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Wednesday was International Right to Know Day

• Here are some remarks from the State Department’s Maria Otero who is the Under Secretary for Democracy and Global Affairs.
• The Reporters Committee marks International Right to Know Day.

For Local News, TV Is Dominant But the Internet is Our Digital Future

• “The days of relying on a print newspaper and a television anchor telling us “the way it is” are long gone. In 2011, Americans and citizens the world over consume news on multiple screens and platforms. Increasingly, we all contribute reports ourselves, using Internet-connected smartphones.”

Community Foundations Support Public Access TV

• I have a guest post on The American Society for Public Administration’s blog.
• “From the recent earthquake to hurricanes and wildfires there certainly has been the need for residents to find out timely and useful information from their local government.”
  

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Open Gov Links of the Week

budget data, communication, FOIA, gov 2.0, government transparency, local government, local news, Open Data, open government, public access TV, public communication, public information, public relations, right to know, social media, transparency

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Transparency Advocates React to U.S. Open Government Action Plan (by techPresident)

• “President Barack Obama on Tuesday led the public unveiling of national open government action plans from the eight countries participating in the Open Government Partnership, a multilateral coalition on openness and transparency.”
• Find out what some advocates have said about it.

September 2011 Municipal Cost Index Released (by American City & County)

• Find out if the costs of goods and services purchased by local governments went up or down since last month.
  

August 2011 U.S. Online Video Rankings (by comScore)

• “comScore, Inc. … released data from the comScore Video Metrix service showing that 180 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in August for an average of 18 hours per viewer. The total U.S. Internet audience engaged in a record 6.9 billion viewing sessions.”
• More data here…

NY Governor launches transparency website (by CivSource)

• Find out how the Governor is trying to interact more with citizens.

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Open Gov Links of the Week

citizen participation, communication, engagement, gov 2.0, government transparency, local government, online video stats, open government, public information, public relations, stats, transparency, video, video stats

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Local Government Guidelines for Working with the Media During an Energy Emergency

• “This document provides strategies that local governments can use for communicating effectively with the media, and for cultivating relationships with both the media and the public during energy-related emergencies.”

Code for America Announces Winners

• Several cities have been selected to participate in CfA’s planned 2012 schedule. Find the winners listed here and here.
• Find out what Code for America does here.

Citizen-Sourced Redistricting Efforts Are Reaching the Finish Line

• Here’s Technically Philly’s post on the updated situation.
  

Look at Cook sets a high bar for open government data visualizations

• Open source tools and a focus on user experience elevate Cook County’s “Look at Cook” data website.

The O’Reilly Radar Visualization of the Week: Mapping U.S. Job Losses

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Open Gov Links of the Week

county government, crowdsourcing, data visualization, government data, local government, map, media, Open Data, open gov, open government, public information, public relations, redistricting

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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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Gov't & Technology, News & Events

accessibility, broadcasting, communication, engagement, gov 2.0, government websites, local government, Open Data, open government, public comment, public information, public relations, social media

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“OpenCongress 3.0 empowers citizens to contact their legislators”(by Alex Howard)

• How do you think this could apply to local government?

“Counties Share IT Survival Strategies for Declining Budgets”

“New York Assemblyman speaks on FOIL; Gov2.0 in NYC, and pensions names withheld” (SunshineReview.com)

• The Assemblyman fielded questions regarding executive sessions, posting meeting minutes, and participation during open meetings.

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Open Gov Links of the Week

citizen engagement, community relations, counties, county government, executive sessions, FOIA, gov 2.0, information technology, IT, meeting minutes, open government, open meetings, public engagement, public relations, transparency