Posts By Alexander B. Howard

New Pew survey emphasizes the Internet’s importance in civil society

The role of the Internet as a platform for collective action grows. A survey released this week by the Pew Research Center’s Internet and Life Project shed light on the social side of the Internet. The results offered insight into the differences between the connected and the disconnected, revealing that Internet users are more likelyRead… Read more »

What is the most imporant research or data for me to consider regarding online civics before next week’s State of the Internet Conference?

I’ll be on a panel next week. What sources do you consider absolutely crucial to know on this topic? Following is the State of the Net agenda and panel description. We’ll have new data from the Pew Internet and American Life Project to discuss but I’d like to be as informed as possible. Thank you!Read… Read more »

White House hosts webchat on eve of open government directive anniversary

Tomorrow, December 8, is the one year anniversary of the White House Open Government Directive, which which required federal agencies to take steps to achieve key milestones in transparency, participation, and collaboration. Today at 2:20 PM EST, the first United States chief technology officer, Aneesh Chopra, will join OMB chief information officer Vivek Kundra andRead… Read more »

Talking about FCC Open Developer Day with Gina Trapani

The first FCC developer day focused on open government innovation. For a day, the commission room that has hosted hearings on spectrum policy, licensing, mergers and net neutrality was full of geeks focused on making something useful from the FCC’s new APIs and open data stores. One of those geeks is well-known to many developers:Read… Read more »

What do the midterm elections mean for Gov 2.0?

Sweeping election gains for Republicans in the 2010 midterm elections will shape how Gov 2.0 initiatives and open government move ahead in the next two years at the state and federal level. At the state level, limited resources will mean other states may follow in California’s footsteps, where budget woes meant connecting citizens to e-servicesRead… Read more »

Open Government goes on Broadway at Fedtalks

What did I learn at Fedtalks? The Department of Defense is way ahead of the country on electronic health records. The Veterans Administration’s new “Blue Button” is a sorely needed salve to disabled veterans. By 2014, NASA CTO Chris Kemp estimates that Generation Y will be over 47% of the workforce. President Obama knows howRead… Read more »

GSA asks citizens to submit milestones in government social media use

Earlier today, David McClure, the Associate Administrator of the General Services Administration’s Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies, introduced a government social media timeline in a blog post on its new citizen engagement platform, Citizen.apps.gov. Here’s an excerpt from his comments: Gov 2.0 is like any social network– it’s always changing, can be bothRead… Read more »

GSA launches Apps.gov NOW, a platform for open government software

Today at Fedtalks in Washington, the General Services Administration’s director of citizen engagement, Gwynne Kostin, talked about its new open government platform, Apps.gov NOW. Apps.gov NOW launched in beta in August but the Gov 2.0 community hasn’t heard much about it until this morning. The new platform, available at citizen.apps.go, allows federal employees to chooseRead… Read more »