Tech

McKenzie Wark Through the Looking Glass

Greetings from CCA-EDUCAUSE Australasia 2011 in Sydney, where McKenzie Wark is speaking on “Alice Through the Looking Glass”. He argued that there was no millennial generation of students who are comfortable with technology. Students producing a “newspaper” still want to see it in print.I tried to find where I first came across McKenzie, so IRead… Read more »

US State Department Considers Cloud Computing

(First posted on “Cloud Musings on Forbes“) Today I spent six hours in downtown DC at the first quarterly technology educational seminar and IT Expo to be held by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Information Resource Management. Keeping with the bureau’s mission “to empower diplomacy, consular services, and development, by providing access toRead… Read more »

Top 5: Reasons Beta.FCC.gov Is Now the Hottest Open Gov Project

In 1998, FCC.gov was considered the best website in government. Other than a redesign in 2001, their website has largely remained unchanged…and quite possibly had become the worst website in government. Here’s a screen shot of how it has looked for much of the past decade: Yesterday, GovLoop received a sneak peek at the Beta.FCC.govRead… Read more »

Can Too Much Money Ruin a New Startup? (Yes)

Last week the new app Color launched, a service that lets you take pictures on your phone and share them with people in your immediate vicinity. Soon after the app debuted to mediocre reviews, it was discovered that the founders had managed to raise $41 million for their first, pre-launch round. Let’s leave aside forRead… Read more »

Facebook Questions are Great for Gov, but be Careful…

On March 24, Facebook rolled out the Questions feature to all its users. It’s a new way to ask and get answers from your friends or fans on Facebook. For government, this could be a great opportunity to get direct feedback for Product development How can we improve our current website? How difficult was itRead… Read more »

NPR interview about Section 508 and website accessibility

Last week, Terry Weaver was a guest on the Kojo Nnamdi NPR radio show talking about Technology and Accessibility. They talked talked about the federal government’s efforts to make websites more accessible and Section 508. A recording is now available on-line, as well as a transcript.

Behind every gobby woman…

This is a post about my boyfriend. It’s also a post inspired by Matthew Taylor’s recent blog post on the RSA site about ingenuity. I think differently. But so does my boyfriend. And we are not the same and it’s not just biological or temperamental. It’s literally, a different way of thinking differently. I don’tRead… Read more »

Code for America hosts launch of Simpl

The launch and initial social innovation matchmaking activities hosted by Code for America, at their San Francisco headquarters on April 5th, will be the first public unveiling of the new Simpl platform. This important milestone is the result of a partnership between public sector consultancy FutureGov and government marketing experts Rock Creek Strategic Marketing. FindRead… Read more »

Simpl – the Social Innovation Marketplace – is open for business

Today is an important day for me and my colleagues, because today Simpl, the Social Innovation Marketplace, opens its doors to the world. Simpl is a website that enables people in government agencies to source innovative ideas for improving public services, and rather than being a funding platform, the marketplace is all about the exchangeRead… Read more »