- Creating Classrooms of the Future
-
By Kristin Bockius, State & Local Government Social Media Marketing Manager
When I was a kid in elementary school, my friends and I looked forward to seeing what each of us brought for lunch. We often exchanged a few goodies here and there. In those times, sharing and exchanging was fundamental.
Now imagine a student sharing something in the classroom with an obviously greater impact than lunch. Say, educational tools.
The realities of teaching students in the classroom are much different from what has occurred in years past. Today, sharing is a vital aspect of learning and technology is the key focal point. Students are growing up in a technology driven world and this means that educational technology is essential to learning.
The need for innovation and technology that allows teachers and students to share and collaborate is rising. As a result, here at Microsoft, our team has introduced the release of Windows MultiPoint Server 2010, an exciting product that allows multiple users to simultaneously share one computer using multiple screens.
Students and teachers are now experiencing education in a new way that brings significant advantages. For example, teachers can easily and affordably collaborate and exchange information with students, administer tests, store documents or make assignments. Whether working on a book report or online research, students can work independently or with other classmates enhancing their learning experience through technology. Ultimately, Windows MultiPoint Server 2010 helps to create and sustain a more enriching, rewarding learning experience for everyone in the classroom.
To see Windows MultiPoint Server 2010 in action, I encourage you to check out these videos. Additionally, here are the Top 10 things you can do with Windows MultiPoint Server.
Isn’t everything associated with this educational technology much more appetizing than swapping a PB&J?
- Congratulations to Government Technology’s Top 25 Winners!
-
By Kristin Bockius, State & Local Government Social Media Marketing Manager
Last week Government Technology announced its annual Top 25 “Doers, Dreamers, & Drivers” list of state and local public sector leaders in IT. In a year characterized by economic pressures and serious revenue shortfalls, these individuals are cutting through red tape and other common government barriers to innovations like organizational change, politics, and tighter budgets, and they are finding new ways to advance technology’s role in public service. I am so thrilled to see many of our friends (including several NASCIO members) as well as customers and partners being recognized and would like to acknowledge a handful of these individuals here:
Toni Cramer, CIO, Bellevue, Wash. – Toni was recognized as a CIO who is a pioneer in cloud computing for state and local government because the IT infrastructure she manages hosts software shared by 34 cities, a county, a fire district, two economic development councils and an airport. All 39 users were brought into Toni’s data center by eCityGov.net, a regional government alliance that provides shared Web-based services and information to businesses and local residents. Microsoft donated consulting services to the alliance’s founding cities, and eCityGov.net uses Bing Maps software and Microsoft SQL Server to allow local users to easily search for parks and recreational facilities. Congrats Toni!
Linda Gibbs, Deputy Mayor, Health & Human Services, New York City & Kamal Bherwani, CIO, Human Services, New York City – Linda and Kamal lead an ambitious social services transformation known as HHS-Connect, which integrates info and activities across 9 NYC health and human services agencies that serve millions of New Yorkers. To deal with limited funds and expanding caseloads, Linda and Kamal helped build a common client index (CCI), which is a central database of client information across multiple benefits programs. The CCI gives city social workers a full view of an individual’s circumstances and allow them to efficiently deliver services tailored to specific needs. Congrats Linda & Kamal!
Steve Ressler, Founder & President, GovLoop – While Steve was a full-time federal employee at the Department of Homeland Security, he began to build GovLoop, a social networking site for government workers. While there are some similarities with sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, GovLoop is unique in that it provides a platform for public sector employees to share government-specific best practices and experiences. To get started on the site, you can join our new group - Microsoft Productivity for Government, where you can discuss all things Microsoft and follow the top content for Cloud Computing at our sponsored best practice page. Congrats Steve!
Once again, congratulations to all of the winners! And if you would like to share your thoughts or suggestions about additional city, county, or state technology leaders who deserve to be recognized for their effective use of technology in public service, please tell us your story and have it shared on the Bright Side of Government.
