We now have the capacity to support direct collaboration between the public and government through the use of wikis etc (and by 'collaboration' I mean actual co-creation of content between public and government participants).
Collaboration is ostensibly the final phase of this initiative regarding the statement on Whitehouse.gov/open/blog (THU, MAY 21), "On June 15th, we will invite you to use a wiki to draft recommendations in collaborative fashion." However this leaves out the all important public-government collaborative opportunity, with the public only collaborating amongst themselves (unless this statement does not reflect the fullness of the current plan).
What we now need is for government to join in the collaborative effort genuinely and openly. I know this level of collaboration is possible because I've seen it first hand at FutureMelbourne.com.au - the ten year plan for the City of Melbourne (Australia) that collaboratively engaged the city's planners, managers, stakeholders and the wider global public. (Full disclosure: my company Collabforge provided consulting and IT development to the City of Melbourne on this project.)
So the idea is this: build capacity towards true participatory governance across the nation through the development of a federal policy on public-government collaboration.
This policy should boldly chart a course for the nation with a formalized conception of this new opportunity, as well as providing guidelines and strategic considerations for agencies who wish to participate.
Such a policy would enable any number of agencies (federal, state, local) to enter this space in a way that is simultaneously coordinated across all levels of government, and, decentralized so that it makes the most sense for the individual agencies applying it.
Note: the trouble I had categorizing this idea reflects its need - under the 'Collaboration' category, there is no appropriate place for public-government collaboration!
Comments (1)
The only problem I can see with this idea, which I generally appreciate, is that you cannot entirely decentralize government, without shared accountability, an overall framework, and feedback loops from (those applying policy) bottom to top (those writing policy). On such a scale you also need overlapping infrastructure to ensure communication, which we currently lack in our government--beyond the judicial branch, which is part of the problem.
In Australia, they rely on strong state-federal partnerships under a federation--where states bear the bulk of the responsibility for all internal governance. The problem here is the US is not Australia, we have over 50 states and territories whereas they have 7, I believe. Our structures include county and city governments, where they only have city councils and the states are responsible for many services that federal government performs here. In short, the US government is simply too big and complicated for this to work through its formal structures of decision-making without major restructuring or as an informal advocacy--this is the biggest problem with government collaboration.