- Science Meets the Cloud – For Free
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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?
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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
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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.
- Waiting for Superman
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By Kristin Bockius, State & Local Government Social Media Marketing Manager
Education is a topic near and dear to me – I have been working on our DigiGirlz Day Event program in St. Louis for 4 years and help lead Microsoft folks interested in bringing these events to their local students all over the world. My mom is the Microsoft General Manager for Education in the Central Region, both Higher Ed and K12. An interesting video we once saw was 2 Million Minutes (if you haven’t seen it yet visit the site, it will open your eyes). I have a feeling this new video, Waiting for Superman, could do the same thing, which is why I wanted to share it all with you. We all have the ability to help our school system in the US. Please do your part.
Bill Gates quote from his 2010 Annual Letter: The filmmaker Davis Guggenheim, who directed An Inconvenient Truth, has a new documentary about American education coming out this year. Waiting for Superman tells the story of several kids trying to get into schools with high-quality teaching—it’s literally a lottery that will decide the fate of these young people. Although I may be biased because I appear in the movie, I think it is fantastic and hope it will galvanize a lot more political will to improve teaching effectiveness.
Director: Davis Guggenheim 2009
Categories: U.S. Documentary Competition, World Premiere, Political Run time: 102 min. | U.S.A. | color
For a nation that proudly declared it would leave no child behind, America continues to do so at alarming rates. Despite increased spending and politicians’ promises, our buckling public-education system, once the best in the world, routinely forsakes the education of millions of children.
Filmmaker Davis Guggenheim reminds us that education “statistics” have names: Anthony, Francisco, Bianca, Daisy, and Emily, whose stories make up the engrossing foundation of WAITING FOR SUPERMAN. As he follows a handful of promising kids through a system that inhibits, rather than encourages, academic growth, Guggenheim undertakes an exhaustive review of public education, surveying “drop-out factories” and “academic sinkholes,” methodically dissecting the system and its seemingly intractable problems.
However, embracing the belief that good teachers make good schools, and ultimately questioning the role of unions in maintaining the status quo, Guggenheim offers hope by exploring innovative approaches taken by education reformers and charter schools that have—in reshaping the culture—refused to leave their students behind.
- Looking ahead: Top Technology Trends for State and Local CIOs in 2010
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By Richard McKinney, Microsoft State & Local Government Technology Advisor
As states cautiously look forward to emerging from the recession, managing budgets and reducing costs are the top priority in 2010. According to the National Conference of States Legislatures (NCSL), 36 states are still facing shortfalls in the current fiscal year, even as governors are finalizing their budget proposals for fiscal year 2011. The current economic climate is driving difficult decisions around IT spending and investments, but many states see an opportunity to innovate and use technology to adopt new approaches to citizen services.
Looking ahead, I believe the following trends will have the biggest impact on state and local governments in 2010:
Virtualization – Identified by NASCIO as the number one technology for CIOs this year, virtualization—including storage, computing, data center, server, or application—is helping states and municipalities increase utilization rates, reduce energy consumption, and cut costs. Another significant benefit of application and server virtualization is that it allows government employees to telecommute from any location, provided there is internet access, and even access their programs and files in the field.
Cloud Computing – Much like Windows fundamentally altered the DOS-based computing environment, cloud computing will continue to redefine computing in 2010. To address concerns about security, reliability, and functionality, state and local government customers often wish to use an interface they are accustomed to, with the added ability to rebalance their infrastructure to meet their specific needs. To us, this means keeping applications and data on-premise for mission-critical needs and offloading non-differentiating applications, such as collaboration messaging, to Microsoft and our partners to host and run from the cloud.
