Federal Computer Week has posted A Step-by-Step Guide to the Open Government Directive, a list of 6 steps agencies can follow in order to meet the requirements of the OGD.

Curiously, the FCW guide seems to simply be a port of the same information posted on Microsoft’s Gov2.0 Ready site, which presents the same six step plan and, of course, recommends Microsoft solutions.

Microsoft Gov2.0 Ready

That said, the steps outlined do make sense for agencies, and Microsoft has provided numerous tools to help agencies create effective Open Gov strategies.

Excellent post by Mark Drapeau – Is Open Government Dangerously Digital?. Mark touches on issues that I’ve also found to be of concern regarding the Open Government Initiative. Namely, it is wonderful to post cool Open Gov widgets, but what is the actual value of such efforts? What is the cost/benefit of these projects? Can you quantify the value of open government projects?

Ultimately these questions need to be addressed if this effort is to amount to more than simple window dressing.

A few years ago Nicholas G. Carr published an article in the Harvard Business Review titled, “Does IT Matter.” It argues that IT has become a commodity input for businesses and, thus, no longer provides much opportunity to gain a competitive advantage. The article encouraged business leaders to re-examine their assumptions about the value of IT. Predictably, the article caused a firestorm of response. Business leaders from Steve Ballmer to Intel’s CEO Craig Barrett fired back to defend IT investment as a critical aspect of building competitive advantage. The article was later expanded into a book, Does IT Matter? Information Technology and the Corrosion of Competitive Advantage, in which Carr further elaborated his thoughts.

The article and book came to mind today as I read a post on the Open Government Directive (OGD) by Craigslist founder Craig Newmark. Craig highlights a chart from the Open Government Tracker indicating the extent to which agencies are meeting the mandates of the OGD and engaging with the public.

OpenGov Tracker

Craig applauds the OGD efforts as, “…a quiet beginning to large-scale improvements in the way citizens run the country.” What is most interesting about the post is the virulence of the ridicule targeted at Craig in the comments. It is safe to say that most commentators think that most OGD efforts won’t amount to much.

Though I do believe that over time the Open Government Initiative can transform government IT, I also think it is important to step back and determine the actual ROI of these efforts. In other words, it is easy enough for an agency to put up a discussion board or create an open@agency.gov email address, but what does that actually achive, other than getting a check mark next to the agency’s name on some OGD tracking site?

A few weeks ago, on Stephen Buckley’s OpenGovernmentRadio program, guest Katie Delahaye Paine spoke about the ROI of transparency. I’d recommend her site as a good place to start learning more about the issue.

Of course, the next deadline of the OGD is for agencies to post plans detailing how they are going to address openness, transparency, and participation over the long term. As such, I think now is the time to fully consider whether Open Government matters and how we can most accurately create and account for that value.

Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, in testimony before the House Education and Labor Committee last week, cited recent Open Government initiatives to make the Department of Labor’s information “more transparent to the public.”

Secretary Solis cited three specific efforts:

• “…our FY 2010 proposed budget was made public using innovative web media tools, which allowed for live “web chats” and a question and answer session with me.”
• “We released the Semi-Annual Regulatory Agenda using a similar format. My Assistant Secretaries and I were able to engage in live “web chats” with the public regarding DOL’s planned regulatory agenda. Approximately 6,000 members of the public participated in or watched the web chats.”
• “In addition, [Labor] agencies are making their work and the data we collect more transparent. For the first time ever, OSHA is systematically publishing employer-specific information about occupational fatalities on its Web site and making these data available for easy download.”

Though she didn’t mention it in her testimony, it should be noted that the Department of Labor has posted one of the best “Open Government” pages I’ve seen yet.

DOL Open Government Page

The DOL Open Government page provides access to the Department’s annual FOIA report, welcomes public comment through a dedicated “open government”" email address, publishes multiple feeds and social media links, links to multiple high-value data sets, and explains what the Open Government Initiative is and how the Department plans to abide by the mandates of it.

TimesArgus.com posted a story today about Wu Junliang, a Chinese businessman who successfully pressed the Guangzhou city government in southern China to “put budget plans for all 114 municipal departments and agencies online.” In a country “notorious for keeping citizens in the dark” posting these budgets online represents a victory for open government advocates.

Two quotes in the article provide lessons for open government advocates in the U.S.:

“The very idea that citizens are entitled to obtain information from their government was electrifying to many.”

“If we only rely on the law to push for openness and there is no pressure from the citizens, the government probably won’t take the initiative to open up…”

The first point, that citizens are entitled to obtain information from government, not only applies to the public’s perception of government, but also applies to how government perceives its provenance over the data it collects and produces.

