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A brief-ish explainer of open source software.

A brief-ish explainer of the new web accessibility law for state and local governments.

A brief-ish explainer of Andreessen Horowitz's American Dynamism.

A brief-ish explainer of open source artificial intelligence.

A brief-ish explainer of open data.

A deep dive on open civic organizations.

How a short-term, experimental project scaled digital service innovation and impact across the State of California.

The community that supports digital government services should be undeniably representative of everyone.

Every government website must have an RSS feed. This guarantees an open, universal standard for syndicating government information.

By adopting a simple public engagement framework, we can build a more inspired government, together.

True democracy – and great technology – is organic, collaborative, participatory, responsive, iterative, adaptive.

A simple practice can help give clarity to public sector projects and services, and how those impacted can engage with them.

How government agencies, academia, nonprofit organizations and public sector vendors can build open, participatory models of operating.

The soul and grassroots foundation of democracy.

Properly managing and delivering citizen data should be the U.S. government's first CX priority.

Beyond policy, proactive engagement and better data management will make government a good steward and partner in responsible artificial intelligence efforts.

Complete metadata can have a significant impact on how citizens experience government digital services.

How government-managed domains conform to basic metadata practices.

Anatomy of a proper government website address.

Great source code meets machine-readable web industry standards and best practices and – perhaps most important to some – adheres to the code of law.

I created podcast-like overviews of FedRAMP, NIST Cybersecurity Framework, TechFAR and Zero Trust with Google NotebookLM's deep dive feature.

We need better guidance for a more secure digital government experience.

A simple way to keep public service communications open, authentic and regular.

Repository bureaucracy and how the general public can help preserve government technology assets.

My civic tech retrospective.

AI will expedite government services moving from aesthetic design to machine-readable data.

Optimizing digital government for AI and other machines.

Build your bot policy now and work with your digital team or vendor to implement it.

Public service with and for the people.

An update to the open source WordPress theme for government.

GovFresh research notes on the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act.

GovFresh research notes on the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program.

GovFresh research notes on the National Institute of Standards and Technology Cybersecurity Framework.

GovFresh research notes on TechFAR.

GovFresh research notes on Zero Trust.

GovFresh research notes on plain language.

GovFresh research notes on cloud.gov.

GovFresh research notes on Login.gov.

GovFresh research notes on the Open Security Controls Assessment Language.

GovFresh research notes on General Data Protection Regulation.

GovFresh research notes on open data.

GovFresh research notes on open government.

GovFresh research notes on open innovation.

GovFresh research notes on open source security.

GovFresh research notes on open source software.

GovFresh research notes on artificial intelligence and the U.S. government.

GovFresh research notes on the U.S. Web Design System.

GovFresh research notes on the SHARE IT Act.

GovFresh research notes on the Strengthening Agency Management and Oversight of Software Assets Act.

GovFresh research notes on the Open Source Institute's Open Source AI Definition.

GovFresh research notes on public artificial intelligence.

GovFresh research notes on the Declaration for the Future of the Internet.

GovFresh research notes on the AI Cybersecurity Collaboration Playbook.

GovFresh research notes on OpenACR Editor.

Civic techie, bureaucracy hacker, dot connecter

CEO and co-founder, Bixal

Resiliency planner, startup founder, SimCity aficionado

Civic tech evangelizer. Storyteller. Diversity seeker.

Civic innovator, systems changer, homelessness ender

CEO, founder, justice reform advocate, community leader, change agent

Local gov content strategist

Director of Challenge.Gov + CitizenScience.Gov

Public servant

Author, catalyst, & champion for public engagement with space, science, & technology

Acquisition strategist, author, innovator, problem solver

Data.gov Product Manager Tim Lowden demos the new metrics dashboard.

State of California UX Design and Web Development Manager Artem Khomishen gives a demo of ca.gov.

Project ScanGov co-maintainer Luke Fretwell gives a demo of the latest updates.

The Government We Need talks with Bruce Schneier about internet+ security and government’s role in keeping us safe.

The Government We Need talks with Run for Something’s Sarah Horvitz about the changing face of local politics and how to elect diverse representation.

The Government We Need talks with Code for America founder Jen Pahlka about how technology can be a force for civic change.

The Government We Need talks with Brian Elms about how government can ask the right questions and find its true public service purpose.

The Government We Need talks with Rick Cole about local government's role in sustainability.

Shari Davis talks with The Government We Need about building a more inclusive, democratic public budgeting process.

The Government We Need talks with Amanda Renteria about getting public benefits to people in the digital age.

The Government We Need talks with Mindful Badge's Richard Goerling about mindful policing.

A pioneering civic technologist retrospects and shares his thoughts on hacking government for good.

A citizen journalist and civic technologist shares his experiences and lessons learned civic hacking.

Setting an Alpha foundation with Angie Quirarte.

The controversial file format beloved by government.

Government's history, relationship and evolution with hackers and hacking.

Going Alpha.

The Dictators Who Want to Run the World

Why the Key to Fixing Everything Is All of Us

How to Take the Town Square Digital and Reinvent Government

A Civic Technologist's Practice Guide

How the Original Hacking Supergroup Might Just Save the World

Making Tech Work for All of Us

The Community Approach to Engineering Documentation

How to Design Services that Work

How World Governments Relentlessly Pursue and Domesticate Hackers

How the Powerful Bend Society’s Rules, and How to Bend them Back

Igniting Passion and Performance

Public service with and for the people

Building the Next Era of the Internet

Why Government is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better

A New Approach to Modernizing Legacy Technology Systems

The Secret Military History of the Internet

Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage

NASA, the Shuttle Era, and Public Engagement after Apollo

A Pandemic Story

How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley

The Cyberweapons Arms Race

How the Pentagon and Silicon Valley Are Transforming the Future of War

The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software

A WordPress theme for government.

Finding flow in mission-minded work.

Government digital experience monitor

Re-imagining USA.gov.

About GovFresh.

GovFresh and accessibility.

Recommended reading.

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How you can engage with GovFresh.

Behind the GovFresh scenes.

About the GovFresh community.

Rules of engagement.

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Design / Technology / Democracy

GovFresh experiments in data, design and civic hacking.

Serendipitous chat time.

Featured design, technology, democracy organizations.

Deep dives.

GovFresh notes on Portable Document Formats.

Talking with the people at the intersection of design, technology and democracy.

GovFresh privacy policy.

We respect it.

Notes and deep work.

Search GovFresh.

Help us make GovFresh more secure.

Helping people and teams thrive in open culture and digital transformation.

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A complete index of govfresh.com.

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Ideas, opinions, observations.

Our themes.

A global movement of community-focused events that foster civic collaboration and innovation

What's on our radar.

Analysis of policy implications from DEF CON 32 findings.

ScanGov adds security grades, scorecards.

What's on our radar.

Getting first projects launched.

Will help “deliver consistent, digital-first experiences for the public."

What's on our radar.

What's on our radar.

A 'civic opportunity to help shape the government’s thinking about open-source software security.'

Building a map of weekly notifiable disease cases across the United States.

Re-imagining federal government job openings with the USAJOBS API.

Building a survey mark finder app.

Building a national parks directory with the NPS API.

Building a look-up of Food and Drug Administration approved medicines.

Building a cybersecurity news page using the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency RSS feeds.

Building community, civic hacking with my son, pedigree and public interest technology.

Subscribe to the official GovFresh newsletter.

Building a space photo of the day page using NASA's astronomy picture of the day API.

Building an executive branch agency list using the National Archives' Federal Register API.

Building a simple .gov domain search tool with CISA open data.

Building congressional pages with the new Library of Congress Congress.gov API.

AGL, which has since evolved into Technologists for the Public Good, was the testing ground for an experiment in what I now call an open civic community of practice.

One simple piece of code to the U.S. government's employment website could go a long way in increasing social media reach.

Time for Alpha 2.0.

Kickstarting USA.GovFresh, beginning with Federal Register open data.

Once thriving, now barely surviving. Ideas on how we can breathe more life into it.

A publishing platform that says it's an environment open to everyone doesn't provide equal access to all.

Re-imagining the government domain name registry experience.

Making it more accessible, and suggestions for the CDO Council.

Adventures in father-son civic hacking.

Olay’s Open to Change advertising campaign is something government should take note of.

In The Premonition, as he tends to do, Michael Lewis turns everyday people willing to tell us what we need to hear at a critical societal moment into a cast of characters we can't help but cheer on, but also leave wishing the world had more brave voices such as these.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology officially released Open Security Controls Assessment Language 1.0.0, a federal government effort to standardize authorization packages and streamline security reviews using a common machine-readable language.

The U.S. federal government's user experience community of practice is hosting a three-day virtual UX summit June 22-24.

Cyd Harrell's "A Civic Technologist's Practice Guide" is the book we've always needed, but wouldn't have been possible until now thanks in no small part to the unparalleled experience she's accrued over the years working at Code for America, 18F, California Administrative Office of the Courts, and other service design-focused environments inside and outside of public service.

The U.S. Space Force has outlined its vision for a digital service.

In-Q-Tel, the innovation and venture arm of the U.S. intelligence community, has published several open source themed posts recently, including "Toward Secure Code Reuse" and, most recently, one about GitGeo, a tool it developed that analyzes the geography of developers associated with a GitHub repository.

The DotGov Program, which administers .gov top-level domain assignments to official U.S. government entities, now offers the service for free.

GitHub has a great write-up of how open source community contributions played a key role in helping NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter achieve lift-off on Mars.

President Biden has nominated digital government innovator Robin Carnahan as the next administrator of General Services Administration.

Apparently, in 2021, there are people who still refuse to recognize the holistic, energetic and sustainable impact 18F and the U.S. Digital Services has -- and continues to have -- on keeping the federal government digital services industry and profession relevant and attractive to highly-qualified designers, developers, product and project managers and anyone generally interested in well-functioning U.S. Government technology.

What's great about about the public roadmap, particularly for large government institutions, is that they show there is a plan, but they are also a powerful demonstration of civic openness.

Virtual queuing and appointment startup Whyline has completed a $1.25 million pre-series A round led by e.Republic Ventures.

The Center for Plain Language published its 2020 federal website plain language report card.

The U.S. General Services Administration's 18F has a great post on why distributed government is critical to highly-functioning public service teams, emphasizing a 'distributed first' approach to work.

Facebook announced that Roy L. Austin, Jr., will join the company as vice president of civil rights and deputy general counsel to establish the company’s new internal civil rights organization.

In the aftermath of the deplatforming of Donald Trump, Mozilla offers concrete advice on how to best deal with bad actors -- including heads of states and politicians -- on social media platforms, beyond just suspending or permanently removing them.

Twitter announced it has permanently suspended Donald Trump's Twitter account.

To better demarcate the lines between freedom of speech and censorship, the Electronic Frontier Foundation calls for social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram to apply a human rights framework to their terms of use.

Canadian Digital Service design research team members Martha Edwards and Anne-Marie Mulumba share great insights into how people in government are making their research more inclusive.

Government Technology released its annual GovTech 100 list for 2021 and, while there are newcomers to the list, there is still a lot of room for new innovation.

The Department of the Air Force has directed commanders to conduct a comprehensive review of official and unofficial unit emblems, morale patches, mottos, nicknames, coins and other forms of unit recognition and identity to ensure an inclusive and professional environment within 60 days from Dec. 23, 2020.

