Federal+Central – Insights@Cofluence https://insights.cofluence.co Sat, 09 May 2020 09:30:49 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.1 eDemocracy in Botswana – connecting citizens and leaders https://insights.cofluence.co/botswana-speaks/ Mon, 03 Dec 2012 23:18:07 +0000 http://insights.cofluence.co/?p=5088

Botswana, like many African countries, has a strong history of traditional tribal leadership and administration. Kheira Belkacem from the eGovlab at the University of Stockholm is leading the Botswana Speaks project to enable citizens, traditional leaders and local kgotla assemblies in four constituencies of Botswana to use digital tools to share their views and policy concerns with their elected representatives. ]]> Botswana, like many African countries, has a strong history of traditional tribal leadership and administration.  Kheira Belkacem from the eGovlab at the University of Stockholm is leading the Botswana Speaks project to enable citizens, traditional leaders and local kgotla assemblies in four constituencies of Botswana to use digital tools to share their views and policy concerns with their elected representatives.

The pilot project will be trialing how ICT – and particularly the use of mobile – can play a role to support the traditional, human-centric tribal processes and enable greater local participation in democratic processes.

The originality of this project is that we do not aim at implementing an ICT tool without looking at the traditional role of chiefs in the local politics.  Rather, we want to incorporate these [ICT] tools within the traditions and not look at only online tools but the offline world as well.

About Kheira Belkacem

Kheira Belkacem is Assistant Programme Director at eGovlab, and is currently completing her PhD in Political Communication at the University of Leeds UK. Her experience in the European Parliament, when working closely with the Director General of the Directorate-General for Innovation and Technological Support in 2008-2009, left her with a strong expertise of parliamentary systems and adoption of new technologies in democratic institutions. She also spent a summer internship at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) on the e-Governance Programme in 2008.

In 2010, Kheira worked as a research assistant for the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford and in 2010-2012, she taught modules on communication theories and new media group project as a teaching assistant at the Institute of Communications Studies. She is currently the Assistant Programme Director of Botswana Speaks and is involved in other projects run by the eGovlab.

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]]> Social media, record-keeping and open government https://insights.cofluence.co/socialmedia-records/ Wed, 10 Oct 2012 20:24:15 +0000 http://insights.cofluence.co/?p=4874

David Ferriero is the 10th Archivist of the United States and Head of the National Archives and Record Administration, including the Presidential Libraries. We explore the linkages between open government and record-keeping public data as well as how social media is challenging the notions of what defines a ‘record’.]]> ICEGOV coverage

David Ferriero is the 10th Archivist of the United States and Head of the National Archives and Record Administration, including the Presidential Libraries.  The collection includes some 12 billion pages and 40 million photos and now holds all Federal Government tweets.  We explore the linkages between open government and record-keeping public data as well as how social media is challenging the notions of what defines a ‘record’.

Our mantra has been from the very beginning that you can’t have open government without good records management.

This interview comes a day after the opening of the National Archive’s first Office of Innovation.  The Archivist – or “Collector-in-Chief” – discusses large-scale public record-keeping in the digital era and offers advice for smaller libraries and public collections.  Mr Ferriero also declares his well-known enthusiasm for using social online channels to push archived content and digital assets to ‘where the people are’, including his Wikipedian-in-residence initiative.

About David Ferriero

David S Ferriero is a librarian, library administrator, and the 10th Archivist of the United States. He was Director of the New York Public Library; and before that, he was the University Librarian and Vice Provost for Library Affairs at Duke University. Prior to his Duke position, he worked for 31 years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology library. Ferriero is the first librarian to serve as Archivist of the United States.

National Archives and Records Administration

On July 28, 2009, President Obama nominated David Ferreiro to be 10th Archivist of the United States. He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on November 6, 2009; and he was sworn in to his new office on November 13, 2009.

Ferriero used the public occasion to express his view that the National Archives is at a “defining moment with regard to our existing electronic records, social media communications, and emerging technologies being used throughout government offices.” He also noted “issues of collection security, the future of the Presidential Library system, backlogs in processing, staff job satisfaction, stakeholder relationships, preservation and storage needs.”

President Obama appointed Ferriero to simultaneously head the new National Declassification Center, which “has been given four years to go through 400 million pages of federal documents that remain top secret. They date to World War I.”

