SBA

News and Events on SBA

16 posts

Open Data Democratizes Innovation

Americans Use Public Data to Improve the Lives of Fellow Citizens Data is one of our most important national assets. It informs our policy and our national priorities. But as we have seen time and time again, the most effective way to govern is to engage with the public directly. Thanks to the President’s Executive Order requiring

Posts by Robin A. Thottungal Posts by Kris Rowley

Jun 02, 2016

How Can Civic Hacking Help Micro-businesses?

National Day of Civic Hacking on June 4th, D.C. Edition The fourth installation of the National Day of Civic Hacking aims to be another stellar event, bringing together civic-minded innovators in cities across the nation under one big tent. Just as in years past, it will be powered by the passion of citizens to improve

Posts by Jack Bienko

May 18, 2016

#SomosSocial: 5 Keys for Government to Reach Hispanics Through Social Media

Hispanics are one of fastest growing demographics in the U.S. But like any demographic, there are important nuances to consider when connecting with this audience. Insight into your audience’s motivations, behavior and preferences is key for anyone trying to engage with the public. We know every day that more and more Hispanics are on social

Posts by Leilani Martinez Posts by Jessica Milcetich Posts by Edgardo Morales Posts by Victoria Bitzer-Wales

Nov 05, 2015

From Startup to Veteran CEO: New BusinessUSA App Has You Covered

BusinessUSA is a centralized, one-stop platform to make it easy for businesses to access services to help them grow and hire. And with the release of a brand new smartphone app for Android and iOS devices, BusinessUSA is fully functional no matter whether you visit by desktop, tablet

Posts by Kevin Downey

May 14, 2015

The Internet of Everything & Small Business Opportunities

In 1995, the World Wide Web, which had been fairly niche up until then, attracted mainstream attention. What followed were 20 years of business and social innovations in how we humans chose to use the web at work, school, at home, and with our friends. The web and its “Web 2.0” successor allowed us to

Posts by David A. Bray Posts by G. Nagesh Rao

Feb 26, 2015

10 Years of Digital Government—A Retrospective

In December of 2004, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued the first Policies for Federal Public Websites. Over the past decade, we’ve seen technology completely transform how government delivers information and services to the public. On this 10-year anniversary, we’re taking a walk down memory lane to recap some of the pivotal moments

Posts by Rachel Flagg

Dec 18, 2014

2nd U.S. Public Participation Playbook Draft Responds to Public Contributions

The new second draft of the U.S. Public Participation Playbook incorporates changes that were proposed from nearly 100 suggestions submitted after the first week of public comment, with more improvements to come. We still need your contributions

Posts by Justin Herman

Dec 08, 2014

Young Entrepreneurs Hang Out With Government Virtually… and in Spanish

It’s a well-known fact that the Hispanic population is growing at a rapid pace, and among the areas seeing the most interest and growth is business. According to the Small Business Administration (SBA), there are more than 3 million Hispanic-owned businesses in the U.S. today, a number that is growing at three times the national

Posts by Victoria Bitzer-Wales

Nov 19, 2014

User Experience Impossible: The Line Between Accessibility and Usability

Bob goes to a popular federal government site, using his assistive technology, and starts reading a teaser for an article. Just below the teaser, there’s an embedded video on the page. He presses the tab key, trying to navigate to a link for the full article, but suddenly he’s trapped—he can’t tab past the video.

Posts by Angela Hooker

Nov 17, 2014

The Trend is Diversity, in Challenge and Prize Competitions

The U.S. government has launched more than 45 challenge and prize competitions so far in Fiscal Year 2014. What trends are we seeing? Well, the trend is…diversity. That might sound like an oxymoron, but federal agencies are really putting themselves out there, asking the crowd to help tackle a wide array of problems. Until August 3rd,

Posts by Karen Trebon

Jul 15, 2014

U.S. Gov Releases New Collaborative Social Media Services

The Federal #SocialGov Community, a collective of almost 700 digital engagement managers from more than 120 government agencies, marked the 2nd anniversary of our program by releasing a suite of new collaborative services to help us better work together and with partners in

Posts by Justin Herman

Jun 30, 2014

Overcoming Barriers—DigitalGov Summit Recap

As government innovators, we work to improve public services every day. In essence we are already in a public private partnership. But how can your agency capitalize on existing public private partnerships to engage citizens and enhance services? Four panelists from across government shared their public private partnerships success stories at the DigitalGov Citizen Services

Posts by Allison Alexander

Jun 05, 2014

Data Innovaton with Census at #HackForChange

Do you want to build an application, product or business that uses Census Bureau data? There are opportunities to give feedback and get involved. Two years ago, the Census Bureau launched its application programming interface (API), giving developers access to a variety of high value data

Posts by Logan Powell

May 23, 2014

Sign up For DigitalGov Citizen Services Summit, Friday, May 30

We won’t build the government of the 21st century by drawing within the lines. We don’t have to tell you the hard work of building a digital government doesn’t exist in a vacuum or a bubble. Show us social media without mobile, Web without data and user experience without APIs. You can’t? That’s right—in reality,

Posts by Rachel Flagg Posts by Justin Herman Posts by Tammi Marcoullier Posts by Jacob Parcell Posts by Alycia Piazza Posts by Jonathan Rubin

May 19, 2014

The Federal List of #HackforChange Projects

You should be on this list—the current federal government participants in the National Day of Civic Hacking. There are 15 agencies participating in the event, primarily in and around the Washington, D.C., area. This is a fantastic compilation of what agencies are doing, but it is not enough. We need more widespread participation across the country. If

Posts by Tammi Marcoullier

May 15, 2014

Resources and Tools for APIs

Hosted API Tools Labs.Data.gov is a repository of shared services to prototype and provide developer resources to government agencies. Each tool uses Web services and lightweight, open source code to provide powerful functionality. Agencies are encouraged to improve any project and submit pull requests in order to share the improvements with others. API Standards Template With the open

Posts by Gray Brooks

Mar 12, 2013