NPR’s Morning Edition had a story about the State of Michigan using part of its American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) stimulus funds to pay what amounted to operating expenses of the state government; pretty much to backfill spending cuts it had made. In effect, the federal program that was created to stimulate economic activityRead… Read more »
Transparency. It’s the buzz word around the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and the planned disbursement, tracking and reporting of the $787 billion federal stimulus package to states. Every state and many local jurisdictions have responded in some way to the transparency requirements (page 9) outlined by the federal government. As transparency can beRead… Read more »
“Hello. My name is Dan Bevarly. I live at 206 Pleasant View Avenue. My zip code is 40206. I’d like to speak to the Downtown Action plan that is being presented here this evening…” At 145 characters and still w/o my statement, you can be sure this is not a “tweet” on Twitter. It’s notRead… Read more »
As government connects with citizens through new and existing social networks like Facebook and Twitter, and through video and imagery publishing sites like YouTube and Flickr, they are finding new outlets for publishing information. While using these new streams demonstrate governments’ progress to use new media, in many cases they are simply being used toRead… Read more »
Social networks have gained wide acceptance and praise for their use in political campaigns. It’s their use in actual government administration and public policy making environments where their absence is fueling new debate. As a solution for government-citizen communication, they can be a powerful forum for collaboration. Still, social networks remain a rarity, if atRead… Read more »