Andrea Di MaioBy tomorrow, on April 7th, US federal agencies are expected to publish their first ever open government plans highlighting how they will become more transparent, participative and collaborative.
In the next few days there will be considerable discussion about who has the best and most comprehensive plan, who is lagging behind, what are the most exciting flagship initiatives proposed, how the IdeaScale tool drove new levels of creativity.
While I am absolutely positive that, despite the tight timeframe and the lack of additional resources, the Open Government Directive has had a great impact on how agencies look at the whole issue of transparency, I remain concerned about the long-lasting nature of this impact.
Unless agencies clearly turn these additional costs to their advantage and plan for returning on the openness investment rather than just complying with requirements, open government may not last. On the other hand, unless the Office of Management and Budget or some other powerful watchdog keeps the open government plans on course, by linking their performance to overall agency budgets, open government may not last.
The next challenge for the White House and open government supporters after counting the plans the day after tomorrow and celebrating their first success, will be to strike the right balance between the carrot and the stick.
Category: open government data Tags: open government, open government directive
4 responses so far ↓
1 Tweets that mention Open Government Aftermath Needs both a Carrot and a Stick -- Topsy.com April 6, 2010 at 1:20 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Andrea DiMaio, open3gov. open3gov said: RT @AndreaDiMaio Open Government Aftermath Needs both a Carrot and a Stick – http://bit.ly/9kD1Ti #opengov #OGD #gov20 [...]
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by AndreaDiMaio: Open Government Aftermath Needs both a Carrot and a Stick – http://bit.ly/9kD1Ti #opengov #OGD #gov20…
3 Lovisa Williams April 6, 2010 at 8:06 pm
This has been my biggest concern. Better to institutionalize the ideals of a transparent, participatory and collaborative government than sink a lot of time and resources into what may only be a paperwork drill. I don’t know how meaningful the data being released will be to any one. Perhaps the place where these ideals will count most is in our online communities. I teach all of our officers and local hires to embrace these ideals as their motto for all digital diplomacy efforts.
4 Major Milestone Reached in Open Government Initiative | The Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy April 9, 2010 at 11:29 am
[...] May Not Be Sustainable,” “What Open Government Plans are Missing,” “Open Government Aftermath Needs Both a Carrot and a Stick,” and “Not All Government Plans Are Open to Analysis“. See also Aliya Sternstein, [...]