Government 2.0: improve the efficiency of service and information delivery to increase accountability and transparency
Expose data, facilitate exchange of information and make it available and easily accessible to citizens.
Information is crucial for civic life and the use of blogs, wikis, tweets and RSS feed in the government opens a two-way information exchange and permits social networking. Like in the media, sharing information gives citizens more power.
At the Web 2.0 Expo, Andrew McLaughlin, Director of Global Public Policy for Google, presented an overview of Government 2.0:
“The potential for Government 2.0 is both real and exciting: technology-wise, we can now cheaply and efficiently enable a government that is transparent, participatory, collaborative, and effective. But there are some very real, very stubborn obstacles in the form of outdated laws, regulations, and policies.”
Why is it crucial to set up this website now?
What is the mandate of Recovery.gov?
–> “To help citizens track the spending of funds allocated by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.”
Carry out ARRA in full transparency and accountability. Reduce layers of government.
Who is in charge of this website?
–> The Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board members have now been selected (complaints that it had not been formed)
WELCOME TO RECOVERY.GOV
President Obama wants to push transparency of the government by allowing people to come and get information instead of having information delivered to them.
Readers are able to read the FULL bill right on the website
WHERE IS MONEY GOING?
People can “track” exactly WHERE their money is going. There is no reason why people should spend money and not know where or why it is being spent.
Obama not only wants people to be aware of where their money is going, but also wants people to see the progress of the recovery bill.
SHARE YOUR RECOVERY STORY:
“Tell us how the Recovery Act is affecting you. What’s working? What isn’t?”
–> Invites citizens to share their story.
–> Using the features of Web 2.0 to INVOLVE people:
Not only wants to reach people but wants people to reach the government: asks for personal input
Read and write function
CHECK FOR PROGRESS:
Obama is using Web 2.0 to revolutionize the government itself. Creating this website is a way of bringing back transparency and accountability to the government. If government’s actions and goals are directly available online, there is no way to cover up for failure, to exaggerate consequences of money being spent, or lie about where the money is going.
RECOVERY WEBPAGES:
Transparency and Accountability to all areas of the government:
–> 25 departments and agencies that have received recovery aid have set up their webpages listed and accessible to visitors.
–> Ask people to come back and check for updates!
What people think of Recovery.gov: “I do like how the Obama websites all kinda look the same and feel comfortable to the user. Each one has simple navigation, and the information is easily accessible. This really is the first transparently techy president.”
Blog
Somewhat like any blog, not only political (eg: NATO and Afghanistan, The First Lady at the Notre Dame Cathedral, Obama’s Weekly Address, Open for Questions Follow-Up, News on the G20 Summit…)
Criticism: WhiteHouse.gov/blog does not allow for comments
Most interesting part of WhiteHouse.gov is the Open for Questions section (Education, Home Ownership, Health Care Reform, Veterans, Small Business, Auto Industry…)
–> 92,937 people have submitted 103,981 questions and cast 3,602,695 votes
–> Participants of all ages may post questions to the President about the economy on WhiteHouse.gov. Participants will also be able to rate the questions and the President will answer some of the most popular ones.
–> “Double” user partcipation: the success of this test really depends on users and their collaboration
* Users post questions and then are able to rate them for popularity or flag them if they consider the questions violate the terms of participation
The Agenda
Lists the challenges that the new administration faces:
–> Civil rights, defense, disabilities, economy, education, energy and environment, ethics, family, foreign policy, healthcare, immigration, Iraq, poverty, taxes, technology…
Also gives the Obama-Biden administration’s detailed position on all these issues on the White House’s agenda
israelpolitik.org –> political
isRealli.org –> life
–> Project of the Israeli Consulate in New York City (5298 followers on March 10th and 5513 followers on April 5th)
–> Goal is to rectify the typical image of Israel: “deserts, warfare and bloody conflict.” Show the real face of Israel, beyond what the media dictates to the people.
–> Blog built as “a platform for the Consulate General of Israel in New York to directly address audiences throughout the world and to serve as a vehicle to better communicate the State of Israel’s message of hope and peace”
–> Who administers the blog?
* David Saranga and his team
* David Saranga is the Consul for Media and Public Affairs at the Consulate General in New York. Maintains direct contact with America’s New York-based national media and oversees public relations initiatives as part of Israel’s branding strategy.
* First Israeli diplomat to implement new media methods (Web 2.0) in the field of public diplomacy.
Q&A Section:
Bloggers post questions and David Saranga answers.
Example of questions:
Is a 48-hour cease-fire (as proposed by France) a possible scenario for assessing Hamas’s intentions?
Have the attacks in Gaza changed Israel’s policies regarding the Palestinian Authority?
40 years of military confrontation hasn’t brought security to Israel, why is this different?
Why have you chosen to come on Twitter. Is that not political in itself?
–> We saw debate on Twitter and saw people who had unreliable information. We felt Twitter would be a good way to put an official voice out there.
What are you doing to ensure the media is objective when covering the conflict?
–> This is one of our attempts to open Israel up to questions, in addition to using the mainstream media.
The Situation in Sderot (city in the South of Israel):
Videos posted:
Israeli launches missiles on Gaza
Israeli air strike kills Hamas militant
Palestinian rockets hit Sderot city
Comment Policy
Link to Twitter Widget
Link to Facebook page
Blog directly sponsored by the TSA to “facilitate an ongoing dialogue on innovations in security, technology and the checkpoint screening process”
Bloggers:
Bob: TSA since 2002
Lynn: TSA since 2006
Nico: TSA since 2002
Paul: Arrived at TSA right after college
Option to follow TSA bloggers on their Twitter
–> Bloggers post updates (change clocks!), answer questions directly on Twitter (lapel pins? Bob answers on the blogger’s Twitter), redirect to blogposts on the TSA blogs
Possibility to:
* “Digg This!”
* “Save to del.icio.us”
* “Link to Technorati”
* “Share on Facebook”
Comment on every blog post, and sometimes get feedback/answer from one of the bloggers
Follow with Feedburner
Project conceived at the New York Law School by Beth Noveck and run in cooperation with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO).
The goal of this pilot is to prove that organized public participation can improve the quality of issued patents.
“represents the first significant effort to apply social software (that allows users to interact and share data) directly to the decision-making process of the federal government”
Institutions that sponsored the pilot program: MacArthur Foundation, Omidyar Network, General Electric, IBM, HP
Many direct competitors joined together to sponsor this initiative. Why?
–> Technology companies were eager to submit their patents to broader public review because their applications would move up to the front of the line.
Who participates and what how?
–> 2,500 registered participants, teams bringing together participants from 152 countries, nearly 350 items of prior art submitted on 121 applications.
–> Can be individual volunteers, although it is better to join a team with an online workspace.
–> At the end of their study, teams submit the ten most compelling examples of prior art to the patent examiner. Patent examiner benefits from annotations from team.
–> Almost three-quarters of the patent examiners involved in the pilot process indicated they would like to see Peer-to-Patent implemented as a regular office practice.
Question raised on the Gov 2.0 Summit website: “How do we bridge the culture of web innovation, forged around the world and in Silicon Valley, with the culture of political innovation?”
