Transparency 18 articles

113_1356_medium Paul Johnston

Transparency and Daily Life

last updated over 3 years ago, 1 Comment

I am a strong advocate of transparent government, but sometimes it can seem very remote from daily life - how much do things like Obama's data.gov really mean to people in the street? Well, the excellent Sunlight Foundation did a blog recently that answers that question really well. The basic theme is what data might be relevant to you as you shop for your Thanksgiving turkey. Here's a sample of the blog, focussing on the main ingredient: Turkey. What are the results of the latest federal sa...

posted in Transparency

113_1356_medium Paul Johnston

Draft Whitepaper on Obama and Transparency

last updated over 3 years ago, 2 Comments

This is an early version of a whitepaper I am working on about the Obama administration's open government initiatives. I realise that we are all waiting with bated breadth for the transparency directive that is due in the next couple of weeks, but I would be interested in feedback on the paper in the meantime. I do think this year Nobel Peace Prize winner :-) has done a good job in moving the debate forward in this area, but I think there is still plenty to think about and a lot more that nee...

posted in Obama Transparency draftwhitepaper nobel

113_1356_medium Paul Johnston

Transparency in Africa

created over 3 years ago, 0 Comments

Thanks to Tiago, I came across the Kenyan budget tracking tool -  a simple but impressive tool for tracking how and where funds are being spent in Kenya. Reflecting the uneveness of internet access, the tool includes a mobile module so that citizens can send a text to point out errors in the information or flag up projects that seem in some way dubious. The tool comes from SODNET, a Kenyan NGO committed to social justice and democracy which seems to operate very much as a distribute...

posted in Transparency Africa Kenya

113_1356_medium Paul Johnston

San Francisco data clearing house

created over 3 years ago, 0 Comments

Nice new site from San Francisco making its data available. I particularly liked the clear justification for the site - making their data more available, allowing citizens to build innovative apps using their data, getting feedback on the quality of their data and getting input on what other data citizens would like to see the city making available. Good job, sf!

posted in Data Transparency San Francisco

113_1356_medium Paul Johnston

Power to the Many

last updated over 3 years ago, 0 Comments

Interesting video from Beth Noveck, now in the Obama Administration.

posted in Transparency e-Democracy Obama

113_1356_medium Paul Johnston

Ask the President - Raising or Lowering the Debate?

last updated over 4 years ago, 2 Comments

Thanks to Norm, I came across the new Ask the President site that Community Counts are hosting and a range of media organisations including the Nation and the Washington Times are supporting. The idea is to bring a new voice to traditional Presidential news conferences by allowing citizens questions pulled from the net and voted on by citizens. Its a great site and very easy to get involved since you can vote without logging in. Obviously that means that non-US citizens like me can vote (and ...

posted in Obama US Transparency Media askthepresident

Bw_medium Tiago Peixoto

The Price of Transparency

last updated over 4 years ago, 9 Comments

The use of websites by governments as a means to increase budgetary transparency by providing easily accessible information doesn’t stop growing. The Center for Fiscal Accountability does a great job by periodically tracking these initiatives across the United States and its latest update, in March, provides a listing of 26 websites that have gone live since 2007. More impressive is the growing number of legislative initiatives across the U.S. aiming at increasing and deepening the i...

posted in Transparency US

Headshot_medium njacknis

Improving Access to Government through Better Use of the Web

last updated over 4 years ago, 2 Comments

Improving Access to Government through Better Use of the WebW3C Working Draft 10 March 2009This version:    http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/WD-egov-improving-20090310/ Latest version:    http://www.w3.org/TR/egov-improving/Editors:    José M. Alonso (W3C/CTIC)     Kevin Novak (The American Institute of Architects) Authors:    José M. Alonso (W3C/CTIC)     Oscar Azañón (Gobierno del ...

posted in Transparency W3C

Copy_of_diogo_vasconcelos_by_jo_o_oliveira_silva004_medium Diogo Vasconcelos

"Placing power in the hands of those who use our public services": UK's new policy embraces open government

last updated over 4 years ago, 2 Comments

  The British Prime-Minister will announce today its vision for the future shape of public services. The policy document Working Together - Public Services On Your Side explains "the steps the Government is taking to give people, communities and frontline staff the information and real power they need to personalise public services. Reflecting their local and individual needs will create a richer, fairer and safer society." "We will put people first by placing power in the hands...

