Monthly Archives: September 2010

Gov 2.0: Applying open data to open government

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http://www.viddler.com/simple/dbed5110/

Earlier this summer, the Knight Foundation convened a panel of experts on open source and open government at the 2010 Future of News and Civic Media Conference at MIT to consider whether open data can be used to fuel positive social change. If you missed the event or video when it was first posted, it’s well worth your time.

From the Knight Blog:

Ellen Miller, executive director of the Sunlight Foundation, Laurel Ruma, editor at O’Reilly Media, and Nick Grossman, director of Civic Works at OpenPlans, each gave a brief speech and answered topical questions. Although each speaker expressed different ideas about how to foster civic engagement and social change, their strategies all revolved around a similar theme: transparency. The speakers agreed that social change can be fostered by increasing the amount of quality data available and correspondence between residents and their governments.

Miller will be presenting an Open Government Scorecard at the Gov 2.0 Summit next week. It’s a good bet that John Wonderlich’s post on the White House leading practice winners might serve as a preview of her comments.

What will challenges and crowdsourcing mean for open government?

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Yesterday, I reported on how the United States federal government plans to approach crowdsourcing national challenges with the new Challenge.gov at ReadWriteWeb. As I wrote there, Challenge.gov is the latest effort in the evolution of collaborative innovation in open government.

Should the approach succeed, challenges and contests have the potential to leverage the collective expertise of citizens, just as apps contests have been used to drive innovation in D.C. and beyond.

In the interview below, Bev Godwin and Brandon Kessler explain what Challenge.gov is and what it might do. Kessler is the founder of ChallengePost, the platform that Challenge.gov is built upon.

I interviewed Godwin and Kessler in August, when senior government officials and private sector enjoyed a preview of Challenge.gov at the Newseum at the second annual Fedscoop forum on reducing the cost of government. The following excerpts from their panels offer more insight into how challenges work, how they’ve been used in the private sector and what results citizens might anticipate as this approach to open government moves forward.

What is a Challenge?

Kessler defines a challenge.

The Value of Challenges to the Government

Bev Godwin discusses the importance and value of challenges to the government.

Results from Challenges

Brandon Kessler discusses the results he has seen from challenges.

Different Classifications of Challenges

Michael Donovan, Chief Technologist, Strategic Capabilities, HP, explains how he would classify different types of challenges.

Dean Halstead, collaboration architect at Microsoft, discusses how he would classify different types of challenges.

ROI from Challenges at NASA

Dr. Jeffrey Davis, director of space life sciences at NASA, talks about the return on investment shown by some of the challenges he has run or been involved with.

What Makes a Good Challenge?

Dr. Jeffrey Davis explores the characteristics of a good challenge.

Challenges in the Private Sector

Dean Halstead explains how Microsoft leverages challenges.

Michael Donovan explains how HP leverages challenges.

Will Crowdsourcing and Challenges Enable More Open Government?

Challenge.gov “is the next form of citizen engagement, beyond participation to co-creation,” said Godwin at the Newseum. Many questions remain about how the effort will be received. Will citizens show up? Will challenges see participation from industry leaders and the innovators in the private sector? Will intellectual property rights be clearly and fairly addressed up front and afterwards, in a sustainable way? Will Congress pass legislation enshrining this approach to open government?

The answers to most of those questions, in other words, will often not be driven by legal or technological challenges. Instead, the results will have to be used to drive acquisition, civic empowerment or even more data-driven policy. Opening the doors of government to innovation will not be easy. Whether these efforts can spur the evolution of a more efficient, innovative government in the 21st Century may be the most difficult challenge to win of all.

Fall 2010 Gov 2.0 Events Calendar

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It’s the first day of September, and with it the beginning of the fall conference season. After looking toward the months head, my colleague Laurel Ruma and I thought that it would be worth sharing the camps, panels, conferences and forums that were on our “radar.” We won’t be able to attend all of them, unfortunately, but the community should be aware of what’s happening. I hope to see many of you at the Gov 2.0 Summit next week.

Supernova Unconference

9/1 Govfresh, San Francisco

9/3-9/5 CrisisCamp Marathon Weekend, Global

9/7-9/8 Gov 2.0 Summit, Washington, D.C.

9/9-9/10 Internet Identity Workshop, Washington, D.C.

9/14-9/16 NSA Trusted Computing Conference and Exposition, Washington, D.C.

9/20-9/21 Govfresh, Manor, Texas

9/22 – 9/24 Online Trust and Cybersecurity Forum, Georgetown, Washington, D.C.

9/22-9/24 National Association of Government Webmasters National Conference, St. Louis, Missouri

9/23 Amp Summit, Washington, D.C.

9/26 – 9/29 NASCIO 2010 Annual Conference, Miami, Florida

9/27 Ogilvy Gov 2.0 Exchange, Washington, D.C.

9/28 Govup, Tampa, Florida

9/28-9/30 Web 2.0 Expo, New York, New York

9/29 Govup, Huntsville, Alabama

10/4 Govup, Seattle, Washington

10/4-10/5 Knight Community Info Challenge Boot Camp, Chicago, Illinois

10/7 Govup, Denver, Colorado

10/8-10/10 City Camp London, England

10/12 Fedtalks, Washington, D.C.

10/16-10/17 CityCampSF, San Francisco

10/17-10/18 Place Summit, Cambridge, Massachusetts

10/18 – 10/21 Gartner Symposium, Orlando, Florida

10/20-10/21 Beyond 2010, Edmonton, Canada

10/21 Govup, Kansas City, Kansas

10/26 Govup, Austin, Texas

10/27-10/28 GOSCON, Portland, Oregon

10/28 Govup, Chicago, Illinois

10/31 NASA Tweetup at Space Shuttle Launch, Kennedy Space Center, Florida

11/1 Excellence in Government, Washington, D.C.

11/2 Govup, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

11/3 Govup, New York, New York

11/4 Govup, Boston, Massachusetts

11/4-11/5 Tech@State’s Civil Society 2.0 event. More info: What is Civil Society 2.0?

11/10 Open Gov West, British Columbia

11/11 FedScoop’s 2nd Annual Cloud Computing Shoot Out, Washington, D.C.

11/15-11/17 Web 2.0 Summit, San Francisco, California

For events down under, check out Craig Thommler’s useful shared Gov 2.0 and social media events calendar. You’ll find comprehensive guides to all government-related events at GovEvents.com or GovEvents.org. And, of course, you can follow Govfresh events here.

If you have an event related to Gov 2.0 that I’ve missed, please add it in the comments or @reply to @digiphile on Twitter.