A Video Contest to Illustrate Democracy. The State Department is asking the world to create three-minute videos that answer the question [base "]Democracy is ... ?[per thou] as part of a new contest timed to mark International Democracy Day. [NYT > Technology]
Asked what role the State Department would play in making the contest a
success, Mr. Margolis said the department[base ']s sponsorship [base "]does add a
sense of legitimacy and gravitas to what we are trying to do.[per thou]
Legitimacy and gravitas are fine cards to bring to the table.
Bits: Kleiner Perkins Starts an iPhone Blog. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the venture capital firm that is investing its $100 million iFund in applications for the iPhone and iPod touch, has a new blog that will discuss trends in mobile. [NYT > Technology] I tried some government site on my iPod Touch. Its browser has none of the usual font size settings, which increases only with pinching down and spreading up fingers. Works for me. Mostly.
From slideshare, December 2007 presentation "Web 2.0 for Government 1.0" at a government event in Hawaii. I believe there is no chance I would ever be able to justify a research trip to Hawaii, so seeing the slides will suffice for now.
I wish Hawaii great experiences when they are bringing in Web 2.0. I hope those "low-hanging fruits" (see slide 14) work well for Hawaii. His selection is
RSS
Microformats
OpenID
Mashups
Mobile
Podcasts (audio & video)
I'd also put RSS very near the top ROI for government.
California's recent vote is still being counted. So for the future timely election results evoting needs improvement. The link mentions a keynote at ShmooCon. The Shmoo Group is a non-profit think-tank comprised of security
professionals from around the world who donate their free time and
energy to information security research and development.
9:26:20 PM comment []
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Larry Lessig on Open Government Data
In early December 2007 30 open government advocates
gathered to develop a set of principles of open government data. The
meeting, held in Sebastopol, California, was designed to develop a more
robust understanding of why open government data is essential to
democracy. Of these principles I'm most involved with accessiblity. At delicious social bookmarking site, I've tagged loads of resources with accessibility. My accessibility tags at delicious go back to January 2006--almost two years of concern.
What's Online: Piracy and Privacy. The recording industry is seeking legislation in Europe that would require the filtering of Internet connections to block the illicit transfer of copyrighted material and more. By DAN MITCHELL. [NYT > Technology]
And how does anyone detect these copyrighted materials and possible illicit transfer? Sometimes a government has a public awareness campaign where it really wants the material copied and sent to all and sundry, but the government copyrights the webpages, posters, podcasts etc. Wouldn't the "public good" be served by copying and sending them to everyone we know is interested?
Libraryola is a weblog about trends in government information, primarily focusing on e-government written by Chris Zammarelli,
a graduate student at the University of Marylandâo[dot accent]s College of
Information Studies.
Obama suggested the CTO idea in his tech program, but this conference has "nothing to do with the Obama campaign."
Lessig has a page on his wiki
to invite suggestions for the planning of the conference. To be informed when final plans are made, send a note to uscto@pobox.com.
Technology Workshops for San Francisco's Low-income
Tenderloin Tech Day.
Video: Tenderloin Tech Day. In San Francisco's Tenderloin district, amid liquor stores and boarded-up buildings, a partnership of nonprofits earlier this month sponsored the first "Tenderloin Tech Day." The half-day workshop was open to anyone in the low-income neighborhood with a tech problem. CNET News.com's Kara Tsuboi stopped by and chatted with people about their broken laptops, software-less hard drives, and their first-ever Internet experiences.
[CNET News.com]
As our government disseminates more information digitally and more government services go online, reaching the entire population becomes more important.
Not
only had tools like Facebook had an immediate effect on the
government's legislative agenda, but the community that developed
around the group also led to a "crowdsourcing" of knowledge.
In Facebook
California Secretary of State Debra Bowen is in a group I belong to. She's the only other "State of California" person I've encountered there. I found people from my college (University of Michigan), my high school and several companies I've worked with. The Secretary of State's website has changed. Now it's much lighter and more open. The court at the Secretary of State's has the a wall with the words on the website top banner. I took photos when I was there last year.
Not
only had tools like Facebook had an immediate effect on the
government's legislative agenda, but the community that developed
around the group also led to a "crowdsourcing" of
knowledge. 
