More innovation from the District of Columbia
The District of Columbia is proving that the use of Web 2.0 tools can bring greater transparency, efficiency and competition to a procurement – at virtually no cost. And the tools are simple enough that anyone with moderate internet skills would be able to implement them.
This week I had the pleasure to speak with Vivek Kundra, CTO of the District of Columbia. One of Mr. Kundra’s objectives is to review and apply popularized Web 2.0 tools such as wikis, YouTube videos, and Google Apps to a variety of government functions, including procurement.
As we’ve discussed in previous posts, the first test of these tools was the use of a free, open source MediaWiki (popularized by Wikipedia) for the District’s Evidence Warehouse project. The wiki contains the call documentation, video recordings of key events, the Q&A, and other key pieces of information. The content for this project can still be found at:
http://www.evidencewarehouse.ocp.dc.gov/index.php/Evidence_Warehouse
Given the positive wiki experience, the District evolved their projects into a Google Sites page. Google Sites allows you to create a group workspace without having to know any HTML code. You simply pick the functions that you would like to add to your website.
This allowed the District to add more sophisticated calendar functionality, document downloading, and a much improved user interface. Below is a site for the new Information Technology Staff Augmentation project.
http://sites.google.com/a/dc.gov/itsa-contract/Home
According to Mr. Kundra, undertaking projects in this manner has been positively received by all stakeholder groups as project transparency and efficiency has been improved. These tools not only reduce the number of paper-based information hand-offs required during a procurement, but also provide a single source for up-to-date content.