Link department budget approvals to open government plans and funding strategy. 

Transforming government as the open government memo proposes will not occur if it is an unfunded mandate to departments and agencies. There will need to be investments in new technologies,in training,in management resources, and in the applications of collaborative engagement on the ground and virtually.

Departments and agencies should be required to demonstrate to OMB in their annual budget requests, strategic plans, and performance reports what policy and management actions they have and expect to make with additional open government expenditures. Going a step further, the Administration could require that agencies divert resources from other areas to fund some of the initial investments in open government transformation. This will be a very difficult thing to do, but it would certainly demonstrate the President's commitment to this policy.

Given the challenging budget climate, trying to leverage funds from the private corporate or foundation sectors or other levels of government will be tough in the immediate future, but could be a longer term strategy.

One idea that has been floated in discussions within the dispute resolution community in the past has been to somehow draw on the Department of Justice judgment funds based on the rationale that mediation and collaborative practice would reduce civil litigation and save the government money. Needless to say this is not a popular idea at DOJ.

Another interesting idea, would be to reward agencies who reduce litigation or settlement costs (that are actually borne by DOJ) with a "return" of open government funds. Unfortunately that would be an after-the-fact incentive and would penalize those agencies spawning high litigation who should be investing more in collaborative tools and conflict management.

More thought needs to be given to sources of potential savings that could be tapped into upfront to propel this work forward.

Promote diversity in communication strategies 

An additional open government principle might be: employ a diverse range of communications strategies to assure broad participation and effective engagement of diverse individuals, sectors and communities.

This would include drawing on web-based tools, as well as other forms of media and information collection and exchange formats. It would also mean encouraging the use of diverse set of tools for meeting management, information display and analysis, and decision support technologies. Some commentors have already mentioned the need to integrate web-based outreach tools with face-to-face interactions. Not only are their language barriers and special needs populations to accommodate, but people have different learning and information processing styles that should be incorporated into communication strategies.

Revise Information Collection Request requirements to encourage feedback on collaboration in the field. 

The Paperwork Reduction Act requires approval by OMB of most government requests for information from people who are not in government. This can be a lengthy and cumbersome review process and tends to discourage agencies from seeking outside feedback from stakeholders and the public on the performance of public outreach and engagement efforts(be they meetings, hearings,dispute resolution efforts, consensus building, dialogues, etc).

Not only should the Information Collection Request (ICR) procedures be streamlined, but there should be development of standard and tailorable performance evaluation tools for widespread use by agencies. These should be both paper and web-based evaluation tools.

The U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution developed evaluation tools over several years in collaboration with other agencies and now those tools can be used with permission by multiple agencies to assess processes used for collaborative problem solving or resolution of environmental conflicts. The information gleaned from these evaluation data are useful for performance feedback to managers, contractors, and participants. It is also very helpful information at the case and aggregate level for training purposes.

Review and update the Negotiated Rulemaking Act of 1990 

Negotiated rulemaking, first adopted in 1990 and reauthorized in 1996, has been an important innovation in federal rulemaking and was designed specifically to increase transparency and broaden participation of those affected by regulations. It has its critics, but most would agree it's potential has not been realized. I recommend a review of the implementation of "reg negs" and update of the law to incorporate the tenets of open government and the use of new communication and engagement technologies.

"Negotiated rulemaking is a process in American administrative law in which an advisory committee made up of disparate interest groups negotiates the terms of an administrative rule and proposes it to an agency. The agency publishes the rule in the Federal Register as a proposed rule and uses the normal rulemaking procedure of soliciting and evaluating public comments in order to decide whether to modify or adopt it." (Wikipedia)

Wiki Production of Public Issues Information 

There have been several proposals around educating citizens on issues and creating public issues reports to assist people in meaningful public deliberation and dialogue. Some have raised concerns about the trustworthiness of the information, the sifting and editing of scenarios and background information used to inform and prompt public engagement. Might a wiki-public issues site be worth exploring here, where the conventions of non-partisan, self-correcting information generation would co-produce a trusted, balanced overview of issues of concern and proposed policies in plain language. Public and private sector experts, citizens, and consumers/producers could contribute to shaping the issue descriptions providing a full 360 perspectives on how all stakeholders are being affected.

This wiki system could be developed at multiple scales so the issues would be generated and translatable at the appropriate local, state, regional and national perspectives. A pilot system or development site could begin with one issue set and build out from there.