Obama is finally getting off the ground a grand project that should have happened a long time ago: making the federal government communicative, open, and transparent, bringing the White House into the 21st century.
That means it's time for you to pitch in! Your ideas, and your comments on other people's ideas, will be selected for comment by Obama's CIO. So read on and vote!
http://www.whitehouse.gov/...
Here’s how the public engagement process will work. It will take place in 3 phases: Brainstorming, Discussion, and Drafting.
Beginning today, we will have a brainstorming session for suggesting ideas for the open government recommendations. You can vote on suggested ideas or add your own.
Then on June 3rd, the most compelling ideas from the brainstorming will be fleshed out on a weblog in a discussion phase. On June 15th, we will invite you to use a wiki to draft recommendations in collaborative fashion.
On the flip side, I will relate for you what happened when this site first launched so you can get an idea of who heard about the site first.
They also have YouTube and Twitter.
All times EST
May 20, 8:45AM: Open Government Directive announcement sent to Federal Register
May 20, ~3:00PM: Preprint of Federal Register is put online. One personblogs about it.
May 20, 6:00PM: http://www.youtube.com/... goes live
May 21, morning: Print version of Federal Register is issued with announcement
May 21, later on: I'm guessing that the relevant crazy people and NGO workers read the Register during this time
May 21, roughly 1:30PM: http://whitehouse.gov/... goes live
idea #8: The first public "idea" is posted by allen_dar, a crazy person posting about natural organic ADHD cures
idea #9: the second public "idea" is posted by nsha1973, a crazy person complaining about immigration
idea #10: the first legitimate idea is posted by Joseph Goldman, founder of America Speaks
(Note that the Sunlight Foundation, etc., weren't on the ball about this. They should have been reading the Federal Register!)
idea #11: the second legitimate idea is posted by yours truly, asking Obama to hire Carl Malamud
ideas #11-15: Goldman spams all of his government recommendations, some of which are a little nutty
idea #16: JoAnn Carrin, Director of Open Government in Florida, posts to promote her own agency
idea #18: Noel Dickover, a consultant working with the DoD CIO, posts a technical but intelligent suggestion
idea #21: Susanna Haas Lyons, also from America Speaks, posts some ideas as well
3:00: 9 people are following @ogovbrainstorm on twitter. none of them seem to have posted any ideas there but some have relevant jobs/blogs:
Richard Akerman, @scilib: http://scilib.typepad.com/...
Pete Rivett, @rivettp, CTO of Adaptive
Erick Hackathorn, @hackshaven, 3-D Web Designer for NOAA
T. Garner, @teeegarner, Web Strategy for City of Toronto
Erika Vick, @egvick, NASA Strategic Communications Specialist
@georgethomas, a government worker in an unclear agency
@brianbehlendorf, seems like an irrelevant wanker
Yours truly
2 anonymous users
3:30: Actual normal people who are not me or NGO/govt workers start to submit ideas.
4:00: I post this to Daily Kos!