In late June, Jen Pahlka, CfA’s Founder and Executive Director, gave a talk at the Future of Web Apps conference in Las Vegas. Entitled “The Next Disruption: The Opportunity for Civic Startups,” Jen’s keynote outlined how there is a $172 billion government spending market that is waiting to be disrupted by today’s geeks and entrepreneurs.Read… Read more »
Once in a while, my organization CEPSM.ca conducts research geared at public sector and non-profit marketing/communications professionals. The research is meant to benefit the entire community as it addresses knowledge gaps in the industry. A few weeks ago, CEPSM partnered up with Environics Research Group to launch the “State of Social Media Monitoring in theRead… Read more »
Tweet Open data is moving forward in Canada. The provincial government in British Columbia launched its own open data portal on Tuesday. The site, data.gov.bc.ca has been in the works for a long time and will provide nearly 2,500 data sets covering a broad range of information from salaries to student performance. The B.C. governmentRead… Read more »
I don’t wish to come across like some old “back in my day” type of person reminiscing about the good old days for several reasons. First when I was starting out the powers that be, thought it would be a good idea to buddy me up with a lot of the senior technical staff andRead… Read more »
The name “Code for America” is a little misleading: CfA needs more than coders, and its coders must do more than code. We need civic hackers, yes. But we also need researchers, project managers, and designers experienced in UI and UX. We need fellows who can understand government, and fellows who can understand each other.Read… Read more »
Remember the days when you would get a hand written letter? Or your friend would send you a cool postcard while they were on vacation? We all know that social media and email have ended the art of a hand written letter. If you get a hand written letter now, it is really special, noRead… Read more »
Anyone who follows this blog knows I spend as much time talking about our culture as I do discussing our marketing and social media strategies. The reason is simple, they go hand in hand; our employees define our culture and without them our marketing strategies would be dead in the water. From our employee recruiterRead… Read more »
When it comes to reporting on new developments in the Gov 2.0 world, there are few more influential than Alex Howard. Based in Washington D.C., Alex writes for O’Reilly Media on everything from social media to new technology developments. He’s known to many by his Twitter pseudonym, @digiphile. I sat down with him while inRead… Read more »
The Chicago Transit Authority (IL) ordered 300 new subway cars from Bombardier at a cost of $331 million. The new cars will use alternating current propulsion, which allows dynamic braking regeneration, lower energy and maintenance costs, and improved reliability. The cars will also be equipped with an active suspension system to keep the floor isRead… Read more »
The federal web manager community has been hollering – rightly – about the uncontrolled proliferation of federal government websites for at least 7 years. We’ve known we can’t possibly manage all that content effectively. We’ve known there’s duplication and redundancy. We’ve known that a huge percentage of our web content is written poorly, making itRead… Read more »