Digital Disaster: How Hurricanes Impact Local Government Data

In an age where freak weather and natural disasters suddenly seem to be the norm, it’s important for governments to take weather warnings seriously, and prepare for the possibility of catastrophe. As a New Orleans native, hurricane season affects me deeply each year. Like many Americans, I mistakenly believed that the normal day-to-day life I had always known was invulnerable.

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Hacking Mexico: Granicus Speaks at Ciudad Móvil

Greetings from Mexico! This weekend, I attended the second annual Ciudad Móvil at the Centro Cultural in the historic district of Mexico City. On September 6, about 50 government officials from all levels of government convened to hear and converse on open data initiatives around the world. Open data is just taking off in Mexico. The Mexican government released roughly 100 data sets early this year and Mexico City is releasing about 400 as part of the event. 

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70% of Best of the Web City and County Winners Use Granicus

The 2012 Best of the Web awards, created by Government Technology and the Center for Digital Government, revealed an astounding fact: 80% of the cities, and 60% of the counties awarded, including the first place city winner, have implemented online open government solutions from Granicus. Inc.

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Santa Rosa: Making the Move to Mobile Streaming Meeting Video

The City of Santa Rosa recently executed a strategy to increase reach, functionality, and accessibility of our open government video program: the online broadcast of meetings. The mobile video revolution is well underway, and now people need to access their government through their mobile devices. When it comes reaching the broadest possible public audience, your strategy’s best friend is a technology standard. For video, mobile or otherwise, that standard is H.264.

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Top 6 Tips to Make Your League of California Cities Trip a Success!

For those of you heading down to sunny San Diego September 5^th-7^th for the California League of California Cities Conference, I thought this would be a great opportunity to share some tips to help you get the most out of your trip. Fit in the maximum amount of fun, learning, and networking by checking out this summary of insider tips. Because Granicus is a veteran participant at this conference, we also want to remind you to bring an open mind, lots of enthusiasm, and plenty of business cards. You will have a lot of chances to grow professionally and personally at this conference!

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Transparency Tipping Point: 3 Reasons Open Government is Spreading

Government transparency is an idea whose time has come, not simply because of its ideological value, but because of a confluence of additional forces that have created a demand for data that is reaching exceptional proportions. Does that mean open government has reached its tipping point? The civic-minded sure hope so.

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Digital Community Collaboration Becomes All-in-One Tool

Connecting government to citizens is the most effective way to bring about better communities, better societies, and better government. Offering a website and a phone number is not nearly enough. As a result, we created an all in one tool for governments to take advantage of crowdsourced ideation, focused conversation, and agenda item feedback.

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