The following was quickly slapped together and barely edited. It is the result of conversation, random notes and my own evolving thoughts. I have also had delicious raw oysters and a devastatingly good Old Fashioned. No promises.
The Google offices in Washington, D.C. are packed with Gov 2.0 attendees. Spirits are high. Spirits of the more material, alcoholic sort are also flowing. The whole place is abuzz with conversation and big ideas. Making one's way to the bar, snippets can be overheard by exclaiming types in suits: "it's time the government realized the internet existed"; "we can do it"; "imagine the possibilities."
A dry erase board stands on one of the walls, complete with magic markers. On it is written the question "what does open government look like?" There's stick figures holding hands and a neverending cycle with "gov" on one side, "citizens" on the other. A brief statement about the need for government to serve the people. Of course, which people that happens to be is a thornier matter altogether.
At the center, a spikey monster echoes Munch's The Scream. I don't even want to think about the implications of that one.
Having the drawing skills of a dyslexic ant, I decide instead on a diagram. "You w/ a cause" at the top of a pyramid, with connections to the factions, interest groups and bureaucracy that ensure the power necessary to make access to information mean a damn thing. One can dream, right?
Both power and information are necessary of course, as a rather sharp employee of the UK government points out after drawing "open standards" drilling through a brick wall. Oddly, according to him, the US government seems to be ahead on this score.
An extremely well-prepared representative of Virtual Alabama gives quick tours of the program, bringing up detailed maps of counties, emergency response units and flood plain maps with a few quick taps. It's bracing stuff with some fascinating implications (coordinating emergency response, for example) but you won't see the vast majority of it's information in public. She mentions the need for security and preserving "state sovereignty."
Those are all very real, of course, but it does bring up this point: what if existing government structures use all these new tools to better coordinate their own efforts, but keep the lion's share of the information for themselves?
There's amusements strewn about, including a foosball table with one side set for Democrats, the other for Republicans. A comment, perhaps, on the technologist view of competing parties. It's also ironic, given that there's much excitement about Obama's push for more open data: one of the causes of this conference in the first place.
After a game of table tennis (which I'm even worse at than drawing), an open source advocate tells me of the declining Indymedia scene and about too many on the radical left wanting to do everything for the working class except actually talk to them. He talks about initiatives like the Media Mobilizing Project, about attempts to get cab drivers and hotel workers to communicate with each other. From a more left-roots orientation, it's promising. We'll see, but at first glance it seems to be heading past some of the old dynamics to try and meet the needs of the people who often get ignored in these sort of discussions.
There's much talk about government leaving behind a so-called vending machine model for a "platform." One question that's arisen in my mind is that the vending machine model comes about because of government's function as an arbiter of social disputes. Government saying "this goes here, and it must be done in this way" or simply taking a function on itself often happens because of disagreement about how said task must be carried out. This especially occurs when the task is one of those stark either/or decisions that are an essential part of politics.
People can't agree over where interstates are to be built for example, or the military over what kind of rifle to use, so a process is created to decide between those competing interests. Over time this process becomes mind-numbingly complex, as it's jury-rigged to deal with new situations and interests. But it's important to understand why it developed in the first place, and what needs it was responding to.
Much to think on, and I look forward to tomorrow.
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