I've been an advocate of U.S.-based government organizations having .gov domains for quite sometime, so it's great to see Congress has made this easier and potentially cheaper to achieve.

The Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University today announced that Cori Zarek will take over as executive director.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs published what it says is the government's first-ever employee experience journey map.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office published a report on data governance progress across four federal agencies.

Shari Davis talks with The Government We Need about building a more inclusive, democratic public budgeting process.

The Government We Need talks with Rick Cole about local government's role in sustainability.

The U.S. Department of Defense is publicly sharing its gradual transformation to distributed government teams and said there are more than one million personnel working remotely.

Liftoff for the much-hyped SpaceX test flight of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program is scheduled for Wednesday, May 27, at 4:33 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time.

In their new book "Good Services: How to design services that work," former UK Government Design Director Lou Downe offers the public sector an invaluable playbook to delivering government services that are in inclusive and intentional.

TED Radio Hour host Manoush Zomorodi's conversation with The Bail Project's Robin Steinberg is incredibly insightful and inspiring. Steinberg shares her work supporting those who can't afford to pay cash bail, which ultimately leads to a downward spiral of injustice.

NASA will host a virtual COVID-19 hackathon May 30 to 31, 2020, in partnership with the European Space Agency and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

The RAND Corporation published Defining Second Generation Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) for the Defense Enterprise, a thoroughly informative report on how the intelligence community can better define and leverage technology to improve its approach to open source intelligence.

The NavalX Centers for Adaptive Warfighting hosted a discussion on design thinking with Office of the Director of National Intelligence Director of Lateral Innovation Katherine Tobin. Tobin shared her design thinking journey and how ODNI incorporates it into its work.

The U.S. Department of Defense has launched an online COVID-19 symptom checker at MySymptoms.mil.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released its annual transparency report.

The U.S. General Services Administration published an Evaluation and Buying Guide to "help federal agencies seeking Human-Centered Design (HCD) services to improve Customer Experience (CX)."

The U.S. Agency for International Development is looking for a new chief technology officer.

New America has launched the Pandemic Response Repository that will serve as a centralized location for open source projects aimed at helping governments respond to the coronavirus pandemic.

To support government teams quickly shifting to distributed work during the COVID-19 pandemic, CivicActions will host a free webinar — repeated daily the week of March 16 — to share best practices and answer questions from the government community at large. Topics to be covered include operations, communications, security and productivity in a distributed work environment.

We’re at the point in the organizational and civic evolutionary cycle where distributed teams can and should play a critical role in building highly-effective digital government service teams.

In a post on the GitHub blog, CEO Nat Friedman publicly addressed the company's business relationship with U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement, its opinion on the current administration's immigration policy and "the principles by which we make decisions in these areas."

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration is looking for an executive-level chief innovation officer.

The National Science Foundation announced $120 million in funding for a new organization -- the National Artificial Intelligence Research Institutes -- "that will significantly advance research in AI and accelerate the development of transformational, AI-powered innovation."

The Government We Need talks with Brian Elms about how government can ask the right questions and find its true public service purpose.

The National Security Agency announced the creation of a new fifth domain-focused internal organization that will "work to prevent and eradicate threats to national security systems and critical infrastructure, with an initial focus on the defense industrial base and the improvement of our weapons’ security."

Whether it's online, on land, underwater or in space, CNN national security correspondent Jim Sciutto's "The Shadow War: Inside Russia's and China's Secret Operations to Defeat America" offers ominous insights into how the United States' key adversaries are changing the dynamics of national security.

The United Kingdom Government announced it will pilot newly-developed artificial intelligence procurement guidelines it co-designed with the World Economic Forum.

The National Security Agency will host a “cyber-challenge similar to those that regularly threaten national security,” open to students at any U.S. based academic institution. The exercise will run from September 20, 2019 to January 10, 2020.

In an interview with the agency, the Food and Drug Administration Deputy Commissioner Frank Yiannas discussed its latest efforts to "leverage new and emerging technologies to prevent contamination and rapidly trace the origin of a tainted food to its source."

San Francisco Chief Digital Services Officer Carrie Bishop published an excellent commentary piece that touches on several issues we in the digital government industry don't talk much about, or at all.

The White House announced updates to the federal government Trusted Internet Connections initiative with the intent to empower agencies with security practices that aim to remove barriers to modern technology adoption.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office launched a new Center for Strategic Foresight to help Congress better understand issues related to emerging notorious technologies, such as deep space and deep fakes, that impact a well-functioning democracy.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office released a report assessing the lackluster status of the Defense Department's open source pilot program, saying that until the agency effectively implements this, "the department will not be positioned to take advantage of significant cost savings and efficiencies."

The United Nations published its 2019 Digital Economy Report that is a comprehensive must-read for civic leaders who want to understand how emerging technologies will impact the global labor market, security, privacy, economy and more.

A policy hackathon will be held in San Francisco on September 24 to "tackle problems brought by cities from the U.S. and Europe."

CivicDMV and the Code for America Brigades helped inspire DMV to "unlock" California’s DMV Web Services.

The Government We Need talks with Code for America founder Jen Pahlka about how technology can be a force for civic change.

ODNI and CIA named new leaders of their respective privacy, civil liberty units.

After a long hiatus, GovPress -- the WordPress theme for government -- has been updated.

There seems to be a playbook for all things digital government, and now there's the "Government as a Platform Playbook" that provides deeper insight into the wonky word technologists often use to describe a more exponential approach to government service delivery.

The new Netflix documentary, The Great Hack, is an eye-opening account of how voter and social media profile data, particularly from Facebook, combined with a sophisticated, incendiary digital media campaign, can undermine democracy, as we saw happen with Brexit and the 2016 presidential campaign.

The Government We Need talks with Run for Something’s Sarah Horvitz about the changing face of local politics and how we can bring more diversity into elected office.

The intelligence community's venture capital arm, In-Q-Tel, published a helpful primer on explainable artificial intelligence.

Because "responding to foreign interference requires a whole of society approach," the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has published resources that help educate the public on ways hackers can impact U.S. elections.

A federally-funded grant that researched the impact of government-funded research on innovation, such as private-sector intellectual property and inventions, is inaccessible to most of the people who funded it.

The Director of National Intelligence announced the creation of a new DNI executive position focused specifically on election threats. The new position will be led by Shelby Pierson, who previously served as DNI election security crisis manager during the 2018 midterm elections.

CivStart is a new government-focused start-up accelerator that wants to ensure civic technology products "don’t get made in a vacuum — that they serve the needs of our most vulnerable and underserved communities."

Kin Lane offers insightful commentary on what went wrong with the open data movement, and why it failed to live up to initial exuberance and expectations.

For those interested in government open source and open data, registration for the 2019 DKAN Open Data Summit is now open.

The National Science Foundation issued a statement admonishing governments that "endeavor to benefit from the global research ecosystem" and fail to uphold the agency's values of openness, transparency and collaboration.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office published a bullish report on the impact cloud services has had on federal government agency technology savings.

Based on recent cyber incidents aboard commercial vessels, the U.S. Coast Guard issued a security alert to vessel and facility owners and operators that is essentially basic security practices, even ones that could potentially save governments from the ransomware attacks we see happening more frequently.

The United Kingdom and Argentina governments are working on what they call the Policy Innovation Exchange that creates the potential for a much-needed, broad-scale government-to-government open collaboration organization that addresses common issues each -- and others -- have.

“Find the truth. Tell the truth.” is a core value of the U.S. Digital Service, and Ben Damman uses the mantra to share his sentiments on how it applies to California technology projects, particularly related to the nascent Office of Digital Innovation.

Code.gov -- the platform that makes it easier to find open source code developed by the U.S. Government -- announced updates that includes aesthetics aligned with the U.S. Web Design System and better adherence to accessibility standards.

The Government We Need talks with Bruce Schneier about internet+ security and government’s role in keeping us safe.

After my earlier call for collaboration, The Government We Need, a podcast exploring the government of the future and how it can best serve everyone, is officially live.

California is officially for looking for its first director of the newly-established Office of Digital Innovation.

It's cliche to say that government procurement needs to be fixed, but much of the conversation around this topic happens randomly on social media, in a vacuum through exclusive or elusive groups, or through traditional organizations that operate in a closed, dated mindset with respect to broader inclusion or true innovation.

While several books have contributed to the knowledge share of the digital government narrative, few have effectively addressed transformation holistically from firsthand experience, and Digital Transformation at Scale: Why the Strategy Is Delivery does just this.

Two years ago, I had an idea for a podcast that focused on the whole of government, and how big thinkers are re-imagining and changing how civil society operates along the civic spectrum.

California is on the cusp of ushering in a new era of government digital services, one that our elected leaders can finally align, prioritize and execute on, and prove to the people of the Golden State that our representatives are ready to innovate just as other industries here have done.

It's been a week since I published my thoughts on re-imagining the California Department of Motor Vehicles website. During that time, the issues I had with not receiving my REAL ID were resolved and the process inspired me to think and prototype a little more on the first iteration.

I recently visited my local California Department of Motor Vehicles field office to renew my driver license and, because I scheduled an appointment ahead of time, my experience wasn't the nightmare it's traditionally made out to be. However, the designer in me couldn't help but think about how the entire DMV process could be re-imagined, offline and online.

If government truly wants to transform digital services and effectively serve the public at scale, it must start with how it attracts and retains top technology talent.

As the general public increasingly expects the civic user experience to be as refined as the ones we have with our consumer electronics, digital service delivery has become a priority for governments locally and globally.

Intrigued by what Democracy Earth Foundation is doing to leverage the power of blockchain to empower a different approach to democracy, I asked the team to share more about its work.

Gary Kovacs is the new chief executive officer of Accela, a provider of cloud-based government productivity solutions. We asked Kovacs to share his perspective on various aspects of the government technology landscape, and where he sees Accela’s role in all this.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has proposed a new Office of Digital Innovation as part of the state's 2019-20 budget with initial start-up costs of $36.2 million and 50 positions. The proposal also includes an innovation academy and $20 million innovation fund.

California Governor Gavin Newsom wasted no time on his first day in office addressing what many see as the most critical -- albeit bureaucratic -- issue impacting the state's government technology challenges: procurement.

If we're ever going to get security right, technologists must embrace the need for policy and government leaders must do the same with technology, which is why Bruce Schneier's Click Here to Kill Everybody: Security and Survival in a Hyper-connected World is the 2019 must-read book for every government leader, elected and administrative.

The Government of Canada has issued an information technology directive on business, information, application, technology and security architectures that includes a mandate to prioritize open source software.

Given its nascency, however, for now we must continue to use the phrase ‘digital government services’ to define both informational and transactional online activities, and provide a framework for public sector success into the future.

The U.S. Defense Department is escalating its commitment to open source software with a proactive push for agency participation to publicly share custom-developed code.

Alex Benay is the Chief Information Officer Government of Canada and an open and relentless advocate for digital government innovation. He is also the author of the new book, "Government Digital: The Quest to Regain Public Trust," so we asked him to share his thoughts on the role of the CIO, Canada’s proactive move to technology modernization, and what it means for government to go digital.

Marquis Cabrera is extremely insightful on many topics, a great thinker, conversationalist and intelect that brings a sense of humor, humility, genuine purpose and passion much needed in government technology.

Kiba Gateaux shares his thoughts on the role blockchain can play in making the world a more “hospitable and prosperous place for everyone,” and how others can get involved.

