by Andrea Di Maio | August 31, 2011 | 1 Comment
Those who have been following this blog for a while certainly know me as being rather skeptical about some of the grand open government ideas that have been floating around – especially in North America and the UK, but spreading fast elsewhere too. To the risk of sounding obnoxious and self-referential, I warned about open [...]
Category: open government data smart government Tags: open government, smart government
by Andrea Di Maio | August 31, 2011 | 6 Comments
Since when we have launched the concept of smart government I have noticed that there are some government clients, some technology providers and even some of my own colleagues who do not seem to grasp the importance and nuances of this concept. This is mostly due to the connotation of the term “smart”, which has [...]
Category: smart government Tags:
by Andrea Di Maio | August 30, 2011 | 1 Comment
This morning I was discussing about an idea for an innovative R&D project that one of our most interesting and unconventional clients – who leads a technology transfer and incubation organization – wanted to check with us. In the course of this stimulating conversation, he highlighted the difference between a “citizen” and a “city user”. [...]
Category: smart government Tags: smart city
by Andrea Di Maio | August 29, 2011 | 3 Comments
During the last day of the Gartner South African Symposium in Cape Town I met an interesting clients who is tasked with supporting his jurisdiction to become the best run in the world. This is an aspirational objective that his jurisdiction set for the end of his decade and that clearly constitutes a challenge for [...]
Category: smart government Tags:
by Andrea Di Maio | August 24, 2011 | 2 Comments
Last week I read a quite interesting book about the impact that the scarcity of oil will have on the global economy (Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller, by Jeff Rubin). Of course I knew that our reliance on non-renewable resources was a long term challenge, but I was almost [...]
Category: smart government Tags:
by Andrea Di Maio | August 12, 2011 | 1 Comment
Yesterday the UK Prime Minister David Cameron suggested that action might be taken to limit the use of several social media platforms in order to reduce their use by rioters. While the public safety and law enforcement perspective of this approach is fully understandable, it strikes me (and others) that the same platforms that have [...]
Category: open government data web 2.0 in government Tags: public safety, UK
by Andrea Di Maio | August 11, 2011 | 4 Comments
On August 8 the US Federal CTO Aneesh Chopra published a blog post about the future direction of the federal open government initiative. The post praises the current initiative (and data.gov in particular), makes reference to the international efforts started with the Open Government Partnership, and asks three questions to gather input from external stakeholders: [...]
Category: open government data Tags: Aneesh Chopra, open government
by Andrea Di Maio | August 11, 2011 | 28 Comments
Those who have been following my research since my early days at Gartner may remember my note about the irrelevance of government portals (published in January 2001, login required), as well as my rants on the same topic on this blog. I just read that the city of Takeo in Japan has decided to shut [...]
Category: web 2.0 in government Tags: Facebook, portal
by Andrea Di Maio | August 10, 2011 | 2 Comments
What has been happening in the world during the last few days gives a glimpse of the level of uncertainty government and business are and will be operating within for the foreseeable future. A country like the U.S., where many economists and political leader thought they were out of a recession and growing at a [...]
Category: smart government Tags: cost cutting, Italy, public safety, UK
by Andrea Di Maio | August 5, 2011 | 4 Comments
Beneath the continuing enthusiasm around open government, including the announcement of yet another country (Singapore) and city (Edmonton) building their open data store, and the renewed commitment to open government in the new US CIO’s first interviews, I found two data points that still call for caution. The first one is the public consultation that [...]
Category: open government data Tags: open government
