Posts Tagged: transparency

Making legislation readable – 3 Ways

Have you ever sat down to read a Congressional bill? Probably not. They are difficult to understand, use bureaucratic language and are generally unreadable. So it’s no wonder that most of us don’t have the inclination to pick up a bill and read through it. But this lack of understanding is creating a void betweenRead… Read more »

Accountability Watch

I would like to see a proliferation of sites like VA Accountability across federal, state and local government agencies. The concept could be extended to include information (names, dates, summaries) about EEO complaints, grievances, and other administrative information exposing corrupt management to the world. This gets to the heart of corruption in government that isRead… Read more »

Open Government Australia – Betrayal and Corruption

In May 2010 Nicholas Gruen of the Australian Gov 2.0 Taskforce published The last post: now for the main event – you! In July 2010 Lindsay Tanner issued the Declaration of Open Government. In many ways Australia was leading the way. We all knew hard work lay ahead, but the outlook was rosy. Open data,Read… Read more »

More Transparency Needed for Federal Communicators to Build Public Trust

As a federal communicator, are you able to share as much information and data with the public as needed, or is real transparency just the latest buzzword? Do you often run into antiquated bureaucratic stonewalls and other internal obstacles when trying to foster greater transparency and open government? If so, this is likely problematic notRead… Read more »

Throwing Rocks and Birds

Sometimes my summer reading list takes unanticipated paths. . . . Here are some highlights from an older report from the UK that feels like it could have been written today! In 2002, British academic Jake Chapman wrote a paper for Demos, a UK think tank, entitled: “System Failure: Why Governments Must Learn to ThinkRead… Read more »

Why Metrics Matter

The Administration is pushing for more performance metrics. They launched Performance.gov in June 2011. So how is it going? And why should these metrics matter? Dennis D. McDonald is an independent consultant. He has written a white paper on web-based performance metrics, “Developing Digital Strategies for Web-based Public Access.” He told Chris Dorobek on theRead… Read more »

Default Open Data – Not just a philosophy but a directive

Default open data; that was one of the big takeaways from the Digital Government Strategy released last year. But the DGS was a bit murkey on how agencies should implement open data. The White House has formalized that dilemma with the Open Data Directive released in May. Hudson Hollister is the Executive Director for theRead… Read more »

To Infinity And Beyond – Using Open Data to Create Space Apps.

Sol is the world’s first interplanetary weather app, it integrates weather data from the Curiosity rover on Mars with weather data from here on Earth. The app was developed by Ingenology for the NASA Space App Challenge. Mike Wilson is the President of Ingenology. He told Chris Dorobek on the DorobekINSIDER program that the appRead… Read more »

Open Data: The Latest Step toward Federal Government Transparency

Another chapter of the open government initiative has been written as the White House announced the implementation of the newly minted Open Data Policy earlier this month. Designed to incorporate all forms of information, the policy dictates a new standard for maintaining data. The standard requires all data be “open and machine-readable.” By forcing allRead… Read more »

Default Open Data – For Real This Time

The White House is ushering a new normal when it comes the federal government’s data. The administration’s new policy and executive order are the forcing functions to make data accessible and open that has been missing over the last decade. The Sunlight Foundation’s policy director John Wonderlich told Chris Dorobek on the DorobekINSIDER program thatRead… Read more »