Payne said he applauded anyone who took an interest in civic issues and got involved.

“One thing that is frustrating to city officials is more people aren’t involved,” he said. “… We are big on community engagement. If someone wants to get involved, we want to support that.”

Manning said the demonstrators have been very pleased with the Parks & Recreation Department and most police officers.

Unless government organizations understand that what really sets social media apart is the word “social” rather than “media”, and that they are people tool and not corporate tool, most attempts at developing effective strategies will be futile.

Andrea Di Maio, This Is Why Governments Struggle with the Use of Social Media.

This is what public administrators should be doing; I wish we weren’t so dependent on the private sector for innovation.

Mayor Smith was one of the (unofficial) point people for the Indian Gulch Fire online (he’s @jacobzsmith on Twitter). Another was Golden City Councilor Bill Fisher (@goldenbilfish). Both utilized Twitter, Facebook, and their personal websites to communicate to the citizens of Golden.

Mayor Smith speaks directly to the intricacies of working with professional emergency managers (and their public information officers) during a crisis situation like the Indian Gulch Fire [original author's emphasis]:

Bill and I occupied an interesting space. We weren’t official voices of the City of Golden, but we had enough credibility that our information was taken seriously. We were both diligent about checking our facts before hitting ‘send,’ and we always tried to make sure the info we posted was accurate. Nonetheless, for any future emergencies we’ll need to think about how to keep the accuracy level high without slowing things down. Ironically enough, the only error I’m aware of was the result of an error on one of the official news releases.

An interesting point Mayor Smith makes is that emergency response personnel (from the City of Golden, the Jefferson County, and the Federal government) were able to concentrate on the fire, enabling he and Councilor Fisher to concentrate on communicating with their communities:

This enabled us to communicate with staff about issues that needed more attention or about information gaps that might not have been as important from the “protect people and homes” perspective but helped reduce the uncertainty among residents.

More important for followers of social media, Mayor Smith identifies that Twitter and Facebook were the fastest methods to get information out quickly, while email newsletters allowed him to communicate with residents who weren’t on social media.

His conclusion:

Communicating across such a wide range of tools required a great deal more effort than simply relying on the traditional news release-driven approaches, but my sense is that the effort was worthwhile.

My conclusion? It is pretty clear that governments need to make use of social media (and new technologies) to enable quick information exchange with citizens. I have long been a fan of using social media in emergency situations as an alternative form of communication: just last fall, the City of Boulder’s reverse 911 system failed to get out a timely evacuation order during a wildfire. At the very minimum, local governments can post to Twitter and Facebook the same information they are giving out to media. And at the most, governments can inform the media as well as residents.

Yesterday Google announced that Kansas City, Kansas, would be the first city to participate in the Google Fiber project. The Google Fiber project seeks to bring 1-gigabit internet access to every house.

Google will have to reach an agreement with the Unified Board of Commissioners, but when that is completed they will work to roll out access to 50,000 to 500,000 residents of Kansas City, Kansas, at a competitive price.

You can read about the news from the New York Times, Government Technology, and the press release from the Unified Government of Kansas City, Kansas (pdf file).

I couldn’t be happier for the residents of Kansas City, Kansas. I worked for a year at the Unified Government of Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kansas, and it is a place with great citizens and great workers. Kansas City was hit pretty hard by the end of the industrial boom, and the city has never really recovered. I think Google Fiber will give them a leg up on other cities in attracting new businesses and great residents. I am extremely proud that Mayor Joe Reardon and the staff at the Unified Government won this project for their citizens.

But clearly today’s information technology has the effect of disintermediating. It breaks down hierarchies. It breaks down monopolies. That’s got to be good for the individual, and it must be bad for dictatorships.

“What if we could help your city work better, just by using your smartphone?”

-Biz Stone, Twitter Co-Founder

“What if city hall spoke with citizens the way citizens speak with each other?”

-Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook Co-Founder

Code for America is announcing their call for 2012 Fellows.  The Code for America Fellowship Program connects web developers and entrepreneurs with communities and cities in need. They strive to make government more open, efficient, and responsive, through the use of new technologies. And all the while, they provide leadership training and career support.

You can find out more about Code for America here. And you can apply for the Fellowship Program here.