Introduction and Overview

I recently got clued in to an effort underway in the Federal government that took on significant momentum with the election of President Barack Obama called Government 2.0.

According to Wikipedia, “Government 2.0 is an attempt to provide more effective processes for government service delivery to individuals and businesses. Integration of tools such as wikis, development of government-specific social networking sites and the use of blogs, RSS feeds and Google Maps are all helping governments provide information to people in a manner that is more immediately useful to the people concerned.”

ZDNet’s Dion Hinchcliffe (where I got the graphic above) observes: “There is a distance between us and our government, at least for most of us, that is reminiscent of paternal days of old when getting involved, unless it was your local assembly, was something that few people had the ability to do. Government was for people who could join it and make a career of it, and many have indeed dedicated their lives to public service. Now, however, there is the means to enable many, many more to be involved and to potentially create a government that fits us and serves us, in our time, better than it can in its present form.”

The main idea of Government 2.0 is to make government more transparent, participatory, collaborative, and to make government and democracy more responsive to average citizens. These directives are based on President Obama’s Memorandum for Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies on Transparency and Open Government. Harnessing the power of Internet-related technologies in the service of democracy — quite an idealistic proposition!

A blog detailing the latest Federal projects and initiatives can directly be accessed at the Open Government Initiative section and the New Media section of the White House web site.  In the Innovations Gallery, “the public can browse examples of new ways in which agencies across the Executive branch are using transparency, participation, and collaboration to achieve their mission.”

These projects include:

• Healthreform.gov

• Open for Questions

• Development 2.0 Challenge

• TSA Idea Factory

The Players

The main people and offices I am currently reading up on and following in regards to the Government 2.0 initiative are:

• Vivek Kundra, Federal Chief Information Officer (CIO). From Wikipedia: “The Federal Chief Information Officer is responsible for directing the policy and strategic planning of federal information technology investments as well as for oversight of federal technology spending. The Federal CIO establishes and oversees enterprise architecture to ensure system interoperability and information sharing and maintains information security and privacy across the federal government.”

• Macon Philips, Director of New Media at the White House. From Wikipedia: Philips has “oversight responsibility for Whitehouse.gov. Phillips’ efforts at Whitehouse.gov will be closely coordinated with internet operations at the Democratic National Committee, which has responsibility for administration of the BarackObama.com domain and website.”

• Beth Noveck, Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Open Government

• Katie Stanton, Director of Citizen Participation

• Bev Godwin, Director of Online Resources and Interagency Development at the White House New Media Department. She is on detail to the White House from the U.S. General Services Administration, where she serves as Director of USA.gov and Web Best Practices.

• The Federal Office of Science and Technology Policy. From their web site: “Congress established OSTP in 1976 with a broad mandate to advise the President and others within the Executive Office of the President on the effects of science and technology on domestic and international affairs. The 1976 Act also authorizes OSTP to lead interagency efforts to develop and implement sound science and technology policies and budgets, and to work with the private sector, state and local governments, the science and higher education communities, and other nations toward this end.”

My Thoughts on Government 2.0

Bottom line: any effort by the government to make governance more participatory, transparent and collaborative between ordinary citizens and government is a good—no, a GREAT—thing.

I am not the first nor the only person who has observed that there is a great hunger in the general population for meaningful participation in and collaboration with government. Government 2.0 is the very first wide-ranging, Federal effort to harness the power of Internet-related technologies to make this idea into a practical reality. I don’t know enough yet about practical implementation of this concept to have a critical perspective on it so I welcome any comments that put these efforts through a rigorous, analytical framework and critique it.

What I do know is I want to be part of this effort. I want to experience Government 2.0 in my position as an ordinary citizen living in a democracy. I want to try these technologies out for real in my day-to-day life and see if they actually make the practice of democracy better for the average citizen—study and test the usability of these technologies and processes, if you will.

My questions at this time:

• Is finding out about opportunities for average citizens to participate in Government 2.0 an easy, user-friendly process? Is government actually making it easy for citizens to participate and communicating opportunities to do so to the general public in a timely and wide-ranging manner?

• I imagine there will be a dizzyingly large array of ongoing projects along these lines. Will the average citizen have an easy, user-friendly interface by which they can pick and choose which projects to explore, join and study further? By this I mean will the process of getting educated about these projects be overly complex and cumbersome for the average citizen or will it be simple and user-friendly?

• Is access to all of these technologies within the reach of the average citizen? Other than access to a computer and the Internet do average people have to have special equipment, skills, knowledge and security clearances?

• Once the average citizen has gained access and is now motivated to action—are avenues for action made available at all? Are these actions user-friendly and simple to execute? Are these actions convenient for the user to be worthwhile?

• Do these actions actually reach decision-makers in government and are taken seriously by those who matter in government?

• Do these tools and processes lend themselves to collective action? Are they designed with only individual actions in mind or do they accommodate for the very basic idea that in a democracy, people can unite and organize to advocate for themselves?

I am sure there will be more questions as I delve deeper into exploring what the Federal government has to offer in terms of Government 2.0 initiatives and I find out more about efforts centered on the state and local level. Right now I want to keep an open mind and an optimistic and positive outlook as I set aside time in my day to day life to delve into these new media efforts and try them out myself.

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Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

• So You Want to be an Engaged Citizen II
• More on the Wall Street Crisis
• Why Democracy?
• Open Government: Implementation Guidance