Does Yo Mama Know About "Open Government"?

Comment

Comment by Tim Evans on August 5, 2010 at 9:13am

Metrics data on agency open government pages (that is, visits and page views) are pretty abysmal, indicating no one cares. Postings on agency IdeaScale sites were mainly the same, tired, old, topics that have come over other Public Inquiries transoms for as long as I can remember.

Comment by Justin Mosebach on August 5, 2010 at 8:32am

@Andrew If I was going to do that, I should have done it soon after we interviewed people. Since it was back in March, I don't remember it all that well.

Comment by transportgooru on August 3, 2010 at 12:48pm

There is a growing trend within the public transportation community about Open data. The good folks at Street Films put together a nice video that offers a good argument why we need to do this.

Comment by Joshua Folk on August 3, 2010 at 11:01am

@ Christopher @ Andrew - No, the Obama Open Government mandate does not apply to states. However, two states chose to mandate similar open government initiatives before Obama took office.

New York - Governor Spitzer with Executive Order #3 (http://www.state.ny.us/governor/executive_orders/exeorders/3.html). In this, the Governor actually requires every agency to broadcast its meetings over the internet.

California - Governor Schwarzenegger with Executive Order S-21-06 (http://gov.ca.gov/index.php?/press-release/4575/). In this, he too makes reference to increasing video streaming of public meetings for open government.

In both cases lack of funding has prohibited most agencies to follow through on their respective executive orders. NYS has done a better job than California in my opinion.

Perhaps this touches on another discussed issue: can we achieve open government with unfunded policies?

Comment by Andrew Krzmarzick on August 3, 2010 at 9:54am

@Gadi - I like the distinction between marketing and outreach. And it'd definitely the latter that needs to happen. It's much more akin to grassroots organizing...a la Obama's 2008 run for the White House. People were empowered to take charge of the campaign. Agencies need to do the same for their initiatives.

@Justin You should write a "behind the scenes" blog post, sharing what you learned about people's knowledge of open government when you were pounding the pavement. The video is half the story, eh?

Comment by Justin Mosebach on August 3, 2010 at 9:43am

@Andrew I think average citizens need to know what it means. I remember that when we did the video, we would at least sometimes have to explain/clarify what we meant by "Open Government", so they could answer the question.

Comment by Gadi Ben-Yehuda on August 2, 2010 at 11:36am

Andy - I don't see data release as the only issue, I was responding only to what Keith Moore had posted.

I guess we could call what I'm calling for 'marketing,' but I prefer the term 'outreach.' Outreach speaks more to an ongoing discussion around an evolving issue, whereas marketing (to me) is about advertising a finished product. What we're trying to say is "hey, there's a new kind of governance afoot and it needs more active participants." the goal is to get more people involved. We're not saying "Hey, we've done this great thing for you--aren't you happy (and aren't we great)?" That's back-patting and is more in line with what I think of as 'marketing.'

I agree that people need to know that they're invited to the table. But I think it's even more than that. We need to let people know that Gov 2.0--including open government--depends on their involvement and that without it, all these initiatives will wither.

Comment by Andrew Krzmarzick on August 2, 2010 at 11:30am

@Justin Do you think people need to know the definition of "open government?" My sense is 'no'. But they do need to know that they have been invited to a table that, until now, had seemed to be behind a locked door.

@Gadi - Do you see open government as an issue of data release only? I think it's bigger than that...but agree that the key is marketing.

Comment by Justin Mosebach on August 2, 2010 at 11:24am

Yeah, I'm not sure how many of the general public know what the term "Open Government" means. We did a man-on-the-street type of video collage (for Sunshine Week back in March) where we asked citizens (and a few elected officials from our County who use our solutions) about Open Government-related topics. http://bit.ly/byAP23

Comment by Gadi Ben-Yehuda on August 2, 2010 at 11:12am

I think that we're still at the point where we're uncovering data, seeing which is utile and what other data feeds are necessary to make what is currently irreducible into beneficial applications.

Part of the problem is that this is all so new, we are bound to release irrelevant data. Like the saying goes, "I know half my marketing works, I just don't know which half." That's being optimistic when it comes to data feeds.

What we need to spend more time (and perhaps money) doing is marketing the feeds. Putting the private sector to work. Actively recruiting developers to make applications that people spend money for based on the data we're releasing. Or, alternately, mashing the data up and presenting it to government to streamline management and operations, thus saving departments time and money.

Moving beyond "build it and they will come." Moving to "we'll let you build your house free on our property and then we'll rent it from you."

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