Comments on: My.Gov: How Obama Can Use the Net to Improve Government

By: My.Gov: How Obama Can Use the Net to Improve Government - Ryan Boswell

My.Gov: How Obama Can Use the Net to Improve Government - Ryan Boswell — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 14:36:26 +0000

[...] totally agree with what this post says about how the Obama Administration can leverage technology and the internet to improve [...]

By: This Is Cool: Social News & Obama’s CTO: - GigaOM

This Is Cool: Social News & Obama’s CTO: - GigaOM — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 16:01:49 +0000

[...] Om Malik | Wednesday, November 19, 2008 | 7:59 AM PT | 0 comments Katie over on Earth2Tech just tipped me off on President Elect Barack Obama’s CTO website. They are using Digg-like social voting to figure out what are the top priorities for this new job. There are some interesting ideas there and hopefully some of them will actually make it to Washington. I like this idea — now lets hope that people actually listen and not just use these as cute tricks. (Related link: How Obama can use the net to improve the government.) [...]

By: google for gov’ment - woodyevans.com

google for gov’ment - woodyevans.com — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 16:17:09 +0000

[...] http://gigaom.com/2008/11/12/mygov-how-obama-can-use-the-net-to-improve-government/ [...]

By: Brian McConnell

Brian McConnell — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 02:58:35 +0000

@Mark,

The point of ‘my.gov’ would be to enable citizens to easily interact with and better understand government as it relates to them and their community. The majority of the government’s budget goes toward entitlement programs and services that the public interacts with (roads, air traffic control, etc). If people can understand what services are delivered to them, their community, etc, they’ll have a better understand of what the government actually does.

Of course there is waste in government, and of course, politicians make bad decisions, but most people do not want to make a full time job out of mining for pork barrel projects. That’s for the press and non-government organizations to do, and they’re already pretty good at digging for information. Also, the private sector can no longer hold itself up as holier than thou, not after the financial services industry successfully destroyed trillions of dollars in shareholder wealth.

By: Mark Carbone

Mark Carbone — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 13:24:28 +0000

Brian – what experience do you have to make this comment – -

Your last part of the article where you said, we’ll now see where our money is going and we’ll see how good government is

My thought is that this is great news, Google Government, because it’s finally going to expose all the waste in government

What research do you do? Did you even go over the first page of the bailout. 450+ pages. Only a few pages were about quality needs that benefited the people. The rest was waste and pork. If we as tax payers knew about what they added to that bill it never would have passed.

By: Rob Domanski

Rob Domanski — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:45:41 +0000

This is the start of a terrific wish list. I have a few additional suggestions including 1) A customizable calendar of upcoming government-sponsored events like, say, town hall meetings or calls for public comment on policy issues; 2) A repository of any government reports that you choose to “Save”.

And a few more…

http://thenerfherder.blogspot.com/2008/11/how-obama-can-use-internet-to-improve.html

By: links for 2008-11-13 - Kevin Bondelli’s Youth Vote Blog

links for 2008-11-13 - Kevin Bondelli’s Youth Vote Blog — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:30:28 +0000

[...] My.Gov: How Obama Can Use the Net to Improve Government – GigaOM [...]

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 15:19:53 +0000

Obama claims that he already has provided a “Google for Government”. http://obama.senate.gov/news/060926-obamas_first_la/

By: Joe Flood

Joe Flood — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 14:32:59 +0000

I spent three years in government working as a website manager and can assure you that you’re not the only thinking of a my.gov. I think the solution would be to partner with someone like Google or Yahoo to bring together publicly available information in a nice front-end. In the beginning, this my.gov page could be comprised of your elected reps, post office, weather, a calendar and government-funded projects near you. Much of this information is already available in RSS format (see weather.gov) so it shouldn’t be too difficult.

Bear in mind, however, that government sites are subject to strict privacy and security regulations, such as a ban on cookies. I wrote about some of the barriers to web 2.0 in government on my blog:

http://joeflood.com/2008/11/10/will-obama-empower-government-20/

By: ITrush

ITrush — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 14:15:06 +0000

Nice idea.. this is going to be a big help in improving not only the gov side but also other important aspects inside.

By: Why Obama Should Run the Country Like a Startup « Melody McCloskey

Why Obama Should Run the Country Like a Startup « Melody McCloskey — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 10:11:29 +0000

[...] 13, 2008 by Melody Beautiful post by Brian McConnell on Gigaom about how Obama can utilize the Web to improve government. If even one [...]

By: Samir

Samir — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 06:09:15 +0000

Two items from my wishlist:
1. I would like to be able to click on any “public” asset on Google Maps, say a park, and would like to get a breakdown of where the funding came from for this asset and where the maintenance funds are coming from
2. I would like to be able to get a maps-based annotated version of the entire budget of any county, city, state etc.

By: Dave Goulden

Dave Goulden — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 03:48:14 +0000

Great post. I agree with everything you said, but would add one more key piece of functionality. my.gov would have social features like blog posts, forums, groups, and friends.

This stuff was really well done on the Obama campaign site and made a big difference for getting people involved. The features would make the site more insteresting to “customers” and provide a feedback mechanism for goverment.

Imagine all the great data that could be mined on public opinion, plus providing the ability to be vocal on issues we care about.

By: Jason Kiesel

Jason Kiesel — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 02:29:19 +0000

I’ve actually founded a startup on this very principle – http://www.freedomspeaks.com. I would like to see all information regarding government (federal, state AND local) and it’s activities exposed and centralized. I’ve already scraped together data on the federal and state levels. I’m now working to integrate the local data as well. I wouldn’t hope for the government to do anything substantial in this area (although I hope they do). It will probably be up to the private sector and companies like mine to really make a profound impact.

Jason Kiesel
Founder & CEO
Freedom Speaks LLC
http://www.freedomspeaks.com