Archive for September, 2009
Tories Launch New Web 2.0 Campaigning System
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s rather handy that we’ll have Craig Elder of the Conservative Party on our panel focused on social media at the Government 2010 Conference. This will be a prime opportunity to hear more about a new campaiging tool that the Conservatives are spinning as being in similar mould to Obama’s legendary presidential campaiging system.
I’m sure fellow panelist, Stephen Tall of LibDemVoice, will want to hear much more.
Tim Montgomerie over at ConservativeHome is whipping up a kind of Web2.0App envy. Hopefully Craig can add some meat to the bones – if not during the session then our intrepid roving reporter will, no doubt, nab him during a coffee break and interview him for the live stream.
However it’ll have to be impressive – Craig will be in the company of the glitterati of the Web 2.0/Gov 2.0 world.
New Version of Recovery.gov goes live
Posted by: | CommentsA new version of Recovery.gov has gone online in the USA. The new site promises to be more Gov 2.0-like (although the site’s price tag is definitely NOT typical in terms of Web 2.0 builds. The firm commissioned to build the site is being paid nearly $10m to build and then millions more to maintain the thing).
Recovery.gov was created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to provide transparency about how Recovery funds are being used, and increase accountability to guard against fraud, waste, and abuse.
This website allows American taxpayers to see what entities received Recovery money, and how and where the money is being spent. These questions are answered through graphs, charts, and maps.
John Shewell of Brighton & Hove in Social Inclusion Panel
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John Shewell
John Shewell is the Head of Corporate Communications at Brighton & Hove City Council, which is piloting an initiative using social media as a way to engage people in decision-making and widen community participation.
John will be participating in the session on Internet & Social Inclusion chaired by Tony Collins of Computer Weekly.
Brighton & Hove City Council recently conducted an in-depth piece of research to identify and understand where local residents go online, what they talk about and who they share their conversations with in order to participate in relevant and meaningful discussions with them.
John is an award winning communications professional with over 10 years experience in communications specialising in reputation management, branding, internal communications, stakeholder relations and crisis communications. John has worked in both the private and public sector in Australia and in the UK.
John is a board member of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) Local Public Sector Group and a member of the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (SOLACE).
San Francisco Creates App Store
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The city of San Francisco today announced the launch of the DataSF App Showcase (www.datasf.org/showcase).
The site will, according to the City’s Mayor, “celebrate the innovators and innovations from a more collaborative and open government. On the site the public can browse examples of new ways in which Bay Area constituents are using City data to improve San Francisco.”
Some apps have already been created from government data and are featured in the Showcase with others in development.
E.g. an interactive crime map with San Francisco Crimespotting, or EcoFinder, an iPhone app that helps residents recycle based on their location or Routesy, an app that helps people find their way around the Bay Area’s transit systems in real time.
Lazanski Argues Against Timms Telephone Tax
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Dominique Lazanski
By Dominique Lazanski
(Dominique will be chairing the G2010 discussion panel on The Internet and Government Regulation. The views expressed here are her own)
During a British Computer Society debate on Wednesday, Stephen Timms MP, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury and minister for Digital Britain, said that the 50 pence a month tax on landline phones announced in the Digital Britain report would become law before the general election. The tax levy will be added to all monthly landline phone bills in order to pay for the government’s building of the Internet infrastructure. And this levy will be included in a Finance Bill which is to come before Parliament in November.
In my view the levy is ill-conceived for a variety of reasons, but I will argue against it for two very specific reasons. First, the levy hits the people least likely to take advantage of broadband and least likely to benefit from the improved access. Second, and more importantly, the levy expands government control over an area which should be developed by enterprise and competition.
Let’s take a look at the first point. Increasingly, as MP John Whittingdale so rightly pointed out yesterday, those who use broadband do not necessarily have a landline. Younger generations have adopted the mobile phone as the main and only telephonic point of contact. Furthermore, there is almost no need to have a landline for access to the Internet when companies like Sky and Virgin bundle access into their cable and dish access. I, for one, haven’t had a landline in years and I will not be paying the levy if it becomes law. However, my fiancé’s mother and gran will be paying for the tax – and neither of them have or use broadband. My case in point is that it will hit those who don’t and won’t benefit. It makes no sense.
