At the direction of Chairman John Carona, the Texas Senate Committee on Business and Commerce has implemented these technology initiatives:  

1. Committee Blog http://BandC.posterous.com
   1. Membership, contact information, and schedules
   2. Links to formal hearing postings, videos, and archived testimony
   3. Expanded hearing agendas and background materials
   4. Testimony tips
   5. User-controlled opt in or out of several update notification methods
   6. Each blog post automatically issues a tweet via @TxLegeBC and automatically includes the hashtag #TxLegeBC
   7. Site Views:
      1. 70,000 as of October 1, 2012.
         
      2. 75,000 as of November 12, 2012.
         
      3. 80,000 as of February 12, 2013.
         
2. Live-blogging of hearings
   1. Real-time posting of testimony received at the hearing -- the public sees what the Senators see
   2. Blog entries are time stamped, providing a chronological record of the order of witnesses and creating a guide to accompany later viewings of the video
   3. Result: On the day of the January 10, 2012 hearing, 937 people visited the site (84% had not visited the site before) for a total of 1,976 pageviews. According to Google Analytics, viewers were from Texas cities including Austin, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio, and out of state viewers from San Francisco, Chicago, and New York
      

   4. The Texas Legislative Council has made it possible for you to view live house and senate committee videos on most mobile devices (e.g., iPad, iPhone, Droid) through TxLegis.com, a mobile version of the Texas Legislature Online (TLO) website. From the mobile device browser, enter txlegis.com.  Select Committee Video, and then select a chamber.  IMPORTANT:  Within TxLegis.com, some applications or features may not be accessible on all mobile devices. 

3. Twitter update, real-time feedback, and archives (using hashtag #TxLegeBC)
   1. Live-tweeting of hearings to provide updates and links. According to Tweetreach.com, 14,689 people saw at least one tweet related to the January 10, 2012 hearing, with a total exposure of 28,911 impressions
   2. Real-time feedback loop, using Twitterfall on member-facing monitor (starting 1/10/12)
   3. The hashtagged traffic can be seen without signing in to Twitter by going to http://tweetchat.com/room/txlegebc
   4. Twitter history and analytics for @txlegebc and #txlegebc are available at http://archivist.visitmix.com/TxLegeBC
      
4. Paperless hearings (over $7000 saved so far)
   
   1. October 9, 2012 hearing: $882 in printing costs avoided (assumes 15 black and white copies of 588 pages at ten cents per copy)
   2. August 14, 2012 hearing: $450 in printing costs avoided (assumes 15 black and white copies of 300 pages at ten cents per copy)
   3. July 10, 2012 hearing: $1758.00 in printing costs avoided (assumes 15 black and white copies of 1172 pages at ten cents per copy)
   4. April 10, 2012 hearing: $2410.50 in printing costs avoided (assumes 15 black and white copies each of 1607 pages at ten cents per copy)
   5. January 10, 2012 hearing: $1684.50 in printing costs avoided (assumes 15 black and white copies each of 1123 pages at ten cents per copy)
   6. October 4, 2011 hearing: approx. $200 in printing costs avoided
5. QR code usage (placement on office door, signs and printed materials such as agendas make it easier to find the website with agenda, testimony, background materials by
   
   allowing smartphone users to scan the code using barcode reading apps.)
6. Virtual storefronts (increases the likelihood that someone looking for information on the Committee can find and interact with it)
   
   1. Yelp
   2. Google Places/Google+ Local
      
    
7. Articles about Committee business and operations, and related items, are linked on the Committee's Pinterest board, http://pinterest.com/txlegebc.
   
8. Interactive maps. The Committee encourages making state data more available and understandable using formats such as Google Fusion intensity maps. Our proof of concept (below) shows permits issued by the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission on a county-level basis. Click on a county to get its detail. Later versions will carry an improved legend, pinpoint locations by address, and allow the user to overlay selected data. The Committee appreciates Matt Stiles for his help in this effort. 
9. Mobile App. On March 13, 2012, the Committee released the first mobile device application of any Legislative committee. The app gives a Committee overview (the same one from the blog), provides a web-optimized main blog feed, makes it easy to send an email to the Committee office or a tweet with the Committee hashtag #TxLegeBC, and links to the Committee records on the official Senate website and related sites.  The Committee thanks Dan Galewsky (Saltgrass Systems) for the programming.
   1. Android devices - to download and install, go to Google Play (formerly the Android Market) and search for "Tx Senate" or navigate to http://tinyurl.com/bandcapp where you can also see a few screen images if you don't have Android.
      
   2. The source code for the Android app is freely available at http://sourceforge.net/p/bandc-android
   3. Versions for Rim and Apple iOS devices are coming.
      
   4. The app was recognized with a Best of Texas award from the Center for Digital Government. 
      

Implementation costs:

1. Neat Receipts Mobile Scanner, Model NM-1000: $216.49
2. Staff time
3. Donated:  
   1. Programming - Dan Galewsky (app), Hugh Chou (payday loan calculator)
   2. $25 Google Play/Android Market registration fee for app

 These initiatives are in evaluation, planning, or pre-implementation stages (partial listing):

• Crowdsourcing included in policy development
• Online crowdsourced document warehouse
• Explanatory material - subject matter (audio, video, text)
• Explanatory material - process (audio, video, text)
• Transparency improvements

Related Articles:

• "Senate Committees Push Boundaries on Social Media," Mike Ward, Austin American-Statesman, Sunday, January 29, 2012
• "TX Senate Committee Adopts Crowdsourcing," Justin Dehn and Thanh Tan, Texas Tribune, October 7, 2011
• "Out of the Smoke-Filled Room and Onto the Internet," Reeve Hamilton, New York Times, October 6, 2011
• "Texas Legislative Committee Looks to Social Media to Bring More Power to the People," Renay San Miguel, Splash Media, July 25, 2011
• "Legislative Committees Use Social Media, QR Codes for Transparency," Vicky Garza, Houston Business Journal, April 29, 2011

Alcoholic Beverage Permits by County

 This page updated February 13, 2013.