The Participation Company
Update 07/06/2010: Apparently, the site isn’t new at all (new to me, though). My bad. Still… nice work! Once again, the UK leads the way and shows us what’s possible… The newly launched TellThemWhatYouThink.org is a website that promises to bring citizens a lot closer to the consultations that affect them. From the website: We collect government [...]
{ 2 comments }
Towards the end of last week’s Open Gov West conference/unconference in Seattle, WA a series of follow-up meetings on the West Coast was announced, the first of which is scheduled to happen in San Francisco, CA the week after next: San Francisco OGW Meetup: April 12th 6-8 PM We’re continuing the conversations from the Open [...]
{ 1 comment }
As we’re gearing up for our trip to Seattle, WA to attend Open Gov West this Friday and Saturday, I saw Travis Kriplean on Twitter ask whether sessions will be recorded. Here’s my plea: I encourage every attendee to bring their audio, photo and video gear and help record as many sessions as possible. I [...]
{ 2 comments }
Looks like I finally get to attend one of the many events on Gov 2.0 and Open Government: Open Gov West The greater Northwest and Cascadia region is buzzing with innovative technology and civic engagement organizations, and a number of governments throughout the area have already launched open government directives. Hosted by the City of [...]
{ 1 comment }
For some time, I’ve been suggesting the creation of a national public participation calendar and project directory as a key component of the Open Government Directive: May 2009: Open Government Dialogue: “Create an Open Government Project Directory and Knowledge Base” January 2010: Open Government Needs Public Participation Calendars Based on this post on NextGov, it looks like [...]
{ 1 comment }
A few days ago, a new site was launched that helps track activity across the 23 federal agencies that are using IdeaScale for their consultations on Open Government: OpenGov Tracker This webpage makes use of the IdeaScale API to aggregate data for all agencies which are making use of that platform. USDA and Health and [...]
{ 1 comment }
Following up on my list of ten things to monitor, I’ve started a thread on GovLoop: Monitoring and continuous evaluation of OpenGov forums Here’s my initial post: As part of my ongoing efforts to monitor the various feedback channels that have been launched as part of the Open Government Directive, I’ll be tracking some basic [...]
{ 3 comments }
Now that a whole lot of agency.gov/open websites are live and many agencies have indeed set up a ”mechanism for the public to [...] [p]rovide input on the agency’s Open Government Plan” it’s time to figure out what to watch out for over the coming weeks and months in order to evaluate the success of these initiatives. As [...]
{ 13 comments }
Update 2010/02/15: Added feeds for Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to the list below, added National Archives to Pipes feed. The Open Government Directive, issued on December 8, 2009 stated: 1. Publish Government Information Online [...] e. Within 60 days, each agency shall create an Open Government Webpage located at http://www.[agency].gov/open to serve [...]
{ 10 comments }
There’s a flurry of conferences, unconferences and hybrids being planned that address Government 2.0 and Open Government, including — of course — the topic of participation. Here’s a list of events on our radar for the first half of 2010: February 5-7, 2010: Gov 2.0 Camp Los Angeles in Los Angeles, CA February 17, 2010: Open [...]
{ 5 comments }
Over at Sunlight Labs, they have some design suggestions today around how federal agencies should approach their new /open website sections with regard to data. Here’s the comment I just left (pretty much the same point I made on the OSTP blog a few weeks ago when they were seeking input on an Open Government [...]
{ 8 comments }
As was already mentioned at last week’s Open Government Directive Workshop event in DC (see video, starts at around 1:14:20), the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) has announced it will offer IdeaScale to federal agencies free of charge in order to help them comply with the tight deadlines presented in the Open Government Directive. From the press release: [...]
{ 6 comments }
In a post on the White House blog today, Aneesh Chopra, Federal Chief Technology Officer and the Associate Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, follows up on some of the questions that went unanswered during the FAQ on Tuesday: Answering Your Questions on the Open Government Directive Russ Gaskin of Washington, DC commented: [...]
{ 1 comment }
Now that the Open Government Directive is finally out, it’s been interesting to sift through the reactions and read what people think about it. As several people have noted (here, here), the Open Government Directive’s immediate focus — at least quantitatively — seems to be much more on transparency than on the other two pillars, [...]
{ 2 comments }
Being eagerly awaited by many in the field, the Open Government Directive was released this morning: Open Government Directive (PDF, 84 KB) Here’s a summary of snippets that deal with participation and engagement: Participation allows members of the public to contribute ideas and expertise so that their government can make policies with the benefit of [...]
{ 5 comments }
The other day, I mentioned on Twitter how I sometimes wish there were a glossary of the key terms and definitions that guide our conversations around participation. With the Open Government Directive expected to be released within a few weeks, one challenge remains that people don’t necessarily mean the same thing when they discuss participation and [...]
{ 5 comments }
Earlier today, the FASTForward Blog hosted a webinar discussion with Beth Simone Noveck, US Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Open Government, and Andrew Rasiej, the co-founder of the Personal Democracy Forum, titled: Gov 2.0: The Collaborative Opportunities of Open Government A recording of the webinar is available on the FASTForward Blog. I was lucky enough to get [...]
{ 2 comments }
A number of organizations (listed below) are doing a survey to capture participant feedback from the recent Open Government Dialogue. From the survey introduction: On his first day in office, President Obama issued a memorandum to leaders of executive departments and government agencies calling for the development of recommendations for an Open Government Directive, that [...]
{ 0 comments }
While working on the previous post, I couldn’t help but think how valuable it would be for participants, researchers and everyone else interested if these high-level participation metrics were readily available in real-time on the site that hosts the discussion, rather than having to dig them up manually and deal with incomplete information, assumptions and more or [...]
{ 14 comments }
Conversations Elsewhere