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Government 2.0: An Empire State of Mind

Luke Fretwell — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 00:29:41 +0000

Video of New York State Senate Director of Technology Innovation Noel Hidaldo’s (@noneck) IgniteNYC presentation, ‘Government 2.0: An Empire State of Mind.’

Technology should be viewed as a vehicle rather than a destination

Rob Pinkerton — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 22:58:10 +0000

I was recently interviewed on Federal News Radio on their In-Depth with Francis Rose program, where I had the opportunity to discuss open government. We discussed the idea that technology should be viewed as a “vehicle” rather than a “destination” and that the real role of technology in open government is that of an enabler of mission success.

I’m finding more and more that these conversations are evolving beyond discussions about government data publication to a focus on how technology, information and behavior can open up government and make it more effective for people who are at risk or in need.

Listen:

Video:

FreshWrap: This week’s posts

Luke Fretwell — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:54:17 +0000

A wrap-up of this week’s posts:

Microsoft exec talks cloud computing and government

Luke Fretwell — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:00:43 +0000

Microsoft Senior VP & General Counsel Brad Smith discusses the future of cloud computing in government on C-SPAN’s The Communicators. Smith addresses citizen privacy rights, cost-savings, service provider challenges, consumer awareness, data portability and other cloud computing related issues.

SF launches PolicySF to help governments share ideas

Luke Fretwell — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:30:17 +0000

The City of San Francisco has launched PolicySF, a Website to ‘help communities share good ideas with one another.’ The site provides ‘policy toolkits’ with FAQs, processes, sample policy documents and ordinances on SF-specific initiatives. Other governments can also share their ideas.

Initial toolkits includes Healthy SF, Plastic Bag, SF Promise, JobsNowSF! and Open Data.

SF Mayor Gavin Newsom video announcement:

New on GovFresh: ‘Fresh from: Sunlight’

Luke Fretwell — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:18:50 +0000

Fresh from: Sunlight is a new GovFresh feature that highlights the latest transparency and open government news directly from Sunlight Foundation and Sunlight Labs. Contributors will include Sunlight’s best and brightest, including transparency hunk Jake Brewer.

Follow the freshest from Sunlight at sunlight.govfresh.com.

Introducing the Cycle of Transparency

Jake Brewer — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:47:06 +0000

Government transparency is that rarest of political phenomena — a great idea with support across the political spectrum and popularity among the public. Yet, here we are in the 21st century with every tool we would need to make government more transparent and accountable, and still we are operating with a government that often behaves as it did in the 19th century.

So, transparent government is a good thing, but we do not yet have one. Now what?

It’s clear that there is a breakdown between conceptual support for the idea of government transparency and enacting the changes necessary to make it so. There is fear and resistance to change inside government that requires cultural, political, and attitude adjustments. And there’s a large gap between the good intentions of citizens and watchdog groups and think tanks and reporters, and translating those good intentions into effective results. Many people want to act, but they rarely know how or where to begin.

For many, the concept of transparency still simply feels too vague to get behind in a meaningful way. People strongly support transparency in theory, but don’t know what they would need to do, or how they would need to think, to create the “open, transparent government” we talk about.

We’ve grappled with these challenges at Sunlight since our founding four years ago, and have been thinking about it with increased urgency over the last year in particular. How do we connect all the necessary parties and resources, and how do we put them together and act on them in the right way to actually make government more open and transparent?

Perhaps even more challenging: how do we explain it to people in a way that helps them know where they fit?

Now, the pieces are falling into place.

We know that at the heart of the open, transparent government we seek is ‘open’ government data that is available online and in real-time.

Government information should be as accessible to us as information about the weather, sports scores or knowing what’s going on in the stock market — and we need it to be this way so we can both hold government accountable and create new enterprise with what is made available to us.

In order to reach our vision of an open government – or an online, real-time government – we also know there are a number of “things” that must occur – and not just occur once, but continue to happen over time and continuously reinforce each other along the way.

