Communications

Backlink Bartering: How interlinking among government sites can help get our web content found

The following post is expanded from my original post on May 23, 2011, to the Federal Web Content Managers Forum: As a fellow govie from GSA quoted the other day: “We fellow govies should support each other’s work” and no one more so than those of us working in digital content and the Internet. TheRead… Read more »

Patrick McHenry’s Facebook Sit-In, FB on K Street, and YouTube Town Halls

Sit-In, Facebook Style Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) had a busy week. First, he got lots of press and gained some notoriety for calling Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Elizabeth Warren a liar during a committee hearing. The chairman of the House Oversight TARP, Financial Services and Bailouts of Public and Private Programs subcommittee soon learned whatRead… Read more »

GCPedia 2.0 – CMS Showcase

One of the headline sections of our Open Government Canada webinar will be the CMS Showcase. These will introduce the core building block of an Open Gov program, the Web CMS (Content Management System). For example Drupal, Joomla, Plone, RedDot, and many others. We’ll be covering these apps, their cool features and what’s the relevanceRead… Read more »

Judge delays ruling on Metrolink cameras

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge wants more time to consider whether a lawsuit by Metrolink (CA) engineers should go to trial. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen object to video cameras placed in locomotives and cab cars, saying that the surveillance infringes on their due process rights and their privacy. Judge Luis LavinRead… Read more »

Redefining Success: Is There Only One Way To An Education?

The question of whether or not a college education pays has been rumbling on the sidelines of reform discussions for some years. It got a renewed kick in the rear this week when PayPal co-founder, Facebook investor and billionaire Peter Thiel offered 20 promising young people a $100,000 not to go to college and insteadRead… Read more »

The digital engagement game

At the introduction to digital engagement workshop we ran this week, I debuted the digital engagement game. It’s a workshop exercise that’s an expansion of my version of David Wilcox‘s social media game, which in turn has been developed into the Social by Social game. The original game featured a pack of cards detailing variousRead… Read more »

Research and Best Practices eNewsletter

Research NIST cloud computing guide (05/2011) – NIST’s Cloud Computing Synopsis and Recommendations provides cloud computing technology in plain terms for Information Technology (IT) decision makers interested in cloud services. The publication presents information on the relative opportunities and risks of cloud computing. http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/drafts/800-146/Draft-NIST-SP800-146.pdf Engaging the public in a wired world (05/16/2011) – The newRead… Read more »

Online consultation and policy engagement

Neil Williams writes a great post about digital engagement on the AlphaGov blog: On the face of it, you could say it’s a simple case of government doing something a bit whizzier and more user-friendly than publishing thousands of PDFs on hundreds of websites for people to find, comprehend and comment on by email. AndRead… Read more »

Bragging Rights

You can also read this post on BeltWiki Blog by WhoRunsGov Washingtonians are notorious (mostly amongst ourselves) for talking about ourselves. Our affinity for self-promotion was noted earlier this year when the District was dubbed the most socially-networked city by Men’s Health magazine. Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook are great channels for telling our friends andRead… Read more »