If Darth Vader(@darthvader) and the Pope(@PopeBenny) can Twitter, why not a city? Well, Mesa, AZ took up the challenge! The Office of Economic Development in Mesa has started to Twitter in order to keep residents and city workers in the know about economic news. Holly Walter, the Office of Economic Development spokesperson, in an interview with the Arizona Republic, acted like a social media and Twitter salesperson!
“‘Information provided on Twitter could also benefit employees when they are assisting customers,’ Walter said, ‘… this online tool will keep our customers and employees better informed.’”
Walter also said, “The city should adapt to the ever-changing resources of the Internet and use these resources to its advantage…the Internet isn’t just for obtaining information, but also interacting with an audience.”
Sounds like someone sees the importance of social media!
This is an interesting move. Steve Doig from ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication sees this as an opportunity for governments to become more transparent.
“’In general, it’s a good thing for government at any level to be more transparent and accessible for the citizens they serve,’ said Doig.” (Transparent government?! Heresy!)
Doig also mentions that public safety and traffic news would benefit greatly from Twitter due to the timeliness of those news outlets.
This has been made apparent even in our offices at Sitewire. When California suffered a large earthquake in July, the news was on Twitter in seconds, hours before it appeared on online news sites. The implications are clear.
So, will cities and governments take up the Tweet? Will government become more transparent by updating the public in 140 characters of less? We’ll just have to wait and see. Holding my breath for the next U.S. president’s Twitter updates!
Follow Mesa, AZ @MesaEconDev
Of the People | Katie’s Adventures at 2:49pm on November 10th, 2008
[…] been making inroads into politics in other areas as well. My coworker, Dustin, wrote a post about city governments joining Twitter to start discussions about the economy and how that could easily expand to include other topics […]