Check out this post by Jason Goldman. Starting April 6th, his new job in the White House will be “to help create more meaningful online engagement between government and American citizens.” The core question from Jason: Here’s what I would love. I would love for you to answer this question: How can we — our government andRead… Read more »
I’ve cleared the decks this week. Today, I am digging deep into the draft Sunshine 2.0 guide for the national League of Women Voters. I’ve been drawing on my early e-government days in Minnesota state government and my many speaking trips where I’ve collected some of the best examples of democracy online supported by governmentRead… Read more »
The national League of Women Voters has commissioned me via E-Democracy.org to draft a guide titled “Sunshine 2.0.”In short, local Leagues will use this guide to evaluate their local government online efforts based on their support of democracy. Government themselves, academics, and the media may also use the guide to see how they compare withRead… Read more »
In many cities, neighborhood councils have been established through a mix of citizen-up voluntary and government-led activities. Often established as non-profits, the resulting entities experiment with a mix of models and activities. My sense is that below the radar, often unregulated by open meeting laws or broadcast communication models, many are experimenting with social mediaRead… Read more »
With Transparency Camp and OpenGovWest there is a lot of excitement brewing about an effort to establish an “open data set” on all government websites in the United States. This is in particularly targeted to making local government, including all those obscure special districts out there, far more accessible to the people online. The publicRead… Read more »
The other week I put out a query on the Sunlight Labs e-mail list for software developers active with (mostly) U.S. national level online transparency and open government effort and asked if there was a need for a similar e-list for those focused locally. The answer was a resounding yes. So here it is: LocalLabsRead… Read more »
Who else here hopes to make it to CityCamp in Chicago in January? Looks like a great event is shaping up of January 23-24. What kind of topics would you like to see explored? Any stories/experiences/projects you’d like to share? Also, E-Democracy.org is hosting the e-mail group for the event, so feel free to virtuallyRead… Read more »
I am looking for examples of governments that have take public meeting notices to the next level. Share away! Perhaps even a government that encourages people to comment on upcoming agenda items. Someday I’d like to help create a network that allows citizens to look up meetings from lots of governments based on where theyRead… Read more »
Way back in 1995 I coordinated e-government (we called it government online back then) in the State of Minnesota and launched our first web portal. I also happened to lead as a volunteer a project called Minnesota E-Democracy. I was “government by day, citizen by night.” I shoveled content one-way during the day and participatedRead… Read more »