Recently, a friend asked me: “Where do I get started for Twitter and government? Do you have any recommendation for top people to follow?
I pointed him to my Twitter list – GovLoop Rockstars – but then I realized that I have 385 people in that list and it’s getting a little overwhelming.
So I thought I’d make a list of my Top 25 #gov20 folks I follow on Twitter in no particular order (sorry for folks I may have missed – share in the comments):
1) @digiphile – Alex Howard, O’Reilly Radar’s Washington, DC, correspondent. He consistently authors outstanding articles and covers the latest in the government tech scene.
2) @rpublicservice – The handle for the Partnership for Public Service, one of the largest non-profits focused on improving government. Great content and features.
3) @justinherman – Social media lead for GSA’s Office of Citizen Services. Justin constantly shares information on government related to Twitter, Facebook and beyond. He is always entertaining (although not as good at Fantasy Football as me).
4) @govnewmedia – Twitter handle for GSA Office of Citizen Services. Shares and engages on key topics for gov’t and social media.
5) @cdorobek – The Voice. Chris Dorobek is one of the most respected journalists in government. He’s been at FCW, Federal News Radio, and hosts the DorobekINSIDER podcast on GovLoop.
6) @sarahebourne – Lead for Mass.gov. Aways shares great info on social media and government.
7) @jhibbets – Community manager for Red Hat’s OpenSource.com. Heavily involved in Raleigh’s City Camp as well as on open source issues in general.
8) @mattmiszewski – Leader in Salesforce Public Sector division. Former Wisconsin CIO. Great blogger at fixingpotholes.com – an interesting read.
9) @waldojaquith – Winner of Knight News prize. Open data expert. And, honestly, he’s always entertaining and informative on Twitter.
10) @dan_munz – Former NAPA Collaboration Project, GSA and now at CFPB. Super smart on tech and design. And wins award for “Most Hilarious on Twitter.”
11) @bobgourley – Former Intelligence CTO. Now runs ctovision.com – excellent trending tech information and all-around engaging guy.
12) @nickmhalliday – Works for UK National Audit Office. Shares great articles on government from UK and around globe.
13) @gwynnek – Gwynne Kostin, GSA Citizen Services, former DHS. Gwynne’s on top of the latest in mobile, innovation and government. Bonus points for her rap knowledge.
14) @dominiccampbell – Founder of FutureGov in UK. One of the top UK #gov20 peeps – lover of unicorns and masks. Always up for a good debate. (Bonus points for marrying the awesome @merici – awesome #gov20 leader)
15) @avaltat – Aurelie is one of EU’s top #gov20 folks – great sharer of stuff across the pond.
16) @nickcharney – We won’t subtract points for being Canadian. Great blogger and public servant from across the border.
17) @sradick – Former Booz Allen social media and government lead. No longer in #gov20 space officially, but still great engager and writer of awesome content.
18) @dslunceford – Founder of GovTwit. Great sharer of all things #gov20. Don’t hate him for his love of Redskins.
19) @adamconner – Facebook’s 1st DC rep & main POC for all things Facebook and Gov
20) @gov – Twitter’s government focused handle for questions on Twitter & govt
21) @lovisatalk – State Dept, person of awesomeness, great tweets on Twitter & gov
22) @adrielhampton– Master Twitterer, former City of San Francisco attorney. Now NationBuilder guru.
23) @levyj413 – EPA’s web lead. Mission, Tools, Metrics, Teach.
24) @AliceLipowicz – Former FCW reporter. Solid journalist in the space.
25) @hillary– Marketing lead for NIC, a great company that creates state government websites. Generally cool #Gov20’er active in SF world.
26) @lukefretwell – Founded GovFresh, writes for Fedscoop, super active in San Fran scene as well.
27) @joseph_marks – NextGov’s #gov20 reporter.
28) @codeforamerica – Leading non-profit on #gov20 . Great feed with articles and success stories.
29) @timoreilly – Brought term #gov20 to mainstream. Board of Code for America.
30) @christinaathp – HP Gov’t marketing lead, always pushing out great info.
31) @inesmergel– Syracuse Maxwell professor. Author of public sector social media handbook. One of the few professors that teaches a #gov20 class.
32) @bgreeves – Co-author of that public sector social media handbook with Ines and co-founder of MuniGov 2.0. Now CIO of Wake County, NC.
33) @wdeggers – Lead at Deloitte’s GovLab. Coined term #gov20 – great author of government innovation books
34) @AndrewPWilson – Web Manager at SAMHSA. Great tweets on social media, open government, customer service, Challenge.gov and more.
35) @ellnmllr – Co-Founder and ED of Sunlight Foundation. Also founder of Center for Responsive Politics and Public Campaign. Shining a bright light on the government.
36) @kristyfifelski – Former City of Reno web manager. @govgirl – awesome work in local gov & social media
37) @caseycoleman – GSA CIO and leader in government innovation when it comes to technology.
