Rock Creek Roundup (November 13 Edition)

Posted by: Meagen Ryan, Director of Strategy Nov 12, 2009 0 Comments

The State Department raises the transparency bar, HHS and the CDC team up with Google to make finding flu shots easier, observers discuss social media predictions for 2010, and technology partners announce the Great American Hackathon in the name of open government, all in this week’s version of the Rock Creek Roundup:

• On Tuesday the State Department held a live webcast of a discussion between the State Department and the advocacy community regarding the Administration’s Sudan policy. Special Envoy to Sudan Scott Gration and National Security Council Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs Samantha Power took questions from members of the advocacy community posed by Save Darfur Coalition President Jerry Fowler and STAND Student Director Layla Amjadi. Twitter was abuzz with comments about the event, both positive and negative. Policy issues aside for a moment, this event was a remarkable example of Open Government. As Micah Sifry of Personal Democracy Forum put it on Twitter: “Whatever you may think about substance of Gration/Power’s answers, State Dept just raised the bar on admin transparency efforts.”

• Tired of driving around to your local doctor’s offices or pharmacies to check on the availability of seasonal flu or H1N1 vaccines? Try the Google Flu Shot Finder instead. Google, along with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control, and state and local health agencies, developed the flu shot availability map which is currently available on the American Lung Association’s website and on the flu.gov website that also has flu shot locator widgets available to download and place on your site. It’s a great example of a public and private partnership that uses technology in a way that helps citizens take more control over their health.

• How will the top social media trends have an impact on government agencies in the coming year? In this OhMyGov! blog post, Mark Malseed takes the predictions of social media observer David Armano and discusses how these predictions would likely play out within government agencies. Among other insights, Malseed surmises that Armano’s prediction of less “social,” more “selective” social media will cause government web managers to raise the bar, saying, “For government web managers and tweeters, it means stepping up the quality of content to stay meaningful to your followers. You might also become more selective in who you are following, friending and scanning in the media… but be mindful not to trap yourself in a self-reinforcing information bubble.”

• Open Source for America, along with Code for America and Sunlight Labs, have teamed up to promote the Great American Hackathon, an “open, distributed, nationwide hackathon,” the goal of which is to “to develop open source applications to open government,” and solve “as many open government problems as we can.” The nationwide event is scheduled to take place the weekend of December 12-13, 2009. Sponsors are calling for interested individuals to host events in their own locations; thus far, organized events are scheduled to occur here in Washington, in Philadelphia, Minneapolis and New York. It will be interesting to see what ideas come out of all of these creative minds and talented volunteers working together.

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Meagen Ryan

Director of Strategy

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