Other career highlights:

  • MIT Libraries: Ferriero was Associate Director of Public Services at MIT Libraries. His MIT library career spanned 31 years.
  • Duke University Library: Ferriero was the Rita DiGiallonardo Holloway University Librarian and Vice Provost for Library Affairs at Duke University from 1996 through 2004. Ferriero was the first Duke university librarian to address the members of the university’s Board of Trustees in person. He was actively involved in the evolution of North Carolina’s Triangle Research Libraries Network (TRLN).
  • New York Public Library: Ferriero was the Andrew W. Mellon Director and Chief Executive of the Research Libraries at the New York Public Library (NYPL) from 2004. In 2007 his role expanded with additional responsibilities as director of New York Public Library’s (NYPL) Branch Libraries. He was responsible for the management and operations of NYPL’s Research Libraries since 2005 and the Branch Libraries since 2007. He presided over a major restructuring, which was accompanied by elimination of some positions and the creation of new ones.
  • Cataloging: Ferriero was the NYPL’s Partner Representative in OCLC (Online Computer Library Center), which with its member libraries co-operatively produces and maintains WorldCat—the OCLC Online Union Catalog. During Ferriero’s tenure, the library stopped using the unique “Billings classification system” for its reference books in the Rose Reading Room (main reading room).
  • Google digitization partnership: The NYPL joined the Google Books Library Project during Ferriero’s tenure. Google and major international libraries have agreed to making collections of public domain books available for scanning to be offered to the public online, without charge.
  • Relationship with Wikipedia: As part of his tenure at the National Archives, Ferriero has taken an active interest in working with Wikipedia, of which he has called himself “a huge fan”. When questioned about the National Archives’s engagement with Wikipedia, his response was “The Archives is involved with Wikipedia because that’s where the people are.” Under Ferriero’s aegis, the National Archives has worked with the Wikimedia Foundation since 2009, having had a Wikipedian in Residence as well as uploaded thousands of images to Wikimedia Commons. He has quoted a blogger in saying: “If Wikipedia is good enough for the Archivist of the United States, maybe it should be good enough for you.”

Mr Ferriero is a Co-Chair and speaker at the  ICEGOV 2012 conference – hear his sneak preview (5 mins) of the conference here.

Biography source: Wikipedia
Feature images courtesy David Ferriero

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]]> “And / Also” – a hybrid approach to new media at USDA https://insights.cofluence.co/and-also-a-hybrid-approach-to-new-media-at-usda/ Thu, 26 Apr 2012 08:01:19 +0000 http://insights.cofluence.co/?p=3863

Amanda Eamich from the US Department of Agriculture shares some insights into her approach to infusing new media into the agency's communications mix.]]>

Amanda Eamich from the US Department of Agriculture joins us to share some insights into her approach to including new media as part of the communications mix for the Department.

I always stress that we have an “And / Also” approach – we’re not going to throw out talking to newspapers and radio – these channels are extremely important, particularly in the agricultural industry and communities.

Amanda also talks about how to infuse innovation, open government and new media channels into the broader activities of the Department:

We definitely think through the entire lifecycle before jumping into any new tool or service, just to make sure we understand it fully and how it will help us achieve whatever the particular objectives are.

About Amanda Eamich

Amanda serves the U.S. Department of Agriculture as the Director of Web Communications, Office of Communications. Here she manages the Department’s web site and new media operations and strategic planning. The policies and programs of the USDA impact the lives of Americans every day – from food, agriculture, and science to natural resources – and there is an ever-present opportunity to communicate our mission effectively using new media. New media provides an outstanding opportunity for USDA to connect with consumers, customers and employees in new and interesting ways on a wide variety of topics and issues.

Recent efforts include the Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food social media outreach, MyPlate, Apps for Healthy Kids competition, Open Gov efforts and developing overall strategic guidance for a wide range of communication campaigns throughout the Department.

Prior to joining the Office of Communications, Amanda served as a press officer for the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service.

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  • USDA New Media Channels
  • Energy Investments Map, Matrix and Tool
  • USDA at 150 – information and sign up for the Historical Facts and Photo series
  • Recipes for Healthy Kids Challenge
  • Apps for Healthy Kids Challenge and Game Jams that extended the conversation and expanded community of solvers
  • Farmers market directory (also mobile optimized)
  • USDA Results – example of “And/Also” approach of the standard 2-page PDF documents where key data points and accomplishments were extracted and paired with compelling photos from our the USDA catalog. Photos used throughout the Department, as Facebook cover, Flickr gallery
  • “Think through the lifecycle” and “be prepared” – official one-page request form (AD-3022) that the USDA team requires that people think through before submitting new channel or tool requests
  • Celebrating successes – a 2011 countdown with some favorites – new tools included!

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