Tim O’Reilly asked Gov 2.0 Summitters to imagine small govt with big impact
Web 2.0 summits have long been respected for bringing bright minds together to explore what’s working and what’s next in technology. The man behind the summits, Tim O’Reilly, hosted the first Gov 2.0 Summit in Washington DC Sept 9-10. Two of us from team Chaordix went to check it out. O’Reilly framed the conference around the idea of government as a platform – not just a body that pushes policy at people.
O’Reilly talked about meeting government leaders that surprised him in terms of their intellect, passion and desire to truly do the right thing. I’ve had that same experience. O’Reilly challenged presenters and attendees to think of the move to “transparency in government” not just as enabling watchdogging of government activity but as a new opportunity for government and the private sector to better exchange services and data.
Clay Shirky summed it up saying “the government needs to have a wholesale relationship with people, not retail.” Shirky used the Apps for Democracy community initiative as an example of getting it right. DC’s Office of the CTO offered up raw government data and invited residents and software developers to make something of it with apps to improve city service requests with $50,000 prize money up for grabs. The crowd contributed 47 web, iPhone and Facebook apps in 30 days. Contenders included apps like everyblock.com which let citizens see crime, construction and business license information by street address, the always popular pothole and more fix and monitor app FixMyCityDC, and the ultimate winner an Open 311 app that allows users to submit city service requests via iPhone (buy the app on iTunes) or as a Facebook app.
It was an interesting time to be in DC with Obama’s back to school address and speech on the US Healthcare Bill. It felt like people at the Summit, regardless of political stripes, were striving to be hopeful about possibilities for US govt openness. O’Reilly cast out the challenge ‘Could we get government to be smaller with an impact that’s bigger?” It’s an idea worth taking home to Canada.
