Open
Government
Directions

This morning I attended the Open Government Community Summit, hosted at NASA headquarters, and heard a lot of great things about open gov from people both inside and out of federal government. The first hour we heard from an astronaut, and about open government at NASA, DOT, and USDA from reps at each of those agencies. This is definitely worth watching- you can watch a rebroadcast of it on NASA tv streaming online at 5pm and 9pm EST, of you can also read notes that were taken collaboratively by participants on google docs. View the agenda and notes from breakout session here, and take a few minutes to browse through some of the sessions – there was good discussion about gaining middle management support, getting people to use open gov tools, and bootstrapping democracy, among others. Good questions were raised throughout and both ideas and experiences were shared among participants in the room and remotely. This summit (as you can probably tell) was really collaborative and as a result has a great end product to share – it’s great to have this record of what was talked about in the notes, and be able to peek in on what happened in the sessions I wasn’t able to be in myself. Definitely take advantage of this resource!

This morning President Obama spoke before the United Nations General Assembly, and within his remarks he highlighted open government: ”In all parts of the world, we see the promise of innovation to make government more open and accountable.  And now, we must build on that progress.  And when we gather back here next year, we should bring specific commitments to promote transparency; to fight corruption; to energize civic engagement; to leverage new technologies so that we strengthen the foundations of freedom in our own countries, while living up to the ideals that can light the world.”

This White House fact sheet outlines open government successes in the United States including data.gov, agency open government plans,and  challenge.gov,as well as trends internationally toward openness and transparency.

Leaders in local and open government gathered yesterday and today in Manor, Texas to “share and learn about emerging, cost-effective technologies for state and local government.” Visit the event website to learn more about the event and Manor’s innovations, as well as track the Twitter stream.

Beth Novek (Deputy CTO for Open Government in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy)  blogged from Manor yesterday and highlighted some of the reasons Manor, a small community outside Austin, is attracting attention:

“Manor has become so renowned for its creative use of technology that it has become something of a tourist attraction—bringing in visitors, for example, who can use their cell phones to scan the pictographic bar codes (known as QR codes) posted on historic sites and get free, automated guided tours. The city also now runs “See, Click, Fix”—a free customer service platform that enables citizens to report pot holes, downed trees, and traffic lights in need of repair—a service that has heretofore only existed in large cities like New York and San Francisco. And Manor runs Spiggit, an innovation platform through which it invites citizens to come up with ideas for running the town better. Members of the public whose ideas are implemented win prizes such as the privilege of riding along with the sheriff for a day.”

Happy Constitution Day! I celebrated by attending the National Conference on Citizenship and while I was at the Library of Congress, walked through the exhibit “Creating the United States” that showcases documents and thought that is pivotal to the founding of this country. While technology and many many other changes have evolved the way Americans think about and interact with government, including the recent commitment to open government, I encourage you to take a few minutes and look back at the text of the Constitution. Give some thought to the meaning of “We the people, in order to form a more perfect union…” and the lines that follow, and connect it back to the work you do to further democracy (though open government or otherwise).

This fall the National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation is hosting one-day events in 5 cities across the country, and will be a great experience for those doing open government work.

The events will focus on connecting practitioners, community leaders and public managers locally to help build knowledge and capacity around the following topics:

• Quality Public Engagement: What is quality public engagement and how do we educate others about it so it becomes broadly adopted?
• Online Engagement: How can online technology enhance public engagement?
• Collaborations that Work: How can we strengthen connections between public administrators, engagement practitioners and the public?

Find more information or register here!

Remember earlier this spring the Obama administration encouraging the use of challenges and contests to solve problems? Beginning this week, there is a new web platform to allow this to happen: challenge.gov describes different issues or problems and invites the public to solve them, from reducing waste at college football games to building an energy efficient aircraft.

This website is also very well designed and easy to navigate, making collaboration and participation easier and more likely! I wrote about good design last month, if you missed it.

TechPresident also wrote about this launch, see what they have to say here.

The IBM Center for the Business of Government asks Can You Hear Me Now? and offers three solutions to increase communication flowing from citizens to government: “first, we need to use all our available communications channels; second, we need to communicate in a way that the government can act on; third, we need to find the most effective government officials to talk to.”

There’s some great food for thought for both legislative and executive branches of government, be sure to spend some time with this post!

These days, it seems the default for new participation efforts involves going online. That’s great, but it is important to remember the benefits of offline participation too! Intellitics offers this blog post: Public Participation: Ten Simple Ideas for Better Online/Offline Integration, which is a good resource for anyone who would like to improve their agency organization’s participation strategy.

Go to the post for a full description of each idea, but here are the top ten:

1. Start from the beginning
2. Use online to promote offline and vice versa
3. Allow for each of the two channels to feed into each other
4. Make your online content available offline
5. Identify the “bumble bees”
6. Get the media to attend both online and offline activities
7. Bridge the digital divide
8. Synchronize online and offline activities
9. Encourage participants’ use of social media
10. Encourage higher-bandwidth modes of communication

And bonus number 11: Ask your participants

For the last few weeks, I have been receiving the White House Daily Snapshot in my inbox, a “a quick look at what’s happening each day with President Obama.  It includes the President and Vice President’s daily schedules, a look at what’s hot on the White House blog, the Photo of the Day and other important updates.”

Points to the White House for increasing transparency through email, something that many Americans interface with every day. I have learned about programs, successes, and events that I would not have heard about otherwise in a format that is easy to digest, and White House photos and video provide nice images of events that may not have been open to the press.

This is another example of a culture shift toward transparency and providing more information to the public. It would be great to see agencies pick up on this format as a way to keep interested people in the loop and hear about current events through direct contact from the agency and not another filter such as the media.

Interested? Sign up here to get the White House Daily Snapshot in your inbox.