This “Cycle of Transparency” demonstrates, in one image, the specific actions and the variety of actors that need to work together to create the open, transparent government we seek. We hope this graphic can be a useful tool in thinking about how to make city, state, federal, and even international governments more transparent.

Each type of actor and action complements the others in the Cycle to make every other element easier, or even possible at all. Of great importance is that just about anyone – from hardcore Internet developers to academics to government staff to reporters to activists – has a place in it.

One of the first places we often start in talking about transparency is in the crafting of policies that require the release of data from government. While no one piece of this Cycle is “first” or more important than others, the legislative component is a useful starting point. (Mostly because it’s the first one we wrote down.)

Lawmakers, lobbyists and think tanks (as well as citizens) all play a role in articulating new transparency policies and pushing them through the twists and turns of government processes. Those policies must adhere to core principles of openness, such as making sure government data is “raw,” that it is complete, or that it is searchable (in total, there are nine of these openness principles that government data should adhere to).

These principles aren’t things that government is accustomed to just yet, so the advocacy process is pretty difficult, and the subsequent “gap” between writing new legislation and actually getting legislation passed is more like a “chasm.”

One of the beautiful aspects of open government, however, is that while laws are written (and should be passed) to require the release of government data, Congress, federal agencies, states and cities can – in most cases – become more open and transparent without new laws.

Sidenote: A great example of “enacting without law” is that no law has been passed requiring all federal legislation to be available online for 72 hours before it is debated by Congress. Yet in 2009, Congress showed again and again that it could post bills online for three days before debate without the law requiring that action. Similarly, the “Open Government Directive,” released in a memo by the White House, has made all kinds of new government data available without laws to require it. (Though, it would be ideal if Congress codified the Directive into law to give it a lasting impact.)

Once data is released, government agencies (such as the Department of Energy or Transportation) and web developers anywhere can build the necessary technology to organize the data and make it usable. Federal repositories like Data.gov or Sunlight’s National Data Catalog are great examples of this type of public/private foundation building.

In the way of analogy, one way to think about this entire process is that it turns government into a type of public data wholesaler through which the public can build retail outlets.

With data being made easily accessible, journalists and bloggers can begin to dig into it, mix it up, identify relevant information and give the data context. As that critical context is provided, citizens absorb it and spread the information to others – both online and face-to-face – and make the data actionable.

Ultimately, informed citizen action creates greater public awareness; citizens become more effective, responsible advocates; holding government accountable becomes informed by data rather than inside-the-Beltway pundits, and better decisions can be made for our democracy.

As each element of the Cycle of Transparency moves forward concurrently, bringing about the changes we need to create a more transparent government, we also identify new needs.

At the end of the day, the process that the Cycle of Transparency describes is about creating a government more deserving of our trust, and ultimately, a government that allows its citizens to fully participate and hold government accountable as our Founders intended.

Video: ‘How open source can make us a stronger society’

Luke Fretwell — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:46:27 +0000

Ingres Vice President of Product Management Deb Woods discusses Open Source for America and government policy issues around open source. Ingres is an OSFA founding member and Woods serves on its Steering Committee. She also runs the open source blog and podcast Out of the Woods.

(HT Kim Jokisch and opensource.com)

There’s a LocalGovChat for that

Luke Fretwell — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:16:09 +0000

LocalGovChat (@localgovchat) is a weekly Twitter chat to help local government communicators connect and learn from one another. Chats are held Wednesdays from 9-10 p.m. EST.

LocalGovChat is managed by Mike Rupert (@rupertmike) and Amy Taylor (@nomeatballs).

“We want to start what we hope to be an ongoing, open dialogue between local government communicators – public relations, community outreach, webmasters, graphic designers – in hopes of sharing ideas, our successes and our failures,” said Rupert.

How it works:

1. Follow the #localgovchat hashtag Twitter stream every Wednesday from 9-10 p.m. EST.
2. Tag your tweets with #localgovchat if you have comments or questions.

