Monthly Archives: January 2011

House 2.0: A Congressional transition is livestreamed, tweeted and Facebooked

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From my National Journal article today on the GOP transition in the House:

Today is the first day of the 112th Congress of the United States of America. One way that the incoming Republican majority will embrace innovation and transparency in the legislative process will be increased use of video and new media. As Marshall Kirkpatrick wrote at ReadWriteWeb, commenting on CNN’s report yesterday, Facebook will livestream the opening day of Congress.

In a post on Speaker.gov, the incoming speaker invited people to visit the “Pledge to America” Facebook page to view the transition to a GOP-controlled House and comment on the feed.

Key detail: you don’t have to be on Facebook to watch. You can see it right here. As Nick Schaper, the speaker’s director of new media, explained, the speaker’s staff is using the LiveStream.com plugin, available on Facebook, with the standard House of Representatives floor feed available on Capitol Hill to put the feed online. Notably, that also means that citizens and other interested parties don’t have to join Facebook, log in or “Like” the page to watch the transition. The feed at Livestream.com/SpeakerBoehner is available on the open Web and can be embedded on any blog or article.

Livestream.com and Facebook won’t be the only options used by the new speaker’s office either, according to Schaper. When asked whether the speaker would use Current.tv or UStream or YouTube, Schaper said that “we’ve never limited ourselves or worked exclusively with any technology partners on efforts such as this. We’ve used all of the above and I look forward to finding more new tools that can help our members more efficiently connect with those they represent.”

UPDATE: Notably, the new speaker’s remarks were livetweeted in sync with his speech by the new @SpeakerBoehner account on Twitter. It’s safe to say that, at least at this moment, Boehner was not tweeting himself.

new TWTR.Widget({
version: 2,
type: ‘profile’,
rpp: 5,
interval: 6000,
width: 600,
height: 300,
theme: {
shell: {
background: ‘#1d0087’,
color: ‘#ff0a0a’
},
tweets: {
background: ‘#fcfcff’,
color: ‘#a60c13’,
links: ‘#303df0’
}
},
features: {
scrollbar: false,
loop: false,
live: false,
hashtags: true,
timestamp: true,
avatars: false,
behavior: ‘all’
}
}).render().setUser(‘speakerboehner’).start();

For more on social media, transparency and the 112 Congress, click on over the full article at National Journal.

Kevin Rose interviews @Jack Dorsey on Twitter, @Square and entrepreneurship

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From the show notes:

In this series premiere of Foundation, Kevin Rose interviews Jack Dorsey, the creator, co-founder and chairman of Twitter and the CEO of Square. The conversation talks of entrepreneurship, decision making, trial and error, and the path Jack took that lead to the creation of Twitter and Square.

TechCrunch covered the launch of Foundat.io/n, the Digg founder’s new venture, earlier this week. It’s a private email newsletter with a 20-30 minute interview like the one above. Some of these will be of more interest to the Gov 2.0 community than others but this one is worth watching.

As NYU professor Jay Rosen pointed out this morning on Twitter (how meta), “Jack Dorsey listened to the radio calls from emergency vehicles when he was a kid. The idea for Twitter was born there.” In 2011, Twitter is now a home to emergency social data, including earthquake warning systems, crowdsourced weather alerts and other disaster-related information. That’s why social media and FEMA now mix, among other reasons.

It’s a great first interview from Rose. Enjoy.

Themes to watch in 2011: E-democracy in Brazil

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As Nat Torkington put it this morning at O’Reilly Radar, “people who consider tech trends without considering social trends are betting on the atom bomb without considering the Summer of Love.” Torkington was annotating a link to 2011 predictions and prognostications at venture capitalist Fred Wilson’s blog which center on the following presentation that Paul Kedrosky sent him from JWT, a marketing agency.

JWT’s thirteenth prediction will be of particular interest to readers of this blog: “Brazil as E-Leader.”

This digitally savvy, economically vibrant country will prove to be an e-leader. Social media is more popular here than in developed markets, and Brazil has the highest Twitter penetration (23 percent, as of October ComScore figures). PC penetration has reached 32 percent, and many Internet cafes further broaden access. Mobile subscriptions have 86% penetration. Already Brazil is ahead in electronic democracy (with innovations like online town halls and crowd-sourced legislative consulting), and its 2010 census was paperless, conducted electronically.

JWT: 100 Things to Watch in 2011

http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=2f100thingstowatchin2011-101222142649-phpapp02&stripped_title=2f-100-things-to-watch-in-2011-6306251&userName=jwtintelligence

There are many other themes that will matter to the Gov 2.0 world in 2011 in there, including smart infrastructure investment, scanning everything, home energy monitors, and mHealth. Heck, seemingly mobile everything. Of course, as Mike Loukelides pointed out in his own watchlist of 2011 themes to track, “you don’t get any points for predicting ‘Mobile is going to be big in 2011.'” He thinks that Hadoop, real-time data, the rise of the GPU, the return of P2P, social ubiquity and a new definition for privacy will all play important roles in 2011. Good bets.

JWT does get points for this set of trends, however, and that prediction about e-democracy in Brazil strikes me as apt. Last year at the International Open Government Data Conference, I met Cristiano Ferri Faria, project manager in e-democracy and legislative intelligence at the Brazilian House of Representatives. Faria talked about his work on e-Democracia, a major electronic lawmaking program in Brazil since 2008. As the 112th United States House of Representatives goes back to work today, there are definitely a few things its legislators, aides and staffers might learn from far south of the border. You can download his presentation as a PDF from Data.gov or view it below, with an added bonus: reflections on open government data in New Zealand and Australia.

One caution: Faria concluded that “this kind of practice is too complex” and that e-Democracia “needs a long-term approach.”

Looks like they’re still in an e-government in beta down there too.

Iogdc 2010 Day1 Plenary http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf

FT: “Open government never meant the real-time disclosure of all state activity”

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The Financial Times opinion page weighed in on the state of open government in the United States and the United Kingdom today. The gist of the comment is that President Obama’s open data agenda has slightly stalled. A key excerpt, below, focused on potential sources of delay.

Barack Obama, the US president, and David Cameron, the UK premier, took power with a more mundane vision of transparency than that of Julian Assange – that governments should keep as many secrets only as truly necessary. Both were excited by the dry business of putting public data online. But they were right to be: signs that Mr Obama, in particular, has seen his efforts stall are a shame.

WikiLeaks releases highly sensitive diplomatic material. But governments collect reams of less delicate data, from exam results and hospital inspections to maps and weather reports. This can often be reused on the web, creating profitable businesses, helpful advice to citizens or tools that hold leaders to account. Not all such data are useful, just as not all scientific discoveries lead to new drugs. And not all should be published, if they break data protection rules. But more should be than at present.

It would be irresponsible to deny a state’s right to protect its interests, and those of its citizens, by keeping some secrets. Open government never meant the real-time disclosure of all state activity. But the reasons for hiding public information too often stem from fear of embarrassment, force of habit or politicians going cold on previous ideals – not the public interest.

Here Mr Obama began strongly, speedily unveiling schemes to unlock new data. Yet his progress has slowed as departments delay and fudge and the White House’s attention is diverted elsewhere. Mr Cameron has done better, in part by being more focused — and thus picking fewer fights with often recalcitrant civil servants.

The full Financial Times op-ed is online here, behind a registration wall: “Open up, before it becomes too late.”

For a look back at the progress of the Open Government Directive in its first year, click over to the Huffington Post.