Technorati Tags:
Government Technology,
Microsoft,
Government,
NASCIO,
Toni Cramer,
Bellevue,
Linda Gibbs,
HHS,
NYC,
Kamal Bherwani,
Steve Ressler,
Govloop
- Tell Your Story – Allen County’s creative approach to GIS
-
By Kristin Bockius, State & Local Government Social Media Marketing Manager
Have you ever wondered how to find information about your property taxes? Well now, the folks in Allen County in Fort Wayne, Indiana can get all the information they need.
The new award-winning site allows citizens to connect and look up taxes, pictures of a property and do a comparison for properties in the area. It also alerts citizens to property tax errors that need attention. Built using Silverlight, web services and MS SQL, here at the Bright Side of Government, we definitely wanted to highlight this success! To see the sight yourself, go to: http://www.allencounty.us/property-tax-division and click on GIS Portal.
Dave Evans, Program Manager for the City of Fort Wayne/Allen County IT Outsourcing submitted this story to us:
I'm happy to share the news that our development team has been honored with the "Excellence in GIS Award" by the Indiana Atos Origin Geographic Information Council (IGIC) 2010.
The award is to recognize creative and practical applications of GIS in Indiana. We developed it using Silverlight, web services and MS SQL. It allows a unique way for citizens to see property tax information. You can see it here: http://www.igic.org/awards/gisaward.html
Atos Origin is the IT provider for the City of Fort Wayne and Allen County. We are 14 months into our contract/relationship.
We are now sharing the code and working with other counties to allow them to reuse the application.
Just wanted to share the good news!
Thanks Dave for sharing your success with us at Bright Side of Government. We always want to hear from our community of readers about their best practices and success as it helps others learn from you. That is what Bright Side of Government is all about.
Does your city, county, state or agency have an interesting story to share? Do you want to be recognized for your great work? Then tell us your story and have it shared on the Bright Side of Government.
- Cloud Computing for Government: The Power of Choice
-
By Kristin Bockius, State & Local Government Social Media Marketing Manager
While government agencies have long managed their own software on premises, state and local governments are now increasingly looking to the cloud to access their applications and data on the Internet. The flexibility and power of cloud computing is more fully realized when on premises software and internet services work together to solve problems, and Software + Services provides a solution that is customized to meet the requirements and needs of your agency and constituents without sacrificing security, standards, and reliability.
For more information, check out this previous video blog post on cloud standards and quality and this relevant blog post on how states and local governments are approaching the cloud. And if you missed the announcement last week about our Government cloud, check this post out for more information.
- Microsoft Windows Azure Development Contest Winners Announced
-
By Kristin Bockius, State & Local Government Social Media Marketing Manager
The voters, a customer industry panel, and the Microsoft panel judges have spoken, and this afternoon we announced the results of the Microsoft Windows Azure Development Contest at the Microsoft US Public Sector CIO Summit. Congratulations to our winners and thank you to all 13 entrants who submitted innovative solutions that are meeting the needs of government customers. The prizes were awarded as follows:
First Place Prize ($10,000): MapDotNet for Miami 311
Second Place Prize ($5,000): Democracy Live, Inc. for LiveBallot
Third Place Prize ($2,500): iLink Systems Inc for iLink GIS Framework
For more information about these state and local government applications, see today’s earlier Bright Side blog post and check out all of the other great submissions here. Each of these applications is a prime example of how our state and local government customers are already benefitting from greater flexibility, functionality, and reliability in the cloud provided by the Windows Azure Platform. Congratulations again to all of the winners!
