Connected Government: A Social Networking Toolkit

The evidence is clear: with over 100 million users in the US alone, Facebook is a necessary venue for local government agencies to engage with citizens. The question is no longer if government agencies need a social networking strategy, but how to go about implementing one.

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Citizen Feedback: Government Social Media and Collaboration Tools

Last week, my colleague Pete Fecteau, Prototype Engineer, and I had the pleasure of traveling to Austin, TX to conduct in-person user research for Granicus’ CivicIdeas application.  We heard a lot of really interesting thoughts around citizen engagement, above and beyond how CivicIdeas supports that.

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Becoming a Leader in Civic Technology: Webinar Recap

We hosted a webinar yesterday to help government agencies become leaders in civic technology. The event attracted more than 300 people! I wanted to share a quick recap of some of the core themes we discussed to hopefully help your organization harnesses online technologies that can help you govern more effectively—this means with higher levels of public trust, accountability, and cost savings.

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NAGC Session - Cool Technology Tools to Communicate: Advanced Social Media

Recently, I attended at session during the NAGC conference on free Web 2.0 tools that help government agencies improve both internal and external communications. The session was lead by Andrew Kzmarzick of GovLoop and Meagan Dorsch of NCSL. Setting the tone for what would be interactive and involved session, they began by asking the audience how many of us used Facebook and Twitter for work – more than half of the room raised their hands.

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IIMC Session Review: How to Create a Government Social Media Policy

Does your organization have a social media policy? You may not, but believe me, your citizens do. If Facebook was a country, it would be the third largest in the world. Considering that, it may well be time to develop a social media policy to engage your citizens on this crucial platform.

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Social Media's Evolving Role in the National Court System #CTC2011

Welcome to the social media revolution. Courts across the country are trying to figure out how social media applies to our judicial system. This was a hot topic at this year’s 2011 Court Technology Conference (CTC) in Long Beach where more than 1,500 court and technology professionals gathered.

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Public Engagement Takes Leadership, Partnership, & Innovation #icma11

ICMA 2011 is off to an incredible start. Today we gathered with city and county government leaders from all over the world to discuss the value of public engagement. With so many ways to interact and influence each other in today’s social, mobile, and app-driven economy, this topic was very timely. It’s especially important as reports show that citizens are increasingly turning to the internet for government data, policy and services. Government leaders need to have a solid plan for using next generation technologies to engage the public.

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