Councilman Jim Kenney on $29k Chatterblast digital strategy contract: using staff would do same work “at a much higher cost”

Councilman Jim Kenney outsources his social strategy. Inquirer file photo

Councilman Jim Kenney’s relationship with Twitter appears to be complicated.

The same Councilman who two years ago threatened to sue Twitter over flash mobs works with digital marketing firm Chatterblast with a $28,800, 12-month contract to manage, among other aspects, his Twitter account.

And it’s become quite the story: from the Daily News to the Associated Press to Fox News, all of which focused on the idea that Kenney was paying a third-party to tweet for him, when everyone else on council uses internal staff.

After the news cycle pumped the story, Kenney and Chatterblast staff told Technically Philly it’s overblown.

“I looked at my staff’s skills and responsibilities, my operating budget, and the demands on my office and determined it would be best to partner with an outside expert firm for social media communications,” said Kenney, 53, in a statement released for Technically Philly, noting that he sought out a Philadelphia-based firm. “Many other council people have communications consultants or in-house staff to handle some of the scope of services provided, in most cases at a much higher cost.”

Instead, as the Daily News first reported, the story has focused on a five-figure contract from Kenney’s legislative budget, the third highest in council, which includes $650,000 in salary for 10 staffers. Kenney says he’s freeing up staff to do other tasks, while getting good value from a local firm.

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Code for America hires local #opengov hacker Mark Headd, one-man Philly office

Mark Headd, a former #opengov evangelist for Voxeo, will lead government relations for Code for America, while being based in Philadelphia.

Code for America isn’t yet halfway through its second fellowship year, but, as of today, Philadelphia now already has a direct stake in its third year and beyond.

The much celebrated program that puts technologists in year-long partnerships with city governments has hired Mark Headd, the good government hacker and former Voxeo #opengov evangelist, to lead its government relations efforts. Headd, a Wilmington, Del. resident whose projects we have covered before, will have office space in or near to Center City.

“Code for America has already had an impact, and I’m excited to help that cause,” said Headd, 43, on a recent walk with Technically Philly in University City. Though Philly is a clear partner, his role will involve extensive travel, he said.

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Philly has 9th most social media savvy City Hall [Links]

• The 10 most social media savvy City Halls in America [PR Daily] Philadelphia ranks 9th, tied with Long Beach, CA. “A new study from the University of Illinois at Chicago ranked the 75 largest cities in America by their government’s social media acumen.”
• Fresh food and “connectivity” coming soon to Front and Norris [Plan Philly] “A small grocery store and cafe with free wi-fi, take-out or eat-in American and Middle Eastern dishes and free community space is set to soon open at the corner of Front and Norris streets, beneath the Market-Frankford El. Mike Ahmad and Walid Mustafa will open the doors of their 5,000 square-foot establishment, called Liberty Choice, in early-April.”
• InstaMed another Phila. tech firm on the upswing [Philadelphia Business Journal] “Marvin said InstaMed is looking to add 10 people to its staff of 85.”
• New advertising software automates ad-buying – and cuts out workers [Joe DiStefano/Philadelphia Inquirer] “Jeremy Bloom – former Olympic skier, Philadelphia Eagle, and nonprofit-foundation boss – has been raising millions for his next career: replacing corporate ad-purchase professionals with automatic ad-view and spend-tracking software.”

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Philly has 8th fastest Internet download speed in the country

In terms of how fast on average you can download something off the web, Philadelphia ranks eighth out of 35 U.S. cities with populations greater than 500,000, according to a 2011 broadband study Pando Networks released last week.

Philly edged out Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston and others with a download speed of 723 KiloBytes per second (KBps). Austin led the pack with a speed of 841 KBps, followed by San Francisco, Seattle and New York, as smeet.org reported.

Below find the full ranking from smeet.org (emphasis added):

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5 reforms in Philly tax policy that every freelancer and small business owner should know [VIDEO]

Tilahun Afessa, the Director for Policy, Planning and Outreach for the Revenue Department of the City of Philadelphia, discussing coming changes in the local tax code, during a session at first-floor storefront in the Indy Hall building.

Talk the specifics of tax reform legislation long enough, and things will probably get confusing. So, attendees of an informational session on the impact of new city tax policy legislation had a lot to process from text-packed slides.

Councilman Bill Green, who co-sponsored one half of the bills and is making this a core tenet of his outspoken plans to run for mayor in 2015, was on-hand to try to make things a little simpler.

“This is really good news,” Green said at the event Tuesday night, hosted by the city’s Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy. “And if we work hard, we’re going to have more of an impact in the future.”

More specifically, of 90,000 licensed businesses in Philadelphia, fully 30,000 would be fully exempt from city business privilege taxes when the reform is fully implemented by 2016, said Green chief of staff Sophie Bryan. That future seems well-timed for a politician of a high pedigree.

The new policy, which passed committee in October and was approved by Council and the mayor in November, will have a series of steps toward full-implementation, scheduled for 2016, right when Green seems to expect to be settling into his new role of city chief executive.

Below, find video of Green talking about the tax reform legislation, presentation slides detailing the changes and five of the biggest reforms you should know about.

