I sat on a panel this past Friday with GovLoopers Sarah Kaufman from New York City’s MTA and Mark Drapeau from Microsoft as well as Gale Brewer, a City Council Member in New York City and Rachel Sterne, the Chief Digital Officer for New York City and well known for her brilliant Road Map for the Digital City.
It was one of the most interesting panels I’ve been on. You can read coverage of the event or see the video below. One of the things I found most exciting was listening to Rachel describe how she works with City Staff to get them excited about what is possible with better use of social media and to remove barriers. I also enjoyed listening to Sarah talk about some of the innovative ways the MTA connects with the public via social media and the dividends those efforts have paid over time as urgent events, such as Irene, have come up.
Would be interested in your comments below.
<Apologies that this video is in Flash. I’ll try to post a version that is more iPhone / iPad friendly later.>
Watch How New York City Government Is (and Isn’t) Using Social Media on PBS.
See more from Metrofocus.
Looks like it was a great experience.
I like the concept of reporting on important city services and emergencies, but I also agree that the next step is creating the two way street allowing citizens to “report” information to the city for consideration, etc.
For additional consideration RE: Post Irene and social media: Irene AAR (Social Media)
NYC did alright during Irene, though this report really shows how much was going on and there are a lot of examples of “digital self-responders” that went unorganized during the event. I would say a big push needs to be made to organize the “digital self-responders” into what some are starting to call “digital volunteers”. Another fellow Govlooper is starting a series on a related topic here: https://www.govloop.com/profiles/blogs/how-governments-use-social-media-for-disaster-planning-response
I like the quote, “Social media is free like a puppy is free.”
ReadWriteWeb just did a piece on this related topic that’s pretty good: Five Innovations That Will Change Cities In The Next Five Years