- U.S. Public Sector CIO Summit 2010 Day 2: Windows Azure Platform Apps Meeting Real Government Needs
-
By Kristin Bockius, State & Local Government Social Media Marketing Manager
We recently launched the Microsoft Windows Azure Development Contest for state and local government partners to provide an opportunity for all of our partners to showcase their development skills by creating a Windows Azure-based application that meets real needs of government customers. Voting closed last week, the judges have made their final decisions, and the results of the contest will be announced later today here at the CIO Summit. In the mean time, we would like to highlight a handful of the innovative applications that partners have already developed for government use:
COMAND – Developed by Trafrec Corp, this Windows Mobile application allows law enforcement officers to create or capture accident, citation, field interview, tow and DUI reports from the field. The data is synced to servers in the cloud in real time, and the sharing of captured data (which can also be accessed from the cloud back at the station) eliminates duplication and reduces reporting errors. Trafrec provides the software licensing at no cost to law enforcement agencies including police departments, DMVs, and DOTs. To view a demonstration of the application, check out this online presentation.
iLink GIS Framework – State and local government agencies are always looking for more efficient ways to deliver current contextual information online to their citizens, so iLink Systems created its “GIS Mapping Applications Framework” to meet this need. This reusable framework allows easy creation and deployment of intuitive, map-based solutions that can visualize social services, health services, public safety, schools, arts, and recreation. To try out this application, take a look at the demo script here.
LiveBallot – The Democracy Live system was deployed in 19 elections last year to help state and local governments reduce the costs associated with paper sample ballots, voter pamphlets, and other paper-based voter information. Democracy Live’s LiveBallot is capable of delivering voter information to over 200 million eligible U.S. voters and provides on-demand display of a voter’s specific balloting information. For more information, visit www.liveballot.com.
FullArmor AppPortal – AppPortal is a software + services solution that enables government organizations to deploy and manage App-V virtual applications through a cloud-based service or through internal infrastructure. Built on the Windows Azure platform, AppPortal can be implemented without any capital expenditures in datacenters, servers, or traditional system management software, and the deployment can be centrally managed, self-service enabled or a combination of both. For more information, visit FullArmor’s AppPortal Web site.
Miami 311 – Miami 311 is a public-facing, open government transparency solution that allows citizens to monitor and analyze non-emergency requests, like a pothole repair or sidewalk damage, which are mapped out visually based on calls to 3-1-1. Miami 311 also serves as a dashboard for City Commissioners to see and monitor citizen requests in their district. For more information, see yesterday’s Bright side blog post on Miami’s Windows Azure application.
As the Windows Azure Platform evolves and new tools are developed, our state and local government customers will benefit from even greater flexibility, functionality, and reliability in the cloud, and citizens will benefit from greater transparency and more open government at the state and local level. We will post the results of Microsoft Windows Azure Platform Development Contest later today, so be sure to follow additional coverage here on Bright Side and look for our tweets @Microsoft_Gov with the hashtag #USPSCIO.
- U.S. Public Sector CIO Summit 2010 Day 1: Bringing Transparency from the Cloud to the People – Miami’s Windows Azure Application
-
By Kristin Bockius, State & Local Government Social Media Marketing Manager
With the general availability of the Windows Azure platform, Microsoft’s cloud services platform, earlier this month, we have built a foundation for our partners to develop and offer applications that they may not have had the resources to build until now. As state and local governments increasingly consider and deploy cloud-based solutions to cut costs, developers are pioneering citizen-facing applications that decrease infrastructure costs by making sense of systems and data hosted in the cloud.
One particularly interesting example is MapDotNet’s Windows Azure-based Miami 311, an open government transparency application that allows Miami residents to monitor and analyze all non-emergency events that are occurring in the metro area. While many U.S. cities offer 311 services over the phone, Miami 311 is unique because it integrates with the Miami-Dade Motorola CSR system, providing residents with unprecedented access to information—from the citywide level down to their own street and front yard.
Here’s how it works: A citizen reports a non-emergency request—like missed trash pick up, pothole repairs, code enforcement, or street light outages—by dialing 3-1-1 on their telephone. Knowledgeable city employees give the citizen one-on-one service in English, Spanish, or Creole and help him or her file a request as needed. The citizen can then log on Miami 311 to monitor the progress of the request on the familiar Bing Maps interface. At the same time, Miami City Commissioners can use Miami 311 as a dashboard to see, monitor, and assist with citizen requests in their respective districts.