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Phila.gov gets redesign and new features to “demystify the workings of the city”

Long criticized for sub par aesthetics, the official website of the City of Philadelphia, Phila.gov, underwent an overhaul and relaunched last month to coincide with the start of Mayor Nutter’s second term.

Aside from a cleaner, more appealing look, the biggest improvements to the site are the navigation — designed to be more user centric — and the new ‘Topics’ section,  Adel Ebeid, Chief Innovation Officer for the City told Technically Philly. Ebeid said these updates are intended “to demystify the workings of the city and puts it in a form that city constituents can understand.”

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Second generation Code for America fellows benefit from example set by predecessors

The 2012 Philadelphia Code for America fellows: Michelle Lee, Alex Yule and Liz Hunt

For the second straight February, a pack of Code for America fellows is making its presence known throughout civic life in Philadelphia, particularly around technology, in a very simple way: showing up, a lot.

The three 2012 fellows dedicated to the City of Philadelphia — Michelle Lee, Alex Yule and Liz Hunt — only have a week left to learn the ins and outs of this local government and its citizen allies before they return to San Francisco for the rest of their fellowship, but lucky for them, their path has been paved before.

Philadelphia is the only city to host two generations of CfA fellows and so far, and the new fellows think the lineage has been an asset.

“Having an understanding of the players and bringing them into the same room has been an advantage as a second year city.” said Lee, who had lived in Philadelphia prior to becoming a fellow.

In Philadelphia, a city notorious for fierce loyalty to its own, that’s no surprise.

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Philly Startup Leaders writes Love Letter to Philadelphia, Mayor Nutter

After highlighting the city’s entrepreneurial community during his address to the Chamber of Commerce last week, Mayor Nutter followed up with a letter to Philly Startup Leaders, the wide-ranging volunteer group he cited by name in his speech.

And PSL has returned the favor, in the spirit of Valentine’s Day, showing, in a city often criticized for being less than business friendly, quite a bit of love.

“Through my second term, my Commerce Department and I will stress the importance of making Philadelphia a more dynamic city for startups. I recognize the value of these companies–and of organizations like Philly Startup Leaders, which brings these entrepreneurs together–to Philadelphia’s success in the new economy,” wrote Nutter in the letter [PDF]. “The City is here to help.”

In response, beginning on the PSL listserv, a few active members got together to write a letter showing their love, in the style of the popular Visit Philly campaign, as seen above and posted on their blog.

The idea came from Cristina Greysman of SunGard and was designed by Patty Tawadros of Center City design firm Xercel.

Nutter to Chamber: Move beyond the U.S., “we need to market ourselves globally”

The City of Philadelphia isn’t another rust belt city and shouldn’t be treated like one. That about sums up the wide-ranging, tone adjustment that served as Mayor Nutter’s Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce annual mayoral luncheon address Monday.

“We can no longer measure ourselves as compared to other cities in the Mid-Atlantic or even throughout the United States,” said Nutter, before polite applause from the several hundred suited chamber members. “We need to market ourselves globally.”

Referencing Rome and Paris more than he mentioned Chicago or Baltimore, the half-hour speech, which addressed development, investment and a stake in the ground for Philadelphia as international city, featured a call that the technology and startup community is a means to continue to change perception. Read a transcript of the speech here.

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Saskia Thompson: “I’m not a data geek, I’m a city geek” says City of Philadelphia property data chief [Q&A]

It’s not about the data. It’s about the city.

Saskia Thompson

So says Saskia Thompson, who later this month will celebrate one year in her role as the executive director of the newly created City of Philadelphia Office of Property Data.

Her job is to square a dozen or more efforts and uses and agencies that track and rely on city address details — think permits from L&I and billing from utilities. The problem is that through the years, different city departments created their own processes and technologies, so whenever the U.S. Census comes around or the city wants to update its property tax assessments, there is a giant headache.

Oh, and then there is the ongoing issue of how many vacant properties are in the City of Philadelphia.

That will be in the hands of Thompson, a Detroit native (where she started her city government career) and University of Michigan graduate, who is serious and measured in conversations with Technically Philly, contrasting with her relative youth, punctuated by bright blonde hair.

Thompson, 42, who spent the better part of a decade working for Charlotte, N.C.’s city manager, is the steward of a project that she says began in earnest in 2009.

“There was an ad hoc group around the city that got together to say that the flow and the accuracy of property data is not what we’d like it to be,” Thompson said during a December interview in her small office in the Municipal Services Building across the street from City Hall. In 2010, six months after the ad hoc group led some departmental interviews and best practices research, the group gave recommendations to the mayor and managing director.

“The bottom line was that there was no real ownership of property data,” said Thompson, who lives in University City. “A number of agencies create it or use it or both, but we don’t have named data stewards for each property attribute that everyone in the city relies on.”

Thompson sought out a gig with the City of Philadelphia for as much as a year before the right gig opened up, she said, adding that after Detroit and her time in Charlotte, she wanted to work on the bigger stage of a large Northeast corridor metropolis.

She’s gotten her wish.

Housed in the Finance Department, which is also charged with the boondoggle of property tax assessment, Thompson first brought on a small additional staff last October and may do more. To do this right, she says, it will be another year before implementation of a solution begins.

Below, Thompson talks to Technically Philly more about her goals and why she’s not a data geek.

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