Had great GovUp in Seattle last night with over 50 folks from City of Seattle, King County, GSA, EPA, University of Washington, other agencies, and local companies like Socrata
The speaker was Bill Schrier, CTO of Seattle and he was great.
He highlighted a couple great Seattle initiatives such as:
data.seattle.gov – City of Seattle has been opening up high-value datasets to the public and there has been lots of interest from citizens and app devleopers
He offered the following advice for government innovators:
-Don’t ask for permission. Do great work and then once it’s up and running, then make sure the higher-ups and politicals get the credit.
-21st century citizen engagement – We need to change citizen engagement. We still have the same in-person townhalls as 300 years ago with the same 20 people coming with their one issue. We need to use new social technologies like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and more to get more feedback from more peopl
-Investing in Wi-Fi – He asked if folks were happy with their wi-fi and most said No. He said everyone wants faster Internet and government can help. With super fast internet, people can work more at home, easily have HD-style meetings from home with low-cost webcams, and cut down on commuting and environmental costs.
Bill dropped a ton more gems and City of Seattle is definitely one to watch. His blog is the best of any city CTO in the world 🙂
For those that were there, what was your favorite part of the Seattle GovUp?