Congressional Websites Innovations 2015

Open Government Community Group,





Greetings.  I would like to describe to you a new idea for congress.gov, *.senate.gov and *.house.gov, pertaining to contest(s) for web software, web designs of use to up to all of the 535 congressional teams.  The ideas presented could be of use for peoples in other democracies as well.




The idea is for nationwide contest(s), with prizes, to percolate innovations in the areas of: (a) modular, configurable, themeable, web platforms (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_content_management_systems), (b) plugins, (c) features, such that contestants’ entries, utilizing combinations of existing or new such components (a, b, c), would be website options for senators and representatives, their websites at: *.senate.gov and *.house.gov .





Though newly elected congresspeople and their teams could opt to make use of other, custom, software, the contest would be for the software offered as option to newly elected congresspeople, their teams, by congress.gov .  Envisioned is that the websites’ features would include interoperability with mobile apps (e.g. mailing lists, RSS, forums, opinion polls, et al).




The broad, inclusive, contest(s) would be in the spirit of challenge.gov (http://www.challenge.gov/list/), however the contest(s) are envisioned as hosted at congress.gov and with a much larger prize budget for top-ranking entries.  The prizes, acclaim, as well as opportunities to advance democracy, e-democracy, the winning entries available to up to all 535 congressional teams, are expected to entice a large number of Americans to participate in the contest(s).






The web design community could be notified of the event(s) including by web design magazines, web design websites and web design awards websites (e.g. http://www.awwwards.com/).  Software vendors, Web platform vendors desiring for contestants to make use of their software, in particular with the visibility of winning contest(s) entries, could be of use to disseminating information about the existence of contest(s) to teams, broadening the number of participating contestants.










Kind regards,




Adam Sobieski





http://phoster.com