This past weekend, Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith’s Office sent around an email promoting the new MYD website because of our post about the inefficiencies of the MTA:
MYD is doing so much this year we’re actually attracting the attention of our state government’s leadership. Congratulations to our whole New Media Team for their commitment to keeping young people informed and engaged!
While we’re patting ourselves on the back, I’d also like to point out that our Vice President, Ben Yee, is mentioned in the New York Observer in an article about his new boss, “Albany’s King Geek” Andrew Hoppin. Andrew Hoppin is on a mission to bring the NYS Senate into the 21st Century. His team’s mantra is “efficiency, transparency and participation.” To that end, they are creating new websites to encourage participation (Examples: NYBudgetIdeas.org and NYMTAIdeas.org); new applications to promote transparency; and all sorts of new systems to make our government more efficient. According to the article, Ben is hard at work making various new media platforms–like Facebook and Twitter–accessible and useful for all of the New York State Senators.
While she’s not mentioned in the article, the State Senate is now poaching another member of the MYD team, New Media Director and resident efficiency guru Emmy Suzuki Harris. The details are still being worked out–but it sounds like she’ll be blogging, developing content and in general, applying the excitement and energy she’s brought to MYD to the NYS Senate’s new website, which will launch very soon.
So, a round of applause for our hyper-active (in the best way possible!) members VP Ben and NMD Emmy, for bringing attention to the concerns of New York youth, and for the New York State Senate for it’s commitment to “efficiency, transparency and participation.”