Stimulus Reporting – As we mentioned earlier this week, states are already looking ahead to an increased emphasis on transparency that will live beyond the three years of stimulus spending. To help them meet the detailed reporting requirements of the Stimulus, we developed our free Stimulus360 solution, combining reporting, collaboration, and an external web presence in our core platform that works easily with the solutions our customers already use. For more information, also check out a previous blog post on our stimulus reporting partnership with the Bank of New York Mellon
Transparency – The open government agenda was never limited to the federal government, and many states are taking the lead by offering interactive portals that allow citizens to make sense of the unprecedented amount of public information they’re making readily available. We’re committed to helping states realize the promise of open government and transparency, and one of our most important initiatives in this regard is Microsoft’s Open Government Data Initiative (OGDI). Through this cloud-based collection of software assets that enables government data to be easily accessible, we‘re highlighting the importance of programmatic access to data and exploring the potential of crowd sourcing.
Gov 2.0 & Social Media – For the past several years, social media sites have been changing the way we interact with one another, and our communication with local and state government officials is no exception. The last presidential election and recent Massachusetts U.S. Senate special election have demonstrated how powerful social networking can be in the world of politics, and elected and non-elected officials are increasingly communicating directly with constituents and other stakeholders through tools like Twitter, Facebook, GovLoop, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instant Messaging.
Now it’s your turn! If you have thoughts about the technology trends states and local governments will see in 2010, please leave your comment below.
- Helping Agencies Track Funded Programs: Stimulus360
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By Kristin Bockius, State & Local Government Social Media Marketing Manager
At the beginning of 2009, several of our customers asked us if we would develop a solution to help them navigate the political risks of the Federal stimulus, and more importantly, to meet all of the mandatory reporting requirements. Looking ahead to an emphasis on transparency that will live beyond the three years of stimulus spending, we developed our free Stimulus360 solution, combining reporting, collaboration, and an external web presence in our core platform that works easily with the solutions our customers already use. From job reporting to project reporting and overall handling of public funds, Stimulus360 enables state and local governments to achieve the broader goals of open government.
For more information, also check out this previous blog post on our stimulus reporting partnership with the Bank of New York Mellon and this case study/blog post from the State of Wisconsin.
- Home Sweet Hometown – NY, Boston, New Hampshire, Maine, oh my!
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Our 12th guest post for the Home Sweet Hometown. Are you next? Read my blog post from Dec 1st for info on why we are looking for blog posts from you. See this post to see the awesome picture of the hometown that was featured on Bing that launched this series of posts.
Guest post by Christa M. Miller, founder and co-author of Cops 2.0. A freelance trade journalist turned content creator and strategist, she has specialized in public safety issues for the past 8years.
I can't point to any one place as being my “hometown.” I spent parts of my growing-up years in New York City, West Virginia, greater Boston, and southern New Hampshire. They all informed who and what I am today.
In Rochester, New Hampshire I was a Law Enforcement Explorer for four years, foundational volunteer work that taught me much about police work, police officers, and myself. Yet when I went to college, my “hometown” expanded to include Dover and Durham and Portsmouth, places where I spent at least as much time as I did “back home.”
Boston will always be one of my favorite cities. The five years I spent there as a child, then later day trips as a college student and young adult, made numerous happy memories. I have always been a big-city girl at heart, and Boston with its museums, parks and, well, concrete filled a place in my soul in a way no other community quite could.
This may have something to do with the fact that my roots are in New York City. Although I only visited the “old neighborhood” in Queens a handful of times, watching my parents and other family members fall into childhood selves while there made me a part of their histories, gave the place—and the people—a context I've never found anywhere else.
We live in Greenville, South Carolina now, a small city with a lot to do. It's a good place to raise children, and I wonder if mine will consider it part of their hometown heritage, or whether we'll move on. I can't help this thought. Places to me are temporary, however much I love them. If “home is where the heart is,” then my home is equally in New York, Boston, and coastal New Hampshire and Maine.
And Greenville. My 6-year-old is the same age I was when my family moved to Boston. Seeing him discover the world in context of this new place makes me love it. He's going on school trips to the kinds of plays and science centers I enjoyed; in that way, Greenville is already fulfilling my hope that my children would have experiences similar to mine. As a mother, how can I not love it?