38) @MaryDavie – Federal acquisition queen (aka Acting Commissioner, GSA Federal Acquisition Service). Mean cyclist. Innovating and improving how government buys stuff.
39) s_horv – Web and Social Media Chief at USGS. Definitely someone who is taking government to the next level when it comes to communications and use of social media.
40) The GovLoop Team!
- @govloop – My handle/ official account. Follow it for latest news and information.
- @krazykriz – Long-time #gov20 professor / evangelist, now our community manager.
- @dmashkuri – Want to partner with us? Doug’s our Director of Business Development.
- @meganprice – Our events guru, especially NextGen and industry awesomeness.
- @pjfiorenza – Prolific blogger, guide author and Maxwell grad. Super smart dude.
- @peteritas – If you love the Daily Awesome and other emails from us, thank Stephen.
- @jeffribs – All our design – from our website to our guides – is Jeff’s great work.
- @emichellejarvis – Producer of our DorobekINSIDER daily podcast.
- @akdewolf – Coordinates our online trainings helps to keep partners happy.
- @erikeitel – The newest member of our BD team, came from LivingSocial (a steal!).
Bonus – Great comments to my question below. Other greats I missed accidentally:
41) @govtwit – All things government and Twitter.
42) @jahendler– Professor at RPI, all things open data
43) @ukodi – UK Digital Gov group – doing awesome work at gov.uk and elsewhere
44) @tpardo– SUNY Albany Center for Technology & Government (@CTG_Albany) lead. Great center doing research on e-gov & gov20
45) @BillSchrier– Former CIO of Seattle. Now at Center for Digital Government.
46) @smburns – CEO of @GovDelivery (parent company of Govloop), all things digital gov’t communication. Also @josephporcelli and @exilauren are great followers for all things gov’t engagement
47) Love the @techpresident crew – always good at intersection of how technology and Internet is affecting democracy – Andrew @rasiej and Micah @mlsif are amazing thought-leaders in the space.
48) @knightfd – Knight Foundation – leading foundation on civic technology
49) @corybooker – No brainer. Mayor of Newark. The Superhero on Twitter. Getting needs from citizens & flying across the city to solve them
50) @amandare– USDA Comm/New Media lead. Cool projects like @choosemyplate. Unapologetic Redskins fan & maybe one day if she’s lucky, GovLoop fantasy football champion.
Did I miss someone? It was unintentional as the #Gov20 family has grown so much over the years. Share others below.
Nice! Thanks for including me here Steve. Yes, even though I’m out here in Chicago, I’m still very interested in the government space – just wish I had more time in the day to stay as involved as I used to be. And who knows, maybe I’ll be able to get my agency to start taking on some government work too. One thing that has become very clear to me since working in commercial advertising is that the government would do well to engage with some of the creative branding professionals out here – government agencies are brands too, and the level of expertise that say, a Porsche or a Corona puts against their brand is unlike anything seen in the government today.
Thanks, Steve! I’m not quite as brave as you to narrow the list to a top 40, but here are the Gov 2.0 folks I follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/adrielhampton/global-gov2
Wow, thanks, Steve!
One of the signs of success gov’t has had with #gov20 is how many great people are on Twitter talking about it. 🙂
Thanks for not deducting points eh! Cheers!
Great stuff Steve – gave me a couple new great govies to follow! Thanks for including me!
Apparently county, city and town gov20 folks need to step it up, with only 2 mentions out of 49.
No love for @BillSchrier? @CoryBooker? Great list, I picked up a bunch to follow! Thanks!
Thanks, Adriel, for having me on your list. Us locals rock it, too! 🙂
Thanks for putting this list together, Steve! As a response to your post, Marc Smith, the creator of NodeXL, put together a network diagram of the #gov20 hashtag’s use during the last 30 hours: http://nodexlgraphgallery.org/Pages/Graph.aspx?graphID=2003 -> Shows how huge the community has become and what people are talking about (everything from social media, cybersecurity, open data, and local government – and apparently something that has to do with angrybeanie).
I’d add @amandare and @exilauren
No mention of the master of direct government service by Twitter, @CoryBooker?
I am always trying to figure out how to make Twitter useful in my life. Thanks for helping me along that path!
Good catch – added CoryBooker, @amandare, @exilauren, @josephporcelli, @billschrier
Awesome list. Not sure how much this overlaps with Adriel’s list, but this post inspired us to create a Twitter list with the folks listed above: https://twitter.com/ArchiveSocial/gov-2-0-thought-leaders
If you want to go hyperlocal in the open government realm, I’m an elected city councilor in Newburyport, Massachusetts; and tweet with that hat as @CouncilorAri.
Gov 2.0 LA superstar Alan Silberberg – @IdeaGov
Thanks for publishing Steve – this is a great list!
BTW: Your link for @emichellejarvis is broken (just a malformed twitter URL).