Government

Forum One is a digital consulting firm, so we are frequently asked, “How good is my website?”

When we hear this, we typically have two thoughts. First, what really matters isn’t your “website,” but really your organization’s full digital strategy. Second, this is a big question that doesn’t have a short answer.

I had a chance to catch up with Tim Bonnemann of Intellitics.com. During our conversation, he mentioned how much of the recent focus of "open government" has been on transparency and open data, and he sees less attention to online consultations and online participation. And some of the high-profile consultation experiments that have been tried have not gone so well. For example, see "How the Open Government Dialogue got slimed."

The Santa I know typically operates in the currency of choo choo trains, gumdrops, and candy canes, but this holiday season, it seems he’s branched out. Kids around the country received an early and much-needed gift this December in the form of — you guessed it — broccoli and green beans.

So, you've decided to invest in a tool for collaboration and content management. Great! And you are ready to begin. Even better.

I had the displeasure of spending much of the evening reading one of the worst requirements documents I have had to wade through in some time. It wasn’t that it was poorly written (it was) or poorly organized (check). Its greatest crime was that those who had written it had clearly failed to utilize the two key words that have to be part of any requirements effort: “why?” and “no.”

HealthCare.gov, the federal web site that is officially charged with helping consumers make sense of the new health insurance landscape, was substantially improved this month.

I was invited to present last week at the University of Maryland's Human Computer Interaction Lab's workshop on Government and Social Media. We had a great discussion about how government agencies are using social media, and how the research community can support their efforts. We also saw some very cool examples of how to use NodeXL to map and understand social networks.

In the past few months, world-wide political and economic uncertainty has shaken global confidence, which in turn has resulted in continued market instability and volatility. With economic recovery inching along, all levels of government are feeling the pinch brought on by reduced tax revenue. With ever-shrinking budgets, many government entities have been forced to re-evaluate their resource allocations.

When President Obama took the stage in Cairo, Egypt last year, millions tuned in to hear his approach for improved U.S.-Muslim relations.

As a relative newbie here at Forum One, I wasn't sure what to expect when as I headed to my very first "unconference." The event, Participation Camp, was organized by volunteers recently and sponsored, in part, by Forum One.