Gov. 2.0a Conference Recap

I attended the Gov 2.0a conference in Oklahoma City this past week, and came away with a lot of valuable information.

What exactly is meant by "Government 2.0"? Applying new technology to how government is run, in order to make it more efficient, transparent, accountable, and participatory.

Speakers at the conference spoke on a variety of topics, from utilizing social networking to interact citizens/constituents, to how using technology can save money and improve services, to how a transparent government can spark (as speaker Laurel Ruma said) an "innovation economy".

Here are just a few quotes and tidbits from the conference.

• Laurel Ruma: "People are moving from using Social Web to participating in Civic Web."
• Carolyn Purcell: "Web 1.0 was the government giving citizens information. Web 2.0 is two-way interaction and communication between the government and its citizens."
• Mark Mitchell: "eGovernment encourages citizens to get "online" instead on "in-line" to interact with government."
• Mike Koehler: "People are hungry for information, and for participation."
• There are 192 members of Congress on Twitter - 65% are Republicans.
• Crowd-sourcing is a way to get citizens and employees involved. Sam's Club has saved $1M by unscrewing lightbulbs in their store vending machines - just one idea that came from crowd-sourcing with their employees.
• 75% of people get some of their news from blogs or social media. Kind of like you're doing right now!
• Facebook has 400,000,000 users, and Twitter has 105,000,000 users.
• SeeClickFix is an amazing tool that local governments should take advantage of. Citizens can post issues (i.e. potholes, graffiti, etc.) on a map of their city. The city is then made aware of the problem, and takes care of it. Not only does the citizen know that the issue was resolved, but it builds goodwill between the government and the citizens (as opposed to the all-too-often situation of a local government that seems unresponsive to citizen input).
• Manor, Texas, is on the forefront of the Gov 2.0 scene. They utilize social networking, crowd-sourcing, SeeClickFix, and a very interesting way to communicate with the public called QR-Codes, just to name a few.
  

I can't give the conference justice in a post here, but video from the event will be up on Gov20a.com soon. Once it is posted, I will link to the videos.

Gov 2.0a Conference in OKC

This is an upcoming event that I would like to recommend for anyone involved in government here in Oklahoma.

GOVERNMENT 2.0
Technology Applied to Improving Government

OKLAHOMA CITY – A government of the people, by the people should be for the people, but these days government has lost the personal touch. Now government and community leaders can learn how to better serve the people by getting personal.

The Gov 2.0a conference is focused on applications of technology to government problems. The conference will be a forum to learn about successful Gov 2.0 applications through case studies, to learn about best practices for Gov 2.0 applications, and to network with other professionals from city and state organizations, community groups, non-profits and the private sector who share interest in the application of technology to improve the functioning of our government.

The Gov 2.0a conference will feature state and local leaders who are using technology to better communicate with communities. Speakers will include Alex Pettit, Oklahoma’s first Chief Information Officer; Lt. Governor Jari Askins; Zach Nash, Oklahoma City’s Creative Director; Stephen Nolen, Shawnee Chief Information Officer; and many others.

WHO: Gov 2.0a Conference
WHAT: Bringing government and community leaders together to learn how to use technology to communicate with communities.
WHEN: May 6-7
WHERE: Cox Convention Center, Oklahoma City.
WEB: www.Gov20a.com

For more information or to schedule interviews contact Sid at (405) 585-6060 or sid@littlegov.com

Again, if you are involved in government at any level (city, county, state, or federal), or do anything with technology, or just want to be on the cutting edge of government transparency and user-friendliness, this conference is for you!

NewsFifty Unveils New Design

The team at NewsFifty.com has unveiled a new design for the news page, that really spruces it up. It still retains all of the feature that make it a great site, while adding some new ones. I blogged about this site recently, but had to let everyone know about the update.

NewsFifty now has a scrolling ticker with the top headline from each state. At the bottom of the page, they list "Helpful Sources", which is comprised of conservative think tanks and groups, as well as weather, hurricane, and earthquake links. They also list their blogroll and various news links.

On the state pages, the same changes were applied. On the state "Helpful Sources" are listed websites for the various state departments (legislative links, ODOT, DHS, etc.), as well as political parties sites.

All in all, a great resource has been turned into something even better! Don't forget to add NewsFifty.com to your bookmarks!

NewsFifty.com

For those of you who haven't heard, there's a great new website to check for news: NewsFifty.com. It's very similar to the Drudge Report, but with a distinct twist - each state has its own news page, with relevant material for each state.

However, NewsFifty isn't run by RSS feeds; a nationwide staff runs the site, directed by fellow Oklahoman Sid Burgess.

NewsFifty.com has one national homepage that features important headlines and breaking news from across the country. Through an interactive map, visitors can quickly and easily access 50 separate state pages dedicated to all the headlines from each state. In addition, the most popular newspapers, magazines, blogs, television and radio stations and other helpful sources are listed on each state's page.

I highly recommend utilizing this great new resource - I find myself visiting NewsFifty, and the Oklahoma page in particularly, many times a day now. Not only does NewsFifty cover national and state news, but local news is always on the state page. Several Muskogee/Ft. Gibson-area stories have been featured.

This is a great tool - be sure and add NewsFifty.com to your bookmarks!