Transparency is so '08: Why treating data as code & collaboration are the next frontier for open gov
Question: Open government is a great first step, but how can we push towards collaborative government, the world's largest and longest-running open source project
- What differentiates open source from transparency is collaboration: the essential promise that you can see the underlying source code and make things better.
- PDF of excel spreadsheets are technically transparency, but that's really not good enough.
- A central promise of open source is not just to see the process, but participate and be able to modify source
- Nothing -> FOIA -> Open Gov -> (Collaborative Gov?)
- In terms of data and forms: open is the new default - from 'closed' to 'pull' to 'push'.
- Bespoke collaboration, smoke-filled back rooms digitized
- Version control - Who made what change when
- Government version control - Email, Paper
- Geeks running for office — not so much fun... not so effective
- Openness creates political risk, someone might not like what I have to say, hurts chances of reelection
- Perception that openness can expose bad things... not being transparent allows things to be sweapt under the rug
- It's a question of Power... openness and transparency shifts power from policymaking to public
- Politicians understand "the insider's game"... on the internet, it's a different rulebook which they don't understand (and are afraid of)
- Lack of consistency in implentation... often decided on a case-by-case or person-by-person basis
- Minutes / regulation often don't capture the entire story
- It's a human challenge, not a technical problem
- Risk that moving things online simply digitizes and makes the process more efficient... who can pay for the most thumbs
- Online, problem with identity... how do I know that you're a constituent (but do we do that in real life?)
- On the internet, nobody knows you're the guy that just left 20 minutes ago
- Meetings are the default workflow, either formal meetings or one-on-ones... how do we make government more asyncronous
- First step is to expose process, even if just publishing out
- Modeling business processes (workflows) seems like a good start. People need to understand what is happening in order to more effectively understand how to affect change.
- Working inside government, systems change is key
- Increasing visibility among business units within an agency as a first step towards collaboration
- Education is a key factor in enabling Process change. ... staffers need to understanding why
- Open listserve where anyone can participate, that gets read into meeting's minutes — violates notice requirements
- Publishing information out may eliminate the need for many meetings, universities and crowd can analyze and solve
- Meetings must be open to the public, but limited to people physically present
- Attend versus participate, often targeted at lawyers and paid representatives, not every day citizens
- reference: Regulation Room from Cornell - http://regulationroom.org
- Some cities have moved beyond email + word docs with random numbers in the file name... e.g., Oakland posted policy as a Google Doc
- Often it's just a matter of finding a simple, existing tool, and literally showing its potential to stakeholders
- MVP for an innovative effort: One geek (coder) + one wonk (policy person)
- Staffers are the ones who make the key decisions
- Rules are around meetings, not around staffers
- By the time of the meeting, decisions already made
- Meet one-on-one with individual members, can't meet with two
- Participitory planning (engage constituents for priorities) versus participitory implementation (engage participants in execution)
- Education: Workflow fieldguide, geek mentors/buddies for wonks
- CFA Brigade for policy + workflow, less for code
- Fieldguide for citizen-geeks to help their local government write ordinances, who to talk to, etc.
- Encourage policymakers to publish notes before meetings (if legal, IANYL)
- Meetings are often a formality, focus efforts on staffers and meeting prep, not final action
- Open data is not just the spreadsheet that gets published, but the processes that publish it
- Certified Geek Audited (TM) Open Government Workflow