SMART Muni app designed over a weekend

The city of San Francisco's Information and Communication Innovation Plan offers a bold vision for modernizing the government's research infrastructure. And it will only take five short years.

By at the time, the city will "embrace" things like social networking, cloud computing, crowd sourcing and location-aware apps. That is, by 2016, the city earnestly hopes to have made use of the greatest innovation hits of 2010. Fortunately, we've seen again and again how research periodically stands stock on the whole to allow governments and grandparents to catch up, so I can't imagine a flaw with the plan. However there are some folks out there who think that perhaps this sort of thing can be done on a slightly accelerated timeline. Like, say, a weekend.

One small team of local residents recently built an Apple iPhone app that might help fulfill that perennial mayoral candidate pledge from time immemorial: making the buses run just in time.

The group has continued to tweak the software

The group has continued to tweak the software and plans to submit the product to Apple's App Store for approval in the straightway few weeks.

"We can bring creative people from the innovation world and other fields to come work with city staff to brainstorm solutions to the city's problems," he said.

-- Public Art Spaces, a service that matches artists with deteriorating public spaces, like vacant shop windows. "There are these huge beige walls and blank storefronts around the city, and all this space can be used creatively," said Jake Levitas, director of innovation at the Gray Area Foundation.

All of these ideas are great examples of Gov 2.0, the increasingly resonant notion that the model and tools of the innovation industry can help public officials to become more responsive to residents' needs.

Put another way: When the innovation industry is flooding the market with free apps and citizens can crank out their own in 48 hours, it gets harder for government to set five-year tech timelines with a straight face.