Tech

Is OpenGov 1950 Stymieing OpenGov 2010?

The Obama Administration is committed to using technology to better engage citizens in their government. Ironically, legislation crafted in the 1950s to open citizen access to government documents may be a barrier to today’s Open Government initiatives. The Federal Records Act of 1950 creates a framework to manage agency records. It puts the National ArchivesRead… Read more »

Top Webinar Tips – How to Manage Citizen Feedback and Reduce Overhead

We hosted a successful webinar yesterday, How to Manage Citizen Feedback and Reduce Overhead. Nearly 60 governments attended to hear Citywide Records Manager, Wendy Klock-Johnson from the City of Sacramento, discuss how the city successfully streamlined citizen participation with a new tool called eComment and why social media didn’t work! Wendy posted a blog articleRead… Read more »

Rich Market Opportunities: Startups and Open Government

Image by ahockley via Flickr Last night I did the keynote/opener for a startup event in Boston and spoke about, based upon my own experiences, startup best practices and the large number of opportunities for startups and other companies to get involved with the fast growing open government marketplace. While you can scan through theRead… Read more »

Focusing on WHY to Drive Adoption: iPad is Current, Learning and Productive. What is Government?

These past two weeks have been a whirlwind of travel and conferences. I’ve enjoyed several typical byproducts of those types of events (networking, learning, etc…) but also a few things that are much rarer: inspiration and re-energized passion. This is largely thanks to my most recent stop: NASA’s Education Innovation Summit, held in Orlando, FLRead… Read more »

Community Building: The Value of Being Real

For the last 10+ years, marketers have started to realize that interacting with consumers is not a one-way street. Refusing to operate with this mindset fully embraced will most likely leave you out in the cold. Consumers don’t want to be talked at, with the only opportunity for feedback a suggestions box glued to theRead… Read more »

I Went from Beauty Queen to Govie Geek: And I’m Proud Of It!

GOVIE GEEK (2010) BEAUTY QUEEN (2008) Thats right! I spent my younger years (really not all that long ago) competing for various beauty queen titles, including everything from Miss America to Miss Hawaiian Tropic. But behind all of the glitz, glitter, and butt glue(yes thats right we glue our swimsuits to our bottoms)…all I wantedRead… Read more »

Fixing IT Acquisition is About Execution, not Just Personnel

From The Acquisition Corner According to recent reporting by Federal Times on the state of federal information technology (IT) acquisition and program management, the Government is ill prepared to purchase and manage large scale IT programs due to poorly trained staff, and poor collaboration with industry. Certainly contributing factors, but the issues are much moreRead… Read more »

The Election Didn’t End Open Government…But It Will “Change Course”

Every month, I’ve been writing a “Backtalk” column for Federal Computer Week, collecting and coalescing the best conversations on GovLoop. The latest piece addresses the impact of the mid-term elections on Open Government efforts. Here are a few snippets: “Will the midterm election close down open government?” That was the question my GovLoop colleague StephenRead… Read more »