Growing up all over made me in part wistful for more stability, but also in part grateful for experiences in urban, suburban and rural communities. I'm fearful of neither big city (as rural dwellers often are) nor back country (as urban dwellers often are), and neither are my children. In fact, we live close to all kinds of hometowns. It may be the best of all worlds.
- Contest: Develop a cloud-based app for Windows Azure by Feb. 5
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By Kristin Bockius, State & Local Government Social Media Marketing Manager
Last November, we launched the Microsoft Azure Development Contest for state and local government partners. Today we want to remind everyone that the contest provides an excellent opportunity for all of our partners to showcase your development skills by creating a Windows Azure-based application that meets real needs of government customers. It is our hope that many of our partners will take advantage of the scalability and interoperability of Windows Azure to build mission-critical applications that state and local governments can adopt with little cost (or even no cost).
One of the best ways to help state and local governments realize the potential of cloud computing is building applications that can improve citizen access to government services or help to present useful information. And with the recent release of Microsoft “Dallas,” we are providing developers and information workers of all sizes with new access to third party data, web services, and self service business intelligence and analytics. Using “Dallas,” state and local governments can store strategic data sets— like municipal/state budgets, employment statistics, or public transit schedules—on Azure and then "curate" that data by adding an open API to allow developer access and a front-end search feature to query relational data.
As the Azure platform evolves and new tools are developed, our state and local government customers will benefit from greater flexibility, functionality, and reliability in the cloud. At the same time, citizens will benefit from greater transparency and more open government at the state and local level. Be sure to tell your friends and fellow developers about your application in your blog or through Twitter using #AzureApps as your hashtag, and remind them to come back to vote for your app too. Also, please follow @Microsoft_Gov on Twitter to hear about new applications submitted for this contest.
The contest is still open but will end on February 5, 2010. A complete description of the prizes, eligibility, and entry requirements can be found on the contest Web site.
- Bing Maps Demo: Single View of Collision Data
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Guest Blog by “Virtual Jerry” aka, Jerry Skaw
Microsoft partner, IDV Solutions, recently released a new interactive application demo that visualizes vehicle collision data. The demo is built using their data visualization product--Visual Fusion--and integrates Microsoft Silverlight and a stack of other Microsoft technologies that make up the Microsoft SingleView platform: Bing Maps, Sharepoint and SQL Server 2008. SingleView brings together these Microsoft technologies to allow organizations to better manage their data and to collaborate around that data in a visual manner (thanks to Bing Maps!). It provides a consolidated, geo-spatial representation of an entire data and information landscape. You can deploy Microsoft SVP easily across multiple roles and user interfaces to support faster and better-informed decision-making with timely and effective coordination among all stakeholders.
Collision Watch visualizes data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Adminstration. It shows automobile collisions occurring in 2007, that resulted in one or more fatalities, and details the conditions that were involved. The data set contains over 36,000 incidents and is visualized in two ways: as discrete points and as a heat map wieghted for the number of fatalities per incident.
The demo features several interactive capabilities:
- Pan and zoom both the map and its timeline
- Filter on contributing factors such as alcohol, drowsiness and speeding
- Filter on time attributes such as month, day and time of day
- Filter on characteristics such as the number of vehicles involved in a collision, the number of fatalities, and the posted speed limit
- Bring in additional data sources such as web feeds or search results from Bing, Wikipedia and Flickr
This is a great example of what I have been preaching to customers over the last several years: when data is plotted on a map, the geospatial relationship between those datapoints becomes more clear and trends and patterns become more apparent more quickly. For example, the default speed filter setting in Collision Watch is 75 MPH. When "turning down" this filter, the number of datapoints in the heat map drops significantly. This suggests, not surprisingly, that accidents occurring at higher speeds are more likely to result in fatalities. Also not a big surprise ... when you zoom out from the default zoom factor over the default location--the San Fransco bay area--you will see that the heat map over Los Angeles is much brighter due to a higher concentratoin of data points in that area. In other words, there are more traffic accident related fatalities in the Los Angeles region than in the Bay Area.
