For me, the citizen question is:

“How does any of this stuff impact my mom and dad in Davenport, IA?”

I answer this question by urging us to think about everything we’re doing as leading to a “hyper-local” application. How can we help the average citizen – not particularly active, but concerned about issues in their backyard – to interpret and act upon the datasets that agencies are releasing?

Within agencies, the equivalent question seems to be:

“What does any of this mean for the hard-working public servant who’s not particularly interested in innovation, but wants to be a good steward of our tax dollars?”

Answer: I don’t know. But I think we’re hearing voices in places like GovLoop where government personnel at every level – and not just the leaders of this movement anymore – are weighing in on forums and blogs…and it will take some time to discern the path forward together.

I am much more hopeful than Andrea DiMaio who said today that we may be moving into a “trough of disillusionment” (see http://bit.ly/ao0yJE). Rather, I am confident we are building a bridge across the chasm. But as the graphic reveals, that bridge is being built uphill – no easy task!

Let’s remain patient, but persistent…

And, I think we are expanding that tent. There are definitely a LOT more people discussing this notion of Gov 2.0 both externally and even internally here at Booz Allen. The #gov20 community is growing and splintering into smaller communities, and it’s going to continue to do so. I think the biggest thing that I’ve seen come out of this conversation is the need to also be patient – there’s no elapsed time on Luke’s chart above, but I would wager that it takes years to move down that scale and we’re only about 1/3 of the way through it. The tent not only has to be bigger – we also need the time and the resources to continue to get it built.

And this patience will be sorely needed if we’re going to have to wait for Deloitte to increase their mindshare over Booz Allen because that might take years :)

A few may have heard of the Open Government Directive (OGD), and are wondering how it differs from the 1990′s Reinventing Government effort under Clinton and Gore.

Many Agencies were caught off-guard by OGD too, except some innovators at DOT, DOL, State, EPA, TSA, DoD, where thoughts on emergent public communication using “new media” have been percolating (or in the case of TSA & EPA, working) during and before 2009.

We need to be thinking “outside the Beltway”.

Gov 2.0 as a term is shorthand for folks working in this space (and the term is not without it’s detractors among the “in” crowd). But transparency is one of the basic tenets of Gov 2.0. It’s not very transparent to speak in a special secret language. In fact, it’s exclusionary–and not just for the public, but for folks in government.

From the inside and trying to make the changes gives me a different perspective. Beyond the echo chamber of conferences, UStreams, Twitter, blogs, there are thousands of people in government agencies trying to figure out what transparency means, how participation is changing, and asking “aren’t we already collaborating?” These are good, smart people tasked with making the Gov2.0 changes in their agencies who drop their eyes and apologize because, “I don’t use [insert tool du jour], I don’t get this stuff.”

The public is not just people outside of government, but the hundreds of thousands of people inside government.

The tent needs to be bigger if we are to succeed. And language is a critical tool to make it so.

Gov 2.0 is a process to gurus like you guys, but also a product to the citizens. Government is both a company and product (i.e., democracy). Most citizens aren’t buying Gov 2.0 because they don’t understand the value or how government can be innovative or efficient. Like Steve said, they don’t get they can contribute or connect with it in so many ways.

Asking ‘Is the government serving them better?’ is a start. If it actually offers services that do serve them better, but the public doesn’t know about it, that’s a marketing problem. That’s why Gov 2.0 needs to focus on crossing the chasm and perhaps why Government should hire more CMOs.

I also agree that talking among Silicon Valley or DC insiders on topics like open source doesn’t advance the engagement cause -

If Federal Agencies are able to truly achieve open government (per the OGD, with real engagement, further program evolution and increasingly valuable content), wouldn’t that start educating citizens and agencies alike? Seems OGD will fail unless 2-way communication, with meaningful engagement, becomes real.

In terms of the pace being slow, culture change will certainly have a gating effect there -

But I think there’s upside in citizens realizing they have a new voice and new access. It’s at the heart of “Participation”. You guys are all thought leaders in this space. Do you support OGD as a means to start a dialog with agencies and citizenry on what Gov 2.0 can and should be?