"We were no longer able to truly see beyond the horizon of what we had built and to make the necessary leaps in innovation." – Stephan Paternot Today I read a blog post by Stephan Paternot, the co-founder of theglobe.com, and in it, I saw a glimpse of the point I was trying to make in…
Category: Public Works
MOSES – Ramping up Government Use of Virtual Worlds
We've been fortunate to have a group of federal employees from the US who are dedicated and passionate about government use of virtual worlds. The work accomplished by Eric Hackathorn (NOAA), William May and Lovisa Williams (State Dept), Charles White and Jeanne Holm (NASA), Paulette Robinson (NDU), and Douglas Maxwell and Tami Griffith (US Army)…
Fox Valley Branch APWA Grant Seminar Notes
Below is a Cover It Live embed of the live notes taken during the Fox Valley Branch APWA Grant Seminar Notes: Fox Valley Branch APWA Grant Seminar
Geneva’s Great Land Adventure
Several months ago, I read some blog posts about frustration with Gov 2.0 not doing enough and a few other posts with offers from people interested in working for free for experience. The two seemingly unrelated topics got me wondering: How could our city use Gov 2.0 to offer job opportunities to people just looking…
Composting Equipment
In honor of Earth Day, I’m passing along a video that was sent to us at work from Envirocycle. The company makes a composter that looks like a barrel. The operation seems fairly simple. To place the compost, I imagine you could just roll the container to where you need to dump the material. The…
Photocopiers & Depositions
Today I followed a link Governing had posted in a story. This link (http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2011/03/identifying_photocopy_machine.html)Â led me to what appeared to be an excerpt from a deposition where an attorney was questioning an employee who seems to have worked in the recorder’s office in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. The proceeding is somewhat interesting because it is a good…
CCDD Update – Get the Scoop on CCDD & Let IEPA Know What You Think
If you’re involved in construction in Illinois, you are probably well aware of new CCDD law passed last year and made effective immediately by our state legislators and governor. Many of us have been struggling to understand this new law because it was created with little guidance but severe penalties for noncompliance. Fortunately the Chicago…
Think We Don’t Need to Teach Local Government in School? Read This!
A few days ago, I noticed a Tweet indicating someone was extremely angry about a video on YouTube. Normally I would not click on something like this, but for some reason I followed the link and found myself watching a man who was very upset that the “government” was pulling out a basketball pole in…
Delivering Public Works Content Through Video
Over the last few years, there have been an increasing number of public works departments, vendors, and organizations taking advantage of video sharing sites. This has been made possible by newer video cameras that now fit into a pocket and websites like YouTube. These new tools and technologies allow anyone to easily capture videos and…
Remote Controlled Culvert Cleaning
 With budgets tight throughout the country and any serious economic recovery years away, states and municipalities are turning to technology to increase efficiency and save money. One example of innovation in action is the Mucker (its actual name is the  Microtraxx Tunnel Mucker). The Mucker is used to excavate sediment from culverts and was created by the Advanced…