Using this application, analysis could be taken a step further to leverage the Bing Maps high resolution aerial imagery for a closer look at locations, such as a turn in a road or a particular intersection, where the map data may show a trend of recurring accidents involving fatalities. Through the Bing Maps imagery, we might discover something about that location that could be contributing to these accidents.
Good stuff from our friends at IDV Solutions. Check it out: http://vfdemo.idvsolutions.com/collisions/
-=Virtual Jerry
- Government friends from around the world
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By Kristin Bockius, State & Local Government Social Media Marketing Manager
The Bright Side of Government and @Microsoft_Gov have a lot of government friends from around the world and today’s post is dedicated to them. I personally think Government is an industry where folks really try to learn from others and use best practices, instead of always trying to recreate the wheel. Even though Governments are different at every level, size and location, they have one thing in common – citizens.
So please use today’s post to learn about some great best practices that you can use from Peru to Timbuktu, from Spain to Maine, from … ok, that is enough with the rhyming :) If you know of other best practices, please share them here via the comments or send me the info and I will post it as a blog.
And if you are looking for a place to meet and learn from some of the best in Government, I suggest Govloop – who just happened to send out a great recap (shown below) of their friends from around the world.
(Note – to access the links from govloop, you need to be a member – I promise it’s worth it!)
Australia, Brazil, Canada, Israel, Netherlands, Sweden, United Kingdom
In the past week alone, GovLoop has communicated with government innovators from each of the nations above. And some of the recent content that they've featured from around the world includes:
They also have several groups that are international in flavor - some that were just added in the past week!
And then there are groups for International Relations Majors, International Development, and Returned Peace Corps Volunteers in Government.
I also have many counterparts on the Microsoft World Wide Government team – they are a great bunch of folks. They have a website if you are interested in getting to government specific solutions and partners for your country.
- Modernizing Government
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(Cross-posted from the FutureFed blog)
Today President Obama is hosting a White House Forum on Modernizing Government, which will bring together CEOs from across the country to discuss how government can leverage private sector best practices to reduce costs, streamline processes, and improve citizen services. Our CEO, Steve Ballmer, will attend today’s event, and in his blog entry from today he reiterates what an important opportunity this event represents in terms of making government more efficient, effective and responsive.
It’s clear that the administration understands the transformative effect information technology can have on the way government operates. From the start, President Obama has talked about the importance of increasing transparency, participation and collaboration, and last month’s Open Government Directive was an important step. Citizens now have access to government data through portals like Data.gov, and they are developing innovative applications through projects like NASA’s “Be a Martian” initiative. Making data available also promotes accountability, and Microsoft has supported this effort through solutions like Recovery.gov and Stimulus 360.
But publishing the data is only the first step. Government and its industry partners need to focus on the outcomes that can be achieved when data is made available, and pursue solutions that securely and cost effectively reach these goals. I always talk about choice, and it’s because it’s so fundamental to the mission of modernizing government. Government isn’t one size fits all. There is an incredible amount of variability amongst government organizations, all with different needs and requirements in areas like collaboration and security. Cloud computing has been rightly embraced by the administration because of its potential in cost-savings and efficiency, but every government organization needs the freedom to choose where its data resides (multi-tenant, dedicated and/or on-premise), and which devices and applications have access to that data. Choice also means the freedom to choose the best technology solutions regardless of underlying development, licensing or business models. Organizations in both government and the private sector use products from a variety of vendors, so success means delivering value in a mixed-source environment, which requires interoperable solutions built on open standards.
