Andrea DiMaio

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Entries from June 2009

Government 2.0 and The Usual Suspects

June 30th, 2009 · 1 Comment

Just yesterday I blogged about my skepticism that opening government data will fundamentally change the picture as far as citizen engagement and participation is concerned. I know there are differing opinions on the topic and I do agree that more data is better than less.
Earlier today I’ve come across an article from Nextgov about the [...]

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Tags: open government data

If You Torture The Data Enough, They Will Confess Anything

June 29th, 2009 · 3 Comments

A former colleague of mine, Paolo Magrassi, used to say this when challenging benchmarking reports or statistics or quantitative analysis. His words came to mind after I read Casey Coleman’s latest post on her blog. I like her blog as she provides an authoritative, yet informal view of events that affect the federal government. In [...]

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Tags: open government data

Could Government 2.0 Be Just An Excuse?

June 29th, 2009 · No Comments

Just a few minutes ago I had a very enlightening conversation with the CEO of an organization who is in charge of a single government portal. The portal has a good brand and is enjoying some considerable success with constituents, while being appreciated also by different departments whose information and services gets delivered through the [...]

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Tags: e-government

New European IT Agency: A First Step Toward A EU Cloud?

June 29th, 2009 · No Comments

Some tome ago I posted about whether there is room for a “European cloud”, with reference to on-going discussions on the future of government interoperability in the EU.
Last week, an apparently unrelated event caught my eyes:
The European Commission adopted a legislative package proposing the setting up of an Agency for the long‑term operational management of [...]

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Tags: Europe and IT

It Is Time To Explore The Dark Side of Government 2.0

June 26th, 2009 · 12 Comments

I have just finalized the agenda for the government tracks in our three flagship events, i.e. our Fall Symposia in Orlando, Cannes and Sydney. In two of these events I will present what I hope will be a controversial session, looking at reasons why government organizations should be very cautious with web 2.0.
I have been [...]

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Tags: e-government · web 2.0 in government

Is Open Source Any Good for A Government Brand?

June 26th, 2009 · 2 Comments

Earlier today I had quite an interesting conversation with clients in a Tax & Revenues Department who were looking for whether they should regulate how their developers contribute back into open source communities.
At the end of the conversation one client asked me whether we had any research showing if using open source has a positive [...]

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Tags: open source in government

Italian Directive on Internet Use in the Public Sector Sets A Worst Practice

June 25th, 2009 · 3 Comments

In a previous post I anticipated that the Italian minister for innovation and public administration wanted to ban Facebook and other social sites. This may be the consequence of a directive he issued on May 26th, available as a scanned document on the relevant department’s web site (in Italian only).
Whereas other countries, such as the [...]

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Tags: social networks in government

It Will Take A Lot For E-Government To Become Smarter

June 24th, 2009 · No Comments

Second day at the IBM Smarter Cities event, where I have attended the breakout session on smarter government services.
The breakout session started with the IT director of the City of Helsinki who gave a quick overview of the city portal, which was awarded by the UN as the best among 100 cities they surveyed back [...]

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Tags: e-government

Smarter Cities or Stimulus Cities?

June 24th, 2009 · 3 Comments

Yesterday I attended the first day of the Smarter Cities event that IBM organized in Berlin. This looks like a well run event with about 500 people attending, including senior executives and officials from several countries.
The first day was mostly devoted to introducing the very concept of smarter city, to stress how important cities are [...]

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Tags: e-government

Pupils Can Rate Teachers On Line: What’s Next?

June 23rd, 2009 · 2 Comments

Some time ago I debated the issue of whether teachers should use social software and what sort of challenged they are going to face. A recent decision by a German court pushes the boundary further, by ruling that pupils can rate teachers on line.
The next step might be the possibility for pupils to shoot short [...]

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Tags: web 2.0 in government