Who can possibly top New York City? This week’s Highlighted Site of the Week is the city government’s NYC Digital. Their statistics are staggering: a four million digital audience, 202 million pageviews of NYC.gov in 2010, 52 agencies represented, 4000 points of engagement, 98% residential broadband access, 200 social media channels, and – as they are proud to say – it is all because they have one plan for New York City’s digital future.

According to the site: “New York City is one of the world’s leading digital metropolises. As Part I: State of the Digital City illustrates, New York City government engages over 25 million people a year through more than 200 digital channels including NYC.gov, mobile applications, and social media.”

They work hard to promote civic engagement, encourage new business startups with their Business Solutions Centers, and host hackathons where they provide city data to programmers so they can write cutting edge web and mobile applications to help the city. For those involved in government relations, their Lobbying Bureau page has many links in its helpful FAQ list.

The hundreds of NYC Social Media Sites range from the mayor’s office Twitter feed and Children’s Services’ Facebook, to the Departments of Aging,  Buildings, Business, Community Affairs, Education, and many more. Take a look at their 21 Mobile Apps, where you can have information about the road conditions, sports events, Department of Health updates, directions for getting around the city, sanitation department info, and the latest news from the mayor’s office sent directly to your mobile phone.

NYC Digital is as big as the city itself and just as humbling, I must say. Have a terrific weekend, everyone!

Photo of the New York City skyline at night by Francisco Diez on Wikipedia.

I saw this item on Eric Brown’s Political Activity Law blog.

YouTube is now the place to watch the latest political videos with its new YouTube Politics Channel. According to YouTube’s blog, “The new YouTube Politics site will feature the latest campaign ads, parodies, gotchas, and speeches, offering you a 360-view of the election.”

YouTube Politics follows in the footsteps of other Google projects that touch upon politics and elections, such as YouTube News and YouTube Town Hall. Of course since it is YouTube, you will be able to follow each candidate to see how they are doing by seeing their stats – how many video views they have had, how many subscribers, and the quality of the comments they receive.

YouTube’s blog offers this announcement in honor of the event: “YouTube.com/Politics: Tracking the 2012 election campaign through online video” and here is Politico’s coverage of the launch: “Google to Launch YouTube Politics” by Jennifer Martinez.

Here is an item I saw first on TechPresident’s blog. The Obama Administration has launched We the People, an online petitioning service where you can voice your opinion on policies or issues by creating a petition, garnering support, and sending the president your feedback on ways to improve the service.

This is how it works. The website says:

“Welcome to We the People on WhiteHouse.gov. This tool provides you with a new way to petition the Obama Administration to take action on a range of important issues facing our country. If a petition gets enough support, White House staff will review it, ensure it’s sent to the appropriate policy experts, and issue an official response.”

Elected officials and government agencies increasingly are using social media platforms as a way to be in touch with their constituents. I am often asked, “How do I find them?”

For anyone interested in lists of public officials on social media, there are a few key places to go. One place is the Government and Social Media Wiki with its ever expanding lists of federal, state, and local elected officials and agencies. There is also DCI Group’s Digital America with its interactive map of the states offering a Twitter and Facebook grade for each state and links to connect with your state officials.

The latest offering comes from Stateline.org. They published an article today, “How many governors are using social media?” According to the article, 47 of our 50 governors are using social media. You’ll find an interactive infographic by Mary Mahling showing the state, the name of the governor, and links to their Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube accounts.

This is a valuable resource. Thank you Mary Mahling and Stateline.org!

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.

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• 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.

Cities in Crisis: We just came back from the Capitolbeat 2010 Conference in Phoenix, where many of the session offerings were discussing the alarming budget situations in the state governments. The effects of the recession are felt  especially in the cities. We are in Akron, where our city faces tremendous pressure to address ever-growing needs with ever-shrinking resources. That equation is even more true in Cleveland, and surely is the case in Detroit and many other cities.