Government now has the ability to draw upon an almost limitless level of technology innovation, and agency leaders are tasked with developing enterprise-level modernization strategies that fit their budget and their mission. I know Steve is excited to join partners and colleagues from across the country to share ideas on how technology can make government more efficient. Please read his blog entry from today for more information on this exciting event!
- What Social Middleware means for Government
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By Kristin Bockius, State & Local Government Social Media Marketing Manager
Warning: don’t do social without social middleware
Let’s face it. The adoption of social media applications is growing among state and local government organizations. At the same time, questions are still looming about how to best leverage the applications to reach citizens, promote programs or share information. Some government organizations are blocking the use of social media applications like Twitter and Facebook altogether, while others are cautiously using them and struggling to get their arms around the risks and IT compliance issues. Enter Social Middleware.
Socialware, a new company on the scene, describes this concept as follows:
Social Middleware unlocks the potential of open applications by adding a layer of enterprise security, control, visibility and data retention. In the process you turn public platforms, like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, into enterprise-grade channels for engagement, communication and collaboration.
@Socialware is the first company to offer social middleware products that help organizations integrate and enable social media applications on their terms. This means that organizations can now establish layers of control for social media applications, achieving collaboration goals and meeting IT policy requirements.
I spoke with Chris Ricther (@richterc), the CEO from Socialware, to get more information on how social middleware can bring immediate benefits to government organizations.
Q: How will Socialware’s products help senior level executives and IT managers at government organizations sleep at night as they deal with the growing interest in social media applications?
Until today government organizations only had two options. Open the flood gates or completely block access. If you block access you will obviously miss out on all the benefits social media can offer. On top of that you will have to deal with an ever-increasing number of requests to relinquish control and open up the organization.
On the flip side completely opening access puts you at risk on a number of fronts from brand reputation, data leakage and compliance just to name a few. Socialware gives executives and IT the ability to turn on these social sites on their terms. If you determine that employees don’t need to upload videos as part of their job, just disable it. If you are concerned about personal identifiable information leaking, such as social security numbers, we can scan every outgoing message and quarantine it if it matches a set of lexicons or structures. Or maybe you are concerned about being able to produce information posted to social networks on demand. Not a problem. We can capture every outgoing message, archive it and make it easily discoverable. No more taking screenshots of Facebook or cutting and pasting tweets into Excel.
Q: Why is social middleware important as government organizations embrace Open Government directives?
The recent memo on Open Government talks about 3 aspects of open governments: transparency, participation and collaboration.
In regards to transparency The President points out that government organizations should “disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use”. Part of this call to action is making sure that information can be easily produced for citizen consumption. This means that content shared on the social networks needs to be archived, tagged and be easy to search. This capability is core to social middleware and is something that we are doing with all of our clients today.
On the participation front it is stated “executive departments and agencies should solicit public input on how we can increase and improve opportunities for public participation in Government”. Part of driving participation is being where your citizens are. That translates to Facebook, Twitter and other popular consumer sites. Social middleware helps here as well by helping government agencies walk before they run. Turning on parts of these social networks that are most valuable while limiting access to those area that aren’t relevant (such as Facebook games)
The last area, collaboration, is where The President states “executive departments and agencies should use innovative tools, methods, and systems to cooperate among themselves, across all levels of Government”. While he doesn’t state which tools to use it would make sense to use those that are widely accepted already such as Twitter and Facebook. However, before that can be done agencies need to ensure the data shared is private and secure. Social middleware delivers on this need as well enabling agencies to leverage free consumer tools while making their communications completely private and secure.
Q: Briefly describe how Socialware’s products work. Tell me about your first two applications and their benefits.
Socialware’s cloud-based Social Middleware platform sits between public social networks and an enterprise’s people, processes and systems. The platform offers enterprise security, privacy, access control, reporting, integration and data retention to allow organizations to benefit from social networking. The first two Socialware applications built on this platform are Risk Manager and Social Marketer.