As he steps down from his role as executive director of the Data Coalition, Hudson Hollister reflects on the organization he founded and shares his insights, appreciation and advice to the open data community at large.

The California Department of Technology has published unified design standards and accompanying resources for official state government websites.

Governments must take a proactive lead on inclusivity, making all members of the communities they serve feel welcome in their interactions with them. Being mindful of these identity-related form fields, opting out of their use when they are irrelevant, is a critical step towards showing government is for everyone.

Traditional government meetings software, used to publish agendas, minutes, and livestream and archive videos, are in dire need of a modern, affordable upgrade.

To win in the Regulatory Era, founders, funders, executives, and policymakers will need to get smart about regulatory hacking.

Effective use of personas must be taken seriously when designing truly inclusive public services.

The California Department of Technology has set a new standard for state government technology offices, releasing an open source and code reuse policy “to better support cost efficiency, effectiveness, and the public’s experience with government programs.”

Tear It Down is local government’s S-Town.

It's now time for public leaders to familiarize themselves with Facebook's government terms and conditions and learn more about -- and appreciate -- data governance issues, starting with General Data Protection Regulation.

Angie Quirarte is a behind-the-scenes hero for the state of California, leading on issues such as public sector workforce recruitment and retention, public data, creating a user-friendly government, improving internal government processes and more.

In "Peace Through Entrepreneurship: Investing in a Startup Culture for Security and Development," former State Department staffer Steven Koltai makes the case that world peace can best be achieved through nonmilitary means, especially entrepreneurship that leads to global job creation.

Innovation, disruption, accelerators, have all become urgent buzzwords in the Department of Defense and Intelligence community. They are a reaction to the “red queen problem” but aren’t actually solving the problem. Here’s why.

The Office of Naval Research has been one of the largest supporters of innovation in the U.S. Now they are starting to use the Lean Innovation process to turn ideas into solutions. The result will be defense innovation with speed and urgency.

Earlier this year, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation published an assessment of federal government websites that includes rankings around page load speeds, mobile friendliness, Domain Name System Security Extensions, Secure Sockets Layer and accessibility.

IBM Research Manager Charity Wayua’s “A few ways to fix a government” talk is an inspirational example of how government (and its partners) can — when tasked with goals and measurable results — leverage user and data analytics research to successfully create better results for those it serves.

I’ve listened to several “10% Happier with Dan Harris” podcasts recently, and there are several great ones that feature leaders in politics, law enforcement, corrections, the judiciary and military.

Aaron Foley is Detroit’s first chief storyteller, appointed by Mayor Mike Duggan in April 2017, to help the city go beyond formalized bureaucratic communications and public relations and share the stories that don’t always get heard.

The episodes focus on a single topic or institution — such as gerrymandering, lobbying, nuclear codes, National Secretary Council, Department of State — and interviews an expert with each lasting about 15 minutes.

For public communications and engagement enthusiasts, Government Issue is a great coffee table book and perhaps point of inspiration for government leaders to re-think how to better communicate with constituents.

San Luis Obispo Mayor Heidi Harmon has an inspiring interview with the The California Report on her personal style, what it re-enforces and the sense of empowerment it gives her.

The newly-formed Government Blockchain Association is a 501(c)(6) nonprofit corporation that wants to create relationships “between and among technologists, public policy makers, application specialists and those who simply need to understand the new and emerging digital currencies that will change the world.”

Two good things just happened in Washington – these days that should be enough of a headline.

For those passionate about cultivating a more sustainable, open source oriented open data community, the first DKAN Open Data Summit is scheduled for August 1, 2017, in Washington, D.C.

Earlier this year, CityGrows co-founder Catherine Geanuracos proposed values for government technology, and its a great foundation for those serving government or the public to adopt.

The General Services Administration will host an in-person U.S. Federal Blockchain Forum meeting on July 18 in Washington, D.C., as part of an effort to facilitate virtual currency adoption within the federal government.

Regardless of whether you’re interested in the business of war, there’s enough references to government purchasing to make it fully entertaining for those of you who are proud procurement enthusiasts.

We just finished our second Hacking for Defense class at Stanford. Eight teams presented their Lessons Learned presentations.

Whether you’re an agitated activist frustrated with the current state of politics, a civic hacker, government technology entrepreneur or public servant trying change the foundations of democracy from inside or out, “You’re More Powerful Than You Think” is an accessible guide for helping us all rethink what it means to have power and how to obtain it.

Azavea Product Specialist Patrick Han and Product Manager Stephanie Thome share how Cicero’s District Match app makes it easy for nonprofits to mobilize their constituents to contact their elected officials.

Public service leaders wanting to learn more about agile project management and its specific applications to government can register (free) for AgileGovCon 2017.

e.Republic published a best practices guide to procuring software-as-a-service, and the conclusion is a must-read for anyone in government responsible for technology purchases.

e.Republic has published a series of graphs that provide an overview of the state and local government market, and it’s a great reference for investors and entrepreneurs trying to better understand the business potential.

Drone use is the next frontier and integration to the concept of a “Smart City,” a notion that describes how local governments are integrating multiple information and communication technology (ICT) and Internet of things (IoT) solutions to manage a city's assets.

Bloomberg Philanthropies’ What Work Cities initiative announced a new certification program that rewards achievements and provides “a clear path to excellence.”

With the help of GSA and the brand power of USA, the opportunity to truly scale impact is endless.

There are moments in one’s life when you know everything has changed.

San Francisco is looking for a chief information officer.

Voterheads lets anyone keep track of any council meeting, down to the specific topic. CEO Karl McCollester shares how they’re making this possible.

As of 20 January, President Obama signed the TALENT Act of 2017 (H.R.39) into law as one of his last acts as President.

18F has developed a framework for how it helps agencies with digital transformation efforts and has created a deck that offers a blueprint for others looking to do this on their own.

I finished reading Charles Duhigg’s latest book, "Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business," and in it are two great government-related anecdotes around motivation and agile thinking.

The U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Advisory Board approved 11 recommendations “aimed at keeping the Defense Department on the cutting edge in technology, culture, operations and processes.”

Government Technology and e.Republic Labs announced the 2017 GovTech100, “a listing of the leading 100 companies focused on government as a customer, having developed an innovative or disruptive offering to improve or transform government, or having created new models for delivering services.”

Neighborly CEO Jase Wilson is an inspiring entrepreneur working to change how public projects are funded.

The General Services Administration has issued a request for information related to the federal government's use of software-as-a-service.

Reinvent will host Code for America Founder Jen Pahlka and O’Reilly Media Founder Tim O’Reilly on January 19 in San Francisco in a discussion on how civic-minded technologists should approach the ongoing reinvention of government in the Trump era.

I’ve spent the last eight years building and selling products to governments. At the risk of oversimplifying what works in govtech, I think success comes from three factors.

With the advent of artificial intelligence, augmented reality, smart sensors and the Internet of Things, the digital and physical worlds have become more integrated than ever.

Civic hacker icon Mark Headd has written a book to help government officials best engage with community technologists.

By the end of the class our sponsors inside State had experienced a practical example of a new and powerful methodology which could help them better understand and deal with complicated international problems and apply technology where appropriate.

Danielle Winterhalter, SpeakEasy co-founder and director of strategic partnerships, shares how they're addressing a fundamental aspect of lowering the barrier to entry, especially when it comes to political (snail) mail, which is still more relevant than you might think.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office released a status report on federal government technology reform progress, and it's an insightful read more than anything on the the lack of synchronization between agencies and GAO.

Every government wants to use data to make better decisions.

Earlier this year, 18F released a preliminary report on “what makes modern digital practices ‘stick’ within a government entity.”

We’ve just held our seventh and eighth weeks of Hacking for Diplomacy at Stanford, and the attention our course is getting from Washington – and around the world – has been interesting.

Okay, I admit it: Even as a champion of open data, I find that it’s often mundane to view data on a portal. Simple lists of datasets — and even the maps and charts you can create — don’t truly show the intrinsic value of data that’s been freed to benefit communities.

“Behavioral Insights for Cities” offers anecdotes into how governments can improve constituent engagement by implementing smarter messaging and design into print collateral, email, texts and online interactions.

President Obama served as guest editor for the November issue of Wired, and the entire print issue is worth investing in. Here are articles that might be of interest to those of you focused more on the civic and government technology fronts.

Open Gov’s CEO Zac Bookman shares how OpenGov the company’s new open data solution will impact public administration – including how governments engage with citizens such as civic developers.

Having access to timely and comprehensive election data is fundamental to democracy.

Make sure you're registered to vote.

Adding to the increased interest in investment opportunities around civic and government technology, a new venture fund, Ekistic Ventures, launched with the intent of “building a portfolio of companies that will solve critical urban problems.”

While there is much technology that can be sifted into must-have, nice-to-have and maybe-someday categories without a negative impact on smart city advancement, there are a few basic pieces of technology cities will need in order to extract value from the real-time data that has already begun to flow through smart cities.

Crisis has a history of dictating government technology disruption. But innovators don’t wait for crises.

Bay Area cities San Francisco, Oakland, West Sacramento and San Leandro teamed with startups this year as part of the Startup in Residence program to “explore ways to use technology to make government more accountable, efficient and responsive.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced the DOD will open its third technology innovation “outpost” in Austin, expanding the reach of the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental that serves as a “bridge between those in the U.S. military executing on some of our nation’s toughest security challenges and companies operating at the cutting edge of technology.”

While it is commonly acknowledged that cities today produce massive amounts of data, it is less often noted that much of the data referenced is not actually produced directly by city systems, but rather by cities’ ecosystems of partners in domains such as transportation, waste and water management and energy services.

I finished Bill Eggers latest book, "Delivering on Digital: The Innovators and Technologies That Are Transforming Government," and highly recommend to public sector technology practitioners, especially governments who don’t have the resources to contract with a high-end consulting firm to build out a holistic strategy on their own.

U.S. Government Accountability Office announced it will create a Center for Advanced Analytics to bring a more data-driven approach into its work.

The Defense Information Systems Agency has released a series of videos and request for information for the National Background Investigation System, created in the wake of security incidents that lead to data breaches of millions of federal government employees and contractors.

With the release of a new identity management platform, 18F is slowly culling together all the requisite pieces for an easy-to-deploy, cloud-based federal government web management platform.

An odd thing happened in Dehradun, the capital city of the northern state of Uttarakhand, when the city received news that it would receive funding as one of 100 cities chosen to participate India’s $15 billion Smart Cities Mission. Rather than celebrating making the coveted list, the city instead found itself embroiled in a dispute that saw local activists take to the woods to hug trees in protest against Dehradun’s smart city proposal.

Many of us are attracted to practices that move us towards that place of intense joy that comes from being present. In my field, technology, both Free and Open Source development and agile practices have offered me, and many others, a path towards a similar joy.

You can accomplish many smart city goals in a timely and inexpensive manner by exploring options for leveraging an existing infrastructure of low-tech, collaborative information and communication technologies like mobile phones, social media, online platforms and low-cost sensor kits, before making hefty new technology investments.

The Open Knowledge Foundation and University of Cambridge recently published a must-read and circulate widely report on why open source software matters for government and civic tech and how to support it.

For many years, open access to data has been viewed as an important means of improving government transparency and accountability and deepening citizen engagement, and today hundreds of local and national governments worldwide are using open data portals to publish data and documents that they produce over the course of their operations.

