Building the ‘Next Generation Democracy’
0I’ve been meaning to post something about Next Generation Democracy: What the Open-Source Revolution Means for Power, Politics, and Change for a long time now, but just haven’t had the time
I’ve been meaning to post something about Next Generation Democracy: What the Open-Source Revolution Means for Power, Politics, and Change for a long time now, but just haven’t had the time
Stephen Goldsmith’s new book, The Power of Social Innovation: How Civic Entrepreneurs Ignite Community Networks for Good, written with Gigi Georges and Tim Glynn Burke, offers tools for innovative government and nonprofit professionals to develop and scale their new solutions to public problems. The book is based on Goldsmith’s experience as chair of the Corporation for National and Community Service for nine years under Presidents Bush and Obama, mayor of Indianapolis, and Professor of Government at Harvard Kennedy School. Relying also on interviews with more than 100 top leaders from the public, private and nonprofit sectors, The Power of Social Innovation features illustrative case studies of civic leaders and entrepreneurs and the catalyzing role each plays in transforming a community’s social service delivery systems. The excerpt below—taken from Chapter 5 “Animating and Trusting the Citizenâ€â€”highlights innovative ways that private citizens, nonprofits and government officials are using digital media to “crowd source†or otherwise engage their communities in decision making and actual participation in solving their shared challenges.
Looking back over the history of the United States, it is not just remarkable to see how 13 former colonies of the British Empire could come together to form what became the longest continuously functioning government in recorded history, but it is also incredible that such a durable government was set up as a republic. Until the United States, history records few examples of even moderately successful republics, and even those moderate successes were aided by factors external to the specific system of government employed. How, then, did the framers of the U.S. Constitution succeed in creating a republican-style government where so many had failed
The federal government should fire me. Like the thousands of other contractors who develop software for government agencies, I am slow, overpaid, and out of touch with the needs of my customers. And I’m keeping the government from innovating.
In recent years, the government has become almost completely dependent upon contractors for information technology (IT). So deep is this dependency that the government has found itself in a position that may shock those in the tech industry: it has no programmers of its own; code is almost entirely outsourced. Government leaders clearly consider IT an ancillary function that can be offloaded for someone else to worry about
If Gov 2.0 is the public servant Sisyphean task du jour, then If We Can Put a Man on the Moon … Getting Big Things Done in Government is the stocking stuffer of the season.
Authors William D. Eggers and John O’Leary wrote ‘If We Can Put a Man on the Moon …’ to answer one question:
What happens if you look at large government undertakings from a process perspective?
Two preview chapters from Open Government: Collaboration, Transparency, and Participation in Practice are available for download. The book, available January 2010 from O’Reilly Media, is a “collection of essays, interviews, and case studies provides a multi-faceted and nonpartisan account of government as it becomes more transparent, collaborative, and participatory.”
Preview chapters include ‘Disrupting Washington’s Golden Rule’ by Ellen S. Miller and ‘Visualizing Policy and Politicians’ by Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg
A new book, State of the eUnion: Government 2.0 and Onwards, is now available free for download. The book, a compilation of essays from 34 Gov 2.0 thought leaders, will soon be available in print through Amazon and elsewhere.
Free PDF download: State of the eUnion: Government 2.0 and Onwards