Posts Tagged: OpenGov

Citizen Engagement Case Study: A GitHub-first Campaign

This blog post is an excerpt from our latest guide, which explores the role of citizen engagement in transforming government. Click here to download the report. We’re all familiar with the traditional ways politicians announce and publicize their campaigns for office: stump speeches, TV ads and op-eds in newspapers. Some of the more innovative onesRead… Read more »

Good Engagement? Bad Engagement? Time to Check Your Cholesterol!

My post on engagement from a few weeks ago, The Myth of Social Media Engagement in the Public Service, generated a healthy debate on the nature and inherent value of engagement in the public sector. Some interpreted my post as saying that I held little or no value in engagement for the public sector. ThisRead… Read more »

The Challenges State Leaders Face in Delivering True Fiscal Transparency

Most states have decided to list their expenses so their citizens can see where tax dollars are being spent. Listing the thousand, or millions, of individual transactions is good in theory, but these endless lists of expenditures fall dramatically short in providing the kind of transparency people yearn for as government continues to expand. GoodRead… Read more »

The Challenges of Current State Transparency Models

“A good set of financials tells the story of your enterprise. Transparency should do the same.” Our citizens (all of us) work hard to generate tax dollars to support government programs to improve the quality of life. If you are like me, you believe Americans have the right know where and how their tax dollarsRead… Read more »

The 5 Biggest Challenges of Doing Social Media in the Public Sector

The case for the presence of the public sector on social media no longer needs to be made. Social media is where the public is, so social media is where public sector organizations (PSOs) need to be if they are serious about service to the public. This doesn’t mean it’s all smooth sailing for theRead… Read more »

Want Better Citizen Engagement? Three Tips to Get There

Do you believe that the involvement of citizens in the management of the government makes government better? Are you willing to do things differently to reach a different segment of the population? One of the leaders I respect the most has often been heard to say that public servants are at their best when theyRead… Read more »

15 Opportunities for Your Agency to Innovate in Government

The Department of the Interior has successfully matched their message to the right medium with their use of Instagram — and that’s one of the ways government can innovate better. Wednesday, GovDelivery hosted an important event on the Power of Reach in government, on how your communications can engage stakeholders to take action – onlineRead… Read more »

Crafting a Thoughtful Blend of Public and Private Data

Over the past four years, we have seen an incredible shift in government data: more is open source and more information is being measured—especially in urban environments. Cities are developing unique data sets that include Urban Analytics where real-time information about traffic and pollution is measured by a variety of tools. This data is expandingRead… Read more »

Can governments support crowdfunding?

This is a topic quite close to my heart at present, as I’m running a Kickstarter crowdfunding project myself – at www.kickstarter.com/projects/socialmediaplanner/social-media-planner (please check it out!) It’s teaching me a great deal about the challenges involved, and I’ll be reporting back on this at the end of the process. A broader question is whether governmentsRead… Read more »

An exploration of Joel Gurin’s book Open Data Now

Readers may enjoy this article, which covers a few topics in government-released data: http://radar.oreilly.com/2014/03/open-data-can-drive-partnerships-with-government.html Topics include businesses and public groups as partners, the cost of collecting data, trusting the results of data crunching, and lessons from the open source software community.