The White House released an official Federal Source Code policy that green lights the use and free distribution of software code developed for and by the U.S. Government.

Join a select cross-disciplinary class that takes real problems from the U.S. State Department and asks students to use Lean Methods to test their understanding of the problem and deliver rapid-fire innovative solutions to pressing diplomacy, development and foreign policy challenges.

For those of you who identify as civic hackers and are unaffiliated with political, governmental or corporate constraints, you have the good fortune of not needing to adhere to bureaucratic, organizational rules that stunt open, immediate impact and innovation.

For those focused on civic technology, Pokémon Go shatters the notion that an application whose brand and sole objective is civic-focused may never be as powerful and well-used as one tied into one with a consumer focus.

After two years of helping lay a new foundation for how the federal government buys, builds and delivers government digital services, Technology Transformation Service Commissioner Phaedra Chrousos announced she is stepping down. I asked Chrousos to share some parting thoughts.

San Francisco announced the creation of a new internal digital agency and is looking for a chief digital services officer to lead its efforts.

Government Technology's Jason Shueh finally brings to light the core impetus surrounding backlash against 18F efforts to fix federal government technology development and procurement practices.

Y Combinator is looking for a team of people to lead research on how to make cities better, and will use the findings to help determine how to invest in future ventures.

icitizen re-launched in January 2016 with a broader goal, to change how we communicate on civic issues, connect with our communities and "promote meaningful change." icitizen's Jacel Egan shares the vision for its future.

We created an infographic based on the recent “Engines of Change” report from Omidyar Network and Purpose that defined and outlined key components of what constitutes “civic technology.”

Hillary Clinton released her technology and innovation agenda that promises to expand the U.S. Digital Service and agency-specific digital teams, encourage the continued adoption of open source and open data and bring a more user-friendly approach to federal government operations.

Over the past few days, I’ve been thinking about Omidyar Network’s recent report, “Engines of Change,” and the need to better label and define the movement happening around civics and government with respect to technology.

The Federal Aviation Administration is looking for a chief data officer. Salary is $124,900 to $175,700. Application deadline is July 12.

San Francisco Bay Area city enthusiasts and innovators can now register for BRIDGE SF, “a collaboration of public, private, non-profit, and academic institutions coming together to challenge assumptions, develop skills, share best practices, and build partnerships that drive innovation for a better tomorrow.”

The U.S. Government Accountability Office released a report on the fiscal and administrative state of 18F and the U.S. Digital Service, both established to make federal government websites work better for users, and it appears the agency could use some help from the two on its own site, gao.gov.

Omidyar Network has released “Engines of Change,” a report on the state of civic technology in the context of 21st century social movements that includes specific calls to action for organizations, governments, cities, practitioners, startups and investors that can help grow and sustain its impact.

I’m reading Bill Eggers’ new book, "Delivering on Digital: The Innovators and Technologies That Are Transforming Government," and wanted to share that it’s now available for purchase.

Agile Government Leadership has launched a new online course focused on the government product owner.

In a Hacker News post, the cloud.gov team shares that the platform has attained FedRAMP Ready status, moving it closer to operating as a full-service cloud provider for federal technology projects.

It’s very easy, especially in a political environment, and especially for a high-profile organization like 18F, to be critical of its operations. There are a long list of items I’d like to see GAO look into and, right now, 18F isn’t one of them.

We just held our seventh week of the Hacking for Defense class. Now with over 750 interviews of beneficiaries (users, program managers, stakeholders, etc.) almost all the teams are beginning to pivot from their original understanding of their sponsor’s problem and their hypotheses about how to solve them.

Last Week Tonight’s feature segment focused on antiquated 911 technology, particularly its inability to leverage mobile geolocation and effectively pinpoint a caller’s whereabouts from his or her cellphone.

The Department of Better Technology was one of 42 companies accepted into the latest round of the highly-regarded 500 Startups accelerator program, a “4-month curriculum of customer acquisition coaching, fundraising training, and access to 500’s massive ecosystem.”

The 5,000 sq. ft. lab Superpublic unites under the same roof for the first time innovation teams from the private industry, federal, state and city government agencies and from universities.

Earlier, I wrote about the book “Open Organization” and, via a post originally published on ProudCity, wanted to share my extended thoughts on how this applies to government vendors in the context of the work I’m doing there.

For those who want to learn how government can become more engaged institutionally, both internally and externally, “The Open Organization” is the blueprint.

Grant cites two government originals, Central Intelligence Agency analyst Carmen Medina and U.S. Navy lieutenant Josh Steinman, who both worked to change traditional thinking within two large bureaucracies.

The White House extended the Federal Source Code Policy comment period to April 18 and, to date, there there are 147 comments with much of the discussion centered around licensing and security.

Given the ubiquity of both government and software-as-a-service in our lives, it’s only natural they are starting to work more closely with one another.

Cities receive one year of free ProudCity services, and we work directly with them to assess their current digital systems, how they can be optimized, and then help them quickly onboard to the platform.

GreaterPlaces is holding a fundraiser for city design method cards and a mobile app that “brings all aspects of city design together in one resource designed for everyone.”

Of significant importance is the state CIO opening, and its convergence with evolving talk of establishing a government digital service team, much like what has been done in the United Kingdom and here in the United States with the U.S. Digital Service and 18F.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced it has awarded startup GovReady a $1.1M certification and accreditation contract that will be critical to bringing an open source approach to security.

Borrowing from Code for America’s Digital Front Door project, the federal government is riffing on the concept so that it can better assist those seeking government services.

As we prepared for the new Hacking for Defense class at Stanford, we had to stop and ask ourselves: How do we use the Business Model Canvas if the primary goal is not to earn money, but to fulfill a mission?

Ethan Marcotte and Karen McGrane have been on a roll lately featuring federal government design leaders on their Responsive Web Design Podcast.

The beta period has eliminated the fear associated with the a big launch. Knowing that beta is the beginning of a collaborative process eases that fear and creates a feedback culture that is much-needed in digital government innovation.

Today, I’m excited to announce a new civic startup, ProudCity, founded by me and three others, committed to making it easier for cities to stand up and manage municipal digital services.

Managed by the Federal Aviation Administration, plainlanguage.gov, the federal government website tasked with helping agencies write better for those it serves needs renewed attention. While momentum on better government digital services is in full-swing, it’s time to re-invent how plain language is presented.

Leaders from 18F and the White House Presidential Innovation Fellowship program presented at the 2015 Lean Startup Conference on “Lean Methodologies When the Organization is the Product,” and this is the best video you’ll watch on getting a holistic approach to building a lean startup inside government.

I’ve been using Slack for a while now to follow government and civic technology news and, while it’s mostly a tool for team communications, the integrations features make it a great way to manage and digest a lot of information.

The end of the year is a great time to look back and reflect. All aspects of our digital society change at a faster pace every year and how local governments serve their municipalities is no exception. Let’s take a look at three major trends in modern constituent services.

Every day I get to engage with entrepreneurs, public sector innovators and journalists on re-imagining and re-energizing how government works, what it means to be "civic," and this year has been an incredible one for many friends and colleagues.

I’m always inspired talking and working with entrepreneurs trying to solve big civic problems, especially those who realize much of the challenge lies within modernizing and empowering internal government operations, so it was great to finally meet with Govtech Fund Founder and Managing Partner Ron Bouganim this week.

Citizens simply glaze over when they are confronted by a sea of large numbers with many zeros. These figures need to be relatable to the person reading the data. Otherwise, open data is just more data that dies on the vine.

The 18F Delivery team released a “Partnership Playbook” that aims to help federal agencies understand what to expect when working with 18F, and the gem within is play number two, “We work with an empowered product owner.”

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs released a beta version of Vets.gov, and it’s the future of federal government digital development.

The Welsh Government released a report of its findings on how local government in Wales can better leverage digital technologies and realize significant savings while still providing quality, scalable citizen services.

A California bipartisan oversight committee, the Little Hoover Commission, has issued recommendations on how the state can bring a more customer-centric government to residents and visitors.

Seneca Systems CEO Chris Maddox shares the inspiration behind the new constituent relationship management system, Romulus.

"No ugly, old IT" jumped out at me when I first reviewed DataSF's strategic plan, "Data in San Francisco: Meeting supply, spurring demand," and it still sticks, mostly because someone inside government was so bold as to make this a priority and openly communicate it and also because this should be a mantra for everyone building civic technology.

After reading Ashlee Vance's new Elon Musk biography, I find myself wondering whether we should really worry about bad government websites, and instead chalk them up as inspiration for those who will change the world.

The U.S. Digital Service has soft-launched new U.S. Web Design Standards to “create consistency and beautiful user experiences across U.S. federal government websites.”

There have been countless, beautiful anecdotes on Jake’s compassion, humility and contributions, and there’s nothing I can add that would do justice to honor the influence he’s had on me other than to say, Jake, I miss you so much, and you will be with me always as I try to live up to the standards you set for those of us still here.

Last week, I was in New Orleans for the CivicActions corporate retreat, and presented to the team on the work done around Agile Government Leadership, and I wanted to share some of this here because, while there’s still much to do around changing government project management practices, we’ve accomplished a great deal over the past 18 months since its inception.

My fundamental suggestion is that government-run open data platforms be fully open source. There are a number of technical and procurement reasons for this, which I will address in the future, but I believe strongly that if the platform you’re hosting data on doesn’t adhere to the same licensing standards you hold for your data, you’re only doing open data half right.

Agile Government Leadership wants to learn more about the state of agile project management in government, its challenges and successes, and how AGL can better support the community.

The state of California has launched a $25K Find a New Way innovation contest that gives residents a chance "to identify areas of improvement within the state government and share their untapped expertise to create solutions."

Continuing on my book cleaning spree, I wanted to highlight a few web product design and development books I'm getting rid of that are helpful for anyone focused on providing government digital services.

BallotPath founder Jim Cupples sent me a follow-up note, and it hits home two important points.

As part of a new What Works Cities initiative, Bloomberg Philanthropies announced a $42 million effort to help 100 U.S. cities "elevate and accelerate" their "use of data and evidence to engage citizens, make government more effective, and improve people’s lives."

This year's Code for America Summit is September 30 to October 2 in Oakland, California, and friends of GovFresh get a 10 percent discount.

I've created a GitHub repo to maintain feedback, comments and ideas anyone has related to GovFresh.

The federal CIO Council’s Innovation Committee has published an open data prioritization workbook and toolkit, including a data inventory tracker and prioritization matrix, to help agencies best evaluate and prioritize data for release to the public.

Agile Government Leadership is developing a "State of Agile Government" survey and is looking for feedback on best questions to ask.

There is a lot of shortsighted chatter around the state of Tennessee's new branding efforts and, while I don't have a strong opinion on the logo aesthetics, which has received criticism for its $46,000 price tag, it's important to commend the holistic approach to uniformity and why this will benefit residents (and taxpayers) in the future.

San Francisco’s DataSF team continues to quietly and effectively demonstrate what an efficient, holistic and personable approach to open data looks like with the announcement of its year two plan and retrospective of the past year.

I recently discovered Silicon Valley venture capital firm a16z's podcast series, and it's a sign of the times that a VC is leveraging media in a way that not just promotes their portfolio companies, but also addresses the government and regulatory affairs issues Silicon Valley, startups and technology companies increasingly face.

