Those of us who work for local government who are here on govloop have spent some time talking about how we would like to see “Gov 2.0” used at the local government level. Well, here is a local government leader who is doing just what we asked!
The police chief for Lincoln, Nebraska, has a blog that he updates at least a couple of times a week, mostly more than that. He reads the comments, as evidenced by responses in the comments section and references to comments in later posts. Today’s post is a super duper example of using Web 2.0 to engage the community actively in the types of government decisions that matter to them most:
Among the crime patterns we discussed last night, at our regular ADUDAT meeting, was a group of four larcenies from auto occurring at Churches within the past two weeks. A larceny from auto is a case in which someone illegally enters a motor vehicle and steals stuff inside…. So, here we are, on the verge of a big Church week, where the number of services and the number of attendees goes through the roof. I’m challenging non-LPD readers to come up with strategies to combat this crime[emphasis mine]
Yay Chief Casady!
Great Paulette, Thank you!
Eden Prairie, MN has the City Manager and the Fire Chief posting regular blogs. It is happening where the top brass sees the value.
http://edenprairieweblogs.org/
Excellent, Mark! Thank you! I’m collecting links like this… partially because that’s just me, and partially because I suspect that, sooner rather than later I hope, I’m going to be asked to show someone around here that there *is* value for the “top brass” types.
I think the big thing from your example is reading and responding to comments. Sets him apart. Nice!
And I was impressed by his “call to action” – here is the challange that we are facing, how do you think we should meet this challenge? IMHO, that really sets him apart, and I think that is totally what you were talking about when you were talking about making Gov 2.0 a two way communication path.
@Mark – I spent some time poking around the Eden Prairie blogs, and I still think that they are a great effort. I think it would be really cool if they accepted comments – or maybe I didn’t see them because I wasn’t logged in. Can you imagine how powerful it would be if, say, the blog posts about it looking like the state was going to cut funding had a similar “call to action” piece – here’s the challenges it will pose to our budget, here are the goals we have for meeting those challenges, what are your suggestions / strategies?
I’m musing aloud, now, but we learn in all of our leadership training (here’s to GeekChick’s blog today) that people cooperate more and have more ownership in processes that they have helped develop… so, if we could harness, grab ahold of, all that enthusiasm that this last election generated amongst the digital generation, and use it to get them involved in their local politics because those are ultimately politics that matter the most (ok, I’m biased) – it would be a great thing.
IMHO of course. Or IMNSHO, whichever you prefer. 🙂
Here’s another excellent example of police blogging: the Savannah-Chatham (GA) Metro Police:
http://scmpdcopblog.blogspot.com/