What does Open Government Mean to You?

-

 

Open Government

Open Data to Open Government
Open Government is not new. The Magna Carta was created in England in 1215 as a Charter to check the power of the monarchy. That the French translation less than 5 years later from Latin to vernacular speech might arguably be hailed as one of the first acts of "open government" in Western Civilization.

One may argue that this desire for plurality and dialog that was codified into English law and tradition is actually of Anglo Saxon origin and therefore the descendant of an earlier tradition. One might also tongue-in-cheek say that the Magna Carta was not in machine readable format therefore not "open data".

These terms underscore my point. "open data" is not "open government" any more then a street is public transportation. One makes the other possible but it is only a necessary and not sufficient condition.

Open Government when it works is the shift in the paradigm of how government interacts with it's citizens. Our governmental processes were developed in the era of pencils and paper. The immediacy of a reaction on the part of the government to a situation was local and not timely. Government processes have changed little since the Industrial Revolution. This is not to say that government should be criticized. In the West, most of our institutions and places of work are built around the factory paradigms of the 18th and 19th century manufacturing economies of the United States and England.

We can see the gradual shift in the work paradigm from 9-5 desk jobs toward a more fluid "just-in-time" work model of connectivity from anywhere to anywhere. Education is also breaking the model and evolving into a distributed real time environment albeit slowly.


Open Source and Open Government This is my response to a question posted by Jason Hibbets on OpenSource.com (December 5, 2012). Several open data and open government pundits responded to his question and there were some interesting responses: http://opensource.com/government/12/11/defining-open-government#comment-11032

My response was this:



"I just returned yesterday from the USAID Development Data Jam in Washington DC. Several federal and private sector pundits on open government, open data and big data gave their visions of what is possible with open government. I took several lessons away from that meeting. "Open" in Raleigh is about changing the model of interaction between our citizens and our government. The manufacturing-industrial model of policy making wherein the constituent had little influence on the policy maker(s) is being transformed into a rapid, agile, iterative collaboration. This is more than open data and more than big data. This is about adapting to the way humans interact with each other today versus 100 years ago."
I plan on publishing my notes from the USAID Data Jam in the next few days. I was pleased to see Jason ask the question and the thoughtful answers from the folks that answered.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Podcast: Open Data Discussions with Anthony Fung

-
Image
A look back at Virginia’s 4 years of data innovation with Anthony Fung, Deputy Secretary of Technology for the Commonwealth of Virginia  Welcome to the OpenDataSoft Leadership Podcast Series, “Open Data Discussions”. Each month, Jason Hare, our Open Data Evangelist, features a different open data program around the country to discuss what has made it successful. These examples will provide insights and strategies that you can implement in your own city. We had the pleasure of welcoming Anthony Fung, Deputy Secretary of Technology for the Commonwealth of Virginia for the fifth podcast in our series. Anthony discussed various subjects, including: What role does open data play in policymaking at the state level in Virginia? Does his department work on ensuring open data quality? What are some of the steps he makes in ensuring sound data governance? How did Virginia come up with this technology and engagement solutions?  How, for example, did yo
Read more

Open Data Licensing

-
Image
Everything you wanted to know but you were afraid to ask. Making data open and available is not just about choosing a format or having an API. A poor choice in your license can prevent people from using them. A traditional open license reassures potential users that their work on the data will be useful in the long run. So, what license should you pick for your data to be broadly used? There are a few things to consider. Choosing a license for your open data can usually be one of the biggest challenges for an open data project. There are plenty of licenses available for your data. Choosing one mostly depends on the usage and reach you want to give to your project. CHOOSE A LICENSE: BASED ON NATIONAL, INTERNATIONAL AND LOCAL STATUTES IN ADDITION TO REUSE It should be noted that different parts of the world use data licensing terms differently. In the US, works in the “public domain” are works are not covered by intellectual property rights, such as copyright. The copyright mig
Read more

AN OPEN DATA POLICY FOR NORTH CAROLINA: COMING SOON?

-
Image
All parts of North Carolina will benefit from open data legislation. FOR THE BETTER PART OF TWO DECADES, I’VE WORKED TO OPEN UP NORTH CAROLINA’S DATA. I’ve been a public servant at Durham Public Schools and the Department of Energy. I have been an onsite consultant for the Cities of Raleigh, Durham as well as the Towns of Cary and Chapel Hill. I’ve been on teams serving state agencies and local governments. I’ve witnessed dozens of open data projects both locally and abroad. All of these projects share crucial steps and goals in common. First, by transforming public documents from disconnected PDFs into machine-readable data, by applying the right open formats, we can liberate public information from the repositories where it used to require manual review. Insights become instant. Second, by publishing machine-readable data compilations online, for everyone to use, we can crowdsource those insights. Citizens and companies and the media can scrutinize. Even better, when a government age
Read more