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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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“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

accessibility, citizen participation, collaboration, communication, engagement, FOIA, gov 2.0, government transparency, local government, online video stats, open government, public comment, public information, social media, stats, transparency, video stats

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This is a collection of links that I’ve come across recently related to technology, transparency, and government. Not all of them came out this past week, but they haven’t been included in former Friday posts like this. Know of any that should be included? Add them to the comments below!

“Illinois, New York City move forward on open data, apps”

“Social Media and Elections: Using New Media to Manage an Election & Communicate with Voters”

• How can election officials use social media? Why should they? 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”. Here’s some takeaways…

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

• “comScore, Inc. … released data from the comScore Video Metrix service showing that 176 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in May for an average of 15.9 hours per viewer.” (emphasis added)
• “83.3 percent of the U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.”

“Report: Best Practices Guide for Local Governments”

• “Seismic shifts in the economy are forcing dramatic changes in the nation’s cities and counties. Many jurisdictions have made deep cuts across the board, eliminated entire functions, or both, while seeking new means of support and collaboration. This is a time when relevance and adaptability of government — and by extension, the public-sector information technology community — is being subjected to a very real-world test. What’s more, this test is being conducted in full public view, every day and with every encounter between citizens and their government.The urgent question is around how well, how nimble and how agile government is at adapting to the current environment while never losing sight of the future. This special report offers some answers in the form of best practices gleaned from our extensive local government surveys.”

“June 2011 Municipal Cost Index shows steady increase”

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Open Gov Links of the Week

communication, elections, engagement, local government, online video stats, Open Data, public relations, social media, video, video stats

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This week’s version isn’t the shortest ever, that’s for sure. Feel free to add more links in the comments section!

• “New York Releases ‘Road Map for the Digital City’” (HT Alex Howard’s Tweet on Twitter)
  • Also see: “With a new road map, New York City aims to be the nation’s premier digital city”

• Report: “Using Online Tools to Engage – and be Engaged by –The Public” (PDF, from IBM)
  • “Deciding how best to use online tools to engage the public may be the ultimate moving target for public managers. This is not just because of the rapid development of new tools, or ‘apps,’ for engagement. The main challenges now facing government managers are understanding:
    • The increasing complexity of how people organize themselves online
    • Citizens’ evolving expectations of government”

• “3 Ways Government Could Save Time & Money if They Used Social Media”
  • “You hear it all the time: Facebook this, Twitter that, social media… blah, blah, blah. But why should government care? … Well for starters, two words: Time & money…”

• Where does the federal gov’t rank for the top choice of employers among new information technology graduates?

• “Philadelphia Must Catch Up on Open Government, Councilman Says” (GovTech.com)
  • “Philadelphia Councilman Bill Green wants the City of Brotherly Love to take a liking to open government.”

• “comScore Releases April 2011 U.S. Online Video Rankings”
  • “comScore, Inc. released data from the comScore Video Metrix service showing that 172 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in April”
  • “81.9 percent of the U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.”
  • More data in the Press Release…

• “A Bucketful of Transparency Papers”
  • This has also been added to our Open Government Resources page.

• “Newspapers + Government: 2.0”

• “High-speed internet prices drop by 50% around the globe”




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Open Gov Links of the Week

broadband, engagement, gov 2.0, government transparency, online video stats, open government, social media, stats, transparency, video, video stats

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CA cities having hard time dealing w/ FOIA requests.

• “Now, IT officials working in California cities are saying that they are overwhelmed by the complexity of the public archived information being sought.”
• “Although responding to record requests has traditionally been a function of a city clerk’s office, in recent years IT departments have become heavily involved in the process as federal and state laws have included electronic documents under the public records umbrella.”
• Article: “Transparency Bill Ups E-Discovery Pressure on California Cities” (GovTech.com, HT)

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

• “comScore, Inc. … released data from the comScore Video Metrix service showing that 174 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in March for an average of 14.8 hours per viewer. The total U.S. Internet audience engaged in more than 5.7 billion viewing sessions during the course of the month.”
• More stats in the release…

“Mobile Decisions | To App or Not to App, That is the Question“

• “as mobile development in the federal government continues to ramp up, tools to help agencies and individuals assess how (and when) to intelligently proceed are increasingly important. Recognizing that every situation is unique, an understanding of a few critical questions should provide some clarity for those making the decision on how best to proceed with mobile development.”

Sunshine Review’s Post: “Open government and data resources“

• “Through FOIAchat, a weekly live chat Sunshine Review hosts on Twitter, we’ve run into a lot of really great resources for those of you hoping to learn more about your government. Usually, it takes some investigation to get data and documents from governments, but these resources host searchable information online for you to utilize.”

How can social media help government reach Hispanics (a growing population)?

• The U.S. Hispanic population is on the rise. How can Gov 2.0 help local governments serve this population of citizens?

So there you have it! Any more ideas? Let us know in the comments!

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Open Gov Links of the Week

accessibility, Census, engagement, FOIA, gov 2.0, Hispanics, Minorities, mobile, online video stats, open government, social media, stats, video, video stats