LA Times: "Southland's Vital Signs Improving"

Many indicators point to an incipient recovery in the pummeled Southern California economy reports today's Los Angeles Times.  The state's exports are increasing, tourism is up, and home prices seem to have hit a bottom.

The median sale price for Southern California homes also increased for the fourth straight month, rising to $275,000 from an April 2009 low of $247,000.

Comerica Bank economist Dana Johnson reported, "The housing sector seems to have made the huge adjustment it needed to make.  It doesn't look like there's terrible further adjustments to follow."

Google for the Public Sector lands in Oz

The Australian public sector has a great track record of embracing the web. Australia was the first country to launch a Google election site in 2007, the NSW government map makes public spending more transparent, and the recently announced Government 2.0 taskforce has been charged with accelerating Government onto the web.

Australians spend more time online than on any other media, and more people access government information online than in any other way. The Internet makes government more transparent and accountable and has opened up communication between politicians and their constituents.

In this spirit Senator Stephen Conroy, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, tonight launched Google for the Public Sector, www.google.com.au/publicsector, a guide to the tools and best practice for the public sector to reach, communicate and engage with their communities.

Many of these products are used by governments around the world to:

• Foster direct and open communication (YouTube, AdWords, Blogger)
• Encourage participation in public debate (Moderator)
• Tap into the public pulse (News Alerts, Insights for Search)
• Target and maximise online presence (Webmaster tools, Analytics)
• Lead the shift to cloud computing (Apps, Enterprise)

To see these tools in action:




Posted by Iarla Flynn, Head of Public Policy