Congressman Mike Honda, 15th District of California Representative, recently announced the launch of his new initiative to crowdsource the redesign of his website. His goal of this project is to move America closer to Government 2.0, where Rep. Honda’s constituents can play a role in the creation of a site that will better serve them. This is a unique opportunity for the public to give input into the design of a government website serving hundreds of thousands of people.
Entries will be accepted via Crowdsource. The final design will be chosen based on votes, design functionality, usability, and other criteria and will be award $1000. The deadline for entries is June 10th so, there’s about a week to get your entry in. Interestingly enough, there are no entries as of posting time.
Rep. Honda hopes this initiative will make his website easier to use and more accessible through the use of new online technologies. Since the Congressman is active on Twitter, Facebook, and his blog, he intends to incorporate these technologies to make his new site be an example for other member sites to follow.
Must the entries come from California?
There is a reference on the Crowdsource project details page that says, “Rep. Honda’s constituents can play a role in the creation of a site that will better serve them”. No specific mention that it is for Californians exclusively.
VERY interesting… I am meeting with a web design firm tomorrow as we realllly need to update the GovPartner and we planned to send out a survey to clients, govt staff to ask for input on what is most helpful. I’m going to check out this Crowdsource idea – sounds interesting… thanks!
Michael is a really great guy. He loves community collaboration, participation and cares a lot about his constituency. I used to work on projects with him before he was elected to Congress.
His constituency is very diverse and the demographics are complex.
I see the deadline has passed, however, I thought this might be helpful information.