On a related note, today we also revealed the new Business Productivity Online for US Federal, an enterprise-ready cloud offering which is designed to meet government agencies’ rigorous security, privacy, and compliance needs. In addition to achieving unmatched levels of security, our government cloud offering provides the familiar, easy-to-use software already used by governments in 48 of the 50 U.S. states, including Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Office Communications Online. In fact, several new customers were announced today, including the City of Newark and Florida State College at Jacksonville, one the nation’s largest universities. For more information, check out this press release that explains this morning’s announcement.
Whether you’re here at the Summit this week or are unable to attend, be sure to follow additional coverage here on Bright Side and look for our tweets @Microsoft_Gov with the hashtag #USPSCIO. For more information or to download the full agenda, visit http://www.uspsciosummit.com.
Technorati Tags:
Microsoft,
Government,
BPOS Federal,
Cloud Computing,
Miami 311,
Windows Azure,
Exchange Online,
SharePoint Online,
Office Communications Online,
City of Newark,
Florida State College,
#USPSCIO
- Jefferson City State & Local Government Stakeholder Summit
-
By Kristin Bockius, State & Local Government Social Media Marketing Manager
My friends over at E•SPONDER just emailed me about a special event they are holding on March 3rd in Missouri (where we are both based). If you recall from past blog posts, E•SPONDER has been doing some great things for technology in Public Safety. Here is a review of some of their past work during the All Start Game:
If you are interested in this event or learning more from E•SPONDER, visit their Facebook page or you can RSVP directly with Liz Henderlong.
- There’s a Bright Side to GovLoop
-
By Kristin Bockius, State & Local Government Social Media Marketing Manager
Are you continually looking for ways to enhance the way you do business? We certainly are. In fact, a big part of what we do on the Bright Side of Government involves evaluating more ways to be a key resource to state and local government organizations to help them learn more about technology trends and issues that are critical to the way they do business. Altogether, I think everything that we’re doing is very exciting.
Most of the excitement comes from the conversation and collaboration that we have through daily interactions and social networks with a government audience. From Twitter to reader comments to your stories, we have many ways to stay connected to share knowledge, best practices and innovative solutions.
A significant community that also brings us together is none other than GovLoop, known as the “Knowledge Network for Government.” GovLoop, with more than 25,000 members, connects the government community through peer interaction, discussions, blogs, videos and more – you name it, GovLoop has it.
GovLoop is the fastest growing, premier social network dedicated solely to the government community at all levels. The audience on GovLoop is highly engaged and active on a daily basis. Simply put, GopLoop is the place where we can keep a pulse on what’s on the minds of the people in the government community.
At Microsoft, we’ve seen significant value from our interactions on GovLoop. This is one of reasons that we’re proud to announce that we’re now one of GovLoop’s key partners in 2010. We will work in partnership to create new forums for dialogue and collaboration, all designed to bring more value and innovative resources to our government community. To start, you can join our new group - Microsoft Productivity for Government, where you can discuss all things Microsoft with your peers & get help directly from the source. You can also follow the top content for Cloud Computing at our sponsored best practice page.
I spoke with GovLoop’s founder, Steve Ressler, to have him share more with you.
Q: GovLoop has evolved significantly since its inception to become a major online destination for the government community. What factors spurned the growth of GovLoop as the place to share, learn and collaborate around government trends and issues?
I think there are three key factors:
First - Hitting a real need. There are millions of people working in government on similar issues and there has never been a place online to connect and share best practices. GovLoop does that and really struck a nerve, began helping people do their job better, and therefore they started telling their friends
Second - The cultural change in government. In the last 18 months, I've seen lots of cultural change start across government. At the federal level, the Obama administration's use of new technologies on the campaign has affected the way they have governed. One can see this from the wave of new government technology leaders and the new directives being pushed. And there is a groundswell amongst government employees at all levels who have seen new technologies and new ways of thinking from consumer technology and are introducing that into government. This cultural change has helped people get more interested in new ways of government collaboration like GovLoop.