Code for America’s Answer: There are many urban renewal efforts out there – but I would like to hold up a very exciting one: Code for America. With its call to connect city governments with web 2.0 talents, Code for America’s idea could bring about a revolution. Any government can run more efficiently and Code for America believes that what we have learned from the social media revolution can be applied to city governments to “become more transparent, connected, and efficient.” Brainstorming, collaboration, experimentation, and new technology – this is what they will bring to address city infrastructure and operations.

“Code for America was founded to help the brightest minds of the Web 2.0 generation transform city governments. Cities are under greater pressure than ever, struggling with budget cuts and outdated technology. What if, instead of cutting services or raising taxes, cities could leverage the power of the web to become more efficient, transparent, and participatory? We believe there is a wealth of talent in the web industry eager to contribute to the rebuilding of America. Code for America gives them the means.”

“Every movement needs heroes.” Code for America is accepting applications from the “best of the best” in web 2.0 coders to become fellows in their program. Fellows would commit to an 11-month program writing code to solve a specific need in a city. (The program would give them a crash-course in city government.) Fellows would receive a stipend in the amount of $35,000, travel expenses, and healthcare benefits. Then they are turned loose to come up with technological magic.

The Cities’ Commitment: Four cities are participating in the 2011 project: Boston, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, and Seattle. Each city committed $250,000 to the project. Companies are encouraged to help underwrite the time the fellows spend on the project, and individual donations big or small are greatly appreciated. Applications from other cities are being accepted for the 2012 calendar year.

Code for America offers everything you need to help promote the program to your city government and to your employer.

I am really excited about this program and I plan to spread the word. I would love to see Cleveland participate. As Code for America’s site says: “It’s time to stop wondering, and start coding. It’s time to make it happen.”

“That was easy!”

This is the phrase that has launched a new movement and Web site – Challenge.gov – encouraging the American people to take on challenges presented to them from some of the nation’s largest agencies, including NASA, the National Institutes of Health, and the Social Security Administration.

Why create such a Web site?

“This is a fundamental shift in power,” Vivek Kundra, federal chief information officer, said at the Gov 2.0 Summit conference announcing Challenge.gov, along with Aneesh Chopra, White House chief technology officer. “This engages the American people to be co-creators to solve some of the toughest problems America faces.”

Ranging from challenges involving emerging designers and architects turning a mid-century federal office building into a model of environmental efficiency, to creating original music and/or music videos that celebrate healthy and inspirational living, people of all ages can participate and become developers in this “national science fair” for America.

One challenge proposed by the site is called “How do I become president?” with the solutions being judged on an 8-10 year-old basis. A sister site, “Kids.gov,” started this challenge because it was continually asked the question “How can I become the President when I grow up?” The winners of the challenge, set to be announced on November 29, 2010 will be featured on Kids.gov. Their best overall “infographic” will be printed as posters and distributed to schools and libraries across the country.

Not everyone has the opportunity or desire to work for the federal government or hold public office, but with this new Web site they can play a vital role in helping improve our country while at the same time putting some cash in their pocket. —– Chickasha Express Star – Sep 27, 2010

Since the last presidential election we have all seen an explosion in the use of social media by politicians, government agencies, and elected officials. The conversations are exploding, but where can you find it all?

GovTwit claims to host “the world’s largest list of government agencies and elected officials on Twitter, tracking state/local, federal, contractors, media, academics, non-profits and government outside of the U.S.” GovTwit has political Tweetstreams, search functions, and a listing of those newest to the directory – the Prime Minister of Israel was newest as of the writing of this post.

Are you curious about who has the most Twitter followers among elected officials and news media figures? GovTwit has the List for that ranking. (President Obama tops the list, BTW, with 4,877,222 followers.) You can also search Youtube videos and twitpics, although I could not see how some of them related to politics. GovTwit also runs a  blog that is worth reading.

Another resource was brought to my attention through Eric Brown’s great blog – PoliticalActivityLaw.com. The site is called the Government and Social Media Wiki. This is huge! What you get on this wiki is a database of Twitter accounts, Facebook pages, LinkedIn, Youtube, and other social media accounts for – are you ready for this? – members of the U.S. House and Senate, U.S. House and Senate Committees, federal agencies, state Governors, and state government agencies and officials, with more on the way.

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