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In the style of the Apps for America competitions, the US Army announced at the Gov 2.0 summit that it would hold a competition for soldiers to develop software to help the army fight wars and carry out its missions.
Reported in Information Week Government, Gov 2.0: Army Announces Apps For Army Competition, the Army views the approach as a way to break down silos and create cheap and effective software, helping reduce the cost of having military-grade applications developed.
All entries will be hosted on the Defense Information Systems agency's open source code repository, Forge.mil.
Given the massive savings reported by Washington DC when it ran a similar district-based competition, it will be interesting to see the level of value that can be achieved within the armed forces.
Monday, September 14, 2009
US Army to launch Apps for Army Competition | Tweet |
US launches Gov 2.0 consultation on national broadband network | Tweet |
The US is a little behind Australia in considering a National Broadband Network, however it has taken a very different approach in consulting and engaging citizens, opening up the discussion to the US community in a Gov 2.0 manner.
The US Government's Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has launched Broadband.gov as a web 2.0 enabled site to manage the central conversation around a US National Broadband Plan.
It has also introduced an Ideascale portal for individuals to raise, vote on and discuss ideas and potential challenges at national and local levels and shake out the key issues for the community.
The FCC also has a blog, Facebook site, interactive Twitter feed (where the FCC responds to questions), YouTube channel and RSS feeds. It is also holding face-to-face and webinar workshops to discuss what US citizens want in a broadband network. All of these workshops are recorded and made available online.
What I think is most important is how the FCC is using these channels in a consistent and integrated manner to support public discussion and engagement.
Often organisations don't have a strategy (communications plan) behind their online engagement channels and, as a result, they do not function in a synchronised and mutually reinforcing manner - and in some cases can act against each other, reducing the effectiveness of an online conversation and reducing the online credibility of the organisation.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Melbourne OpenAustralia HackFest coming up on 26 September - sign-up now | Tweet |
OpenAustralia is holding its second HackFest in Melbourne on Saturday 26 September and is inviting programmers, designers and interested people to attend.
Details of the event are over at Anyvite.
If you're interested in going along, RSVP by 23 September as they are limited to 30 spots.
Friday, September 11, 2009
At least 70 agencies on Twitter across all layers of Australian government | Tweet |
Being sick in bed at the moment, I've used the opportunity to review which Australian Federal, State and local government departments and agencies are now using Twitter.
My count is 9 federal, 24 state and 37 local government agency streams - excluding politicians and public servants. A total of 70 government streams in Australia, which I take as indicating it's moving from early adopters into early majority.
There's also at least 4 Premiers and the PM using Twitter - which is more than 50% of our most senior elected officials. In terms of population, this includes the three most populous states.
It's a shame there is no official online tool tracking these streams so at least government could understand the extent of its own tweeting.
This tool could pull data via Twitter's API to give a total number of tweets and followers by Australian governments - able to be viewed by state as well as in aggregate. That'd be a useful project for someone with technical nouse and some spare hours.
In lieu of that, I've updated the Government 2.0 Best Practice wiki with all of these streams on the Australian Tweeple page.
If you know of, or operate, any Twitter streams that I've missed, please add them to the wiki.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
BART.gov wins at inaugural Gov 2.0 Expo in Washington | Tweet |
Hopefully many of you are aware of the Gov 2.0 Summit that is being held in Washington at the moment.
As part of the pre-event, the inaugural Gov 2.0 Expo included presentations in five categories, demonstrating examples of the best Gov 2.0 organisations and initiatives - not only from the United States.
There was a winning presentation for each category.
One was Transit 2.0 at BART.gov (their presentation is below) - demonstrating that even a technology as old as the railways can remain relevant and in touch through the use of the internet, without losing respect.
