Open Government Links of the Week – April 29, 2011
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“Obama orders agencies to improve customer service”
- Here’s the Executive Order.
- Here are “10 Ideas on Streamlining Service Delivery and Improving Customer Service” (by Steve Ressler on GovLoop)
Philly gets an Open Data Portal
- Here’s a brief rundown.
“Insulate Open Government Efforts From Budget Cuts” (by Steve Radick)
- “The problem is that most open government initiatives have been stood up and led by separate teams – the social media office, the New Media Director, the Open Government Team – rather than by existing functions within the enterprise. This makes open government and/or social media a separate line item in the budget – something that can literally be crossed off on the balance sheet when budgets are tight.”
Steve Ressler (Founder of GovLoop on GovTech.com): “5 Social Media Missteps to Avoid”
- “Talking about social media’s use in government sounds similar to conversations we had years ago about how the Internet could play a role in government. Implementing e-government and social media within a government agency share many similarities. And it’s important to not repeat the same mistakes. In the end, just remember — it’s really just the same song, different tune.”
“Town uses hidden switch to cut off public comment at meetings“
- The upside: At least they allow public comment…
eMarketer: “How Retail Sites Can Make the Most of Video”
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The ROI of Open Government – FOR Government
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When you invest in something, you want to know how well your investment is paying off – your ROI. Well, citizens “invest” in government (and their community), so they want easy access to useful information about it. They want to see a return on their investment.
But open government is not just beneficial for citizens; there is a Return on Investment (ROI) for governments as well…
The ROI for Government
Saves time (and $)
When government data is easily accessible, citizens can easily find what they are looking for and download the information themselves. This significantly reduces the amount of government time spent on fulfilling Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. If the government voluntarily puts data on its website (proactive disclosure) and makes it easy to use, citizens/reporters can find the information on their own, without needing to fill out a FOIA request. Clerks (and others) who work on fulfilling FOIA requests become enabled to spend their time working on other tasks.
Enabled Participation = Free consulting
Blind spots: everyone has them, including government. Citizens who have data at their disposal can be of greater help by helping to expose these blind spots to the government by means of providing insight and ideas.
If a government provides relevant information that is easily accessible to the public, citizens are then more likely to provide relevant feedback on their wants. Citizens can also take a look at what it going on and provide relevant feedback to the government that could potentially save the government money (see “Case Study: How Open data saved Canada $3.2 Billion” by @daeaves). Armed with this feedback from their citizens, government officials can then make more informed decisions about issues that impact their constituents.
Builds trust
Transparency encourages trust in government. And when citizens trust their government, they’re more likely to support their policies and their decisions. Which would you chose: To walk down a city street in pitch black or in broad daylight? It’s the same with government. Transparency (like sunlight) helps to build trust by removing suspicion.
The Payoff
The Sunlight Foundation puts it well when they say that “today, our newly networked citizenry has rising expectations of greatly expanded access to governmental information, so that it may play a fuller role in understanding, evaluating and participating in the workings of its government.” Remember Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address? The government is “…for the people”.
More openness means that both the people and the government win.
What other ways do transparency and collaboration help government become more effective? Let us know in the comments below!
*Note, Char Domin helped in editing a previous version of this post.
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3 “Sunny” Transparency Websites You Should Know About
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Sunshine Review
They’re “a non-profit organization dedicated to state and local government transparency. The Sunshine Review wiki collects and shares transparency information and uses a ‘10-point Transparency Checklist‘ to evaluate the content of every state and more than 5,000 local government websites.” (more about them/source; emphasis added)
Sunlight Foundation
It’s open government in action. Major elements of their work include the Sunlight Labs, Sunlight Reporting Group, Sunlight Live and the Open House Project (more about them/source; emphasis added).
Sunshine Week
It may be over for this year (see our posts for SunshineWeek), but the website is still loaded with information (such as related news and FOI links).
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Open Government Links of the Week – April 22, 2011
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It’s that time of the week where we let you know about some of the stories going on in the open government and technology space! Have any that should have been included? Share them in the comments!
“White House unveils tax calculator designed to give taxpayers a receipt” (Nextgov)
- Here’s the White House’s blog post and techPresident’s post about it.
- Interestingly, Clay Johnson (@cjoh on Twitter) had a blog post on this back in October. That post is entitled, “You Can’t Have a Receipt for your Taxes“.
- What do you think? Is the White House’s “Your Federal Taxpayer Receipt” a fair thing to post? Let us know in the comments!
“The Top Twittering Cities & Counties” (Code for America, HT)
- “This past cycle, we took a stab at collecting all the Twitter handles for cities and counties in ShortStack, our knowledge base of local governments. Out of 1293 accounts across 810 cities and counties (that we found), here’s the top ten by followers…”
“April 2011 Municipal Cost Index shows continuing price increases” (American City & County)
- How much higher was it than last year?
- Here’s an archive of the Index and a blog post on it by American City & County.
- About the Index: “The Municipal Cost Index, developed exclusively by American City & County, is designed to show the effects of inflation on the cost of providing municipal services.”
“Users to Google Video: Please Don’t Delete Our Clips” (GigaOM)
New York: “Putting the ‘Public’ in Public Meetings” (Gotham Magazine)
- ‘Staff who have to stay in the office, whether it’s the district office or even at City Hall, are assisted by webcasting,’ said [Councilmember] Brewer. ‘Not everyone has time to come down to City Hall, since government operates during the day.’….
- In the City Council, Brewer currently carries legislation modeled after the state rules that would require all city agencies to webcast their meetings. She hopes council will take it up this fall.
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Q & A with 1st White House Videographer
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I came across this post on TechPresident (by Nancy Scola), which linked to a White House blog post about a Q & A w/ their official videographer, Arun Chaudhary, along with Josh Earnest, the Deputy Press Secretary who narrates each episode of “West Wing Week“.
This is the first time ever that a President has had an official “videographer”.
Here are some of his tips for budding videographers (starting at 37:22 into the video):
- Don’t worry about the camera as much as you worry about the microphone.
- Don’t shoot all the time. If you’re shooting all the time, you’re not looking at what’s going on.
- Shoot shots…. Break down what you’re looking at and shoot it into the establishing and then the what you need to put the scene together. Don’t just have one meandering experience through the whole thing.
- Always be listening.
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Gov't & Technology, Open Government, Tech Tips