Three - Hard work and spreading the word. I tell everyone focusing on collaboration and community building that there is no trick - in the end, it is just a lot of hard work. Like any good dinner party, we spend a lot of time making sure the right people come (invites plus moderation), the right venue is picked (our technology structure), and the right food/beverage/music (the right content). Plus, we spend a lot of time spreading the word of GovLoop from in-person events, conferences, meeting with government agencies, and integration with social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Q: What types of new features can the GovLoop community expect to see in the coming months as a result new partnerships like ours with you? How will these features enhance the user experience?
Through our new partnerships with great companies like Microsoft, the GovLoop community will see a range of great new features in the coming months all focused on enhancing the user experience towards our mission of connecting government to improve government.
To start, we are re-launching a redesigned home page later this week which will streamline the user experience, a common complaint I've heard from the community. As part of this, we are launching topic pages with partners on key themes such as cloud computing and Gov 2.0, so people can quickly find the best content on the topics they care about on GovLoop.
Further, we will provide great community spaces like the Microsoft Productivity group where you can share best practices around products those in government use everyday. Got a question or tip on everything from PowerPoint to Word? Here is a built-in community of peers sharing ideas plus great people at partner companies helping you get your questions answered.
In addition to these features launching this week, we have a number of features on deck over the course of the next few months all focus on providing resources to those working in government to connect, share best practices, and do their job better. I'm particularly focused on building knowledge repositories, mobile applications, and new ways to connect the GovLoop innovators. And as always, we'd love to hear your thoughts on what you'd like to see - http://www.govloop.com/forum/topics/what-tech-features-would-you
Q: We’re still seeing some people in the government community shy away from using social networks and communities. What would you say to those individuals to get them on board and interested in participating? What are they missing?
I truly believe in the wisdom of crowds and we can learn from each other to do our jobs better and improve government.
How often do you get an idea or help on a project from the water cooler, from asking a former colleague on the phone, or attending an association gathering or event? For most people, this is very common.
Social networks and communities offer the same help at a grander and more diverse scale. Tasked to develop a IT Strategic plan at your agency? Wouldn't you want to talk to people at all levels across government (not just by your water cooler) who have recently completed that task and can share real lessons of moving from strategy to execution? Working on a Gen Y Workforce strategy? Wouldn't you want to collaborate with government peers who have done that task recently and Masters of Public Policy students who are about to enter the workforce.
I always tell people - try before you decide. Take 30 seconds to join GovLoop and take it for a spin. Trust me, you'll have fun and learn a lot.
Thanks for sharing Steve! I can’t wait to see what else Govloop can do for Government in the future.
- U.S. Public Sector CIO Summit 2010 – A Preview
-
By Kristin Bockius, State & Local Government Social Media Marketing Manager
We’re gearing up for the 8th annual US Public Sector CIO Summit, which will be held on February 23 - 25, 2010 in Redmond, WA at the Microsoft Conference Center. For those of you who are not familiar with the CIO Summit, the event brings together more than 300 government and education leaders, Microsoft executive management and product experts, and our partners to discuss and demonstrate current technology. Attendees also get to check out government solutions that are emerging or in development.
As in past years, we have a full agenda so we wanted to highlight the following sessions that are relevant to state and local governments:
Government 2.0: Government, Software & Citizens (Feb 23 at 3 pm PT) – The government community and social media observers are all talking about Gov 2.0 and what it means for federal and state agencies that are still figuring out how to become more transparent and collaborative. In light of the recently launched Open Government Directive, Microsoft USPS Director of Social Engagement Mark Drapeau (better known to many of you as @Cheeky_Geeky) and GovLoop founder Steve Ressler will share best practices and specific examples of Gov 2.0 at work. They will also share ideas about how your agency can evolve to meet citizen’s needs and use innovative software to foster a more participatory culture.
Citizen Services Platform & Azure Applications for State & Local Government (Feb 25 at 1:15 pm) - Microsoft Citizen Services Platform is an application framework that is specifically designed to help local governments improve the way they communicate and interact with local citizens in their geographies. This session will provide an overview of Citizen Services Platform and showcase cloud-based state and local government applications that have been developed on Windows Azure, Microsoft’s cloud computing platform. Stay tuned to Bright Side as we begin to highlight some of these exciting and easy-to-deploy apps that can help governments save money.
