MTA Long Island Rail Road (NY) will spend $3.5 million to upgrade its passenger communications systems. The improvements will allow customers to receive real-time service alerts on their smartphones. Currently LIRR sends out email alerts if trains are running more than 10 minutes late, and MTA’s CooCoo application lets customers access information about schedules andRead… Read more »
I originally published this on GovWin. As an aside, NGGS11 was an excellent event and every government related employee can learn from it. Though government contractors and federal employees have their differences, one certainty is that the workforce will soon go through an employee transition as baby boomers retire. This means that a younger workforceRead… Read more »
A joint city-state audit says that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (NY) mismanages its weekend subway diversions, which are required to complete track work, and does a poor job of keeping riders informed. The report from the New York State and New York City comptrollers looked at 29 weekend subway service disruptions between January 2009 andRead… Read more »
Maybe Friday afternoons make people bolder. But I think there’s a longer-term shift happening. Last Friday, the ever-interesting insider @pubstrat published an interesting piece gently critiquing the new e-petitions service, arguing — rightly, I think — that requiring petitioners to specify the responsible central government Department for their issue is a step backwards: A solutionRead… Read more »
Here’s the latest of our mini-guides to social technology, where we have had a go at explaining what Facebook is all about. It’s embedded below, but if you can’t see it, you can visit the Kind of Digital site and download the PDF. What is Facebook? View more documents from Kind of Digital Possibly relatedRead… Read more »
Do you have a few hundred Facebook friends? According to the Pew Research Center, you’re pretty typical. A new report looks at how social networking affects our lives in terms of trust, tolerance, social support, and community and political engagement. A few findings: Over half of all adult social networkers are over the age ofRead… Read more »
(image source) Are you ever at a party, or with some friends and start twitching to check your phone? Do you ever tweet or post a Facebook update just to experience the high of the response? If so, is technology the new smoking? Lots of scary parallels here. Many join social media sites initially toRead… Read more »
Some experiments in collecting images + location from mobile devices Over the last couple of years I’ve been fascinated with technology that collects and aggregates mappable information. Specifically I have been searching for or creating tools that have these properties: Lets users discover things near them, allows submission of location, photos and text Built onRead… Read more »
David Moore of the Participatory Politics Foundation (PPF) — and a member of our community — discusses the technology, principles, and development of OpenGovernment.org — his new free, open, citizen engagement and transparency service for U.S. state legislation — in my new post at Slaw.ca, entitled “Sites of Real Engagement”: OpenGovernment.org Opens Up State Legislation.Read… Read more »
The Phone Tips & Tricks series is supported by the Sprint Federal Employee Discount Program. To find awesome discounts visit the Sprint Federal Employee Discount resource center today. I don’t know about you, but I have a big thing for apps. These days you can find an app for pretty much anything out there, whichRead… Read more »