internet. Through this site you can stay connected to all Federal Communication Commission activities on the issue, and share your thoughts and ideas on open Internet.

Broadband.gov

Share your ideas on the National Broadband Plan.

OpenGov

How can we strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness by making government more transparent, participatory, and collaborative?

New York State Senate Property Tax Ideas

The New York Senate is working on ways to help New Yorkers cope with high property taxes – and we need your ideas.

OpenAustin

OpenAustin is a community-based effort to crowdsource the requirements and development for the new City of Austin web site using local software developers, marketing experts, and graphic designers that have been displaced from their jobs due to the current economic downturn. This will produce a superior web site for the citizens of Austin at a fraction of the cost of the city’s lowest bid.