Open vs. Open

Bobby Caudill — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 19:00:35 +0000

As someone who’s been around the block more than once in the technology industry, I’ve had the opportunity to witness a plethora of developments, ideas and concepts, some good, some not so good. One particular debate, or perhaps, a point is confusion, is around the word ‘open’.

In the early days of computing, groups of like-minded individuals came together for the purpose of defining standard ways to ‘do things.’ For the most part, these folks realized that it was generally better for the industry, as well as the users of technology, to establish standards so that systems AND people could work together. There is no doubt that many of these groups have changed the nature of computing and technology for the better. Email flows, the internet works, people can view documents, pictures, listen to music, etc.

Standards tend to come in two varieties, open and de facto. Open standards are designed and controlled usually by some form of governing body and made available to all interested parties. De facto standards are typically owned and governed by a commercial organization and not necessarily released. Regardless of open or de facto, standards are useful to creating meaningful experiences and solutions. What’s interesting about open standards is they allow for organizations, commercial or otherwise, to develop applications and solutions that can work in a greater eco-system while allowing for innovations and creativity in the implementation of the standard. If your organization writes better code, faster code, has more bells and whistles, it has the opportunity to gain better adoption than competitors. Open standards are usually good.

Fast forward a few years to discuss the next wave of ‘open’ from a technology perspective: open source. Undoubtedly, open source software has had yet another dramatic impact on technology. I would venture to say that you would be hard pressed to find anyone who uses the Internet in any fashion who does not get benefit from the many efforts of the open source community. Web servers, email servers, browsers, and so many more applications and solutions are made freely available to the world to leverage and use. The nature of open source software is to be developed in the open, meaning, the actual source code is accessible to all who wish to see it or work on it.

I’ve introduced open standards and open source. They do share a couple common traits. They are freely available to all interested parties, they are generally developed and governed by committee and, as pointed out, they are both usually thought of as good. However, and this is a BIG however that many people seem to ignore, nowhere is there a rule that specifies open source and open standards are mutually exclusive. I will admit that where you find open source, you generally find open standards, but, think about how many commercially available products there are that are fully dependent on open standards that are not in anyway open source! I would also venture a guess that you may find open source software out there that is not dependent on open standards as well. Regardless, my point stands, while there may be some really good reasons to use open source and open standards in conjunction with each other, nothing says it HAS to be this way.

So, why do so many technologists lump open source and open standards together as if they are the same thing?

I think it is also a good idea to point out the that the goals of these two efforts, while sometimes complementary, are not the same. Open standards are driving for interoperability between systems or applications, while, the goal of open source is to make high-quality software available to the market free of charge.

One more fast forward, let’s add the third wave of open, that of open government. Open government carries with it the promise of dramatically altering the way citizens view and engage with government. There is the promise of unprecedented levels of transparency, participation and collaboration, driving accountability and effectiveness like never before. Like open source and open standards, there’s no doubt open government has the potential to be a good thing, right?

Now back to word ‘open.’ Just like there are people who make the mistake of lumping together open source and open standards as if they are the same, I’m now witnessing people adding open government to the ‘bundle,’ making the assumption that for government to be open, it must rely solely on open source and open standards. Now really folks, I will not argue that the end goal of open government will not in many ways benefit from open standards and to some extent open source, but, are they really mutually exclusive? Are there no opportunities for innovative commercial products and services, de facto standards, and custom solutions in open government?

Unlike open source and open standards, open government is about far more than technology or access to ‘raw’ data. In fact, to illustrate my point, doesn’t open government also need to take into consideration a few little non-technical details, such as new policies and behavioral changes??

I do understand the tendency to view the world through personal filters, where we assume everyone else has the same perspectives and needs, but, we need to question the idea that adding the word ‘open’ to something automatically associates it to all others things dubbed ‘open.’ That approach can be quite limiting and short-sighted. Rather, especially with regards to open government, let’s help our government leaders by keeping them focus on the desired outcomes, their intended audience and only then, allow the discussion of which technologies to bring to the party.

Remember, open government should be about people, not technology.