The citizens of Madison are a fairly tech-savvy bunch, but when it comes to technology in the civic space, we’re not as far out it the lead as we should be. I’d like us to change that, and join the list of cities developing applications as part of a Gov 2.0 movement. This is a brief introduction, and what follows below is a three-part set of posts.
Part I focuses on some of what Gov 2.0 is, and uses Madison Metro as an example. Part II looks at how Madison is doing with Gov 2.0, and what we can be doing better. Part III looks at some specific Gov 2.0 systems that we could be building.
The three posts are fairly long, and for that I apologize. If you’re familiar with Gov 2.0, you can probably skip Part I. There will likely be a Part IV at some point in the future, and if you have a blog somewhere or just want to comment below, I’d love to hear other ideas for civic apps.
If you’re looking for some more background, here a few other recent blog posts and magazine articles that might be interesting.
Two good blog posts on What Gov 2.0 is and why it matters: Defining Gov 2.0 and then another post on The Power Of Platforms. The first post is very heavy with links, and is nearly a one-stop shop for everything you might want to read.
Two other recent magazine articles are good overviews: The Economist’s Special Report on Smart Cities and Time Magazine’s article “Want to Improve Your City? There’s an App for That”
