The President’s December 8, 2009 Memorandum on Open Government requires a new approach for many federal government organizations. It will impact the people, processes and technology of government offices. It will impact the work habits and behaviors of government employees. For Open Government plans to be successfully implemented, cultural issues will also need to beRead… Read more »
As we discuss how government agencies can better engage citizens it is also important to focus on how the nonprofits that provide government services can better engage citizens. Steven Smith surveys the vast number of nonprofit organizations and discusses how they evolved from “membership” organizations formed by community volunteers to “services” organizations that are staffedRead… Read more »
With all of the Agencies putting together their OpenGov plans due in April, I am curious as to how many have a coherent Social Media Strategy. developing-a-social-strategy-webinar is a great starting point. How do Agencies go beyond using social channels to simply push information and instead actually engage and listen to employees and the generalRead… Read more »
I see the press release is out on the VA’s plans for VistA/CPRS and I saw a tantalizing reference to “perhaps open source, framework multiple development teams” as some initial thoughts being put into the project. This is certainly exciting news and sounds like a turn in the right direction. Does anyone know of anyRead… Read more »
Yesterday I read an article (http://fcw.com/articles/2010/03/09/white-house-prize-policy.aspx) by Doug Beizer that profiled the White House’s new policy on carrying out contests to spur innovation. I think it’s grand that the White House recognizes the power of using gaming and rewards mechanisms within an innovation setting; however, it challenges agencies to develop this with little direction asRead… Read more »
As you may have heard last week, Google announced that they have added ‘Auto-Captions’ for all videos on YouTube. Google’s hope is to increase its user base and has chosen to focus its attention on accessibility with hopes that users with certain disabilities will leverage the site and find it useful. The reality is thatRead… Read more »
A bill to make it easier for small businesses to win federal contracts on Thursday cleared the Senate committee where similar provisions have stalled, and the panel’s leader said she is confident the legislation will become law. The Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee unanimously passed the Small Business Contracting Revitalization Act (S. 2989). TheRead… Read more »
It seems we’re regularly being served additional reminders about the way we sometimes use social messaging to our detriment, and with increasing frequency, how it is sometimes being used against us. Consider the Janine Krieber kerfuffle, where the wife of former Canadian Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion criticized the current state of the party inRead… Read more »
Many of us Gov2 enthusiasts are passionate about discussing what it means to have an Open Government. I’m privileged to be living in a region where many great things are happening and as we all know, talk is great, action is better. This coming Saturday, the City of Edmonton in Alberta, Canada will be hostingRead… Read more »
More from Andrea Di Maio/Gartner: http://blogs.gartner.com/andrea_dimaio/2010/03/01/five-not-so-serious-proposals-to-make-open-government-cooler/ Open Government Idol. A group of citizen-developers perform in a coding contest which is broadcasted on several media. Besides programming, contestants are expected to read or sing their lines of code aloud. Audience can vote for the best coder based on a combination of usefulness of applications, choice ofRead… Read more »