People of all political stripes should be cheering on the Obama administration's embrace of Web 2.0 platforms. They have challenged themselves to make the federal government more open and innovative, and -- considering the bureaucratic barriers to doing new things in government -- the initial steps being taken by the White House and various agencies are a remarkable achievement.
The White House is doing more than showing up on social networks, though. Most recently it launched two much more ambitious projects: Data.gov and the the Open Government Initiative.
Data.gov aims to make more government data available to the public in a way that is easier to read so that you don’t have to be an investigative journalist to sort it out. They're also inviting users to make their own applications to make the data more presentable, judge the quality of the data, and request that new data be made available. A natural priority is to develop a centralized, easily searchable database for all federal ethics, lobbying, and campaign finance information.
The Open Government Initiative has a broader goal: It is soliciting ideas and setting priorities for making government more transparent and accountable, and for making it easier for people to participate in improving government. Going a step further, it invites users to make suggestions about such arcane matters as federal advisory committees, rule-making, and personnel policies to improve government performance.
These are just the latest innovations using new media to make government more responsive and effective. There are many more possibilities for citizen engagement.
One interesting experiment is the Peer-to-Patent project, which recruits the public to help the Patent Office "find the information relevant to assessing the claims of pending patent applications."
In other words, the project aims to supplement the existing review process by inviting interested people to search for evidence regarding whether a new invention is really new, or if someone else already owns the rights to it.
Considering the vast amount of information available to the public and the rapid innovation in today’s marketplace, crowdsourcing the patent examination process may be a great way to help protect the creative drive that has contributed so much to American prosperity.
It will be interesting to see whether this can be expanded to other areas. It’s not a big leap from the government’s current efforts with patents to getting the public involved in defining and securing the rights of all kinds of creators. After all, in a digital society, everybody controls the "means of production"; we are all creators and entrepreneurs. It makes sense to empower people to define and protect their own rights.
Perhaps this is a sign of the world ahead of us in a digital society. Instead of invisible bureaucrats making decisions about our lives, perhaps government will feature genuine social collaborations.
Still, there are many difficulties and dangers ahead in this government embrace of Web 2.0. Sunlight may be the best disinfectant, but government does not always like being disinfected. There will be a temptation to embrace social media as a communications platform, rather than a participation platform.
This is not a Left/Right or Republican/Democrat issue. Transparent, responsive, open government is supported by virtually everybody, even (allegedly!) politicians. The problem has always been getting the politicians to put their rhetoric into practice once campaigning ends and governance begins. The Obama administration deserves great credit for the groundbreaking steps they have taken so far.
A more accountable government, receiving more feedback from the people, is something we can all embrace. But the digital society holds far more promises for government; there are miles to go before we sleep.
— Mark McKinnon has worked for both Democratic and Republican political campaigns. He is co-chairman of Arts+Labs , an alliance of the technology, content, and creative communities.
Another really great, thoughtful post, Mark... you seem to sort of hint at this, but it looks like government is ambling toward a wiki-fication of some of its processes. I'm not all that keen on the "wisdom of the masses" hooey, but I certainly the think the power and knowledge of the masses remains relatively untapped.
I'd also love to see [[INSERTED BY]] notations a la Wikipedia in any spending bill that makes it to the floor of either chamber of Congress for some real transparency and accountability. I won't hold my breath on that one.
You are absolutely correct, there is a wealth of information that is available. The question now becomes who owns it as well as who has the responsibility to make it of benefit to all, as opposed to silos of controlled information. The other key fact is to use this to realign government back to representing, versus controlling, the interests of the public. That would entail a better understanding of the public's concerns and interests and finding ways for government to actually address, respond, and serve those interests.
It is another example of remembering what our country was founded on, government of the people and for the people. It might be well for us to do a u-turn and a restart to make government of greater value again to the people.
I agree - I think the next very logical step is the siloing of all this info. So many fail after promising the cheese on the cracker, it would be nice to really be able to mine this independently. There is certainly enough out there/in there.
I love the inclusive spirit of these efforts, but won't the feds' tendency to silo everything block all that sunshine? And, who will own the information generated by this type of outreach? (Obama's campaign people must be sitting on a gold mine of info about all voters, regardless of which candidate they supported, based on the unprecedented phonebanking, Tweeting, emailing, house parties and other projects they spearheaded. Wonder how they are using it all?)
There are already online mechanisms for citizens to talk back to the White House, representatives in Congress and various ombudsmen and others sprinkled throughout agencies and departments. Imagine if there were some kind of clearinghouse where all ideas related to, I dunno, tax codes or the state of the national parks could be funneled and grouped and cleansed and then spat out into a digestible format of some kind. Yet that is of course one more overlay with which to contend.
Data.gov does look kind of cool, actually. At the very least, because I'm not a developer and I don't know the specific built-in value, it appears well-intentioned.
Transparency, in my opinion, doesn't come just with pieces of data, but rather an attitude or philosophy that we can all benefit from great minds looking at the data. The data isn't proprietary--it's the people's data and the value is far from being unlocked.
On the local level, it is difficult to find the resources to put the data in formats that can be used by developers and such for mashups and interactive solutions. The resources are available, but rest mostly with IT.
Hopefully, the push we are seeing on a federal level, while limited, will be viewed as a good start and impetus for such an attitude at the local government level to emulate what is being done federally.
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