18F has published a guide that helps federal government workers standardize GitHub use and better leverage the social coding platform when setting up open source projects.

I just discovered the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office strategic IT plan, which should serve as a blueprint for all government agency technology efforts.

Government communications platform GovDelivery announced today it has acquired the civic engagement text messaging service Textizen to "promote citizen action, engagement, and behavior change."

I’m doing some spring cleaning and parting ways with a number of my beloved government-focused books. Before I do, I wanted to share the ones I’m letting go of that I highly recommend to those involved in re-thinking the way government works, and its changing role given the way the world is evolving.

Steve Blank interviews Errol Arkilic, former lead program director for the National Science Foundation I-Corps, which uses his Lean LaunchPad curriculum to teach scientists and engineers how to take their technology out of the lab and into the marketplace.

Fast Company writer Diana Budds has an excellent background story on Tomorrow Partners' involvement in helping San Francisco re-imagine its small business portal.

Voter co-founder Hunter Scarborough shares the vision and mission behind his new venture.

The General Services Administration and 18F recently held an open request for quotation related to a new blanket purchase agreement for a federal marketplace for agile delivery services. The transparency throughout the entire process was refreshing and provides a window into the future of procurement as well as what FedBizOpps could and should be.

A few weeks ago, we added an email subscription option, and the sign-up rate has been incredible.

The questions and criticisms posed in MeriTalk CEO Steve O'Keeffe's"WT18F?" blog post perfectly highlights the staid sentiments of yesterday's approach to government technology -- one that is comfortable with the status quo, unwilling to embrace change and quick to critique a much-needed experiment before it can properly get off the ground.

18F has started building a much-needed federal government-wide pattern library.

In a series of blog posts, the UK Government Digital Service team has announced a new post-migration roadmap that includes updates to its go-forward strategy, team structure and key goals for 2015-2016.

The Boston team will focus on connecting youth to summer jobs and the St. Louis team on making it easier to navigate the criminal justice system.

In an effort to help entrepreneurs get businesses legally established without the red tape hassle, the White House, Small Business Administration and National League of Cities are rallying cities to provide simpler online tools and processes for those applying for licenses and permits.

Google has launched Sidewalk Labs, an “urban innovation company devoted to improving city life for residents, businesses and city governments, in particular by developing and incubating civic technologies.”

The new beta of U.S. Department of State’s ForeignAssistance.gov shows how government can leverage the power of data and visualizations to communicate the story behind its mission deliverables.

The company’s authority to operate, granted in May, was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy.

Dustin Haisler, eRepublic chief innovation officer, has published a “GovTech Market Snapshot” highlighting the government technology market, including key companies (startups and established vendors), venture capital firms and analytical data on market size.

Jenny Cearns from GOV.UK’s Department of Health has a great post on cultivating a community of digital champions within government that mirrors what I know some chief data officers are doing around creating an internal network of data coordinators.

The GOV.UK team has updated established protocols that serve as the foundation for ensuring government digital teams provide high-quality citizen services.

I’ve known Edmund Pendleton from the University of Maryland as the Director of the D.C. National Science Foundation (NSF) I-Corps Node (a collaboration among the University of Maryland, Virginia Tech, George Washington, and Johns Hopkins).

The 2015 National Day of Civic Hacking will be held on June 6. To date, more than 70 events around the world have been scheduled. The global hackathon, targeted to “urbanists, government staff, developers, designers, and activists,” is organized by Code for America and Second Muse.

Agile Government Leadership will host its next AGL Live, “Agile Government and the State of Maine,” featuring Maine Director of Business Process Management Douglas Averill.

According to organizers, the event is for “executives, program managers, and engineers considering or actively implementing DevOps at their organization.”

The service allows citizens to report non-emergency requests, such as potholes and graffiti, via their mobile devices, which are then serviced through a back-end, enterprise customer relationship management system.

911 wasn’t an original idea – like our democracy, it drew inspiration from other countries that had already implemented a single emergency number in the 20th century (Britain’s 999 in 1937 and New Zealand’s 111 in 1958).

A new roundtable series focused on “Transforming Government IT” will bring together leaders in both the public and private sectors from Washington, D.C., to Silicon Valley, to discuss how the federal government can reinvent its approach to technology.

Last week, I met with Palo Alto Chief Information Officer Jonathan Reichental to get a tour of the city's new Civic Technology Center, an open space that centralizes the city's information technology staff, call and data centers into one working area.

Agile Government Leadership will host its next AGL Live Google Hangout On Air with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Chief Information Officer Mark Schwartz this Thursday, April 16, 4-5:00 p.m. ET.

The General Services Administration announced a new re-design of acquisition.gov, the official website for the Federal Acquisition Regulations.

Starting with its homepage, the White House is moving to a more mobile-friendly design.

For those unsatisfied with the recent USAspending.gov re-launch and would like to submit public feedback, there’s now an official GitHub repo for that.

Regardless of the vendor drama and complexity around delivering data specific to USAspending, here is a simple formula for any government working on the release of a new public-facing website.

In his announcement Goldman asks citizens (using the hashtag

After reviewing the first iteration of the newly-launched analytics.usa.gov, here are some quick thoughts and takeaways.

As momentum around appointing public sector chief data officers grows, it’s time for the federal government to get ahead of the curve and create a formal chief data officers council similar to, but more inclusive, proactive and public than the already-established U.S. Chief Information Officers Council.

The fast-growing, neighborhood-based community platform Nextdoor has launched a new feature, Nextdoor Polls, that now allows neighbors to easily ask one another questions and quantify the results.

The National Association of State Chief Information Officers has released a great brief on how CIOs can work better together.

It was an excellent discussion that went a little beyond the basics, and there were a number of questions we didn’t get to, but overall it’s a helpful introduction that includes some great panelist anecdotes.

The U.S. General Services Administration announced approved terms of service agreements for the collaboration service Slack.

According to a U.S. Project Open Data GitHub pull request, it appears the U.S. Department of Energy has named Dave Dutton as its chief data officer.

I'm fortunate to engage with many great people on a number of rewarding projects, but the work I’ve been doing on Agile Government Leadership has been particularly fulfilling, both personally and professionally.

The U.S. Patent and Trade Office plans to move its beta website, located at beta.uspto.gov, to the official agency domain, USPTO.gov, on February 5.

Inspired by a recent General Services Administration request for information to create a “new and improved” FedBizOpps, OpenFBO is a community experiment to re-imagine the next generation FBO.

After getting some grief for not having a strong public presence, the U.S. Digital Service is beginning to open itself up with a new website, video and Twitter account.

Chicago Chief Data Officer Tom Schenk has a great follow-up blog post riffing off my Friday commentary on the CDO’s role as business developer.

Podcasting is all the rage these days, and SeeClickFix is now in the mix with GovLove, focused on local government issues.

The new site, powered by Zendesk, provides FCC with a full-scale, cloud-based help center and internal support ticketing system with an elegant, simple, flexible and intuitive interface.

I'm a huge fan of government re-branding to modernize away from the antiquated look of the traditional seal, mostly because I believe it can play a huge role in citizen sentiment and how employees see themselves and their roles as public servants.

The U.S. General Services Administration is working to make it easier for agencies to procure agile development services via a government-wide blanket purchase agreement, which could be finalized as early as the end of this year.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office released its 2014 state and local fiscal outlook model that indicates state and local government need to cut current expenditures by 18 percent to achieve fiscal balance over the next 50 years.

The new site, located at alpha.phila.gov, is powered by WordPress with a custom theme that hopefully the city will open source at some point in the future.

Vocativ published its 2014 Livability Index of the 35 best cities for people 35 and under, and the best part of it is the montage of city icons they created for the piece.

Freakonomics Radio has a great episode on the dynamics of mayors and their ability (compared to governors and presidents) to directly and immediately impact the lives of citizens, primarily because they deal with tactical issues with relatively less political obstacles.

I’ve been on a podcast kick lately and stumbled on an old Freakonomics Radio episode highlighting the U.S. Department of Defense ethics guide, “The Encyclopedia of Ethical Failure.”

BlueLight founder and CEO Preet Anand shares his vision for re-inventing 911.

Code for America recently held a “Bay Area Government Technology Showcase” featuring ventures and investors pitching their ideas, and CfA’s Ashley Meyers and Dharmishta Rood opened the event with an overview of seven traits of the next generation of government technology startups.

“Civic Hacking” is the awareness of a condition that is suboptimal in a neighborhood, community or place and the perception of one’s own ability to effect change on that condition.

To celebrate the fifth anniversary of CityCamp, we're encouraging cities across the world to celebrate CityCamp Day on January 10, 2015.

Much like “green” has done for the sustainability movement, the term “smart cities” has brought as much skepticism as enthusiasm for an ambiguous, over-marketed term used to describe the end product of the new urbanist movement.

The report emphasizes the importance of case studies to highlight open source execution within government, bringing more awareness to support and warranty options, simplify code release process and increase education around license guidance and procurement.

As part of this work I’m always on the look out for valuable public assets across city, state and federal government, and help make sure the conversations around these assets always include application programming interfaces, so that we aren’t just building web and mobile applications in silos, and limiting the potential for public access by individuals and small businesses.

San Francisco Chief Data Officer Joy Bonaguro shares her vision for the city's open data future at the 2014 Code for America Summit.

We've recently seen an uptick in venture capital interest around government and civic technology startups, but before we enthusiastically celebrate these investments, we must ask ourselves whether this potential bubble will truly reshape government IT or simply leave us five years from now in the same place we are today.

The Data Transparency Coalition will host Data Transparency 2014 on Tuesday, September 30, in Washington, D.C.

Code for America today announced the next class of municipalities for its 2015 Fellowship Program that partners civic technologists with local governments for one year to “explore answers to local challenges by engaging with the community, building applications, and testing the results.”

Y Combinator posted a list of sectors it's interested in hearing pitches from in a "request for startups" that includes government-focused ventures.

Today, Sunlight Foundation announced Chris Gates will take over as its new president in October after co-founder and executive director Ellen Miller said she would step down from eight years at the helm.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's openFDA initiative aims to "make it easier for web developers, researchers, and the public to access large, important public health datasets."

It took 10 years for the Federal Communications Commission to re-do its first website, and now FCC.gov is set to undergo a second overhaul since it relaunched in 2011.

The White House is looking for input on how it can improve the open government section of its website, located at whitehouse.gov/open.

The U.S. Department of Energy is looking for a chief data officer.

If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area and woke up at to a 6.1 earthquake at 3:30 a.m. this morning, now would be a good time for citizens and local governments everywhere to take a look at City72 Toolkit.

The 2014 Code for America Summit is set for September 23-24 and registration is now open.

I had a conversation with a venture capitalist recently who was looking for information on startups who had APIs and had built their company around public data.

A recent VentureBeat headline misleadingly suggests agile development practices were the cause of Healthcare.gov's "failure."

Recent conversations I've had with municipal executives managing open data programs indicate that traction around open data platform usage isn't meeting their personal expectations.

Reinventors is hosting a live, online government procurement roundtable with key nonprofit, business and media leaders on Thursday, July 31, 2014, at 11:00 a.m. PT.

The U.S. Department of Justice is looking for a chief information officer.

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker recently announced the Department of Commerce will hire its first-ever chief data officer. I wanted to make sure that when this new and extremely important individual assumes their role, they have my latest thoughts on how to make the Department of Commerce developer portal the best it possibly can be, because this will be the driving force behind the rapidly expanding API driven economy.

