Tech

IdeaFactory – Does crowdsourcing ideas work? Take a look at TSA’s program – Part 2

We’ve probably all seen Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The movie showcases imagination, creativity and the freedom to try new things and experiment. That’s the same idea as the TSA’s IdeaFactory. The 5-year-old program was one of the first true government 2.0 technologies. Megan Kenny is the Acting Program Manager for the Office of TrainingRead… Read more »

A new structured open data portal for gov data

Captricity (http://captricity.com), an award-winning Berkeley, CA–based company that offers a completely web-based data entry service for digitizing paper forms, is today announcing the launch of its Open Data Portal (http://captricity.com/opendata). Data – structured, digital data that can be queried and analyzed – is an incredibly valuable resource. Captricity already helps organizations and corporations access importantRead… Read more »

Tools I use for learning

Recently, as part of a survey of members of the Social Learning Centre, I put together a list of ten sites or apps I use a lot in my own learning activity. Actually, I thought ten was rather a lot, so to share it here, I thought I’d whittle it down to half that number.Read… Read more »

Making APIs for government data – should agencies do this or leave it to third parties?

APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) are a technique for interacting with data (usually on the web) which liberates users from relying on particular applications or having to do complex programming to reuse the data in interesting ways. Unfortunately few government agencies go the extra distance to release their data with an API, instead using specific dataRead… Read more »

Can collaboration help you do your job better? — Part 1

The Labor Department’s Office of Disability Employment hosted a webcast, Policy Development Think Tank Webcast: New Strategies for Successful Collaboration, as part of the ePolicyWorks initiative. DorobekINSIDER’s Chris Dorobek hosted the panel. The panelists outlined their perspectives on the use of new and innovative open government strategies for policy developments. On the Panel: GB: GadiRead… Read more »

New Zealand Launches a User-Centered Government Website

Sick of going to one government bureaucracy for a service only to get passed along to another and yet another? Wonder why government doesn’t communicate across agencies to provide a centralized service to you? Jared Gulian and his colleagues at the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs are planning a solution for New Zealand. They’veRead… Read more »

Don’t Be “Netflixed:” Why Innovation Labs Are Vital to Government Agencies

Even though innovation never goes out of style, there has been a renewed interest in governmental innovation as all agencies face shrinking budgets and an uncertain economy. The Federal Digital Strategy calls for more innovation in the government’s technical infrastructure and how information is delivered to citizens. There are plenty of consultants, conferences, and groupsRead… Read more »

Server Backup Essentials

The 10 Critical Elements of Server Backup Technology Author: Nick Mueller, Zetta.net Local and off-site Backup Combination. It’s a best practice to have a combination of local and off-site backup. Typically you want to keep large files, like databases and system state file backups on-site. This enables a quick recovery of the latest version ofRead… Read more »