Lucas Cioffi graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, US Army Ranger School, and served one year in Baghdad as an infantry officer. After completing his time in the Army he began building online collaborative tools to help large networks harness the knowledge of their members. He is the co-founder of QiqoChat, a business that helps organizations and online networks share leading practices in an interactive and engaging way. Lucas served on the Board of the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation and as President of the Board of the Open Forum Foundation.

This January, Lucas will be coming to MACo’s Winter Conference to speak with county elected officials about innovative ways to communicate with the public while they are in office.  In, Living in a Glass House: Transparency and Data Management for County Governments, Montgomery County Councilmember Hans Riemer, Common Cause Executive Director Jennifer Bevan-Dangel, and Lucas Cioffi will discuss how to best provide information about government functions and services to the public.

Web-based technologies for government information and services have changed the landscape of access to government information. Local governments may use new technologies to reinvent the public meeting, create positive connections with citizens, target priority areas for open government policy reform, and identify the path to greater data transparency. As more and more county government data is becoming available online, counties must also confront the challenges of online documents, including technology infrastructure and security concerns. This session is sponsored by MACo’s Administrators Affiliate and will be moderated by Senator Bill Ferguson of Baltimore City.

This session will be held on Thursday, January 8, 2015; 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm at the MACo Winter Conference in Cambridge, Maryland.  In advance of our session, we encourage all of our readers to join in a conversation on open government and transparency on our own dedicated qiqochat page. 

For more information about Qiqochat, click here.