Government media and events company e.Republic is expanding its business operations to include funding civic-focused startups, in hopes of leveraging its Rolodex of government officials to help serve as a channel for sales and marketing to those ventures it supports.

What has been known for weeks and already publicly celebrated by open data insiders was today formally acknowledged by the U.S. Department of Transportation in a Twitter retweet: Dan Morgan is the agency's new chief data officer.

The San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Civic Innovation and Fuse Corps are now accepting fellowship applications for a total of five fellowship opportunities.

Just an update that we've made slight modifications to the GovFresh logo.

After Adam Becker and Clay Johnson completed their stints as White House Presidential Innovation Fellows working together on Project RFP-EZ, they were inspired to scale IT simplicity so that governments everywhere would no longer have to deal with traditional mediocre software solutions most legacy vendors provide.

If you like open data and great weather, the city of San Diego is looking for a performance and analytics chief data officer.

If you’re interested in working for the federal government with an agency that doesn’t have the institutional legacy of entrenched bureaucracy and truly gets design and open source innovation, and has a direct impact on American consumers, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has just the opportunity for you.

To get an idea of how badly Oakland needs to upgrade its digital infrastructure, you just need to read this one line from Tuesday's city council staff report.

After several years of talking about and conceptualizing, and months of development, I'm proud to formally (and finally) release GovPress, a simple, elegant WordPress theme for government.

It took a while for San Francisco to get a serious open data effort off the ground, but now that new chief data officer Joy Bonaguro has had some time to take lay of the land, she's ready to roll.

While I was in Tampa for another infamously humid summer, my Co-founder, Tony DeSisto, was spending six weeks in beautiful Rhode Island visiting family. This was a tradition for Tony and his family, one that I had learned to live with as his startup spouse.

The U.S. Department of Transportation is looking for a chief data officer and, hurry, because you have until Tuesday to apply.

In what is probably the best municipal technology job opportunity since Oakland was recruiting a chief information officer, the city of New Orleans is looking for new CIO.

Applications for the Department of Health & Human Services HHS Entrepreneurs program are now open to innovators interested in working for a year-long stint alongside federal government employees on "high-risk, high-reward projects."

California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom is our next GitChat guest.

I recently reviewed a federal agency beta website, easily added a few comments with the help of a very accessible feedback tab and, feeling satisfied I'd participated in some form of civic collaboration and engagement with my government, moved on.

The goal of the annual event is to "bring together citizens, software developers, and entrepreneurs together to collaboratively create, build, and invent new solutions using publicly-released data, code and technology to improve our communities and the governments that serve them."

Federal Communications Commission Chief Information Officer David Bray has outlined a new technology modernization strategy that includes teleworking, cloud-based collaborations, access to open data, an “open source by default” policy and more transparency into agency operations.

The Award for Public Engagement in Government is a new component to the center's standing Innovations in American Government Awards program.

The program lasts four months and includes training and mentorship, network and publicity, in-kind services and support and $25,000.

NASA Deputy CIO and CTO for Information Technology Deborah Diaz introduced a new open innovation team via a rebooted open.nasa.gov.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has released an open source tool, AppVet, that makes it easier for agencies to test mobile applications security and reliability.

The U.S. Department of Education has published a request for information asking for public feedback on how the agency can innovate with open data, particularly application programming interfaces.

'Open Data Now' author Joel Gurin discusses the impact of open data on the innovation economy and how governments are addressing this new demand.

We're hosting our next GitChat with General Services Administration Chief Information Officer Sonny Hashmi.

Federal Communications Commission Chief Information Officer David Bray participated in our first GitChat, an open Q&A with civic innovators, that leverages GitHub as a discussion platform.

Much like we pooh-poohed Twitter in those early days, GitHub, in its early crawl, is today dismissed simply as a tool for the diehard developer. However, as with any tool with great potential, innovators find new ways to leverage emerging technology to communicate, and government chief information and technology officers can effectively do this with GitHub.

The White House is now accepting applications for the 2014 Presidential Innovation Fellows program.

In a Twitter exchange between San Francisco Chief Information Officer Marc Touitou and myself, Touitou confirmed that the city has appointed Joy Bonaguro as its first chief data officer.

In a new blog post, Philadelphia Chief Data Officer Mark Headd shares his thoughts on what it will take to make civic technology sustainable, including government insisting on open source software solutions.

Brill's "Obama's Trauma Team" features U.S. Chief Technology Officer Todd Park, Obama's fix-it man Jeff Zients, presidential innovation fellows, venture capitalist John Doerr, members of Obama's campaign tech team and some of Silicon Valley's entrepreneurs.

GovFresh 2013 Small City of the Year Piqua, Ohio, is a shining example of the old adage “small is beautiful.” With its multi-pronged approach to engaging citizens, Piqua is proof that it doesn’t take a big city budget to execute big civic ideas.

Perhaps the biggest civic open source story of 2013 was the government of New Zealand's copying of the United Kingdom's gov.uk code to begin building a new version of its own website.

StreetCred helps law enforcement agencies locate fugitives, get them out of the community, and bring the officers home safely each day.

Bay Area Rapid Transit Web Services Manager Timothy Moore discusses the recent upgrade of its flagship website, BART.gov, including a Drupal migration, embracing agile development, encouraging third-party developers to build off its open data and APIs, and plans for the future.

Despite the fact that millions of websites around the world today are powered by low- and no-cost open source content management systems, nearly all small city governments remain trapped in the 90s. To date, however, this need hasn't adequately been served, and we need to change this. We can change this.

Since last October the U.S. media, in full orgasmic throng, has been barking madly over the fate of the Healthcare.gov rollout. There has been overwhelming and obdurate polarization around positions on issues that would, in other arenas, be viewed through the objective lens of what most agree are facts.

Congratulations to the 2013 GovFresh Awards winners and thank you to everyone who participated in the process, including the incredible judges, as well as CivicActions and NuCivic who support my work here at GovFresh.

SmartProcure is a government purchasing database that helps agencies improve purchasing decisions and vendors win more government business.

Publishing government information is about much more than simply throwing 0’s and 1’s over the firewall. It’s about building ecosystems and communities. It’s about solving shared challenges. It’s about consumption — after all, that’s the American way.

Dave Eggers' latest novel, "The Circle," offers not-so-subtle social commentary on the increasing role technology companies play on our lives, for better or worse, and how our relationship with them could potentially impact what it means to be a citizen.

Today, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors will take its final vote to approve my update to our city’s groundbreaking open data law. My open data ordinance, in its simplest terms, standardizes and sets timelines for the release of appropriate city government data.

Acquiring government contracts is hard work. So, when some businesses hear that there are set-aside federal contracts that are awarded specifically to small businesses, is it any wonder that some businesses try to misrepresent their size to try and win a bid?

As we close out the year, I wanted to reflect on a few things to put our work in perspective and also to lay out the vision for where we want to go in the new year.

By now you’ve no doubt heard of the horrific consequences of super Typhoon Haiyan which has devastated the Philippines. In addition to an inconceivable death toll, thousands are displaced and without shelter.

Code for America is looking for a developer relations engineer.

In a peculiar approach to web design strategy, the U.S. State Department has upgraded its mobile website, m.state.gov, to a responsive design.

The General Services Administration wants your ideas on how it can help make the federal government more energy efficient.

Meet Streetmix creator and Code for America fellow Lou Huang.

This is the start of the third year teaching teams of scientists (professors and their graduate students) in the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps. This month we’ve crossed ~300 teams in the first two years through the program.

Over the past few years, the civic innovation movement has grown tremendously. It's exploded really. Ten years ago, who would have imagined that Chicago would be a national leader in open government data?

A wrap-up of this week’s civic technology and open government news.

ArchiveSocial enables public sector organizations to embrace social media by minimizing risk and eliminating compliance barriers.

Meet Danny Chapman, director of design, NIC.

During last week’s 2013 Code for America summit at the Yerba Buena Center, officials from cities including Louisville, New York City, South Bend and New Orleans spoke about how open data had changed the complexion of their communities in public safety, citizen services and blight mapping.

Federal Communications Commission Chief Information Officer David Bray announced Tuesday a new blog, Twitter handle and hashtag in an effort to open up communications on the agency's technology strategy and operations.

A wrap-up of this week's civic technology and open government news.

Today the City of Chicago launched the City of Chicago Data Dictionary, a single, comprehensive database catalog for the City of Chicago and City of Chicago sister agencies.

Gov. Jack Dalrymple named Mike Ressler as the state's new chief information officer on Thursday.

The National Conference on Citizenship is looking for a chief information officer/chief technology officer.

This past September, more than 1,000 DC-area entrepreneurs and government innovators gathered for GovFest.

In recent months, we've highlighted several efforts to teach young people how to code and about technology. These efforts have included Englewood Codes, Civic Summer and Adler Planetarium's Youth Hackathon.

Regardless of what's happening between the opposite ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, why is America in this situation, and what can we do to ensure it never happens again?

Perhaps the old saw "lipstick on a pig" is the best description for the information technology fiasco that was Healthcare.gov on October 1, 2013.

Spearheaded by SF's Office of Innovation and led by Mayor Ed Lee Senior Advisor Rahul Mewawalla, the program will embed "world-class entrepreneurial teams" into the inner workings of government to help inspire the next big civic thing and a new spin on the initial public offering.

Registration is still open for the 2013 Code for America Summit set for October 15 to 17 in San Francisco.

A Q&A with "The Solution Revolution" co-authors William D. Eggers and Paul Macmillan.

After nearly a year since it first announced proposed open data legislation that included the creation of a city chief data officer, San Francisco has officially posted the position.

Lee announced the city posted municipal code on GitHub "to make it more accessible to our public."

The policy calls for the city "to make every reasonable effort to publish its data in machine readable formats using prevailing open standards" and directs the city administrator to lead the effort under a specific timeline.

I first met Alex Howard in Los Angeles at Gov20LA a few years ago. This was shortly before he joined O'Reilly Media as its Washington correspondent covering the open government/Gov 2.0 beat.

This animation visualizes one week's worth of turnstile data for the New York City Subway.

PublicStuff helps local governments turn service requests and inquiries into tangible community improvements by connecting people directly to their city representatives from their laptop, mobile phone or tablet.

Finally, a bike-sharing program is coming to San Francisco!

Despite open government calls for performance metrics and financial transparency in government, you'd be hard-pressed to find any of this for the movement behind it.

Today, open data and its power to transform a city and a nation by engaging tech savvy citizens will be on display at San Francisco City Hall. And just as importantly, companies that have been successful because of forward thinking open data policies will testify to our elected leaders about its importance.

Walkonomics mobile app rates and maps the pedestrian-friendliness of every street in San Francisco, Manhattan and England.

Steve Reitano is conducting an open data research project as part of his academic work at Royal Roads University in Canada.

Jason Hibbetts is a great guy and a true leader in the open government community, and he is asking for your support in helping fund the first 500 copies of his upcoming book, “The Foundation for an Open Source City.”

In October 2012, in the form of proposed legislation, San Francisco announced it would appoint a chief data officer to “be responsible for sharing City data with the public, facilitating the sharing of information between City departments, and analyzing how data sets can be used to improve city decision making.”

Weekly wrap-up of civic news.

