States Using Twitter to Convey Information About Stimulus Spending

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Comment by Jean-Paul Boucher on March 20, 2009 at 1:32pm

Do you think these same state individuals that are Twittering would also post these "tweets" to a federally aggregated system that would relieve the need to use Excel to pass status information (the "What are you Doing (with stimulus money)?" question) in near real-time to the appropriate Department management (or gasp, directly to the White House / Recovery.gov)?

Comment by Melissa Merrell on March 20, 2009 at 9:57am

It appears that both states are using twitter to link back to press releases. There isn't a lot of data that could be easily aggregated to the state level or the program level to compare across states, but twitter does offer an interesting platform to answer the "What Are You Doing (with stimulus money)?" question.

They have few followers so far, but it will be interesting to see if other states jump on board, and if this is one way states can increase transparency for the general public.

Comment by Jean-Paul Boucher on March 19, 2009 at 2:30pm

That is great! What needs to happen now is that the White House (and the Departments where this money is being dispersed from) should join in the fray. The Recovery Act requires weekly updates on how the funding is being used and in particular how it is impacting the workforce directly. There is no reason this information has to wait for a weekly Excel Spreadsheet update (yes, if you go to Recovery.gov, you will see that all these status reports are being provided in Excel... ).