Always read the fine print. I tried to publish directly from Storify…
“Note: Will not work with wordpress.com hosted blogs.”
Sorry for the blank post and deleted tweets. But since you’re here, you can still view the story at Storify:
Interesting article from the CEO of Evernote – if you don’t know Evernote and you have an iPad or iPhone, you should definitely visit http://evernote.com – challenging assumptions about mobile versus desktop and web applications.
Four Lessons From Evernote’s First Week On The Mac App Store
Several websites are now building apps to deliver their content – an interesting concept for government to think about regarding content and service delivery, especially for subcribers, frequent users, and bulk transactions. Check out Mashable’s apps (iPhone/iPad and App Store) for an example.
Mashable Mac App Launches In Mac App Store
I’ll be in DC next week at the Gov 2.0 Summit…gathering a bevy of links for my next update!
Here are some things that crossed my radar this week.
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The list isn’t comprehensive— there’s a lot of great technology out there I wish the government was using. But these three all can help government reduce costs, provide better services, and break down the barriers between government and citizens.
The last one Clay mentions is a SaaS online helpdesk called ZenDesk. Many 2.0 companies and startups are using this in tandem with Get Satisfaction for customer service. I know some states have looked into this, and it definitely could have applications outside of a strict customer support role. (e.g. Clay talks about using it to manage FOIA requests.)
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Speaking of Get Satisfaction, they have released some interesting updates in the last few months, namely Facebook integration. Take a look at the way Mighty Leaf Tea is using GS + FB for a great example:
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FCC managing director Steven VanRoekel talks with Alex Howard about soliciting citizen participation and building platforms.
The new site will embrace open government principles around communication and participation,” said VanRoekel. “Consider OpenInternet.gov, where over 30,000 ideas were generated, or Broadband.gov. Comments there go into the official record and are uploaded to the Library of Congress. You will see that in a much more pervasive way in the new FCC.gov.
In January, the FCC launched Reboot.FCC.gov and asked for public input on improving citizen interaction.
We’re approaching .gov like .com. We’re not only setting up data services and wrapping the API, but we’re building apps as well, and utilizing the same APIs we expect developers to use.
Notable links at the new FCC:
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For those of you who don’t spend all your free time on Twitter scanning for #gov20 news, Uservoice is a user-driven feedback forum in the vein of the original DELL IdeaStorm, or the more recent My Starbucks Idea. Users submit feedback/bugs/suggestions/ideas and some rise to the top based on votes from the community using the forum.
Idaho implemented Uservoice for the Governor’s office and is taking suggestions from citizens about how to improve the efficiency of government.
http://efficiencyforidaho.uservoice.com
The city of Vancouver is using Uservoice for their Talk Green to Us campaign. They’ve gathered over 300 ideas from the public about how to meet their “Greenest City” targets. The city has already taken action on 10 ideas and have completed 3 (which is all reported via the feedback tools).
http://vancouver.uservoice.com
Similarly, the city of Santa Cruz used Uservoice to crowdsource ways to solve the city’s budget crisis. This project was highlighted at last year’s Gov 2.0 Expo, and the forum is now offline. However, you can read more about the project at the Uservoice blog. The presentation from last year’s Gov 2.0 Expo is also online. It was also just discussed on this Forrester blog (a little late, but still a great write-up).
It’s an awesome tool for crowdsourcing ideas and feedback — they are running almost 50,000 forums. If you’d like to see more government examples just let me know; I probably have 20-25 bookmarked.
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Governments are attempting to, in the words of Kundra and Chopra, “close the innovation gap” with app challenges centered around various types of open data. It also allows them to get around certain kinds of procurement. The GSA is leveraging a 3rd party called ChallengePost for this new app challenge platform. Be sure to view the embedded video for a good explanation of Challenge.gov and why the GSA built this platform for using prizes and incentives to foster innovation.
Next month, the federal government will launch a new .gov website with a big idea behind it and high hopes that there will be big ideas generated within it. Challenge.gov is the latest effort in the evolution of collaborative innovation in open government. Should the approach succeed, challenges and contests have the potential to leverage the collective expertise of citizens, just as apps contests have been used to drive innovation in D.C. and beyond.
For your Googling pleasure, to read more about successful app challenges try:
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A few posts that have caught my eye recently…from Facebook, crowdsourcing, iPad apps and geodata, to Manor, TX.