Park.it creates happy drivers driving in cities like San Francisco, by helping them avoid parking tickets or tow away charges along with parking choices at their fingertips.

It hasn't garnered the accolades San Francisco historically has, but it appears Oakland is starting to pull ahead in the Bay Bridge Open Government Series.

Weekly wrap-up of civic news.

Vice President of Community Adriel Hampton pitches NationBuilder Government, a unified web, communications and CRM database solution.

On January 22-23, the Institute for the Future will host Connected Citizens, a 24-hour collective forecasting game to "to rethink and reprogram government services for a complex and connected world."

January CivicMeets will be held in Sacramento, San Francisco and Vancouver (Rumor has it Oakland is starting one soon).

Piwik creator Matthieu Aubry shares how the open source real time web analytics tool may be a viable option for government.

I spend a lot of time on government websites. I probably hold the world record for number of government website visits.

Urban ventures accelerator Tumml will host a panel discussion, Uncharted Territory: Urban Innovation and the Role of Government, on January 28 from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. at the Hatchery in San Francisco (Register here).

Captricity solves the “paper problem,” unlocking digital, machine-readable data from paper.

MIT Technology Review Editor David Rotman’s commentary on the difference between makers and manufacturers applies to what's happening with government these days around open data applications, open source software development and civic hackathons.

Citizinvestor co-founder Jordan Raynor discusses the rise of the 'micro-philanthropist' and how digital tools are empowering citizens to help crowdfund public projects.

Powered by New York City’s 311 open data, here’s a great video visualization of the 1,551,402 phone, text and online 311 requests made in 2012.

Great video highlighting what a civic hackathon is and how it works via a re-cap of GreenBiz’s recent three-day ‘Hack City.’

I've been thinking a lot about the importance of a more structured approach to community with respect to the civic technology movement, which is why I picked up Brad Feld's 'Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City.'

Great Clay Shirky TED Talk on how distributed version control and "having access to all the source code all of the time" will one day change the way government works.

New York City's Michael Flowers gives an overview of how the city leverages data analytics to solve problems and better serve citizens.

Great “Connected Empowerment” video featuring San Francisco Chief Innovation Officer Jay Nath and civic action platform, Neighborland.

There’s been a great deal of discussion around the value of civic apps contests, and now there’s a book for that.

We're told American success equals economic growth. The data tell a different story: GDP doesn't predict better lives, but civic measures do.

Three years ago in my first blog post here on GovFresh, I recommended the U.S. government centralize its web operations, something I believe applies to government at every level.

Visualizing Health Reform is the go-to source for factual, easy-to-understand information on health care reform in Illinois.

The question has again been asked, where are the women leaders and innovators in e-government, digital diplomacy, online politics, tech policy and related?

This past September Vallejo, Ca., began the United States' first citywide venture in participatory budgeting, allowing residents to directly decide how $3.4 million dollars of public money would be spent.

Revelstone provides a web-based performance analytics and benchmarking platform to help local governments manage better.

Recognizing that good ideas are found outside City Hall, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee is giving you an opportunity to join him and his team of innovators inside City Hall.

For those of you interested in starting or joining the civic technology movement where you live, watch Code for America Brigade program director Kevin Curry discuss how designers and developers are doing just this everywhere across the United States.

Politify simulates of the financial impacts of the plans proposed by Mitt Romney and Barack Obama.

San Francisco will announce proposed revisions to open data legislation Monday that includes the creation of a chief data officer who will serve as the primary evangelist for making city data freely-available to the public.

sf.citi brings out the the tech heavyweights for a new video imagining what civic technology could do for a "smarter San Francisco."

CivicMeet is a new monthly meetup that brings together public and private sector innovators working to create a more open, engaged civil society.

Great video from the Chicago mayor's office on their Open 311 deployment.

Code for America announced the 9 cities that will participate in its 2013 fellowship program.

Neighbor.ly is a civic crowdfunding platform for U.S. cities and civic-minded organizations.

Fix 311 aims to be a nationwide app for the 311 system using smartphones and GPS. Fix 311 also includes a CRM system to manage cases.

South Orange, New Jersey, mayor Alex Torpey has a great speech from Personal Democracy Forum 2012, where he discussed how the Internet is changing the way politicians learn, listen and engage with citizens, as well as the changing dynamic of who will seek elected office in the future.

The recent Open Government Pledge on Honolulu.Govfresh.com brought a moment of pause for me as I watched all three Mayoral candidates respond with a YES within minutes of each other. I am one of the three candidates and the incumbent Mayor, Peter Carlisle.

Watch San Francisco Chief Innovation Officer Jay Nath being interviewed by Brian Solis.

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.

With the launch of the new Code for America Brigade website, we asked Program Director Kevin Curry to talk about its mission and how you can bring ‘civic hacking’ to where you live.

Citizinvestor is the latest startup to tackle public budget woes by offsetting lack of public funding with crowdsourced citizen donations targeted to specific projects.

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 (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.

Ines Mergel asks a great question about a government 2.0 icon emblematic of the potential local open government had in its nascent heyday way back two years ago.

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.

Open Source Digital Voting Foundation’s John Sebes writes about watching new citizens complete voter registration application forms and the associated usability issues, especially for older, less tech-savvy demographic.

This is the first time I’ve heard of Harvard-educated, professional wrestler look-alike and Braddock, Pennsylvania, mayor John Fetterman, featured in this episode of Hulu’s “A Day In The Life” series.

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."

Measured Voice President Jed Sundwall writes “Why We’re a Civic Startup” on the company’s blog to highlight why it applied to the Code for America Accelerator program.

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.

Congratulations to New York City Chief Digital Officer Rachel Sterne on her Vogue magazine profile.

Chicago Chief Technology Officer John Tolva joins us to discuss the city’s open data and open311 initiatives, as well as its work with Code for America.

Code for America officially launched its Code for America Accelerator to “‘turbo-charge’ select civic startups by providing them an opportunity to amplify market awareness of their product, to access a wealth of business training and advice, and to be introduced to a broad network of potential investors and civic leaders.”

CivicSponsor wants to disrupt the traditional way we fund our public spaces. Here, its three co-founders outline how their new venture aims to help citizens and public servants think outside the taxpayer box.

When no one in Nick Gaines' UC Berkeley freshman political science class could answer the question “Who is your state senator?," he tuned in, dropped out and started GovHub with co-founder Adam Becker.

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.”

Great TEDxPhilly talk by Code for America Founder and Executive Director Jen Pahlka. Really inspiring to see Jen articulate what’s happening around city and local government beyond the tech talk people like me are so in the weeds on.

I’ve been collecting links (below) from the UK’s Government Digital Service blog for a while wondering when they’ll stop executing their great “beta” work on GOV.UK, but they continue to outdo themselves.

Dan Morgan‘s comments on my “How do you measure the value of Gov 2.0?” post offer an insightful perspective I feel they warrant a post of their own.

Creating sustainable, meaningful civic contributions to government is something I’ve addressed before, and it’s something that continues to elude us in the form of civic applications and hackathons, despite the overwhelming attention given to each.

We've heard a lot about Drupal and WordPress in government, but not much about the open source platform Joomla. We asked Joomla External Communications Lead Sandra Ordonez to share how government is using it, its key features, how it compares to Drupal and WordPress and what governments are using it.

In January 2011, Michael McDonald and Micah Altman founded the Public Mapping Project and began building the open source platform DistrictBuilder to give citizens more of a say in the redistricting process.

After watching the documentary Hacking Democracy, I started researching how government uses voting technology to conduct elections. That's how I learned about the work of Open Source Digital Voting Foundation.

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.

Mark Headd has an interesting thought on how to encourage better participation at civic hackathons, suggesting perhaps a registration fee would encourage more reliable participation.

As I mentioned in my 2012 civic commitment post, I’m focused on helping drastically lower the cost, de-mystify the technology and build better websites for local government.

Honolulu launched a new 311 application, Honolulu 311, now available on iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile and Blackberry. The service was developed by CitySourced.

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

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.

Hacking Democracy, released in 2007, documents the improprieties and lack of security around proprietary voting software vendor Diebold Elections Systems.

The Public Technology Institute released its list of “What’s Out and What’s In?” technology predictions for 2012 based on interviews with local government IT executives and vendors who service city and county governments.

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.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Jay Nath has been appointed Chief Innovation Officer for the City and County of San Francisco.

Civic Commons Director Nick Grossman and 2011 Code for America Fellow Jeremy Canfield give an overview of the new Civic Commons Marketplace, a repository and apps showcase for open source civic and government development projects.

The Kansas City Star reports e-gov services provider NIC won a $30-$35 million contract from the Texas Department of Public Safety.

2012 is shaping up to be the “Year of the Civic Startup.”

Temple University Director of the Center for Design+Innovation Youngjin Yoo has an excellent “A city as a computing platform” talk from TEDxPhilly held November 8, 2011.

A recent Seth Godin blog post resonates with me and reflects how I’ve always approached GovFresh and will continue to do in 2012.

Following up on my previous post for the City of Philadelphia, this post describes what happened on the open government and open data fronts in the City of Baltimore in 2011.

The time of year-end reviews and top 10 lists is now upon us, so I’m compiling the details of a watershed year for open data and civic hacking in two cities where I’ve seen huge leaps made in 2011 - Philadelphia and Baltimore.

New York City was honored as the ‘City of the Year’ in our 2011 GovFresh Awards. We asked NYC Chief Digital Officer Rachel Sterne to summarize the work done in 2011, what made it happen, and share what's to come in 2012.

Fresh off off getting recognized as ‘Public Servant of the Year’ in our 2011 GovFresh Awards, we asked the City of Austin’s Matthew Esquibel, Programmer Analyst Supervisor for Internet/Intranet Web Design in the Office of Communications & Technology Management, to share more about his work.

Fresh off off getting recognized as the 2011 GovFresh Awards ‘Citizen of the Year,’ we asked Adriel Hampton to share more about his work and what drives him.

Location-based mobile reporting platform CitySourced announced it has raised $1.33 million in Series A financing.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the 2011 GovFresh Awards. Thank you also to our judges and partners. This was an incredible experience for us to be part of.

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

Here are five visualizations from the new Cook County (IL) open data catalog.

Code for America made a number of announcements Wednesday that will have a big impact on the organization’s work in 2012 and potentially the future of government technology.

Last week, thousands of votes were cast across every category in the 2011 GovFresh Awards. Our judges are now reviewing and selecting their picks and winners will be announced on Monday, December 19.

Gov 2.0 Radio hosts Adriel Hampton and Allison Hornery talked with Cook County Deputy Director of New Media Sebastian James about the launch of Data.cookcountyil.gov.

ShineOn Storytelling created an excellent video overview of Education Hack Day, held November 12 and 13 in Baltimore.

NIC Inc. announced Tuesday it was awarded a 10-year contract to develop and maintain Oregon's official website, oregon.gov.

The 2011 GovFresh Awards are going strong, but entries and voting in the apps categories could use a lot more love.

Every day, tech-minded citizens across the country are doing good by their communities, literally geeking out about how they can help re-define the relationship government has with its citizens, using technology as a democratic tool to empower both.

Open Knowledge Foundation co-founder Rufus Pollock discusses his ideas on scaling an open data ecosystem.

Memphis announced it will develop its new website using the open source platform Drupal and OpenPublic. Mediacurrent, Linx Consulting and Phase2 Technology will collaborate on the project.

