Welcome

This started as a spot for musings and ideas to influence my work for trainings, clients and classes. With my new role in the Emanuel Administration it’s evolving into a place for what the Mayor is doing in tech, social media and public engagement. This is all old news if you’re following @ChicagosMayor and Facebook.com/ChicagoMayorsOffice

In a Newcity Nutshell

Newcity looked at what we’ve been up to for their tech issue. I really appreciate that Ella understood this is way more than just signing a Mayor’s Office Facebook page.

Government 2.0: How Mayor Emanuel is Using Social Media to Engage Chicagoans

By Ella Christoph

Even before he took office, Mayor Rahm Emanuel knew he wanted a social media director—a position Richard M. Daley did not have. Appointed on Emanuel’s inaugural day, Kevin Hauswirth was not hired to earn votes for Emanuel during the election. Hauswirth, formerly an instructor of communications and advertising director for Roosevelt University, was tasked with the job of supplying Emanuel with a constant digital pulse—a live feed, so to speak—on the city. Rather than just tweet updates and YouTube press conferences, Emanuel wanted to hear what voters had to say over the Internet as well.

 

 

 

Crowd Sourcing Solutions

How should a city close a $635m budget gap?

No, seriously. Tell us.

That was more or less the thinking behind www.ChicagoBudget.org- our online home for budget resources and an IdeaScale crowd sourcing tool where people can share and vote on their ideas for Chicago to balance the books.

The site generated 2,588 ideas, 7,118 comments 62,000+ votes from 3150 users. Plus, the Mayor hosted two live town hall meetings that were live tweeted. Not only did the Mayor’s Office offer 100′s of replies, Mayor Emanuel himself called some of the ChicagoBudget.org’s top contributors. If we’re going to ask for input, it’s incumbent upon invest in the conversation

On the day of the Mayor’s budget announcement, it was important for us to offer updates on the public’s terms. Die-hard City Hall Watchers tuned into  the live-stream of the speech. The twitterverse followed our live tweets of the speech. We put the whole speech on YouTube for the uber engaged public that missed the live-stream. And (my favorite), we created an info-graphic to offer an at-a-glance perspective of what the City is facing and how we’re going to move forward. And, there’s still more to come…

Check Us Out Checking-In

There’s a new Mayor on Foursquare

Keeping Up with the Mayor

The public has a right to know where their elected officials are investing  time and should have a say in where we take Chicago. Public schedule information is just that, public. But just because it’s out there doesn’t mean it’s easily accessible or simple to visualize. We overlaid the public (and some private) appearances of the Mayor and senior leadership onto Google Map. The map lives on the City website and also as a tab on our Facebook Page. This offers transparency at-a-glances and gives the public the opportunity to offer suggestions on where we go next.

ABC7 on Emanuel online

Geeking out for Chicago

Couldn’t be more proud to work with these guys! This NYTimes piece really lays out what the Mayor is trying to accomplish with tech, data and social media.

3 OF MAYOR’S MEN JOIN FORCES. THEIR GOAL: HARNESS TECHNOLOGY TO HELP THE CITY.

By JAMES WARREN

The cramped office seems out of the movie “A Beautiful Mind,” where John Nash, the Nobel Prize-winning mathematician with schizophrenia and played by Russell Crowe, fills a dorm room’s windows with confounding formulas and diagrams written in wax pencil — and just stares right through them.

But this is City Hall and the diagram-filled windows belong to Brett Goldstein, MayorRahm Emanuel’s chief digital officer…

…And now the new mayor has teamed him with John Tolva, an I.B.M. refugee and the city’s chief technology officer, and Kevin Hauswirth, its director of social media, to harness technology to make a typically calcified big-city government more transparent, more efficient and a catalyst for economic development.

 

100 days of awesome (#Humblebrag alert)

I haven’t posted in a really long time. I’ve got this new boss and he’s kinda intense…

This blog really started as a place for students and clients. Now my only clients are the people of Chicago, so I’ve been focusing all social media efforts on trying to keep the public up-to-speed and involved with the new Mayor. Next week marks just 100 Days in Office.

Already, we hosted the first live Facebook Town Hall where the public submitted and voted questions. We’re giving people a voice in how to close this budget gap at www.ChicagoBudget.org. We’ve fixed giant sink holes via Twitter and are connecting people with answers on Facebook.com, and released unprecedented amounts of searchable datasets to the public.

So, more to come but keep up with us on Twitter @ChicagosMayor and Facebook.com/ChicagoMayorsOffice

And for the #Humblebrag, I’ve been trying to tell the this story of transparency, social media and technology through the old school media. Here’s a recent interview on Fox.

@MaeganCarberry loves causing trouble

I know I’m super late on getting caught up on the blog…but things have been a bit hectic, to say the least.

After just a few weeks in office, I talked with HuffPo blogger and politica @MaeganCarberry about early goings on in the new Chicago Mayor’s Office.

My headline would have been “Look Out, Business as Usual! Rahm’s On It.” But ya know, Carberry likes to stir up trouble!!

Look Out @CoryBooker! Rahm’s On It

There’s a new famous mayor on the scene and he’s getting serious about his social media presence.

Rahm Emanuel announced today that his first Facebook Town Hall, #AskChicago, will be held next week on Thursday, June 30 at 1:30pm.

Kevin Hauswirth, Chicago’s first-ever Social Media Director, tells me this marks the first time a sitting mayor of a major city will hold a live online and Facebook chat in which questions will be submitted and ranked by the public.

“Mayor Emanuel is truly serious about building a more open, transparent government. We’re taking that commitment to the social media space,” Hauswirth says. “Everyday Chicagoans are talking about how to make this city even greater and Mayor’s Office wants to be part of those conversations on and off line.”

Moving onward

I’m thrilled to share that I have accepted a position in the new Chicago Mayor’s Offfice. Starting this Monday, I will be on Rahm Emanuel’s communications staff serving as the Social Media Director. This is an exciting time for Chicago and I am extremely proud to be part of a new vision for the city.  I’ll be able to share more details in the coming weeks as the new administration gets up and rolling.

 

This also means that I will no longer be teaching my graduate and undergraduate social media courses, but I hope to make a cameo as a guest lecturer down the road. So, if you know anyone interested in teaching social media or marketing a university, I know a few jobs that just opened up!

 

Of course, I’ll be keeping my Facebook, LinkedIn and twitter pages up to date but will likely take a break from blogging. To see more about the changes Rahm has in store, check out www.chicago2011.org.

Save student aid? Pell Yes!

The budget battle between the White House and Congress threatened one of the most important pieces of student aid legislation- the Pell Grant. We launched a campaign to encourage Congress to say “Pell Yes!” to funding higher education.

The sell is simple: If we don’t maintain Pell Grants, you’ll lose money for school. The call-to-action is old school voter activation: contact your legislator.  Well, the first barrier to that is figuring out who your legislator is.

Our Pell Yes Facebook page app has a built-in legislator look up, allowing users to use email, phone, twitter or Facebook to make their voices heard. The build- your-own poster function enables supports to easily share their passion for saving Pell.

But, perhaps the coolest function is the interactive map. We overlaid district-by-district data Pell Grant data onto a Google map. Users can literally click to see how many grants and dollars go into every legislative district in the country. Or, in other words, find out “for whom the Pell doles.” Add a fact sheet and letter template download, and it’s a full on campaign all house in a Facebook tab.

In just about two weeks we’ve gotten 2500+ followers and other schools are getting on board and built a platform for citizen engagement that requires little maintenance post-launch. The campaign lives at www.facebook.com/pellyes

And here’s my second ever iMovie. Right on.