Google Goes Public (Sector)

by Nathaniel Whittemore · 2009-09-16 10:49:00 UTC
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Yesterday Mashable reported on a cool little project coming out of Google called Google Public Sector.

The idea is to help municipalities get a better handle on the data that can help them function day to day, and give their staff the tools to better collaborate and communicate internally and with external partners.

As Mashable says, this isn't necessarily ground breaking stuff. In fact, it's pretty much just a reorganization of the existing suite of Google tools. It is cool to see Google trying to organize it in such a way, however, that makes it intuitive and even more helpful for governments.

There is a lot of exciting activity right now around improving the public sector and civic engagement with web tools. Yesterday, CitySourced was one of three runners up for the TechCrunch50 prize, for example. The tool gives users the ability to use their phone to snap a photo of something like a pothole or graffiti, at which point the application uses GPS to tag the image with a location, sends out a Tweet about the problem, and then sends the report to the city agency responsible for dealing with the issue. Participating cities have a dashboard that allows them to control, categorize and interpret all of the incoming messages.

This is an interesting take on "social" entrepreneurship. The common thread with these tools are that they're about using new technological opportunities to harness the labor of lots of individuals to make governments work better. There's something that's thrillingly democratic about that, and it will be exciting to see if and how these tools get traction.

(Image: Mykl Roventine)

Nathaniel Whittemore is the founder of Assetmap. Previously he was the founding director of the Northwestern University Center for Global Engagement.
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