We set up a US version of the site at http://opengovpartners.org/us and have already received requests from a couple of other countries for sites (we’ll not talk about who they are until they get their sites populated with content and ready to take live).

My sincere apologies for any inconvenience but I’m really not fit to leave the house.

Wayne

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]

A Guide to Owning Transparency

How Federal Agencies can Implement and Benefit from Transparency

[Get it here]

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.

Executive Summary

An open, transparent and participatory government is a government of the people, for the people, and by the people. These are the democratic principles upon which our country is built. Internet-based tools and technologies have made it easier to realize these values. Officially recognized by President Obama’s January 21, 2009 Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government, two-way, interactive web 2.0 tools and technologies make information sharing, citizen participation, and public and private sector collaboration easier than ever before.

Transparency of government practices and information, both within government agencies and between the government and its stakeholders, is the heart of open government. Transparency is as much about open-mindedness and information sharing, as it is about increased communication and information access. Citizen engagement, public-private sector partnerships, and inter-agency initiatives are all predicated upon transparency.

Transparency fosters the engagement of government employees and citizens alike, so they feel a part of the conversation, process, and decisions; and, thereby, a part of their government. This heightened sense of ownership, accountability, and trust makes government more responsive and enables agencies to more efficiently and effectively accomplish their missions: from government operations to government products.

Despite the efforts by government and private organizations to increase government transparency over the past few years, the results of transparency efforts have been met with mixed reviews. Critics argue that the focus on transparency as the end-state is the error: transparency is an operating state; it is not a goal, in and of itself. Proponents point out that the public value of transparency of information/data is an increased trust in the responsiveness of government.

Although we talk of open government as a panacea, full government transparency is not only not possible; it’s not necessarily the ideal. The digital environment not only makes transparency easier, but also amplifies the volume of data making it difficult to locate and retrieve data, increases the speed of both technical innovation and obsolescence, enhances expectations for customized access to data and information, and heightens cybersecurity risks. Transparency must be counterbalanced with maintaining citizens’ privacy, protecting national security, and the costs associated with the technical capacity of government to make information available and accessible.

To harness the benefits of transparency while simultaneously mitigating the risks, agencies must align their organizational strategies, systems, values, and culture with open government principles. Transparency must become a part of the organization’s ecosystem.

Culture change doesn’t “just happen.” Creating transparency in a government agency requires a directed, proactive effort that

• is driven by its leadership’s vision and supported at all levels by a strategic plan;
• implements support mechanisms to transform the agency;
• and actively builds understanding, engagement, and support from employees and external stakeholders alike.

The Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM’s)) Core and Component Team governance structure, Action Learning approach, IdeaFactory employee idea-sourcing platform, Results-Oriented Work Environment pilot, and the focus forum Owning Transparency are all examples of how OPM is using transparent processes to transform itself into an open agency.

Get It

We’re making it easy to consume this information in whatever way is most convenient for you:

• Read or print it as a PDF.
• Download it to your favorite mobile device as a MOBI (including Kindle*) or EPUB (for iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad; Nook; Sony Reader; FBReader, Aldiko and WordPlayer on Android; or Freda on Windows Mobile and Windows Phone 7).
• Get a hardcopy from from lulu.com ($9.95 – just enough to cover costs).

*If you’re downloading to a Kindle app (eg on Android), you will most likely have to save the file in the Kindle folder on your device, and then open the Kindle app to read it. This is not nearly as easy as it should be…

You’ll love it.

With NASA.

You know you want it. Here’s the posting:

Are you looking to make a difference in the US government?

You won’t get to yell at anyone or tell them how much they suck at their job, but if you’re looking to take that same passion and push it into something meaningful for the long run, this may be a good opportunity for you.

We’re a DC based nonprofit seeking a couple of bright young sparks to learn a little about why government is the way it is, while helping us manage remote engagement for the NASA IT Summit in August in beautiful, sunny San Francisco!

How does that make government better, you may ask? Well, we do more than just remote engagement, we run transformative events. You see, a big part of what makes government seem to suck from the outside is entrenched within its culture. Instead of just whining about it, we actually work with government employees to support them in changing that culture. We help them understand the technology, realize that citizens’ expectations are changing, and figure out what it all means to them.

And we’re just gaining steam. In fact, this is the first event that we’ve needed to hire people to help us out (and we have a sneaky suspicion it won’t be the last). If this sounds like something you want to be a part of, read on.

