Communications

Want to Be a Web Superstar?

So you want to be a web superstar! Doesn’t everyone? Well, in government, administrations change, priorities change, and technologies change. But the formula for being a web communications superstar – the ones with the great (or greatly improving) websites, the best web organizations, doing the most exciting new things – doesn’t change. Web superstars followRead… Read more »

Facebook’s Privacy Mistakes

The point of this post: The real problem with Facebook’s privacy practices is the failure to manage and live up to expectations. Let me preface this by saying “I am not a privacy professional.” My government has privacy professionals. They’re good people, know the legislation far better than I do and think more and deeperRead… Read more »

Weekly Research and Best Practices

Resources 1. Government 2.0 and Access to Information in Eight Countries (04/15/2010) The development of proactive data disclosure systems in the U.S., Mexico, U.K., Australia, New Zealand, Finland and India are highlighted. http://www2.parl.gc.ca/Content/LOP/ResearchPublications/2010-15-e.htm#a4 2. Government 2.0 and Access to Information in Canada (04/15/2010) – Examples of proactive data disclosure systems that are developing or alreadyRead… Read more »

Watch out…Here Comes the Next Generation of Government

Here Comes the Next Generation of Government…(Learn more 7/6-7/7) The next generation of government is coming. And it’s coming fast. I’ve been following these changes since I came to work to the federal government in 2004 fresh out of University of Pennsylvania on a Department of Homeland Security fellowship. As the son of a careerRead… Read more »

You Can’t Ban Social Media!

While reading some of my latest Google Alert’s I cam across a blog post by David Etue of FederalComputerWeek.com. The article titled “Mitigation, not prohibition, is best response to social media’s security risks” provides an excellent argument why organizations such as law enforcement agencies need to get into the conversation. Etue does a great jobRead… Read more »

Shouldn’t the BP oil spill be a crowdsourcing “Grand Challenge”?

Obviously everyone is familiar with the incredibly tragic damage that continues to take place while I write and you read this regarding the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. There will be plenty of time for everyone to weigh in on how this was allowed to happen and not able to be fixed when a solutionRead… Read more »

Looking for social media measurement tips

The government of Canada has recently put together a group to come up with techniques and best practices to measure social media in the public sector. We’d like to see what other governments are doing to measure their use of social media–whether it’s quantitative or qualitative and what kind of performance measurement frameworks are beingRead… Read more »

Visualizing Legislation: Software Tools

A number of software applications and platforms are now available for creating visualizations (i.e., graphical depictions) of legislation. Here are some of them: Compendium — an argument mapping application, distributed free-of-charge — has been applied to legislation (see pages 129-132) by participants in the EU’s LEX-IS Project. (See the description in Loukis et al., UsingRead… Read more »

5 Social media tips for city government

Congratulations! Your city has made the decision to engage in social media as another tool to connect with citizens. You set up your community on Facebook and Twitter, and now you’re wondering what you’ve gotten yourself into. I’ve learned a lot through the City of Reno’s adventure with social media, and I have some tipsRead… Read more »