Due to unforeseen illness (is there any other kind?), I have to cancel tonight’s Open Forum at Bar Dupont.
My sincere apologies for any inconvenience but I’m really not fit to leave the house.
Wayne
Canceled! Tonight’s Open Forum
Tuesday, October 11th, 2011October Open Forum
Friday, October 7th, 2011
Hi!! I'm Wayne.
Next Tuesday, we’re gathering here in DC for a fall Open Forum. If we’re lucky, we’ll get to sit outside and enjoy the nice weather!
If you’re interested in communication with government, culture change, community engagement, or general open government implementation; join us for stimulating conversation in a relaxed atmosphere.
That’s me in the picture, and you can find me there every second Tuesday of the month from 5:30 – 7:30pm. If you don’t see us, check in on my Twitter stream or tweet me to ask where we’re hiding!
When: 10 October 2011, 5:30 – 7:30 pm
Where: Bar Dupont, DC [map]
Owning Transparency
Monday, October 3rd, 2011I’m excited to announce the Open Forum Foundation’s very first official publication:
A Guide to Owning Transparency
How Federal Agencies can Implement and Benefit from Transparency
This work is based on the in-person discussions hosted during the Focus Forum Owning Transparency: People, Processes, and Technology at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) on February 18th, 2011 and contains some remarkable contributions by a host of academic authors that have been involved in OPM’s Open Government implementation since the beginning.
In addition, the fabulous Maxine Teller helped edit the document!
Here’s the Executive Summary – check it out. Read more »
Help Us Help NASA
Monday, July 11th, 2011We’re looking to hire some Remote Engagement Assistants for a really cool gig.
With NASA.
You know you want it. Here’s the posting: Read more »
Collaborative Code and Culture Change
Thursday, June 16th, 2011I moderated the Collaborative Code Panel at the OpenGovDC Conference on Tuesday and was pleasantly surprised at the focus of the discussion. Read more »
Our First Real Grant!!
Wednesday, January 19th, 2011Sure, we’ve gotten donations and put on successful events, but for the first time in Open Forum history, we’ve received a grant for work we’re about to do!! It’s pretty exciting, and with any luck, the first of many such announcements this year.
So here’s the gist: There’s a nonprofit called the Open Identity Exchange (OIX) that was created to act as a trust framework provider for a trust framework developed by the federal government to enable citizens to engage with the government more easily.
What does that mean? A trust framework is a set of rules and regulations for an industry. Anyone who wants to play a part in the system has to follow the rules. In this context, the trust framework sets out rules for companies to act as identity providers, so that the federal government doesn’t have to manage passwords and authentication and all of that complexity. OIX’s role is to audit and ensure that everyone is following the rules. For more information, check out the explanations on their website.
Why are they giving us money? OIX is the first organisation created solely to act as a trust framework provider in the identity space. Since they are strong believers in this type of market-oriented solution, they have several active working groups developing other trust frameworks that they could then operate as well [see here for that list]. I met Don Thibeau, the Chairman of their Board of Directors at various Internet Identity Workshop events over the last year, and he was kind enough to attend the Workshop: Online Constituent Identity that we put on in early November.
At that event, we effectively established the foundation for a trust framework that would enable online constituent identity through a distributed system. The goal of this would be to increase trust in online dialogue between citizens and their elected officials.
Don rightfully proposed that for this to come to fruition, we needed a larger base of people to work from. We agreed that the next step in solving this problem was to develop a list of everyone that may be interested in participating, reach out to them to gauge their interest, and then develop a roadmap looking forward based on the results of this survey. So, that’s what we’re doing in return for a $5000 grant.
The exciting part about this is that this outreach project will most likely result in not only a larger base of actors with which to develop the trust framework, but also the identification of organizations that will fund the next stage in the process.
We’ve developed an official Press Release, which you can read – and here is the actual Grant Agreement if you want all the details!
Cool, huh?
Your Input, Our Future. Projects.
Tuesday, November 9th, 2010This could also be titled, “How do we get there?”
In the first two installments of planning for the next five years, I asked you to Dream Big about the future of citizen engagement, and then to suggest Tangible accomplishments that will bring that future to fruition.
Now it’s time to talk about the specific projects that we need to work on today.
Projects
So what do you think?
- Software? What does it do?
- Events? To what end?
- Education? Who are we educating? What are we teaching them? How are we doing it?
Help us answer these questions and this coming Saturday we will use your input to help determine what we’re focusing on for the next five years.
Thank you!
Your Input, Our Future. Tangibles.
Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010In the last installment of ‘Your Input, Our Future,’ I asked you to Dream Big about your idyllic vision of the future of citizen engagement. In this post, I’d like to ask you to think how we make these visions a reality.
There were several competing visions proposed, so please feel free to choose the one you like the most (or propose your own) as you answer this next question:
Tangibles
What do we need to accomplish in five years to be well on the road towards significantly better citizen engagement? Here are some thoughts to get you started:
- Solid technological infrastructure that enables easy communication between citizens and elected officials in ways that are meaningful and useful to everyone involved.
- Internal government cultures that support meaningful engagement with and responsiveness to citizens.
- The early stages of a rise of a global government norm to utilize technology that gives their citizens easy access to information and communication technologies.
I know that there are many more out there: what are they?
All of your comments will be part of developing the Open Forum Foundation’s five year plan beginning on November 13th.
Your Input, Our Future. Dream Big!
Tuesday, October 26th, 2010We just turned two on October 17th and it’s time to look to the future and set our sights by establishing a five year plan. What better way to model our own assertions than by reaching out to the public for guidance? [That means you!]
This post is the first in a series exploring the Open Forum Foundation’s future, present, and past – all within the context of how we should move forward from here. Each post is designed to present a different aspect of who we are, and to elicit conversation about how this can be leveraged as we think about the future of the organization.
On November 13, your input will be used at our annual board of director’s meeting to determine the future of the Open Forum Foundation.
Dream Big
In this first post, I’d like to encourage you to dream big about the relationship between citizens and governments. The bigger, the better!! What is the coolest thing you can imagine? If you were writing a Utopian novel, what would that relationship look like for you? In the best science fiction you’ve ever read, how do the government and citizens relate to one another? Once society has solved all of its problems (I said Dream Big!), how will it work?
I’ve written a couple to get you thinking:
- Every citizen on the planet deserves a voice in the decisions that impact their life, work, and family. Technology can enable this by connecting citizens not only to their government officials, but also to each other and to the citizens of other countries. This web of interconnectivity will work to empower citizens and ensure that the governments of the world work to protect and improve the lives of their people.
- In an ideal world, every citizen would have a say in every governmental decision that they have an interest in. This is not to say that they would get to make the decision, but simply that good ideas would always rise to the top, and policies would always fairly balance the needs of the few with the desires of the many.
Come on!! Give us something good!
Part 2 of this series is Tangibles.
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