To be successful over the long-term, Open Government efforts can’t be a separate line item on the balance sheet With the recent news that several major Open Government efforts including USASpending.gov, Data.gov, and FedSpace may be shut down due to budget cuts and that the Pentagon has disbanded their social media office, many people inRead… Read more »
Click here for a link to the plan Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and Cook County Commissioner John Fritchey today announced a major initiative to bring meaningful transparency reforms to Cook County. The Open Cook County Plan is aimed at making county government data and information publicly available so residents can more effectively understand,Read… Read more »
OpenAustin is a member-driven organizantion that promotes open government, open data, and civic application development in Austin, TX. OpenAustin was originally formed by Austin residents interested in the City of Austin’s web strategy and approach. Presently, OpenAustin focuses on ensuring that all local public sector agencies embrace open data and open government principles, provide adequateRead… Read more »
It is time to move from creating a more open government to sustaining open government. Yes, there is a lot more work to do in making agencies on all levels of government are releasing their data and becoming transparent. Governments have successfully picked the low-hanging fruit of opening up their datasets. It’s now time toRead… Read more »
9:30pm last night USDA launched their Department-wide website redesign. From the beginning, they set out to tackle quite the challenge: Here’s what they faced: Do completely in-house working with a limited budget/resources Design an easy to navigate homepage to get citizens to the right place, and on their way effectively and efficiently Coordinate with 29Read… Read more »
Though it’s being overshadowed by the budget discussions this week, it’s important to note (and celebrate!) that today (April 7th) is the one year anniversary of Agency Open Government Plans. Just one year ago, almost 30 plans were released from cabinet-level and independent Agencies that detailed how they would become more: Transparent in their work;Read… Read more »
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 »
You ever wonder about the first person who bought a fax machine? The first person to buy a cell phone? How about the first person who set up an email account? These early pioneers must have had some difficulty in demonstrating the benefits of these these technologies because of the very small base of users.Read… Read more »
This morning, I attended an event at the US Embassy Public Affairs Unit in Canberra designed to discuss matters of eDiplomacy and use of online tools in diplomatic and international affairs efforts. The event, being hosted specifically for an Australian audience by the State Department included a conversation with Alec J Ross (he is @AlecJRossRead… Read more »
“If you’re not failing every now and then, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative” – Woody Allen We had an awesome live video chat with Guy Kawasaki today about “How Government Can Be Enchanting?” Well, I’d better preface that to say we had awesome content …but had technical difficulties with getting videoRead… Read more »