Risk Manager allows organizations to seamlessly implement and enforce policies for social networking tools. Enterprises can now manage the social experience, scan and route social messages for approval and archive the “electronic communications” that an employee sends across a social network, turning social networking into a viable solution for any industry, including government.
Social Marketer allows organizations to bring relevant social networking content into their site, blog and brand experience in order to increase traffic, engagement and amplify the voices of their biggest advocates – employees. It works by letting employees tag social content on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn as professional posts. These posts are then aggregated to a single feed, which is optimized for SEO and displayed on the organizations site.
Q: How can Socialware help improve a government agency’s interaction with its constituents and its efforts to provide citizen services through social networks?
Socialware can help government agencies in three ways. First we can enable government agencies to use these social networks on their terms. This will accelerate the adoption of social across the enterprise, help ensure participation with citizens and also serve as the platform for collaboration within the agency itself.
Second we can help agencies embed social activity across their core business processes. Today, there is a wall between internal processes and the social networks. With Socialware you can now directly tie the two together which translates to more optimized and effective business processes. It also allows agencies to better articulate the value of integrating these tools into ongoing communications.
Third we can help government agencies enhance their use of these networks. It starts with giving employees the ability to separate their personal posts from professional - something that has been impossible until now. From an executive standpoint we report on usage trends across the agency so they can better understand who’s using the tools, how they are using them and whether or not perceived risks were real. With this information in hand organizations can refine their policies, educate on best practices and further improve the value they are getting out of these tools.
Thanks for sharing Chris. I really think this is an important area to evaluate as part of Gov 2.0. (For more information on Socialware, visit their blog.) We have seen a few governments and agencies on the State & Local side that are doing great things (see Utah Shares Social Media Guidelines post) but there are still many opportunities to determine how you will use Gov 2.0. And now that this solution helps with archiving and control, what other big obstacles do you have? Social media is where your citizens are – shouldn’t you be there too?
Full disclosure – my brother, Chad Bockius, is Socialware’s VP of Marketing and Product Strategy.
- Home Sweet Hometown – Rochester, NY
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Our 11th guest post for the Home Sweet Hometown. Are you next? Read my blog post from Dec 1st for info on why we are looking for blog posts from you. The Bing Photo winner was also announced! See this post to see the awesome picture of the hometown that was featured on Bing.
Guest post by Andy Vaughan, Director, Strategic Programs for Monster Public Sector & Education
I love my hometown of Chicago, but I'm happiest living in the Rochester, NY area. I should be - I've moved here three times! It's a great place with four seasons, lakes for swimming and boating, hills for skiing and snowboarding, and the people, especially in my little town, are great! In fact, in a recent evaluation, Rochester ranked #1 as having the highest Quality of Living of cities with over 1 million in population.
Here are a few things you probably didn't know about Rochester and the surrounding region:
- Rochester has a 96-foot waterfall right in downtown. With the Erie Canal, the falls used to be the economic engine of the region, powering flour mills which made Rochester our nation's first 'boomtown’.
- Rochester's history is full of innovation and entrepreneurialism. Among the inventions that came from this area are Kodak film, xerography, Western Union, and Jell-O. Now, Rochester is known as the "Optics Center of the World” and consistently ranks among the most innovative and educated cities in the world.
- The nearby Finger Lakes region welcomes millions of visitors every year from all over the world. This region is also the largest wine-producing area in the Eastern US, and offers lots of fun things to do year-round. While the Wright brothers first flew in North Carolina, modern aviation had its real start on Keuka Lake, thanks to Glenn Curtiss.
As much as I travel around the country, I get to visit lots of fun and interesting cities. But for me, my adopted hometown is the best possible place to live and raise my family. I love it here!
- Home Sweet Hometown - Independence Township, Michigan
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Our 10th guest post for the Home Sweet Hometown. Are you next? Read my blog post from Dec 1st for info on why we are looking for blog posts from you. The Bing Photo winner was also announced! See this post to see the awesome picture of the hometown featured on Bing yesterday.
