Today, I had the opportunity to attend Code for Oakland 2012 and, as always with events like this, walked away inspired by the work of good friends and the enthusiasm of citizens and public servants wanting to do more for their communities. Big kudos to all involved engaging, organizing and sponsoring a great event in a great city.
Oakland gets its code on
Code for Oakland will be held July 21 at the Kaiser Center in Oakland, Ca. Steve Spiker, OpenOakland Brigade Captain and Director of Research & Technology for Urban Strategies Council, discusses Oakland’s open data progress and what attendees can expect from the event.
How Palo Alto is leading the digital city movement
Palo Alto, Calif., Chief Information Officer Jonathan Reichental discusses his “digital city” vision, including how he leveraged the local developer community to help build city applications, bringing a “hacker ethic” to bureaucracy and the importance of supportive leaders in managing IT and cultural change.
Palo Alto CIO on building the ‘digital city’
Palo Alto (California) Chief Information Officer Jonathan Reichental shares his vision of the “Digital City” with attendees at the Silicon Valley iOS Developers’ Meetup on May 21, 2012.
California controller names Tina Lee to innovation post
California Controller John Chiang has appointed Tina Lee as Director of Outreach and Innovation to help his office better engage with the state’s citizens, non-profit and community organizations and businesses.
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.
OpenSF re-launches, San Francisco will hold ‘Third Thursdays SF’ monthly meet-ups
Two important San Francisco open government announcements from OpenSF founders and contributors Jay Nath and Adriel Hampton.
Code for America ‘Labs Day’ Fridays tackle small government tech projects to help make a big difference
Just received the latest Code for America newsletter and wanted to share info about its ‘Lab Day’ program that happens every Friday in its San Francisco offices.
A vote for open data in San Francisco
Last week’s election brought a new party to power in our nation’s capitol and shook up the political landscape in San Francisco. With Mayor Gavin Newsom’s ascension to Lt. Governor of California there is a job opening in City Hall. His election has officially kicked off a process to name an interim mayor and who it’s going to be has been the buzz of the City for well over a year.
SF CIO Vein discusses open government, open data, municipal innovation
I had the opportunity to sit down with San Francisco Chief Information Officer Chris Vein during sf.govfresh and ask him about his work around open government, open data and government innovation. What resonates most with me is how he touches on the importance of a partnership between mayor and CIO and SF Mayor Gavin Newsom’s willingness to let him ‘fail forward.’
SF Mayor Newsom introduces legislation to open, centralize all city data
If you live in the U.S. and have turned on your TV or surfed the web in the past 24 hours, chances are you have seen one, or more likely hundreds, of political ads. You cannot shake the wall-to-wall political coverage about the significance of next week’s election.