Government in a Digital World – Transformation, Innovation and Leadership in the City by the Bay (Feb. 25 at 2:30 pm) - The San Francisco Bay Area regulatory authority issues operating permits for businesses as small as restaurants and as large as refineries has teamed with Microsoft to develop a vertical solution for inspection and permitting of businesses that create air pollution. John Chiladakis, Director of Information Services, & Jeffrey McKay, Deputy Executive Officer from Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) both will join Stuart McKee, Microsoft’s Government National Technology Officer, to demonstrate this green government solution that will go live later this year (and subsequently become available for other government entities).
We hope you can join us in person at this year’s CIO Summit, but if not, be sure to follow the coverage here on Bright Side and look for our tweets @Microsoft_Gov with the hashtag #USPSCIO. For more information or to download the full agenda, visit http://www.uspsciosummit.com.
- Improving Patient Outcomes & Lowering the Cost of Chronic Condition Management
-
By Kristin Bockius, State & Local Government Social Media Marketing Manager
Chronic conditions or diseases like diabetes are among the leading drivers of health care costs, but applying technology to manage the patient care process helps reduce these costs and improve patient outcomes. Dr. Carl Buising, executive director of Healthcare, Microsoft, US Public Sector, discusses Microsoft’s efforts to integrate information technology into primary care and increase communication between patients and physicians, including a pilot project with the University of Miami. For more information about the Miami project, read Dr. Buising’s previous blog post here.
- 2010 Winter Olympics – In-person & Online Experiences by Microsoft
-
By Kristin Bockius, State & Local Government Social Media Marketing Manager
All eyes will be watching Vancouver in the next couple weeks since the 2010 Winter Olympics roll into town. For those of you who won’t just be watching, but instead living the Olympics the Microsoft Canada Development Centre published a contest challenging developers to create interesting applications featuring the Bing Maps Platform and below are the resulting, quite helpful visitor applications.
The Apps were developed by Devs at the Microsoft Canada Development Centre (MCDC) in Richmond, Vancouver. They are developing these apps in their ‘spare time’ as an initiative to get them more engaged with the local developer community. These apps will be ‘launched’ in early Feb and targeted at citizens and visitors during the Olympics. The apps utilize open data from the City of Vancouver (http://data.vancouver.ca), the MS Open Government Data Initiative (OGDI) and Windows Azure – making them true cloud computing apps. All source code will be placed in Codeplex for shared use after the contest has finished.
MapWay (Xinyang Qiu)- a way to find City of Vancouver facilities and Olympic events.
Free Finders (Avi Brenner) – helps you to find free events and services in Vancouver with Facebook connection.
MoBuddy (Thomas Wei) – enables you to hookup with friends and visitors during Olympics to plan and share experiences through mobile social networking including Facebook
eVanTivitY (Johannes Stockmann) – enables you to find City and social events and add-in user-defined data-feeds
Vancouver Parking (Igor Babichev) – helps plan and find the best parking spot for visiting Vancouver
Of note, we did recently update the aerial photography of Vancouver (amazing) and added Streetside photography for Vancouver up through Whistler (really amazing). For those of you going, I hope you enjoy your time up the Sea to Sky highway. Also, congratulations to Thomas Wei for taking home the gold in the competition.
And don’t forget that NBC will be hosting Olympic video coverage in Silverlight. See this blog post for more info.
- Science Meets the Cloud – For Free
-
By Kristin Bockius, State & Local Government Social Media Marketing Manager
Cloud computing, one of the technologies we wrote about in our recent post on top technology trends for CIOs, is now helping American scientists and researchers solve their computational problems. Due to the exponential proliferation of data in the scientific community, the cost of analytics and storage is and will continue to be a serious impediment to significant research projects. To address the challenge, Microsoft and the National Science Foundation (NSF) have partnered to provide scientists free access to Windows Azure, Microsoft’s cloud platform.