posted in empowerment UK Transparency

Headshot_medium njacknis

President Obama's New Virtual Community Created to Shape his Open Government Directive

last updated over 4 years ago, 0 Comments

The Obama administration is starting to implement the idea of using collaborative tools internally as part of their management approach.  (I have been discussing with the Federal website folks various ways to expand this approach.)   Norm ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On February 16th, a new government-wide community - the Open and Innovative Government Community - was created on the MAX Federal Community system to capture ...

posted in Obama Transparency

113_1356_medium Paul Johnston

U.S. follows UK lead on transparency!

last updated over 4 years ago, 0 Comments

Ok. I am deliberately being a bit provocative, but its great to see a couple of US organisations creating a site called http://www.showusthedata.org/ where US citizens (and probably anybody) can suggest US federal data sets that should be publically available and people can vote on which ones they think would be most helpfully make public. So its a bit like showusabetterway but with a direct focus on data sets rather than interesting uses of data sets plus use of direct voting to highlight th...

posted in Obama Transparency US UK

Russ_medium Russell Craig

US citizens monitor stimulus plans

last updated about 1 year ago, 1 Comment

In what has to be one of the most pertinent and interesting examples of 'government 2.0' to date, folk in the USA have set up a site called Stimulus Watch. Visitors to the site can find proposed stimulus projects and describe, comment and vote on them.  It is important to note that the projects in question  "are not part of the stimulus bill. They are candidates for funding by federal grant programs once the bill passes." The creators of the site are clearly engaged in suppo...

posted in Transparency

113_1356_medium Paul Johnston

Post-Bar Camp reflections on engagement

last updated over 3 years ago, 4 Comments

On Saturday I attended the second UKgov web barcamp #ukgc09, met lots of great people and heard lots of interesting stuff. Steph Gray (from DIUS) and I ran a session on consultation/engagement which was interesting although in one hour we only scratched the surface. Anyway below are some of the ideas the discussions suggested for me:1)    my idea for the X (internal) (the department/council etc) - a site open to all staff (and possibly partners?) where people can make suggestio...

posted in engagement Consultation Transparency

Copy_of_diogo_vasconcelos_by_jo_o_oliveira_silva004_medium Diogo Vasconcelos

Online tracking of the stimulus plan: an excellent example

last updated about 1 year ago, 0 Comments

    President Obama has announced plans to launch Recovery.gov, a website dedicated to keeping track of all the money the government spends in the stimulus. This is a excellent example of open government: a willingness to share, be accountable and (hopefully) get feed back.  Recovery strategies are too serious to fail - otherwise we will be paying the social and economic costs for many years to come. It's our right, as citizens, to be aware of the content and ...

posted in Obama Transparency

113_1356_medium Paul Johnston

Obama: Memo on Transparency

last updated over 4 years ago, 1 Comment

Following his fantastic inaugural speech yesterday, the new US President got off to a great start on the issue of transparency with a memo to heads of all executive departments and agencies underlining his commitment to unprecedented openess in government. Way to go, Mr President! No doubt he read the whitepaper on Government 2.0 we shared on this site before Christmas :)-

posted in Obama Transparency

113_1356_medium Paul Johnston

Web 2.0 and the Public Sector

last updated about 1 year ago, 1 Comment

This is the version of the Government 2.0 paper that we used at the Public Services Summit in December. Its a slimmed down and improved version of the original draft. We plan to do a final version early in 2009. At the event the strongest push back was on transparency where there was a strong sense that the need for confidential advice put major limits on what could be achieved - I am not sure I buy that, but lets leave that to another day! Another interesting bit of feedback was the suggesti...

posted in nobel Collaboration empowerment Transparency Web 2.0 Government 2.0 IBSGdraft

Headshot_medium njacknis

Your Seat At The Table

last updated over 4 years ago, 0 Comments

The latest from the Obama Transition team's efforts at transparency -- a list of the groups visiting them, what is being proposed and a chance to comment. http://change.gov/open_government/yourseatatthetable "The Obama-Biden Transition Team will be hearing from many groups over the next several weeks. On this page, you can track these meetings, view documents provided to the Transition, and leave comments for the team."

posted in Obama Transparency

Martin_medium msweeks

Government Data and the Invisible Hand

last updated over 4 years ago, 0 Comments

My Cisco colleague Richard Allan introduced me to a paper from Yale entitled "Governmnet Data and the Invisible Hand".  Worth a quick read.  The burden of its central message is that governments should stop setting up websites and start the less sexy, but ultimately much kore useful and revolutionary work of providing reusable data.  Basically the authors suggest that in an age of relatively easy and cheap access to the tools of mash-ups and online forums, governments should spend much less ...

posted in Transparency