Social Media's Place in Data-Smart Governance

Don't know about any else, but your MesaZona is getting BIG TIME TIRED of all the social media "selfie" and me-me-me's winging off the fingers of those who are elected to the public interests here in The New Urban DTMesa. The politicos inside City Hall think it's about themselves when it more rightfully should be about US - the people who live here.
Here's an extract from a recent article 
Cities can produce great value from social media, but only if they start talking a little bit less about themselves and start listening more to their residents.
Better, Faster, Cheaper

Social Media's Place in Data-Smart Governance

Cities are learning to mine this trove of information to predict the impact of future events and significantly improve operations.

by Stephen Goldsmith | May 18, 2016

 

". . . It's become common for public officials and city agencies to have active Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and even Snapchat accounts through which they broadcast information and gather feedback. . .

But municipal use of social data shouldn't be limited to a communications team telling voters about city hall's daily accomplishments. . .

 

 

 

The town common holds a special place in the urban imagination.
It is the scene of civic life, the place where people congregate to exchange ideas. Today, these interactions largely occur online. Just as local government is responsible for cultivating the space of its physical town commons, so too should it cultivate and capitalize on the digital commons.
Public social media posts represent a data source ripe for analytics, one that governments can take advantage of to save time, money and even lives.

Craig Campbell, a research assistant at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School, contributed research and writing for this column.

Stephen Goldsmith  |  Contributor

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stephen_goldsmith@harvard.edu  |  @goldsmithongov