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Last week, an airline in the United States became the first company to allow customers to book directly through its Facebook page. Will citizens soon be able to transact directly with government on social media? In interviews with FutureGov, officials in Indonesia, Australia and Singapore say that despite data security concerns, some government transactions on Facebook or Twitter will very soon be possible.
The post goes on to give a couple of international examples, and is generally an international focus. However, their point is valid. Google’s payment gateway hasn’t really caught on, but it’s also not an ecosystem that people spend hours a day in (in a browser tab open in the background, of course :).
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Info/Download: http://www.nysenate.gov/mobile
The New York State Senate today announced availability of “NYSenate for iPad,” the first application in the nation developed by a legislative body for the Apple iPad. The application can be downloaded for free today from the Apple iTunes App Store.
Like its predecessor, NYSenate Mobile for iPhones and Android phones, NYSenate for iPad brings New Yorkers closer to their elected officials, making comprehensive access to Senate information and content from all New York State Senators available any time, anywhere– citizens, staff, and journalists can use the app to search for bill information, contact their Senator, review event calendars, read Senator’s blogs, watch archived video of Senate Session, Committee Meetings and Public Hearings, and even submit Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests.
The Mobile app has been downloaded by more than 1,000 New Yorkers since the June launch.
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Polymaps is a free JavaScript library for making dynamic, interactive maps in modern web browsers. Huge potential for visualizing all those extremely large government datasets.
We’ve been working with Stamen to provide visual analysis of the huge datasets that we’re working with, and how people can communicate this data in sophisticated ways. A first step toward that goal is the release of a free and open-source set of tools and map engines allowing people to perform relatively sophisticated operations on their data in the browser.
The project has been online for a while at http://github.com/simplegeo/polymaps, and you can download the source code there; what’s new is the addition of a series of example maps so you can demonstrate what’s going on, and human-readable documentation so you can use them for your own projects.
Some of the examples are straightforward, letting you do things like group points into clusters and drop scaled gradients on to map locations. Others are more robust, letting you do things like change which direction is north by rotating the map and visualize the quality of street surfaces in San Francisco.
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Crowdsourcing, fraud detection, and open data tools were touted at a recent Senate hearing.
Alex Howard writes about potential the of crowdsourcing for government and how open data analysis is improving fraud detection.
For the first time, we can bridge the gap between online and the real world,” testified Crane. A challenge “thought impossible by the intelligence community using traditional techniques” was solved in 8 hours and 52 minutes, said Crane. “We leveraged the problem-solving capabilities of the participants,” said Crane, and “built the infrastructure that allowed others to solve the problem for us.”
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When it comes to environmental data, and data on contaminated groundwater, open government is not about citizen convenience or improved government efficiency. It is about giving people the information they need so that they can make informed decisions about their own lives and the lives of their families and children.
Definitely worth reading. I know many people within government are wary of “open data” / “open government” but this hits the nail on the head. Three “lessons learned” regarding making government more transparent and open through the lens of a Delaware case study.
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Colorado is working on a statewide strategy for collecting and sharing data. As part of that strategy, ex-CIO Mike Locatis created a new position (before he left for CA) — Chief Data Officer. Micheline Casey is leading a strategy to connect data held by Colorado, the federal government, and cities and counties.
They are developing protocols and guidelines for information and sharing and have published a 2010 State of Colorado Data Strategy.
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“Tiny Manor, Texas, proves that digital innovation isnt just for big cities.”
This is a great, short piece about Manor, Texas and its innovation platform ManorLabs.
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Corresponding GovTech mag piece.
Manor Labs, which launched in late October, is a Web portal where citizens can submit ideas to improve their city. From conception to (possibly) reality, every decision city officials make about a submitted idea is put in plain sight. At the same time, users can participate in and affect an idea’s development. For a president who is trying to deliver on promises of government transparency, it’s easy to see why the White House is giving Manor Labs a closer look.
Very cool report from Pew Internet about how media consumption has changed in the last 10 years.
I encourage you to substitute the word “government” in your head anytime you see the word “news” in the presentation. While the numbers won’t be quite right, the sentiment is spot on.
For example, from the slides…
How audience’s attitudes and behaviors have changed:
Any of that sound familiar if you substitute “government”?
Personally, this reinforces my thesis statement from the last post that government sites and news sites have (or at least should have) much in common. Government portals will hopefully continue to learn from the best news aggregation sites.
New D.C. Site to Rely on 3 Things for Delivering News on Every Block
People who visit Allbritton Communications’ still-unnamed metro D.C. news site when it launches in June will see elements that have been employed elsewhere — aggregation, geocoding, community engagement — but not quite in this formula.
