Darrell West, Vice President and Director of the Brookings Institution’s Governance Studies published the following article:  “Ten Ways Social Media Can Improve Campaign Engagement and Reinvigorate American Democracy” on June 28.

In it he reports the findings of a panel discussion regarding how social media can have an effect on American politics , especially concerning campaigns, elections, and civic participation.

You can find video coverage or an audio file of the event at the event’s media page, or you can read some of the tweets from the event.

Scott Wong from Politico reports how Twitter is responding to concerns on Capitol Hill that the Twitter accounts of legislators are vulnerable to hacking.

A representative from Twitter is sending them advice on how to keep their accounts secure.

Here is the article called “Twitter e-mails Congress safety tips.”

Roll Call published an article today for those who are interested in how technology is affecting government, campaign finance, and elections. In a piece called “Members launch personal apps,” Melanie Zanona discusses how Members of Congress are beginning to embrace the use of smartphone apps. What started out as a new communication opportunity could become an important fundraising tool in the upcoming elections.

According to the article, U.S. Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio) was the first to come up with an app last year so that he could stay in touch with his constituents. It also says the past year has seen 16 Members now offering mobile apps, most of them being Republicans.

Apps are being used to give people quick access to news, voting records, to social media platforms, and to photos.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s campaign site has an app that allows people to donate to his campaign.

At the end of the article, they have a list showing the categories of apps and the names of the legislators who offer them.

A great deal of attention is being paid these days to mobile phones, mobile apps, and how these things will change political campaigns, elections, and the interaction between government and citizens. So when I saw this item on KStreetCafe blog, I thought I ought to share it this week as our Highlighted Site of the Week: The Mobile Citizen Summit.

On April 16, Mobile Citizen Summit will be held in Washington, D.C. According to their site, it is “a one-day learning laboratory for those interested in applying mobile technologies to empower, fuel and drive citizen engagement in the public good.” It promises to enlighten attendees on the possibilities that mobile technology opens up, to show the latest gadgets and apps, and to give existing case studies of businesses that are successfully using mobile apps.

Registration appears to be free and as of right now there are 156 available tickets. The Planning Committee of Mobile Citizen Summit are even open to receiving input on what topics should be covered in the all-day event and are taking suggestions for adding speakers to their agenda.

If you cannot attend, you may wish to follow them on Twitter (@mCitizenSummit) and their hashtag #mCitizen.

Have a terrific weekend!

Smart phone photo by John Karakatsanis on Wikipedia.

Here are a few news items:

• Govtech.com’s Matt Williams writes about the growing group of government workers using iPads and what apps  they like to use in their agencies.

• The 2011 Federal Media and Marketing Study is out and Govexec.com reports that 54% of management level government workers use Facebook, 34% use YouTube, 18% use LinkedIn, and 9% use Twitter.
• Meredith Shiner in Politico writes about how U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor and U.S. Senator Chuck Shumer are using Twitter to volley their competing messages about.
• The State Column reports that Newark Mayor Cory A. Booker has won the coveted “Shorty” Award for best government Twitter feed. Mayor Booker had to give his acceptance speech in 140 characters or less.

Last September we highlighted GovLoop.com and talked about some great Gov 2.0 features they offer like the lists of government social media contacts and their many discussion groups. I find myself taking in a quick scan of their network almost daily, and I am always delighted by the new and powerful Gov 2.0 things they offer. So today we highlight GovLoop.com revisited.

Here is a grab bag of GovLoop pages where you could lose a few hours exploring and come away smarter for it. (It sure beats losing a few hours playing Angry Birds!)

Mobile Apps for Gov’t lists 36 mobile phone apps by the name of the app, the organization behind it, and the smart phone platform that can use it. Among the apps listed, you will find the White House, iCongress, FDA recalls, FBI Most Wanted, Library of Congress, and state portals like California, Oklahoma, Texas, and Utah.

Are you new to government contracting and procurement? GovLoop has a Terms Every Government Contractor Must Know list.

Are you doing a story on Open Government? GovLoop has 358 programs listed on its List of Open Government Projects.

(more…)

• Daniel Newhauser from Roll Call announced the U.S. House of Representatives will be launching a new website in April. The article says the new site promises to be more “user-friendly … [and will offer] up-to-date information on the home page about committee schedules, the latest votes and information from the Clerk of the House.”
• The Department of Homeland Security is planning a new social media outreach program, according to an article on FiercegovernmentIT.com.

• Govtech.com reported that the state of Oregon has released a new data portal, Data.Oregon.gov. Oregon has become the latest state to offer raw data where the public can take information about things like state contracts, agency salaries, and expenditures. You can create filters, segmented data sets, charts, and maps. Data can also be exported as XML and CSV files for your own API, or as a PDF for easy presentation as is.

For a full list of states offering such a data portal, see the federal parent site Data.gov for an interactive map.

• In another news item, the Des Moines Register wrote a piece about how the Iowa Flood Center at the University of Iowa will be publishing online flood maps to help citizens and city officials throughout the state better prepare for flood disasters.
• Here is an article from the Houston Chronicle reporting that a bill has been proposed in the Texas House to ban city and state public officials from emailing, texting, and posting on the internet while they are “on the clock”.

We keep an ever-watchful eye on any developments in the area of government use of social media. Here are two interesting lists to explore:

A thank you goes out to OhMyGov! for highlighting a new resource by DCI Digital Group called the Digital America Map. This interactive map measures the use of Facebook and Twitter by officials in each state. How did your state do? If you don’t like your state’s ranking, or feel the information needs to be updated because your governor just started a Twitter account and is tweeting up a storm, then send DCI a message on their Twitter account!

Along those lines, Men’s Health Magazine (of all things) published an article a few days ago called “Twitter Towns, USA” ranking “the most socially networked cities” in America. This list is not about government use, but it is still interesting. Washington, D.C. rose to the top position; Atlanta, Georgia came in second place; and Denver, CO was in third. It pains me to tell you Cleveland did not make the top ten. I had to keep scrolling down the page to find out we placed at 51st out of 100.

Mashups have become all the rage on blogs and websites. A mashup is the craft of taking existing material (data, text, art), mixing it up, and turning it into a new derivative work. Some can be just fun, like taking two songs that were recorded decades apart and making a new song out of it. Some can be helpful, like combining information from weather websites, adding the power of Google Maps, and a dash of poignant Twitter conversations, and voilà – you have great detailed coverage of a storm during an emergency.

Some mashups can be very powerful. Today’s Highlighted Site of the Week is Data.gov. With its May 2009 release of government data sets by Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra, Data.gov allowed very clever people to put out mashups that could change our lives. Data.gov has two goals – “democratizing public sector data and driving innovation.”

The amount of information is staggering: elections, federal government finances and employment, state and local government finances and employment, banking, demographics, and much more. On the site, the data sets can be searched by category, by government agency, or both.

Here is where the artistry comes into play. Groups and individuals have mashed the data sets to come up with something quite revealing. One group, DataMasher.org, allows visitors to the site to combine data from Data.gov. Some of the results are interactive maps that show federal spending per U.S. Representative, total per capita contributions to political candidates, and federal spending per political contribution by state.

Another example is Tetoncode.com, which put together an API that shows federal contracts per state. And there is so much useful information being revealed about health care, FDA inspections, unemployment statistics, job prospects, and housing foreclosures.

I think we can expect to see mashups on blogs and across social media platforms as a standard in the near future. Who knows – they could become game changers in campaigns and elections.

What mashup would you like to create?

Images courtesy of Data.gov and Datamasher.org.