Guest post by Phil Bertolini, CIO/Deputy County Executive, Oakland County, MI
_thumb.jpg "Independence Township is located in northern Oakland County, Michigan some 45 miles Northwest of Detroit. Independence Township was given its name by one of its earliest settlers, Joseph Van Sycle, who came to the township in 1834 from Independence, New Jersey. The township was organized in 1837. It is the fourth largest Township in Oakland County and has a population of approximately 32,000 residents.")
I have lived in many different towns in my lifetime, including my first hometown, St. Clair Shores, Michigan. My mother used to call me the nomad of the family. I believe that I have lived in 8 different communities all in Michigan over 46 years. The hometown that I will talk about here is my current location of Independence Township, Michigan. My township has just over 32,500 residents all living inside of 22,500 acres of land. Many people in these parts would call the area Clarkston due to the very popular city located within our township borders.
_thumb.jpg "Independence Township is located in northern Oakland County, Michigan some 45 miles Northwest of Detroit. Independence Township was given its name by one of its earliest settlers, Joseph Van Sycle, who came to the township in 1834 from Independence, New Jersey. The township was organized in 1837. It is the fourth largest Township in Oakland County and has a population of approximately 32,000 residents.")
My family and I moved to Independence after living in the bustling area of Royal Oak, Michigan which is located in the Southeast portion of Oakland County. It was quite a change for us. We went from living in an urban area to living in a more rural community with much less traffic! The move has been fantastic for us and we love the community we are in.
Our sons, ages 13 and 11, attend Clarkston Community Schools which is the local public school system. The schools have a phenomenal educational record and a “sports factory” for an athletics program. The music program is phenomenal as well. I consider us lucky to have our sons in a top rated public school district located within such a pristine community.
I would be remiss if I did not talk about the people in Independence. Since the day we broke ground on our house we have had people drive or walk by and wave to us. We have neighbors that would drop everything to help on a moment’s notice. We have business owners that know what it is like to provide service to others. Working for government has given me a strong opinion on what it takes to service people…you have to do what is best for them whenever you can. As public servants we must never forget that.
Michigan is gripped in tough economic times and governments are struggling to make ends meet. Keeping our communities strong and safe helps keep the superior quality of life that we all seek. I believe that I have found that community and it is in Independence Township, Michigan. By the way, they didn’t pay me a dime to write this!
Note: both pictures came from www.oakgov.com.
- (Belated) Happy Holidays: The Power of Giving
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This holiday season, Americans are giving back to their communities through charitable contributions, food banks, local houses of worship, and many other efforts of generosity. 2009 was a difficult year for many companies and for American families, but our shared commitment to philanthropy remains strong and even continues to grow in spite of tough economic challenges.
While it is exciting to look back at what we have accomplished through our partnerships this year (see previous posts on Elevate America, Elevate Miami, and National Day of Service), we are encouraged by how individuals can make a difference with even modest gifts. Stephanie Strom of The New York Times described this philanthropic phenomenon in a recent article: “After years in the shadows, the everyday donor is emerging as philanthropy’s newest hero, the driver of a more down-to-earth approach to charity.”
Individuals and non-profit organizations around the world have long recognized the potential of small gifts and investments to make a huge difference. Even a single Windows PC has the power to help an organization impact their local community, and we saw countless examples of this in our “7 Ways to Change the World” video contest, including the seven winners who were announced last month.
During this season of hope, don’t forget that giving is not about a single corporation, foundation, or individual. More and more, we are seeing evidence of the incredible ability of individuals to make a real difference, give back to their communities, and offer a helping hand. With warm holiday wishes, we encourage all of our friends and partners to get involved in one of the volunteer opportunities in your city or make a gift of any size to an organization in which you believe.
Happy Holidays from the Microsoft State and Local Government Team!
