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This is a presentation I gave on Monday to NSW Health, including a review of Australian social media adoption, how agencies have been using social media, risks to watch out for and some examples of good public sector social media execution.[read more]

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A public-private alliance will begin by bringing Microsoft training and resources to North Dakotans in kindergarten through graduate school to increase skills in three main areas: education, employability and entrepreneurship, focusing specifically on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).[read more]

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We wanted to foster a friendly event where anyone would feel welcome to participate. The team in Ottawa had, in particular, done great work in reaching out an engaging new people in previous hackathons, they’d have a wealth of non-software developers and even full families attend their events. This was as much a hackathon as it was a community event.[read more]

Whether emergency service personnel and management ‘like’ or ‘dislike’ Facebook, Twitter or other social media and online channels is now irrelevant. Citizens, media organisations and other groups increasingly rely on them to share information, tactics and to organise outside of any central control by an agency and regardless of their wishes.[read more]

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Connecticut’s new web portal, www.connect.ct.gov, marks the first step of the department’s wide-ranging “ConneCT” modernization initiative, designed to bring 21st Century technology to an agency working to keep up with record demand for food and medical assistance.[read more]

Image credit: David Pearson

Of course, how you get open, collaborative working practices going within a large organisation is jolly tricky and the answers probably won’t be found in a blog post. However, start small and you can achieve great things. So, the most obvious thing to do, I think, is to run your own GovCamp.[read more]

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Maryland State Senator Catherine E. Pugh has introduced four bills in this legislative session, and Governor Martin O’Malley has announced a package of initiatives designed to further Maryland’s leadership as a hub for cybersecurity jobs.[read more]

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At the Gov 2.0 lunchtime event last week (video coming soon), Darren, Manager, Media and Community Information, from the ACT's Emergency Services Agency talked about how closely he'd worked with Richard, his technical lead, to create their social media presence and new website. He proudly told us the website had cost only $43 to build,...[read more]

What can social media do for law enforcement? A new study finds nine different ways that police are using social media in Europe.[read more]

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There are 41 countries listed as having open data websites, out of almost 200 nations. In their national open data sites, in total, these nations have released at least 1,068,164 data sets (I was unable to get a count from China, Timor-Leste, Tunisia or Sweden's national open data sites), for an average of 28,869 and a median of only 483 - due to a few high release countries (US, France, Canada).[read more]

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In the US, material created by the Federal government is, by default, owned by the public. In the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and others, governments are transitioning from closed copyright systems to more open ones. There's continuing scrutiny, review and debate over the 'right' setting for copyright, with the companies who only exist due to copyright often at odds with their own customers, who wish to share books, music and video material they enjoy.[read more]

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Idaho has launched a new government transparency website which includes downloadable financial reports from public offices over the last several years. The reports range from broad summaries of State revenues and expenditures with easy-to-read charts and graphs, to detailed snapshots of agency-level finances.[read more]

How do you measure success? What counts? Likes? Retweets? Twitter followers? The impact of communications – traditional or digital – must be not the passive audience who glanced at it but what people did as a result of it.[read more]

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State officials in West Virginia yesterday presented a letter to state lawmakers indicating that despite multiple investigations and plan revisions of its broadband plan, broadband access is still available at fewer anchor institutions than originally intended.[read more]

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The Australian Government Housing Minister Brendan O'Connor apologized for and deleted a tweet that claimed that a tweet from Australia's Opposition Leader Tony Abbott was a political stunt as it highlighted Abbot's volunteer fire fighting activities. Without delving into the politics of this discussion, the topic raises an interesting area for both politicians and public servants.[read more]

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Virginia has redesigned and launched anew version of its official state website, Virginia.gov. The website was redesigned with a focus on citizen usability and also includes a mobile version. The website will be considered the official state portal and contain links to all other necessary state websites and online forms.[read more]

Best wishes to you and yours from us and ours![read more]

I’ve always felt that a lot of innovation happens where resources are scarcest. Scarcity forces us to think differently, to be efficient and to question traditional (more expensive) models. This is why I’m always interested to see how local governments in developing economies are handling various problems.[read more]

National Public Safety Broadband Network (NPSBN) and forward movement in next-generation 911 (NG911) are a 180-degree turn from what we faced a few years ago. And it’s about time.[read more]

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1. Taxpayers would be "guests," and we would fall all over ourselves to win their repeat business. 2. Customer service would be in the first paragraph of everyone's job description.[read more]

The data released by the Philadelphia police department includes the details of major crimes occurring in Philadelphia, including Homicide, Rape, Robbery, Aggravated Assault, Burglary, Theft, and Motor Vehicle Theft. Taken together, this data is made up of almost 600,000 individual crime incident records.[read more]

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Calling for a more comprehensive review of issues related to gun violence, Gov. Rick Snyder today vetoed legislation that would have allowed concealed pistol license holders who completed additional training to carry a concealed pistol in schools and other places that currently are off-limits.[read more]

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Code for America Brigade has announced the end of its Race for Reuse competition which redeployed 31 open source apps in 28 cities throughout the United States. The Race for Reuse was launched in October in an effort to promote some of the best municipal and civic engagement apps already in use and stand them up so they could be deployed in multiple cities.[read more]

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The premise is simple. Cities publish details of a strategic challenge they need help solving and the public, social enterprises, research centres, not-for-profit and for-profit organisations are invited to contribute their solutions. Jurors shortlist and select winning solutions, which are then implemented.[read more]

When I read that a mere fifty years ago there was a debate about whether or not public servants should get telephones for their work, I realized that the same debate continues today and repeats itself until a government becomes a technology leader. Today, Google, Wikipedia, and other knowledge extenders are so common that they are in our pockets, on our mobile phones; and yet and some local governments STILL debate whether or not internet access is allowable.[read more]

During a media event this afternoon, Ohio Governor Kasich lit the state’s ultra high-speed 100gbps broadband network. The idea for the network was first announced during the Governor’s 2012 State of the State address. Ohio leads the nation in the amount of fiber laid per person in a state. At this new speed, smartphone data will be 50,000 times faster and the state’s hospitals will be able to send 8.5 million medical records per second.[read more]

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Yesterday the Sydney Morning Herald reported that the Liberal Party had 'slapped a social media gag on MPs.' I think social media has become an important 'toolkit' of channels for politicians to use to engage constituents, stakeholders and the media. If the party can't trust its own electoral candidates to behave appropriately in public discourse, why should the public trust these candidates in public office?[read more]

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Iowa is upgrading its 35 year old human services eligibility system and has chosen Accenture for the task. Human services systems determine eligibility for programs such as Medicaid, food stamps, or other earned benefits. These systems also maintain the case record for each individual using an earned benefit.[read more]

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We now live in a different world. Close to 100% of Australians use the internet for an average of over 48 hours per month online. The overwhelming majority of Australians use broadband (96%) and it is their most popular way of engaging with governments. There is an opportunity for Australia to follow the bold leadership of other nations to mandate a more powerful and central role for the Government CIO than was previously the case.[read more]

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Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell has put forward a new transportation goal for 2013, and that goal includes a challenge to legislators – find $500 million in new revenues to pay for it. At the Governor’s annual transportation conference, he laid out is plans for the state’s transportation system.[read more]