Weekly Round-up – August 19, 2011

Gadi Ben-Yehuda August is a long and ecclesiastical month. In its second full week, we find: A Time for Reflection. Three good articles about the state of Gov 2.0 across governments came out this week. Alex Howard writes for the Atlantic about social media use by US and other governments, and in O’Reilly Media aboutRead… Read more »

Open source develops the future of downtown Raleigh

Originally published on opensource.com. Can you revitalize a city and attract businesses using open source principles? David Diaz, president and CEO of the Downtown Raleigh Alliance thinks so. In fact, I got a chance to sit down with David to discuss how economic development organizations are interacting with their local and state government, citizens, businesses,Read… Read more »

“Suggest an App” section added to Making Mobile Gov Dialogue

People interested in government mobile products like apps, mobile web and SMS continue to engage in the Making Mobile Gov Dialogue by suggesting, commenting on and voting for the best ideas. A few folks have suggested the federal government create specific mobile products. In response, the Making Mobile Gov team has created the “Suggest anRead… Read more »

Special Offer: Webcasting Public Meetings

Broadcasting public meetings over the web is quickly becoming the most effective way to achieve open government. Today, Granicus announced an introductory offer that gives you 75% off our new enterprise-class video streaming solution built specifically for the largest government agencies. It’s called the Performance Accelerator. Check out our blog for details

GovConTrack 2.0 Approved On AppStore!

The new version of GovConTrack was just approved for the app store! I’ll be updating the website tonight: www.saygoodnight.com/govcontrack The big new feature is the ability to query USASpending.gov, for both detail searches and summary searches with graph & top 10 data. Of course you can also search FPDS-NG as well. For looking up governmentRead… Read more »

How do you help leaders connect the dots?

Alright, so we have all been there, as I was this morning, sitting at the table during an important meeting. You watch, listening intently as the live tennis match of points, counter-points and other subtly irrelevant comments are made by leaders about a project or initiative that you are heavily invested in. You can seeRead… Read more »

A Quick Look at Implications of the Debt Deal

Sarah Kliff from the Washington Post links to an important table today: what happens if the Supercommittee can’t come to an agreement i.e. the most likely scenario. The focus of her post is on its potential effect on entitlement programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security; these items represent the lion’s share of the budgetRead… Read more »

Where is The Line Between Public Safety, Free Speech, and the Right to Assemble?

As most of you have probably heard by now, BART had turned off cell towers in three stations in an attempt to stop a potential protest from taking place and being organized using cell phones and social media. A direct result of this announcement came the night after the original protest was planned via aRead… Read more »