In 7 Words or Less, How Ready Is Your Agency For Open Gov?
As the White House readies its open government directive, GovLoop & NextGov have teamed up to ask:
"How Ready is Your Agency for Open Gov?". Share your thoughts below.
Nextgov recently released a survey of federal mangers in October and found out that while most feds are open to the idea of making more government data available and asking for the public’s input, they don’t think they or their agencies are quite ready to do so. See more here.
Visit Nextgov to see the first of a three part series on the survey’s results and come back here on GovLoop to discuss what you think the results mean.
"How Ready is Your Agency for Open Gov?". Share your thoughts below.
Nextgov recently released a survey of federal mangers in October and found out that while most feds are open to the idea of making more government data available and asking for the public’s input, they don’t think they or their agencies are quite ready to do so. See more here.
Visit Nextgov to see the first of a three part series on the survey’s results and come back here on GovLoop to discuss what you think the results mean.
Tags: nextgov, open government, opengov
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Daniel Bevarly on -
How do you or NextGov define "Open Government"? Access to data?
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Permalink Reply by GovLoop on -
My sense is that most agencies are not 100% ready and will be in a wait and see mode.
This is for a couple reasons:
-Still defining what "Open Government" truly means as a definition and practically
-Cultural changes needed to truly create open government
-Any new directive takes time to trickle down from the administrator into practice as the agency level.
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Permalink Reply by Tom Vannoy on -
We are strategizing how best to implement.
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Permalink Reply by Tom Vannoy on
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And...
Two years talking: people now talking back.
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Permalink Reply by GovLoop on
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Makes sense. Wonder what the lag would be from strategizing to implementation. From early adopter agencies to mainstream agencies.
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Permalink Reply by Tom Vannoy on
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I think one of our biggest struggles (by our I mean those that share the passion for the subject) is a generational gap at the Executive Board level. I think the groundswell is having its affect and now we have a few who get it - which is exciting. The preparation, thinking, benchmarking the rest of us have been doing all along will speed up the implementation - because we're ready to run with it based on what others have shared about their experiences.
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Permalink Reply by jeff watkins on -
I can attest to the generational mismatch. In our situation, we have young people who are technologically savvy, but lack the political savvy of their elders, which leads to skepticism on the older staff and frustration on the younger staff. Additionally, implementation will not go well if the organization sees itself more as a regulator versus a service provider and its constituents as customers. Many of the executive level folks see their place (in particular at the local level) as regualtory and therefore the idea of social media has no place in their world.
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Permalink Reply by Tom Vannoy on
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Jeff - great points! Political savvy vs technological savvy. And regulator vs. service provider.
Food for thought.
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Permalink Reply by Andrew Krzmarzick on -
Not sure the generational mismatch is about technology...but in the ways each generation learned in school:
Veterans - by the book, what others said, degrees as means to a specific end, community-oriented, but individual needs to prove value through hard work
Boomers - by the book and learn as much as you can, those who control info win, very individualistic
Gen X - just give me the information I need to get the job done fast, teams are alright, but I'd prefer to get it done myself
Gen Y - do I really need to memorize/learn anything when I have ubiquitous, real-time access to everything I need to know in the palm of my hand? Everything's in the crowd.
This is the rub with open gov - the next generations are more comfortable with it because they were trained to be information sharers and work in teams. Boomers terrified because it means opening up and letting folks see what's going on...the antithesis of their typical modus operandi.
The tech is only an enabler of this reality. Open Gov is really government waking up and realizing that privacy is gone and everything we do is wide open because of the technology. "Bring it on," I think the next generation is saying, because they're used to operating that way.
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Permalink Reply by Andrew Krzmarzick on
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Just want to acknowledge the great conversation happening on Twitter between @GovLoop and @NoelDickover that is an extension of this discussion forum. Check it out under hashtag #OpenGov
A couple of my questions:
Is #Gov20 and #OpenGov the same thing?
Or is #OpenGov a subset of #Gov20 with a specific set of strategies and tactics for achievement?
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Permalink Reply by Stephen Buckley on
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The "open government" community has been around since before the Web. In fact, many members were advocating for open-government online before "Web1.0".
So, therefore, if "Gov2.0" is defined by "Web2.0" tools (or even "Web1.0" tools), then it is still an addition to (i.e., subset of) the larger, earlier "open government" movement.
What's somewhat galling (at least to me) is that the late arrivals are acting like Chrisotopher Columbus who thought he discovered a "new world" that, pardon me, was already inhabited by people who he then misnamed as "Indians".
What percentage of self-described Gov20ers have actually read Bill Eggers' book "Government 2.0"?
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