The great truism that underlies the civic technology movement of the last several years is that governments face difficulty implementing technology, and they generally manage IT assets and projects very poorly. It can be tempting to view this lack of technology acumen as a symptom of a larger disfunction. Governments are thought to be large,Read… Read more »
At Accela, we’re committed to finding ways to leverage the talents and ideas of civic entrepreneurs and open data hackers to benefit the governments we serve. That’s why we’re excited to announce the Accela App Challenge. The App Challenge offers a total of $25,000 in cash prizes to developers that build a new civic appRead… Read more »
“‘Are people innately altruistic?’ is the wrong kind of question to ask. People are people, and they respond to incentives.” – Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner (SuperFreakonomics) One of the most important things an open data directive can accomplish – whether it takes the form an informal policy, an executive order or an open dataRead… Read more »
A few weeks ago, Code for America unveiled one of our latest program offerings: Engagement Commons. Now, we’re hoping that the talented, dedicated members of the GovLoop community can help us take this project to the next level. What is Engagement Commons? With civic engagement becoming an increasingly critical component of successful governance in theRead… Read more »
Several months ago, with the unveiling of the OpenDataPhilly website, the City of Philadelphia joined the growing fraternity of cities across the country and around the world to release municipal data sets in open, developer friendly formats. But the City of Brotherly Love did things a bit differently than most of it’s contemporaries. The cityRead… Read more »
It’s interesting to reflect back on the not too distant past and think about how governments have used open source software. For many state and local governments – as recently as a few years ago – the use of open source software was something of a foreign concept. Many a government IT worker made anRead… Read more »
There has been some pretty good discussion lately going around the Interwebs about what Gov 2.0 and open government looks like. I can’t say that I agree with everything that has been thrown out there with a Gov 2.0 label on it, but I can say without equivocation that this is the opposite of OpenGovRead… Read more »
The City of San Francisco recently unveiled a one-stop clearinghouse for all sorts of data generated and maintained by city agencies. Its an exciting first step in an effort that is high on the agenda of San Francisco CIO Chris Vein and Mayor Gavin Newsom – a tangible and visible commitment to open source technologies,Read… Read more »
eWeek Europe has an article up listing 10 ways to make Twitter useful for governments. The time is ripe for such thinking – more and more governments are using Twitter to interact with citizens, and its fitting that governments spend some time thinking about how this tool can be used most effectively. Still, the eWeekRead… Read more »
If governments open up their data for use by developers, citizens and other interested parties, what data formats should they support? Vote here.