Welcome!

Hello and Welcome to SoS 2.0, the Oregon Secretary of State’s blog.

As Oregon’s 24th Secretary of State, I am extremely excited to launch this blog as part of our Social Media initiative. Over the coming years, my staff and I will use this portal to serve three main purposes: to educate, explain and collaborate.

Firstly, we want to educate Oregonians on just what it is that we do here. You’ll see FAQs, Q&As with employees from our divisions, in-depth reports on key agency functions and probably a picture essay or two.

We will also try to explain and bring clarity to the news and the events involved with the work of this department. I hope we can demystify what is sometimes the confusing tangle of state government. My goal is to make sure everyone can understand what’s going on and why.

Finally, we will collaborate with constituents. We want to hear from you about the things we discuss in this space about and you’ll get the chance in our open comments section. Once you register – it’s free – you can comment on anything we post.

This isn’t a press release site. We have one of those already. This blog will offer a different approach to news and events, a way we can communicate directly with the people paying our salaries.

I am incredibly excited about this initiative. We are the first state agency to have a full fledged Web 2.0 presence; starting with this blog and extending into our Twitter, Flickr, Delicious, and Google Maps portals. I believe that social networking and media present a tremendous opportunity for government and the public to have a truly interactive discussion about the state and how it is run.

Thank you for visiting the blog. There is going to be a lot of activity, so please come back to get the latest from the Office of the Oregon Secretary of State.

Yours truly,

Kate Brown