Mack Kolarich, co-organizer of the DC Gov 2.0 Startup Weekend, talks about how he and his team are adapting the highly-successful international Startup Weekend format to focus on innovation and entrepreneurship in the public sector.  This pilot event in Washington DC on 15-17 June 2012 will kick off with scene-setting talks from US Government CTO Todd Park and Deloitte’s Bill Eggers, and offer a place in Code for America’s Civic Accelerator to the winning team.

About Mack Kolarich

Mack began his entrepreneurial-addiction through StartupWeekends. When not organizing events or visiting other startup hubs, he builds products for the events industry as co-founder and CEO of Spontaneous Labs.

About Startup Weekend

Startup Weekends are weekend-long, hands-on experiences where entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs can find out if startup ideas are viable.  Beginning with open mic pitches on a Friday, attendees bring their best ideas and inspire others to join their team. Over Saturday and Sunday teams focus on customer development, validating their ideas, practicing LEAN Startup Methodologies and building a minimal viable product. On Sunday evening teams demo their prototypes and receive valuable feedback from a panel of experts.

There have been 587 Startup Weekends in 312 cities across 93 countries with more than 56,000 participants.

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Episode links and resources

• DC Gov 2.0 Startup Weekend website, on Facebook and Twitter
• International Startup Weekend website

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• Tags: #swegov

In a fun and inspiring chat, Markus and Adam talk about stages of service rapid prototyping, their plans for city-specific Jams and how this pilot inititaive will see small teams meet at multiple locations around the world, working for 48 hours on building innovative approaches and solutions towards challenges faced by the public sector.

“One of our basic work philosophies is the theatrical working rule of ‘doing, not talking’ – and this fit well with the idea of the Jam.”

About Adam Lawrence and Markus Hormeß

Adam and Markus run WorkPlayExperience, a German-based service design agency.  Markus is German with a background in theoretical physics and process design; Adam is British and has a background in psychology, marketing and theater.

Adam Lawrence is a professional comedian, business consultant and writer with a background in psychology and the automotive industry. For years he has been using expertise gained in the world of theatre and film to help companies influence their customers.

Markus Hormeß is a service designer and organisational consultant. For years, the qualified scientist has worked in the engineering, banking and IT fields, helping companies to improve complex services and to make them more customer friendly.

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Episode links and resources

• GovJam 2012
• Global Service Jam
• Work.Play.Experience
• Australian Government innovation space
• Australian Innovation in Public Sector Week

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• Tags: #innovationweek #GovJam #servicedesign

In “Revolution @ State” Fergus Hanson – Visiting Fellow from The Brookings Institution – explores practical cases of what US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has called ‘creative diplomacy’ and 21^st Century Statecraft.

A useful reference for agencies of all sizes, this wide-ranging report describes how the US Department of State has infused the use of connective tech through all aspects of their mission in a whole-of-organization approach, from operational development through to public diplomacy.

It became apparent that the US State Department was in a league of its own… there was a real cultural difference I think where the Department had really taken a position on modernizing.

About Fergus Hanson

Fergus Hanson is the Director of Polling at the Lowy Institute and is currently a Visiting Fellow in e-diplomacy at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC. He has a Masters in International Law from the University of Sydney and his published thesis focused on regional stability in the Pacific.

Fergus worked for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) from 2004 to 2007. From 2005 to 2007 he served at the Australian Embassy in The Hague where he was responsible for Australia’s relations with five international legal organisations and domestic political issues.

Prior to joining DFAT he was a fellow at Cambridge University’s Lauterpacht Research Centre for International Law. Fergus has also studied at Uppsala University.

Fergus was a visiting Vasey Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Pacific Forum from November 2010 to January 2011. He was awarded a 2011 Professional Fulbright scholarship to pursue further research on e-diplomacy and the use of opinion polling by foreign ministries at Georgetown University.

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Episode links and resources

• Revolution @ State: The spread of Ediplomacy – Report by Fergus Hanson
• US Department of State 21st Century Statecraft policy
• US Department of State Office of eDiplomacy
• Initiatives
  • Diplopedia wiki
  • Communities @ State blogs
  • Corridor
  • Virtual Student Foreign Service
  • Tech@State
  • TechCamp
  • Enterprise Search
  • Idea Exchanges
  • Virtual Presence Posts (VPPs)
  • Collaboration Clearinghouse

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  @BrookingsFP
  @StateDept
  
• Tags: #ediplomacy

Nick Grossman joins Gov20 Radio for a conversation about civic innovation, including the latest from Civic Commons and how to communicate the benefits of tech-enabled civic transformation to leaders as well as the tech community.

About Nick Grossman

Nick is the most recent Executive Director of Civic Commons, a visiting scholar at the MIT Media Lab in the Center for Civic Media, and an advisor to Code for America.  He’s also been involved with OpenPlans building open technologies for cities and advancing urban and technical policy issues.

Projects that Nick has worked on include Open311, MTA Bus Time, OpenBlock, OpenTripPlanner, TransportationCamp,  Streetsblog, Streetfilms and GothamSchools.

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Episode links and resources

• The Civic Commons organisation
• Open Plans agency
• Code for America website

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We talk with Bryan Sivak, new chief innovation officer for the State of Maryland, about innovating in government, and trying to keep a web-savvy citizenry up to speed during the recent DC-area earthquake and Hurricane Irene.

We interview Chicago’s new CTO, IBM veteran John Tolva about bringing innovation and emerging technologies to his new role.  John talks about how his IBM background is shaping his thinking and approach to ‘smart city’ innovation at a city level, and shares with us some of the upcoming initiatives in Chicago.