Communications

State Needs New Diplomats: Ready to Recruit with Web 2.0?

An article in today’s Government Executive addresses a serious gap in the State Department’s diplomatic corps: If the State Department does not beef up its workforce, diplomatic programs will suffer and foreign policy will become more militarized, a new report warned. “Today, significant portions of the nation’s foreign affairs business simply are not accomplished,” statedRead… Read more »

Web 2.0 and Government – Helping us to Just Do It!

“With the adoption of social computing and social media by citizens under the age of 25 already exceeding 75 percent, government organizations now need to plan and implement initiatives to engage and service the citizens of today and tomorrow.” This is a statement taken from “Leveraging Web 2.0 in Government,” a recently released paper publishedRead… Read more »

How Can Community Based Social Media Support the Next Census?

How Can Community Based Social Media Support the Next Census? By Dennis D. McDonald A recent AP article titled Census: Big Brother anxieties could hurt count reports official concern that the next US census is threatened by public anxiety about government activities such as immigration control and anti-terrorism measures. This made me wonder how theRead… Read more »

Six Ways Local Governments Can Use Social Media to Promote Energy Conservation

Author’s Note: I originally published this on my blog on September 16, 2008. I’m republishing it here to see if anyone would like to discuss the ideas presented here. Six Ways Local Governments Can Use Social Media to Promote Energy Conservation By Dennis D. McDonald Here are six ways local governments can use social mediaRead… Read more »

WebContent.gov Goes Web 2.0

Note: This post is of my own personal opinion and is not endorsed or supported by any local, state, or federal government agency. The Government’s web community is going “web 2.0” with a focus on increased collaboration amongst its members with the new implementation of the Web Content Managers Forum over at WebContent.gov. I spokeRead… Read more »

Social Media and FOIA implications

It seems to me that using 3rd party social applications can be a great boon for government in communicating and collaborating with its constituents. However, when a government entity uses Facebook, Twitter, blogs or other (free or hosted) applications, at what point does the agency become responsible to fulfill FOIA requests to posted comments, images,Read… Read more »