So what does this actually mean for science? It allows researchers who are hampered by the limits of desktop computing to scale up their computational and data analysis ability without the burden and cost of maintaining their own IT infrastructure. Because the applications use only the processing power they need on demand, the research team no longer has to worry about the maintenance, power, cooling and the other drawbacks of a physical data center.
Cloud computing on this scale also has the power to “democratize” research by making it much more affordable to perform cutting-edge science, especially for academia. Running an Excel spreadsheet or other large data set that may haven taken weeks or even months under the old model can now be completed in minutes. And because Azure is web-based with robust security access controls, researchers can make their findings and data open to the broader scholarly community or choose to build applications that are shared only with selected collaborators. For more information on the Microsoft/NSF agreement, take a look at this Webinar of the announcement.
Finally, we’ve included some of the top stories covering the partnership and its impact for your reference:
- Does gaming have a place in government?
-
Originally posted on GovFresh by Dustin Haisler
I saw this post by Dustin Haisler, part of Manor Labs, and I wanted to share it with all of you. These are great ideas & an awesome post. Thanks for letting me share it Dustin!
Part of our research focus at Manor Labs is to discover new ways of communicating and engaging the public. The following two concepts came out of that research.
The new form of social network-based online gaming has become all the rage on popular social networking sites. From a government standpoint, we have determined that these platforms are distractions and subsequently block them from use by our employees. However, let’s propose a new thought; what if we used these tools to educate and engage our public?
Here are two concepts for using game mechanics proactively within government:
CityVille
The first concept takes Zynga’s FarmVille game model to an entirely new level—the government. We could create an online game with the simplicity of FarmVille, but the mechanics of a real city. There’s currently a social network game called MyTown that is similar to this model, however, it doesn’t accurately encompass concepts like taxation and cost of service within the game model (but it’s a great start). If the government built on their example, we could create a more empowered and educated citizen base.
Let’s say we built an online game that was as engaging as FarmVille, but incorporated real governmental concepts in the process. Which concepts are important to start with?
- Taxation: Have the gamer adjust taxes but also have it tied to public opinion (similar to Sim City, but less complex).
- Cost of Service: Have responding to police calls, water line breaks, etc., demonstrate a cost of service for government.
After you establish a sizable base of game players, you could increase the difficulty of the game by incorporating “real” crowdsourced governmental elements within the game model.
For example, Manor Labs is always looking for new ways to get people to review ideas using very simple metric that takes less than 30 seconds to complete. Incorporating this element as a challenge within an online game would allow participants to not only advance within the game, but also help our agency out in the process.
This game concept could be expanded as not only as a new way to teach individuals about government, but as a new way to learn from them.
Foursquare.gov
The second idea I had was to use the Foursquare model of mobile engagement and apply it to government.
About Foursquare:
“Foursquare aims to encourage people to explore their neighborhoods and then reward people for doing so. We do this by combining our friend-finder and social city guide elements with game mechanics – our users earn points, win mayorships and unlock badges for trying new places and revisiting old favorites.”
Building on that model, each agency could allow citizens to “check-in” at various city spots (Library, Fire Station, etc.) and learn more about their community in a fun and engaging format. This could also help open up the door for their participating in other crowdsourced programs like SeeClickFix.
Conclusion
In our ever changing society, civic participation and engagement are becoming more and more difficult to achieve. I believe these elements are more obtainable by incorporating certain elements of game mechanics in the process. These ideas are just two examples of how such mechanics can be utilized to create a more empowered and educated citizen-base.
- The Power of Bing Search in the Government Enterprise
-
By Kristin Bockius, State & Local Government Social Media Marketing Manager
At least half of all Internet searches do not provide customers with the information they are seeking. With Bing in the public sector, citizens don’t even have to leave their search results to determine if they are in the right place. Colin Nurse, Microsoft State & Local Government Chief Technology Officer, discusses how Bing categorizes data more intuitively and allows citizens to find exactly what they are looking more easily and in less time.
For more information about Bing, check out the Microsoft Enterprise Search Blog and “Virtual” Jerry Skaw’s earlier Bright Side blog post on Bing Maps for Enterprise.