Here’s a presentation that Openly Local‘s Chris Taggart gave during the 2011 Open Government Data Camp in Warsaw.

The British government’s Cabinet Office has published an Open Source Procurement Toolkit as part of its ongoing information and communications strategy.

New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg has a blog post on how cities are collaborating to better leverage data analytics and maximize taxpayer return on investment. The post cites examples from major American cities and how they’ve leveraged data, especially 311 logs, to realize efficiencies.

Dilbert creator Scott Adams has a great editorial in The Wall Street Journal where he provides serious commentary on government and how civic-focused design would help modernize and better meet citizen expectations.

Code for America has published videos of CfA Fellows demoing their apps during the Code for America Summit held October 13-14 in San Francisco.

Switzerland-based RedCut has released Citizen 2.0, a white paper of case studies that include 17 examples of social media and government innovation. We asked CEO Hadi Barkat to share his methodology and what he learned.

Excellent Civic Startups presentation from Civic Commons Managing Director Nick Grossman.

I regularly get emails from start-ups, entrepreneurs and developers who ask to get their products featured on GovFresh.

O’Reilly Media’s Alex Howard interviewed musician and tech entrepreneur MC Hammer at the 2011 Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco where, towards the end, Hammer talks about the impact social media, mobile and crowdsourcing have on government.

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.

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.

When I talk to city and local government technology leaders about their challenges and lessons learned, I'm often surprised they don't openly and regularly share their experiences with the civic technology community or, in general, the citizens they serve.

During last week's Code for America 2011 Summit, I sat down with Chicago Chief Technology Officer John Tolva and asked him about his current IT initiatives, challenges and lessons learned.

Excellent Code for America video featuring the 2011 fellows discussing their work and CfA mission.

Civic mobile app YouTown is now available in the Android Market.

Code for America Founder and Executive Director Jennifer Pahlka announced its 2012 fellows today at the Code for America Summit in San Francisco.

In 2007, Robert Vogel and Mike Alvarez Cohen started Peak Democracy to “build public trust in government through online public comment forums that are civil yet meet government freedom-of-speech and transparency laws.”

This week’s Gov2 TV discusses the international Open Government Partnership, the “open gov is dead” debate and the latest government 2.0 news and trends with O’Reilly Media Government 2.0 Washington Correspondent Alex Howard and host Walter Schwabe.

New York City Chief Digital Officer Rachel Sterne's Strata New York 2011 presentation is a great overview of the city's open government work.

Honolulu Deputy Chief Information Officer Forest Frizzell joins GovFresh founder Luke Fretwell for the inaugural episode of GovFresh on Gov 2.0 Radio to discuss Honolulu open government and Gov 2.0, CityCamp Honolulu and the city’s upcoming partnership with Code for America.

Huffington Post Media Group, owned by AOL, announced it has purchased civic platform Localocracy for “under $1 million,” according to AllThingsD.

Florida and Washington are both seeking chief information officers.

"The First State" will become the twenty-fourth state website to be managed by e-government firm NIC Inc.

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

Earlier this month, the National Association of Government Webmasters honored three members with its 2011 Pinnacle Awards for the “highest achievement in web design and development.”

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.

There’s a lot more to democratic government than holding elections and town hall meetings.

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.

Several months ago, with the unveiling of the OpenDataPhilly website, the City of Philadelphia joined the growing fraternity of cities across the country and around the world to release municipal data sets in open, developer friendly formats.

Just discovered this MESH Government to the Rescue TEDxGotham talk by former New York State Senate Chief Information Officer Andrew Hoppin.

The next iteration of Georgia.gov will be built using the open source platform Drupal.

Developed and designed by Derek Eder and Nick Rougeux, open data and visualization project Look at Cook was created in collaboration with Cook County (IL) Commissioner John Fritchey to bring aesthetics to the county’s budget and expenses.

Government Technology announced its list of 2011 Best of the Web Award Winners today, and I’m completely confused as to how they came to these conclusions.

What if you could make litter, graffiti, and other problems in your neighborhood go away just by using your phone?

The civic hackathon - a gathering (either virtual or physical) of technologists for a few days or weeks to build civic-themed software - remains one of the more durable manifestations of the open government movement.

On this day one year ago, Alex Howard published his first GovFresh post. Since then, he has written a total of 302 on his OpenGovFresh blog.

Excellent TEDxLondonBusinessSchool talk on open government by FutureGov founder Dominic Campbell.

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.

In a new blog post, Gartner's Andrea Di Maio asks if it's time to pull the plug on government Websites?

Building data. It’s a small thing, but what if the buildings where we live, work and play were able to show us how they work?

A couple of months ago, I wrote about the state of the open data program in the city of Baltimore.

Firmstep has launched a new service called AchieveCity, a Web-based government platform powered by the Drupal distribution OpenPublic (developed by Phase2 Technology) and hosted in the Amazon EC2 environment.

The U.S. Department of Transportation is officially nowhere to be found in social media circles, but DOT Secretary Ray LaHood is everywhere, including Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.

Neighborland is a new ideation crowdsourcing startup that gives citizens a "fun and easy way for residents to suggest new businesses and services that they want in their neighborhood."

In August of 1993, San Francisco officially adopted the Sunshine Ordinance, a law that allowed any citizen to request city documents, records, filings or correspondence, attend meetings of any group that meets with the Mayor or city department heads and make any meeting of the governing bodies of certain local, state, regional and federal agencies attended by City representatives public.

It's 9:15 on Friday night, and there are about 100 people milling around the GAAFTA headquarters.

Last March, the Aspen Institute and John S. and James L. Knight Foundation released the white paper Civic Engagement and Community Information: Five Strategies to Revive Civic Communication.

In an effort to better share what we're reading (but not blogging), we're posting news items we find interesting on Tumblr.

We asked new 311 iPhone app Commons co-founder Suzanne Kirkpatrick to share her thoughts on the new venture, 311 and trends in open government and Gov 2.0.

How is it possible, in the 21st century, that I can Skype with friends in China, keep up with my friends across the country via Facebook and exchange messages with the CEO of a startup I admire on Twitter, but yet when I try to communicate with my members of Congress, it seems like everything I do is swallowed up by the black abyss?

Get Satisfaction CEO Wendy Lea shares her advice on how government can leverage Web 2.0 tools to better connect with citizens.

According to Edmonton Chief Information Officer Chris Moore, the city has launched its official open data site at edmonton.socrata.com.

Gov 2.0 Radio interviews Chicago's new Chief Technology Officer John Tolva.

How do you get techies, govies, and citizens to identify, collaborate, and start creating solutions for your local government? Host a CityCamp.

Whether it was written out of naivete or for the intent of sensationalism, the other Vivek, Vivek Wadhwa, misses the mark in his Washington Post piece The death of open government.

TechPresident’s Becky Kazansky has a great overview of Commons, a new 311 iPhone app that makes use of gaming and social features to better engage citizens.

A wrap-up of SFOpen 2011, the San Francisco mayoral forum on open government, civic technology and public innovation.

Tropo's Mark Headd discusses the impact of hackathons on the open government movement and how developers can get involved.

City of San Francisco's Department of Technology Jay Nath on why government should have an innovation officer.

If there's one lesson that's inherent to CityCampSF, it's that crowdsourcing will save the world.

CityCamp founder Kevin Curry on how CityCamp San Francisco fits in and stands out.

CityCampSF founder, NationBuilder Chief Organizer and Gov 2.0 Host Adriel Hampton on CityCampSF.

2011 SF Mayoral Candidate Joanna Rees on the role of meetups in civic engagement.

2011 SF Mayoral Candidate Dennis Herrera on the role of meetups in civic engagement.

San Francisco mayoral candidate John Avalos discusses his ideas on open government and Government 2.0.

SFOpen 2011 brings together the 2011 San Francisco Mayoral candidates for a discussion on open government, civic engagement, technology and innovation.

Our government is only as strong as the bonds of trust between our institutions and citizens. An effective government must communicate its goals and actions.

San Francisco mayoral candidate Phil Ting discusses his ideas on open government and Government 2.0.

CityCampSF 2011 will be held this Saturday, June 18, 2011, and feature municipal employees, journalists, developers and neighborhood leaders "working on solutions for better communities and government."

When President John F. Kennedy famously proclaimed "Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country," a sense of civic pride was embedded into our patriotic psyche and Americans were given the money quote needed to do more than just complain about their government.

Google announced the launch of YouTube for Government with a simple landing page and playlist of examples of how elected officials and government is using its video platform.

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

The city council of St. Charles, Missouri has launched Discover St. Charles, a YouTube channel that delivers department updates to citizens using short video clips.

San Francisco mayoral candidate Leland Yee discusses his ideas on open government and Government 2.0.

San Francisco mayoral candidate David Chiu discusses his ideas on open government and Government 2.0.

San Francisco mayoral candidate Bevan Dufty discusses his ideas on open government and Government 2.0.

Federal government open source and open government practitioners will convene for a one-day conference, OpenGovDC, June 14 at Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington, DC.

Eight of the 9 major San Francisco mayoral candidates have committed to the Open Government Pledge for San Francisco.

San Francisco mayoral candidate Joanna Rees discusses her ideas on open government and Government 2.0.

San Francisco's Committee on Information Technology (COIT) has released its first Information, Communications and Technology Plan that "focuses the City’s resources on the issues of security, access, infrastructure, communication and efficient computing."

Over the past few months, I’ve been seeing different models of ‘digital’ or ‘smart’ cities. Many of these models are heavily centered on the re-engineering of technical or physical layers of infrastructure.

With a bold background image of Delicate Arch and a search box front and center, the newly-designed Utah.gov borrows a page from Microsoft search engine Bing to help its residents find everything they need to know about their state government.

Change.org announced it will host a Hack for Change contest June 17-18 to build "apps for social good."

Much of the energy and effort around open government to date has literally been hacked together or leans towards a reactive, transparency watchdog approach to getting government to be more extroverted.

In an effort to make it easier for local governments to better implement open government policies, a group of dedicated advocates recently created a sample Local Open Government Initiative (LOGI), modeled after the one initiated by President Obama for the federal government in January 2009.

The City and County of San Francisco announced it has selected Microsoft Exchange Online to host its 23,000 employee email system.

Would the government work better if you had more say? At Reset San Francisco, we think the answer to that question is absolutely yes, which is why we were so excited when the folks behind the movement for Participatory Budgeting paid a visit to City Hall last week.

Today on Gov 2.0 Radio, Allison Hornery of CivicTEC in Sydney pointed to a new app by New York University computer science student Max Stoller that mashes up NY health inspection data with Foursquare, and provides a text message warning if the restaurant isn’t making the grade. It’s called DontEat.At.

Today, Suki Kott and I formally launched SF Tech Dems, a new political club aimed at shaping tech policy in the SF Bay Area and throughout California.

San Francisco Academy of Art multimedia graduate student Fabricio Sousa produced a great video on open data and Gov 2.0 featuring Zonability founder and CEO Leigh Budlong and Gov 2.0 Radio host Adriel Hampton.

The City of San Francisco over the last two years has aggressively embraced social media for marketing of government programs and initiatives, citizen engagement, and two-way communications. An important task for the next mayor is not only to preserve the vibrant ecosystem left by one of the U.S.'s most tech-savvy mayors, but to continue to advance government innovation in one of the world's most tech-savvy cities.