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“As Citizens Look for Hurricane Information Online, Governments Scramble to Deliver”

“3 Earthquake Takeaways for Government & Social Media”

• So what can government communications learn from the east-coast earthquake that happened on Tuesday?
• Here’s three things:
  • be where they are, be official, be fast.

“New reports on citizen participation and rulemaking offer open government guidance”

• “AmericaSpeaks released a new report, ‘Assessing Public Participation in an Open Government Era: A Review of Federal Agency Plans.’ This represents the most comprehensive review of the public participation aspects of the federal open government initiative to date.” (link in original)

“Court rules White House visitor logs subject to FOIA”

• A bunch of info in the story by The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

“comScore Releases July 2011 U.S. Online Video Rankings”

• “comScore released data from the comScore Video Metrix service showing that 180 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in July for an average of 18.5 hours per viewer. The total U.S. Internet audience engaged in a record 6.9 billion viewing sessions.” (emphasis added)

Which way did the August 2011 Municipal Cost Index go? Find out here!

“Working Together Towards Transparency in Local Government”

• The author “shares with us his organization’s venture at creating metrics for government websites that officials and citizens can agree on.”

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Open Gov Links of the Week

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This afternoon there was a 5.8 magnitude earthquake that had it’s epicenter in VA.

We felt it here in the office and within moments of it happening, I checked Twitter. What did I find? Multiple people that I follow had already said they felt it in DC and elsewhere. This was before the mainstream news websites would have had any information on it – well before the newspaper for tomorrow has come out.

I also quickly checked the USGS’ website to see if they had any information on it and they sure did!

So what can governments learn from this? (I get some of this from Steve Ressler’s point in this post on GovLoop, “What Tools Government Needs in an Earthquake“)

Here’s some ideas:

Be where THEY are!

• You need to be in places that you will be heard quickly. These need to be outlets where your citizens are and regularly frequent for news and official (or unofficial information). If they don’t hear your message, the rest pointless. Whether that is Twitter, Facebook, through an email list, or someplace else where people go for breaking news.

Be Official!

• People are talking about it – whether you are or not. And they may have inaccurate information. You need to be out there with correct and trustworthy information.

Be Fast!

• Like I said, I found out info about the earthquake within moments of it happening – from sources who didn’t know what the earthquakes’ magnitude was, if there might be an aftershock, etc. You have to be quick to get information out there. The USGS was pretty fast. They had data about the earthquake available almost instantly on their website and they Tweeted about it on Twitter within minutes of it.

More Observations…

• Jeffry Levy (@levyj413 on Twitter) has an interesting observation about the USGS Tweets on Twitter.
• “USGS crowd sources earthquake reports“

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Several important things happened in the world of open government and technology this week. Let me know which articles should be added to the list by commenting below!

• The U.S. has a new Chief Information Officer. Alex Howard has this write-up about it and here’s Nick Judd’ post on it.




• The 2011 FOCAS, Networks and Citizenship, took place in Aspen, Colorado this week. There’s archived video online from it (along with more information) accessible through Alex Howard’s post.




• Here’s an article on “How Governments Are Developing Better Performance Metrics“.




• The Sunlight Foundation now has a 3rd post in a series entitled, “Congress Online”. This time the focus is on Congressional media.




• Interesting article by eMarketer on the adoption of tablets among the Hispanic population. How is your local government reaching out to this community? This blog has touched on it several times.

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Open Gov Links of the Week

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Last week, The Brookings Institution hosted a panel discussion about (among other things) social media and civic engagement. The event was held in Washington, D.C.

Here are some posts/news stories about the event. Video of the event is embedded below…

• “Ten Ways Social Media Can Improve Campaign Engagement and Reinvigorate American Democracy” (Moderator of the event, Darrell M. West, Vice President and Director, Governance Studies, The Brookings Institution)
• “Recap: Brookings’ Panel on How Social Networking Can Re-Invigorate Civic Participation” (Alicia Mazzara on GovLoop)
• “Can Social Media Reinvigorate Civic Participation?” (ICMA)
• “Crowd Pleasers v. Policy Heft” (nextgov)
• “White Boards and Goolsbee vs. Obama and Babies” (techPresident)

Panelists included:

• Mindy Finn (Partner, Engage)
• Diana Owen (Associate Professor of Political Science, Director of American Studies, Georgetown University)
• Macon Phillips (Special Assistant to the President and Director of Digital Strategy, The White House)
• Lee Rainie (Director, Pew Internet & American Life Project)
• Welcoming Remarks and Moderator – Darrell M. West (Vice President and Director, Governance Studies, The Brookings Institution)

Special thanks to Leandro Oliva (@lmoliva_ on Twitter) for letting me use this info!

While I’m not totally sure where I originally found out about this, it might have been from here.

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On Friday, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission held a roundtable discussion throughout the day on “Voting Goes Viral. Using New Media to Manage an Election and Communicate with Voters“. The archived video of the webcast is available here.

An Introduction

Their premise going into the day?

There are a multitude of social media sources for information about elections and voting. In this rapidly moving, multi-source environment it is more important than ever that there are official resources about voting that the public can rely upon. (source [PDF])

Here’s some interesting statements that are made in the Agenda and Meeting Information [PDF]

There is more information about the event at the bottom of this post…

• The voting public increasingly relies on information that is generated and exchanged amongst themselves, about elections, including the basics of how, where and when to vote. Candidates, parties and voting activists have their own strategic uses of social media. Social media outlets are the platforms in which information about elections is being shared and repeated.
• Journalists and election officials share a common goal of informing the public about election procedures and election outcomes, and both groups are using social media to inform the public.
• An important point to make about social media is that it is not a technology; it is a culture. And, yes, it can be scary and unfamiliar to some of us. However, we have to remember our goal – serving voters. They are on Twitter. They use Facebook. And we have a responsibility to go where they are and make sure they have reliable, credible information about exercising their right to vote. Remember, using social media is not about getting a return on your investment; it’s about having conversations with the people you work for. It’s about collaboration, interaction and it is the way business is being done.
• In an era of dynamic changes in voting technologies, increased voter expectations and reduced budgets, journalists and election officials need to find common ground and explore ways to improve the efficiency and effectives of communicating critical election information to the public. A natural tension between these two groups has been speed versus accuracy regarding unofficial election results.
• The social media environment is fast-paced, unforgiving and can be cruel. If you enter it, you will make mistakes, big and small. It’s important to develop a strategy, but also be confident enough to experiment. At the end of the day, election officials should always remember that these efforts are being undertaken on behalf of the public. You want to make sure they have accurate information about how to successfully cast a ballot. Get ahead of rumors and take advantage of this built in early warning system. Get unfiltered feedback, which all true leaders want. It may get weird out there, and it is normal to be scared, confused and excited. But you are helping more people and you are accomplishing your mission.

Insights

The archived video of the webcast is viewable here.

Here are some Tweeted insights from the @EACgov Twitter account from throughout the day …

More Information About the Event

Their Agenda included the following sessions:

• Social Media: What Is It?
• Social Media: Who Uses It?
• Journalism and Social Media
• Strategies & Stories from Election Officials

Participants included:

• Chuck Todd — NBC News political director
• Lee Rainie — Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life project director
• Chris Chambless—Clay County, Florida, supervisor of elections
• Alysoun McLaughlin — District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics public affairs manager
• Brian Newby — Johnson County, Kansas, election commissioner
• Dana Chisnell — the Usability in Civic Life Project

Also, see techPresident’s post about the event.

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