LocalGovChat

Sorry folks, I have a huge project due this evening and will have to cancel tonight. Thanks for understanding. See you next week.

The argument of whether to prioritize and set goals for transparency or responsiveness when implementing #Gov20 for local government agencies gets mixed reactions. It’s easy to say both should be a priority, but with limited time, money and man power this isn’t always a realistic option. So what’s the answer?

It’s impossible to get even minimal response to transparency initiatives without first organically building and being responsive to your community. Why spend time and energy on online transparency initiatives until you know what your audience will be, wants or needs. That is basic strategy.

A friend of mine sent me an email today  and asked how to reach residents to promote a really incredible budget visualization tool he created. Despite his personal attempts through Twitter and other social networks, nothing was generating a response. His agency’s official social media presence is nonexistent. Only a handful of budget fanatics really appreciated what it could do. I asked: Why do you expect pubic interaction with your agency  when your agency is silent?

My argument would be the same for local, state and federal agencies. I believe you need to encourage interaction with your agency, explain policies, procedures, respond to complaints and build a group of both ambassadors and critics before you should begin any major transparency or #opengov initiatives. Your agency should spend months, a year, or years energizing and growing your new online community. Only then will these transparency initiatives be a worthwhile venture.

Thoughts?

Join us on Wednesday, July 21, at 9 EST for #localgovchat.

Thanks for the great chat last week. In case you missed it, here is a transcript (PDF): Transcript for July,7 #localgovchat. We are continuing to build numbers and encourage everyone and anyone to participate. We have people from all over the world and from all tiers of government. And we all have something to learn from each other. So thank you and see you tonight at 9 pm EST.

I’ve spent the past few days at the Next Generation of Government Leaders (#ngg10 if you want to check it out) conference in Arlington, VA surrounded by about 246 federal government employers – I know because when they asked who works for local government there were four of us and 250 signed up – and have heard some excellent presentations and met some great people working in #gov20 and outside of it.

One thing becomes clear to me very quickly at the few conferences I do get to attend. Anyone joining in on #localgovchat or attending these conferences is a “Hustler” or “Hustla” if you prefer. Each of us is navigating our agency’s culture and hierarchy, climbing it’s silos to throw stuff down into another one, and truly fighting to get our proposals heard and funded. These aren’t hustler proposals as in we’re going to get rich – we know that’s not true –  but because we truly believe in the power of transparency and responsiveness. Isn’t that what #gov20 really boils down to. We are hitting the street hard everyday because we are passionate and we’re having truly having a blast. I know I am.

I think this one reason the conferences are more like self-help, motivational seminars so many of us can share successes and give encouragement to keep this “movement” going forward. But we can discuss this issue later.

So what makes you a Hustla? Why do you do what you do? I’d like to discuss this and other issues from the #ngg10 conference tonight. And as always, if you have other questions, DM me @rupertmike and we’ll get those too.

First let me apologize for the silence the last few weeks. I have been on serious lockdown building a new website for my day job and needed every hour. I want to thank Sarah for guest hosting two weeks ago and sorry again for canceling last week. But enough excuses …

Let’s get going tomorrow night and build some momentum going into summer. Hope everyone can join us tomorrow night, 9 EST.

Sorry everyone.

Join us tonight at 9 pm EDT with guest host Sarah Bourne, a Chief Technology Strategist with Mass.gov, who will undoubtedly rock #localgovchat tonight. She’ll be tweeting from @localgovchat so watch out. Hope everyone can jump in!

Anyone complaining about not having enough staff to launch innovative projects needs to talk to Manor, Texas, CIO and Asst. City Manager Dustin Haisler. Haisler, one of just 35 government employees, has found amazingly creative ways to innovate. Manor, population 6,500, has become a model for local government innovation and has done everything from creating QR Codes (those funny 3D bar code type thingys) for local landmarks to recently announcing that Manor itself has gone ‘Beta.’ after “Manor launched in alpha in March of 1913, and has been operating as such for the last 97 years”

Haisler is encouraging other cities to open up:

We think it is in the benefit of other cities to operate in open beta. We want to demonstrate that it is OK to say to our citizens, ‘that we’re re-inventing ourselves with your help.’ Operating in beta does not degrade the permanence of your established city, it only adds value by demonstrating to your citizens that your listening and acting what they have to say.

Join us tonight on #localgovchat tonight at 9 pm to discuss what Manor is doing and how your city, state, town, county, township or anything in between can learn from their groundbreaking work.

Here is the Transcript from last week’s chat with guest moderator John F. Moore. Thanks again John, you were awesome.