Here are three questions I am asking myself after listening to Nicholas Thompson, Craig Newmark, Mindy Finn, Ellen Miller, and Sascha Meinrath in yesterday’s fascinating panel discussion organized by the New America Foundation — ‘Wiki White House: Can Obama Use Technology to Transform Government?‘ –
Question 1. What do we mean when we say that we want Barack Obama to usher in an era of government 2.0?
Several people have written about their expectations from (Barack Obama’s) government 2.0.
These two great reports from the Federal Web Managers Council were often mentioned in the panel discussion — ‘Putting Citizens First: Transforming Online Government’ (PDF) and ‘Barriers and Solutions to Implementing Social Media in Government’ (PDF).
The first report is a recommendation to Obama’s transition team that focuses on the initiatives needed to make online government data and processes more user friendly.
The second report details the various barriers to the use of social media in government — perceived or real lack of resources, cultural resistance, or legal or bureaucratic barriers — and suggests solutions.
Tom Steinberg of MySociety.org lists the top five priorities for any government running a reasonably developed country (via Ellen Miller) — hire staff who understand what the internet really means for government, freely share non-personal government data, allow third parties to build mashups on top of government data, build a platform/ process for participatory policy debate, and allow citizens using a government process to connect with each other.
Douglas Mcgray from New America Foundation also talks about the benefits of opening up government data in an article in The Atlantic Monthly.
Mark Drapeau suggests that government can use social media tools for three purposes: sharing internal information, creating and nurturing relationships with non-governmental entities, and empowering people.
It is obvious that different people associate different things with government 2.0. In essence, they are talking about five different level of government 2.0, which can be plotted on a scale of 1 to 5 where 5 is the most radical version of government 2.0 –
Level 1. Allowing government employees and elected officials at all levels to access and use social media tools like blogs, wikis and social networks to connect with their constituents.
Level 2. The strategic use of social media tools like blogs, wikis and social networks by government agencies to achieve their objectives and solicit citizen feedback to improve their processes.
Level 3. A participatory platform that engages citizens in policy debates and voluntary service at all levels of the government.
Level 4. Open availability of all non-sensitive and non-personal government data so that citizens can use it and third parties can build web 2.0 mashups on top of it.
Level 5. Crowd-sourcing the government, party by institutionalizing a process that directly uses the aforementioned participatory platform as an important input into government functions, including policy formation.
Ellen Miller nailed it best when she said that transparency and communications are two different things in Government 2.0. Levels 1, 2, and 3 are about communications. Levels 4 and 5 are about transparency.
Question 2. Will Barack Obama actually usher in an era of government 2.0?
It depends of which level of government 2.0 you are talking about.
Level 1 of governance 2.0 would have been inevitable with or without Obama, because social media tools will soon become as ubiquitous (and boring, and, therefore, truly powerful) as email and not using them will be downright silly. See Mark Drapeau in MediaShift on government social ambassadors, Colleen Graffy in The Washington Post on Twitter Diplomacy, Aaron Brazell on the congressional online video controversy and the Let Our Congress Tweet petition by Sunlight Foundation. There is even a social network for the US government community: GovLoop. See Steve Ressler from GovLoop on informal government networks.
Obama’s focus on technology will help break down bureaucratic barriers in government agencies and we’ll see more level 2 type strategic use of social media tools. See James K Glassman on Public diplomacy 2.0, Walter Picnus in Washington Post on blog diplomacy and Mark Drapeau on government agency brands.
Level 1 and level 2 government 2.0 initiatives are already happening, albeit in isolated pockets. Here are three lists: social media initiatives by US government agencies (PDF), active and archived US government blogs, and US government agencies and employees on Twitter.
We have seen with Change.gov and USAService.org and that the Obama transition team seems committed to involve citizens in governance, so level 3 of governance 2.0 is already happening. See Gartner report on social computing in government and Anthony Williams on the need for a Dell Ideastorm for government.
I also believe that increasingly more government agencies will open up their data and allow third parties to build mashups on top of their data. The DC Government’s Apps for Democracy contest is one of the most talked about examples of this. Still, many government agencies will continue to be either unwilling or unable to share their data openly, so, even if the White House mandates it, we’ll only see a partial realization of level 4 of government 2.0.
Government initiatives at the first four levels will be supplemented by similar platforms created by third parties, like the PublicMarkup (level 3), MapLight (level 4) and CongressPedia (level 4) initiatives by Sunlight Foundation (via Anthony Williams). However, such initiatives will only be successful if they reach a critical mass in terms of participation, so that the government is forced to pay attention to them.
Many observers mistakenly think of Obama’s presidential campaign as bottom-up and open, when it was very top down and controlled in reality. The campaign maintained very tight control both on sensitive campaign information and the central message of change, even as it provided its supporters the platforms and tools to spread that message. It is naive to assume that the Obama government will be more open than the Obama campaign. So, even though we’ll see isolated examples, such as the Peer to Patent initiative by the US Patent Office, level 5 of government 2.0, therefore, will have to wait for a few more years.
Question 3. Will US citizens become disenchanted with Barack Obama’s version of government 2.0?
I think that the Obama government will be able to walk the tightrope of allowing just the right level of participation so that a small core retains all the control but the wider community feels empowered.
Just as communications and transparency are two distinct things, perception and reality are also not the same. It seems to me that even though the level 5 ideal of government 2.0 will only be partly realized under the Obama administration, enough will happen on levels 1 to 4 to create a perception of a participatory government.
Also see: Craig Newmark, Colin Delany and Steve Sanford share their impressions of the Wiki White House event.
Earlier, in September 2008, David Weinberger, Mark Drapeau, Mark O’ Toole and Anthony Williams had shared their impressions of another interesting panel discussion on Government 2.0 and Beyond: Harnessing Collective Intelligence.
Cross-posted at Social Media in Business, Development and Government.