We’re looking for…

Tech savvy, web-enabled, people-people that are excited about the opportunities that technology is opening up for government. Specifically, we’d really like you to enjoy playing with the internetz and all that social media stuff, be comfortable on the phone managing and troubleshooting problems for a large group of people, and have your own laptop (because it doesn’t make sense for us to have a bunch that would just sit around most of the time). Oh yeah – bonus points for familiarity with WordPress or BuddyPress.

“But what will I have to do?”

So look, to make this event happen, we’re integrating an impressive array of technology to create a remote engagement extravaganza for NASA. This will include live streaming video, online chat and knowledge capture, conference calls, and remote networking – all tied together within a single website running on BuddyPress. We’ll have four simultaneous remote engagement opportunities happening for most of the three day event and you’ll be there to help keep it all smooth for both the participants and the speakers.

This means you’ll be chatting online, talking on the phone, troubleshooting technical problems, running errands, training and managing speakers, and generally having a great time with some great people (did I mention we’re working with NASA?).

Time Commitments

On Tuesday, August 9 in Washington, DC we will have an in-person meeting for most of the day. We’ll get you up to speed on the technology in the morning, and do two live remote engagement events in the afternoon.

From Sunday, August 14 to Thursday, August 18, we’ll all be in San Francisco running remote engagement for NASA.

In addition, we may ask you to do some homework leading up to the main event, but we promise to keep it to a minimum.

Tangible Compensation

Besides the fact that this is a great opportunity and we’re saving the world and all the usual blah blah blah that nonprofits normally feed you in exchange for sucking your lifeblood, we’re also giving you $1,000 (just like a real job!) and covering all of your travel expenses to and from San Francisco. Specifically, this means we pay airfare, hotel, and a per diem established by the same complex rules that NASA uses: 3 full days at $56 per day plus 2 half days at $42 per day for a grand total of $252. Cool, huh?

How to Apply

We’re making this part as easy as possible. It’s not 1950 and we’re looking for people that are good at the stuff we need done, not for people who are good at writing resumes and cover letters. So here’s the deal (And do it now. Don’t overthink it.):

Send me an email or a tweet or hit me up on Google+. Include your LinkedIn account or some other source by which I can get an overview of who you are, where you’re coming from, what you’re all about, and what you’ve done in the past. If you think it’s necessary, include a short description of why you want this job and any other social media profiles that you think will help your case.

So you know, there are only two (2) slots and we’ll start interviewing the week of the 18th. As soon as we find good people, we’ll hire ‘em!

That’s it! I’m looking forward to hearing from you.

More about Open4m

If you’re interested in tech and government, we’re good people to know. We work on both the agency and the Congressional sides of government, are well-connected throughout the doers inside agencies, and are just starting to find our footing in terms of doing things that people are willing to support with money. It’s an exciting time to be in DC and we’re in the middle of it. You can learn more at http://open4m.org/.

Who am I?

I’m Wayne Moses Burke, the Executive Director. You can read about me in a number of places online. Here’s the contact info:
wayne@open4m.org
@wmburke
Google+

First, I should say that I was honored to share the stage with Dan McSwain from the FCC, Rob Winikates from the White House, and Nick Skytland from NASA; each of which is doing amazing work within their own agency. We set out to discussion collaborative code, primarily with a focus on open source software, but specifically about the complexities and benefits of using open source software, releasing software for external use that is developed internally, and working with other entities and individuals outside of the agency to collaboratively develop software.

The surprising part of the discussion was that it kept returning to how government culture is changing to align itself with these same principles. To say that this is driven by the open source software movement is probably an overstatement, but nonetheless the similarities are fairly remarkable. So many of the examples that Nick, Rob, and Dan spoke of related to the complexities of gaining adoption for these ideas, enabling government employees to see the benefits of collaboration, and realizing that the best solutions to any problem are outside  the walls of your organization.

It’s great to see these ideas taking hold. The government is changing and if we’re not careful, it may come to be seen as effective again one day (Yes, I am an optimist. Why do you ask?).

From right to left:
Nick Skytland, NASA; Rob Winikates, White House; Dan McSwain, FCC; yours truly.

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?

Mission: Responsive Government

We just completed a five year plan. This is a big step in solidifying our ability to move boldly forward in our mission, both in terms of being able to show the direct relationship between our current projects and our mission and also by laying the groundwork to pursue funding from foundations. If you’re interested, please check it out here.

Year End Donations

Please consider the Open Forum Foundation in your year-end giving. In January, we expect to announce several new projects that are self-sustainable, but your donations are what enables us to pursue new opportunities.

Happy Holidays

I wish you the best of the season as we all say goodbye to 2010 and welcome 2011. I am incredibly optimistic about the future and look forward to working with all of you to bring it to fruition.

Onwards and Upwards!
Wayne

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!