Open Government Links of the Week – August 26, 2011
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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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3 Earthquake Takeaways for Government & Social Media
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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“
USGS crowd sources earthquake reports
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Gov't & Technology, News & Events
Social Media: The Norm
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I came across an article today that I thought brought up an obvious (but much needed) point. The article says that CIO of Michigan gave a presentation and “[stated] that Online tools and social media are now the norm.”
This is an important point that government officials who are resistant to using social media (such as Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc) need to understand: this isn’t something unusual. It’s what citizens and businesses use on a regular basis.
It’s also valid to point out that, as a government, you won’t be one of the first to use them… so you can learn from others’ successes (and mistakes).
Are Facebook and Twitter new concepts? Sort of… but communication and relationship building was happening way before these platforms came along. They’re just new places to communicate and build relationships. And, they happen to be what many citizens and businesses are using to connect with each other.
And if your citizens (and businesses) are using social media to connect and share information… why shouldn’t you at least consider it?
Yes, you’ll need to first understand the legal side of things and have a plan going into it. But, you won’t be the first to have done so.
What do you think? Does your local government use social media to effectively communicate? Let us know in the comment section below…
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Gov't & Technology, Local Government
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Last Friday, a new policy paper by Peter Levine was released entitled: “Civic Engagement and Community Information: Five Strategies to Revive Civic Communication“.
“His paper is the sixth in a series focused on implementing the Knight Commission’s 15 recommendations for creating healthy informed communities across the country released in 2009 in a landmark report, Informing Communities.” (source)
(Download the PDF or Read it Online)
There are 5 main strategy recommendations:
- Create a Civic Information Corps using the nation’s
“service” infrastructure to generate knowledge (view online) - Engage universities as community information hubs (view online)
- Invest in face-to-face public deliberation (view online)
- Generate public “relational” knowledge (view online)
- Civic engagement for public information
and knowledge (view online)
What do you think? Do you agree? Let us know in the comments below!
Quotations from the paper: Peter Levine, Civic Engagement and Community Information: Five Strategies to Revive Civic Communication, Washington, D.C.: The Aspen Institute, April 2011.
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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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