This article is focused on implementing a local government/news portal, but hits several major points relevant to eGovernment including:
With a staff of 50 (“including 20 reporters and seven members of a community engagement team”), I’m excited to see the final product. Hopefully they are modeling EveryBlock in design as well as architecture. It’s one of my favorite data portals on the web.
Summary: the internet gives citizens new paths to government services and information.
Fully 82% of internet users (representing 61% of all American adults) looked for information or completed a transaction on a government website in the twelve months preceding this survey. Some of the specific government website activities in which Americans take part include:
- 48% of internet users have looked for information about a public policy or issue online with their local, state or federal government
- 46% have looked up what services a government agency provides
- 41% have downloaded government forms
- 35% have researched official government documents or statistics
- 33% have renewed a driver’s license or auto registration
- 30% have gotten recreational or tourist information from a government agency
- 25% have gotten advice or information from a government agency about a health or safety issue
- 23% have gotten information about or applied for government benefits
- 19% have gotten information about how to apply for a government job
- 15% have paid a fine, such as a parking ticket
- 11% have applied for a recreational license, such as a fishing or hunting license
Report Overview | Full Report (with PDF download available)
“We don’t trust government, but we like government websites” by Matthew Lasar at Ars Technica
“Pew Report: Citizens turning to Internet for government data, policy and services” by Alex Howard at O’Reilly Radar
Government Use of Social Media – “In Addition to,” Not “In Lieu of” by Steve Radick
This is all great news for eGovernment, open government, Gov 2.0, etc. Alex Howard’s article probably hits the most points and provides the best overall summary. To summarize his summary:
Another cool implementation of @Anywhere, this time from Google: the Follow Finder. http://followfinder.googlelabs.com
The Wall Street Journal has an interesting implementation of Twitter’s new @Anywhere platform.
@Anywhere allows web sites to integrate Twitter seamlessly into their site with just a few lines of Javascript.
Twitter @Anywhere is an easy to deploy solution for bringing the Twitter communication platform to your own site. Add follow buttons, hovercards, linkify @usernames, and build deeper integrations with “Connect to Twitter.” @Anywhere promotes a more engaged user base for your site.
You can see an example of the “hovercards” if you hover over any Twitter username on the Twitter web site. @Anywhere gives Twitter users a way to follow and engage without going to twitter.com.
The Wall Street Journal is using @Anywhere to keep people engaged in a subject. From Zach Seward (@zseward), outreach editor for WSJ.com:
Reading a discrete news article is often the worst way to engage with a topic. Let’s say you’re reading about unemployment and care about that issue. How do you declare that interest? What if you could *follow* the coverage the way you follow anything else these days: on Twitter. And what if, by following the coverage, you were actually engaging with it?
That’s how the Journal is using @anywhere: http://on.wsj.com/bjCDOX
Reading a post about jobs? You’ll see a button. Click that button and you have access to our jobs coverage: @JobsWSJ. Ask it questions. It’ll keep you up-to-date.
The button on WSJ.com launches a popup that connects to Twitter via their oAuth signon system — meaning you don’t give your username and password to the WSJ, you simply authenticate the use at twitter.com.
This is an excellent way to drive both traffic back to the WSJ, and gain followers at twitter.com. If the @JobsWSJ account provides compelling news and information, it is an unbelieveable way for the WSJ to maintain readers and attention.
Thanks to the @twittermedia account — which has a beautiful blog — for the tip. Read more about “the future of context” and the concept that became reality with @JobsWSJ. #futureofcontext
I’ve had this blog domain sitting in my WordPress Dashboard for a couple of years now. I never knew what to do with it… until now.
There are a host of people now talking, tweeting, and blogging about “government 2.0” — a concept that is part social media, part platform, part data, and totally transformative for government. I’ve recently been officially tasked with (instead of just doing it because I love it) keeping my ear to the ground, watching for new startups, new technology, new ideas…and I need a way to share them.
So, here it is. This blog is for my colleagues in twenty-three states across the country. And it’s for anyone who wants a filtered look at what web 2.0, social media, and the open data movement can do for our governments. I say “filtered” because I plan to keep this fairly lean. I won’t be posting any- and everything that comes through the Twitter #gov20 hashtag. This will be the place I post the things that make it through my personal filters and into the “hmmm, that’s interesting” pile.
A new blog. A fresh start. Here we go.
Great idea! The landscape is changing so quickly these days. Glad to see someone is keeping an eye on it for us. : )
Government 2.0 
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