As I have argued many times, the US infrastructure was developed by numerous American telephone companies competing with one another to build better and faster broadband access. The competition continues in the US wireless broadband arena (however current efforts are being hampered by Obama’s ‘social good ‘ policies on the Internet). The bottom line is that the US is one of the world’s most fast-networked countries because of the fact that companies made their own investments and competed in a free market.
The best thing for the UK government to do is to not only avoid this levy, but to relax Internet regulation in general so that telecom companies can compete and develop a more reliable and faster Internet infrastructure. Innovation, competition, and the ability to employ the best and brightest will be the only way to quickly develop a better infrastructure.
Take Part in Our Mini Gov 2.0 Survey
Posted by: | CommentsWe have prepared a mini survey focused on what Government 2.0 means to people.
It only takes a minute or two to complete.
Findings will be published on the G2010 site and via our media/blogging partners. Here’s the link:
eGovernment Track at WCIT Amsterdam
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Watch the WCIT video here...
The 17th edition of the World Congress of IT – the so-called IT Olympics – will be taking place in Amsterdam next May.
There will be eGovernment and eInclusion tracks.
The WCIT’s definition of eGovernment is, ”the use of information and communication technology to provide and improve government services, transactions and interactions with citizens, businesses, and other arms of governments.”
Within this track participants can expect best practices from across the globe on digital government services and the latest IT developments in the eGovernment domain.
Tom Steinberg of mySociety.org to Give Keynote Address
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Tom Steinberg of MySociety.org is to give a keynote address at Government 2010 on October 22nd, 2009.
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mySociety is a non-profit, open source organisation that runs many of the best-known democracy websites in the UK. These include the Parliamentary transparency website TheyWorkForYou and the somewhat self-explanatory FixMyStreet. mySociety’s missions are to build websites that give people simple, tangible benefits in the democratic and community aspects of their lives, and that teach the public and voluntary sector how they can use technology better to help citizens.
By trade Tom was a policy analyst who cut his teeth at the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit from 2001 to 2003. He grew up in Oxford, and lives in Whitechapel, East London.
Tom’s most recent publication is The Power of Information Review, co-authored with Ed Mayo and the Strategy Unit, launched in 2007. The Power of Information Review aimed to help the UK government understand the value it has locked in datasets, and the help that can be done for citizens by simply being willing to go into and answer questions in places like Netmums and MoneySavingExpert. Following the publicaton of economic analysis commisioned by the review, Tom is convinced of the urgent need for substantial reform in the provision of public sector information from organisations like the Ordnance Survey.
Google Launches Apps.Gov
Posted by: | CommentsOn Tuesday Google announced a new dedicated cloud for government computing that is due to become operational next year. The company is also working towards US FISMA certification.
The full story is here but a key section from the post is also pasted below.
We’re hoping to have a spokesperson from Google at G2010 to discuss the concept of the Government cloud – and when (and if) one might be available to UK government.
“Today, we’re excited to announce our intent to create a government cloud, which we expect to become operational in 2010. Offering the same services and features as our existing commercial cloud (such as Google Apps), this dedicated environment within existing Google facilities in the US will serve the unique needs of US federal, state, and local governments. It is similar to a “Community Cloud” as defined by the National Institute for Science and Technology. The government cloud will allow Google to manage and meet additional government policy requirements beyond FISMA.”
OpenlyLocal’s Chris Taggart in Mashups Session
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The developer behind www.OpenlyLocal.com – a Local Government version of www.TheyWorkForYou.com – will be taking part in the Open Data and Mashups session at Government 2010.
Chris Taggart is a former magazine journalist, editor, and publisher. He set up his own magazine publishing company a few years back, sold it about 4 years ago, and since then has been playing around with website stuff, learning to program, and “spending far too much time on classic cars”.
Originally he set up OpenlyLocal.com because (we quote) he “couldn’t get anyone else interested in local government data, and thought such a thing was going to be vital in the future to enhance democracy and support hyperlocal sites.”
Well he’s done a rather good job.
