Assessing Public Participation in an Open Government Era: A Review of Federal Agency Plans

AmericaSpeaks‘ newly-released report, Assessing Public Participation in an Open Government Era: A Review of Federal Agency Plans (2011), describes and analyzes the participation activities described in Federal Agencies’ Open Government Plans. It identifies best practices across Agencies’ public participation initiatives and recommends improvements that would increase the public’s role in shaping federal policy. The reportRead… Read more »

Google launches specifications for real-time info

Google announced GTFS-realtime, a feed specification that allows public transportation agencies to provide real-time updates for their fleets to application developers. The feed spec is based on the widely used General Transit Feed Specification and follows the launch of live transit updates for six agencies in June, which incorporated real-time information into Google Maps transitRead… Read more »

MBTA launches customer service app

From broken escalators to missing bus stop signs, Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority customers now have an easy way to document inconveniences large and small. Tell the T, a new iPhone/iPad application, lets customers snap a picture of the offending item and send the information straight to customer support. “I’m looking for customers to let usRead… Read more »

Calling All Federal Cybersecurity Practitioners: Contribute ideas and actions to enhance the community

On 28 September 2011, FedCyber.com will facilitate a one-day Government-Industry Cyber Security Summit to be held at the Newseum in Washington DC. This event is free for government cybersecurity practitioners. The FedCyber.com Government-Industry Summit will bring together thought leaders who know the cyber mission in a venue designed to enhance our collective understanding of theRead… Read more »

TransLink to provide real-time info, seeks testers

TransLink (BC) is upgrading its mobile website and is looking for riders to help test its latest feature — real-time next-bus information. In a blog post, the agency asked potential testers to tell TransLink in 200 words or fewer why they want to test the app. Five selected testers will receive access to the betaRead… Read more »

Design Matters: Looking at a Re-themed Bugzilla

I’ll be honest. There was a time when I thought design didn’t matter. To my credit, it was a long time ago… but I used to think, if the tool was good enough, the design won’t matter, people will use it cause it is helpful. (This may or may not have influenced some fashion choicesRead… Read more »

Hamburg’s hydrogen buses log 2 million kilometers

Since 2003, the number of hydrogen fuel-cell buses in the German city of Hamburg has grown from a single prototype to three dozen. The Mercedes-Benz Citaro fuel-cell buses have logged more than 2 million kilometers over the past eight years and data from the buses has allowed the manufacturer to improve the fuel-efficiency of theRead… Read more »

The Right Reasons

Creative Commons via tvtropes.org Recently, I have been reflecting a lot on my motivations for engaging in certain areas of my life. The basic question comes down to this: Why do we do the things that we do? Sometimes we start certain projects, initiatives or relationships because we are passionate about the goal, outcome orRead… Read more »

Upcoming Cloudera Hadoop Training in the DC Area

With the ubiquity of Big Data, Apache Hadoop has become a vital platform for cost-effective, reliable, scalable distributed computing to store and analyze hundreds of gigabytes of complex information. Since the Hadoop ecosystem is open source, it is supported with a growing community of professionals. However, it is a platform in growing demand which meansRead… Read more »

Glogging My Virtual Experiences

If you’ve been reading this blog since its early days, you know I’m a big supporter of the use of virtual worlds and 3D immersive spaces. Although I realize these technologies are not yet mainstream or even well accepted or understood, my experience with them has been tremendously positive. They have quite simply changed myRead… Read more »

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