Mashable - The Social Media Guide - Latest Comments in Government 2.0: Crowdsourced Beltway Pandits

Re: Government 2.0: Crowdsourced Beltway Pandits

Kyle Stone — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 17:20:24 -0000

Very informative! I wasn't aware of the Defense 2.0 bit.

I'd like to get some sort of a database going which includes updates from all of the sources covering Gov't 2.0.

Re: Government 2.0: Crowdsourced Beltway Pandits

Kyle Stone — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 16:58:50 -0000

Man, everybody on the inter-web is writing about this issue right now. Here's my humble contribution: http://www.govcentral.com/n...

Re: Government 2.0: Crowdsourced Beltway Pandits

Mark Drapeau — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 13:40:43 -0000

Zach - Thanks very much! I am going to try to work http://www.PolicyPitch.com into something I am writing now. -Mark

Re: Government 2.0: Crowdsourced Beltway Pandits

Mark Drapeau — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 10:14:39 -0000

Gartner report confirms what has already been said and what is already happening - yay! (http://www.gartner.com/it/p...

Re: Government 2.0: Crowdsourced Beltway Pandits

Mark Drapeau — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 10:05:53 -0000

Will, I think we're all very enthusiastic about Apps for Democracy!!

Re: Government 2.0: Crowdsourced Beltway Pandits

Will Evans — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 10:04:15 -0000

Ooops - looks like I was beaten to the punch

Re: Government 2.0: Crowdsourced Beltway Pandits

Will Evans — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 10:02:46 -0000

Have you seen what iStrategyLabs is doing with Apps for Democracy? Talk about real crowdsourced innovation to build better apps that serve citizens...
http://www.appsfordemocracy...

Re: Government 2.0: Crowdsourced Beltway Pandits

Mark Drapeau — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 08:25:42 -0000

Hi Marc, thanks very much for your thoughtful comments. That's a big, broad question you asked and I'm not sure there's an easy answer. Or any answer, since the President and agency leadership will change shortly. But there is a great Washington DC example of more open government providing an infrastructure for data but allowing open analysis of it: the city itself. Washington DC's CTO, Vivek Kundra, is now working with Peter Corbett of iStrategyLabs to run a contest called "Apps for Democracy" (http://www.appsfordemocracy.... (Mashable is the key sponsor.) The idea is that people and companies will create widgets to make useful sense of the city's data on traffic, crime, etc. Organizations in the federal government like DARPA already run contests looking for innovation - I don't see why similar things could not be done at (say) the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the CDC, and other places with storehouses of data that could readily be provided to people, or are already available but in difficult to work with formats. -Mark

Re: Government 2.0: Crowdsourced Beltway Pandits

Marc Vermut — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 17:44:33 -0000

Mark,

Really enjoyed the column. We are finally, I think, entering an age of empowered citizenry with access to information...if the government lets loose with the strings. And you start to see it in action with Tara Hunt's TransitCampBayArea. The real impact that people have is in starting local and building up.

Not sure how easy the top down initiatives are to accomplish, such as making the provision of health care more efficient through outsourcing. If the government is too large to figure out a national plan, I can't imagine the bureaucracy tackling such coordination effectively. What are your thoughts on how likely agencies like the EPA, FDA, etc are to opening up for citizen involvement when there is such fundamental disagreement surrounding their mission, methods, decisions and actions?

marc

Re: Government 2.0: Crowdsourced Beltway Pandits

Mark Drapeau — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 17:34:03 -0000

Thanks for your enthusiam! There are a number of white papers out there from think thanks and advocacy groups talking about how to use social tech tools for government in the broadest sense. Although I mainly work on Social Software for Security (S3) for the government in Washington, as a person I have an interest in the broader topic. I think there are many possibilities we have only begun to discover! Mark

Re: Government 2.0: Crowdsourced Beltway Pandits

pair o' dimes — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 17:28:30 -0000

I dig the idea of outsourcing home-school ed. Would also like to see public schools allow commercial involvement. There's unimaginable possibilities for our entire education system to embrace social networking. 1st grade through graduation a student could have an account that follows them no matter the school. Who needs arithmetic papers on the fridge when you can you can post it for the world to see?

Re: Government 2.0: Crowdsourced Beltway Pandits

Mark Drapeau — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 17:19:48 -0000

Ranjit, this is a very nice article. I have incorporated some of its ideas into something I am writing about policy moving into the next administration. Thanks for linking to it here. -Mark

Re: Government 2.0: Crowdsourced Beltway Pandits

Ranjit Mathoda — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:04:48 -0000

The "Coming Digital Presidency" is an article I wrote about the use of social networks and web tools in governing: http://mathoda.com/archives...