As Government Opens, Ideas Pour In

Over the past three weeks, 36 federal agencies and departments have deployed crowd-sourcing technology to let the public weigh in on their open government plans. So far, nearly 1,200 ideas have been posted, including the good, the bad, and the ugly.It's a promising experiment, but one that's already exposing the pitfalls of civic engagement. Some use the platform to spout political views or gripe, there are many bad ideas, and the government will be hard pressed to read and respond to it all. One poster observes that some users seem to be pushing their own business interests, while another complains about the derogatory nature of the discourse. Yet, if even a few compelling ideas lead to new and improved services or better government performance, the whole exercise will be worth it.

As we've reported, Feb. 6 was the deadline by which agencies were required to launch open government Web pages, in keeping with President Obama's Open Government Directive, which was issued in December. Many are using the IdeaScale crowd-sourcing platform as the underlying technology to do it. "This is the first time something like this has been tried across the entire executive branch, and we are eager to solicit input," writes Tina Tchen, deputy assistant to the President and director of the Office of Public Engagement, on the White House blog.

Be careful what you ask for, Tina. Much of the commentary being generated has nothing to do with the best way to pursue open, collaborative, transparent government. The Department of Defense's idea site is rife with curses, soap-box pontificating ("Women should never be put in a submarine!"), and far-out suggestions such as marking terrorists with invisible paint and tracking them by satellite.

The White House has created a Web site, OpenGov Tracker, where ideas are collated, along with comments and votes on those ideas. At last check, more than 1,175 ideas had been posted, generating more than 11,500 votes. Some of the ideas receiving the most votes include letting amateur space buffs design things for NASA and creating free textbooks for schools.

At last check, NASA had received the most ideas - 144 of them - while other agencies were limping along with just a few suggestions. The Office of Science and Technology Policy had the fewest ideas submitted, 15. (Makes me wonder if the tech community is simply lacking in new ideas--or feels that it's already got everything figured out.) One of them is to make greater use of open source software, though that's not exactly a new idea and government agencies are already doing it.

Here's a sample of other ideas posted on agency sites that I would endorse:

"In order to promote transparency and the free exchange of scientific ideas, the EPA should adopt an agency-wide communications policy that protects the right of its employees to speak with the public and the media. Such 'open' communications policies have already been adopted at places like NASA and NOAA." From Open EPA.

"Homeland Security should live webcast all meetings for proposed rule making and regulations where the public comment should take place." From Open Homeland Security.

"Data about agency compliance with the Freedom of Information Act should be part of an overall government dashboard's measures of the state of open government in the Executive Branch." From Open DOJ.

It will be interesting to see which of the hundreds of ideas coming in rise above the din and lead to actual changes to government policy, processes, and services. With two weeks to go, there's still time for everyone to weigh in.

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