US-China

But (this is the point of the second quote) government won’t change based on regulations alone. The public must actively participate with government to create policy, review procedures, and make use of the data government collects.

By the end of this week all agencies are required (according to the Open Government Directive) to post an “www.[agencyname].gov/open” page on which they detail their efforts towards meeting the requirements of the OGD. The point of these pages is for agencies to begin engaging the public in meaningful ways.

I’ll be taking a look at these agency “open” pages over the next few weeks, and reporting back my findings. Please let me know of any particularly helpful “open” pages you may find.

Wednesday night, about three quarters of the way through the State of the Union, President Obama addressed earmark reform:

The White House - State of the Union

“I’m also calling on Congress to continue down the path of earmark reform…Democrats and Republicans. You’ve trimmed some of this spending, you’ve embraced some meaningful change. But restoring the public trust demands more. For example, some members of Congress post some earmark requests online. Tonight, I’m calling on Congress to publish all earmark requests on a single Web site before there’s a vote, so that the American people can see how their money is being spent.”

Curiously enough, if you try to navigate to Earmarks.gov, you’ll be re-directed to the OMB earmarks page. The page contains explanations of what earmarks are, as well as links to an “earmark database.” I’m not well informed regarding earmarks and thus can’t speak to the quality and thoroughness of the information presented. The page does claim, however, that “This database provides more information on earmarks in one place than has ever been available through the Federal Government. It is part of an effort to bring greater accountability and transparency to Federal spending.”

I wonder how the President’s comments Wednesday night will impact this OMB page / database? Are there plans to expand this page, or maybe there is a plan to create an Earmarks.gov? I’ve emailed the White House requesting any relevant information. I’ll post a follow-up if I hear back.

On today’s OpenGovRadio broadcast, moderator Stephen Buckley pointed out a new page posted on USA.gov. The Guidance for Agency Web and New Media Teams page contains “resources to help agencies comply with the Open Government Directive” (OGD).

Of particular interest is a sample wireframe (PDF) of a generic agency “open” page. The wireframe addresses a key requirement of the OGD that each agency “create an Open Government Webpage located at ‘http://www.[agency].gov/open’ to serve as the gateway for agency activities related to the Open Government Directive.”

The OGD is specific about what should appear on each agency’s “Open” page:

The sample wireframe presents an attractive design, and contains a number of elements that could be used to meet a number of these requirements. However, agencies should understand that the wireframe is only a jumping off point, and does not itself contain everything that ought to be addressed on each agency’s “Open” page.

Key elements of the wireframe include:

• A “Featured” box containing “Public Engagement Activity” which presumably would contain an input mechanism enabling public feedback.
• A “Data Sources” module that could effectively present some of the “high-value” data sets also required by the OGD.
• A “Records and Reports” module that could be used to present an agency’s Open Government Plan and its FOIA reports.
• A “Contact Us” module that is prominently displayed and presents ample contact information.
• A “Stay Connected” module containing social media links.

Of course, wireframes are only meant to identify the elements that are to appear on a page; they aren’t meant to address implementation.

The most challenging implementation issue may be how to effectively allow the public to assess the quality of agency efforts, and help prioritize what data each agency publicizes. It is start to have a “comment” form welcoming input on these subjects. But more robust solutions exist (e.g., IdeaScale, MixedInk).

Many thanks to the folks at USA.gov for posting this wireframe. Hopefully they’ll continue helping to move this initiative forward.

Note: A number of agencies have already posted “Open” pages. Both the Department of Labor and the Small Business Administration have posted pages.

The Open Government Directive establishes a series of deadlines for agency action demonstrating each agency’s embrace of transparent, participatory, collaborative tools and technologies. The first of these deadlines was last Friday, January 22nd, 2010. According to the Directive ,”Within 45 days [January 22nd, 2010], each agency shall identify and publish online in an open format at least three high-value data sets and register those data sets via Data.gov. These must be data sets not previously available online or in a downloadable format.”

The Participation to Data.gov by Agency page on Data.gov shows the number of data sets each agency has posted. As of this morning, 26 agencies have not met the minimum requirement of posting three data sets.

Participation to Data.gov by Agency

Of more concern, however, is whether the posted data sets meet the requirements that they be “not previously available online or in a downloadable format” and published online in an “an open format.”

The first agency listed on the Agency Participation page is the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG). They have posted 1 raw data set and 2 tools. The raw data set consists of an Excel file containing information about fiscal year 2008 FOIA requests. This information has previously been posted in PDF format, available at BBG’s FOIA Annual Reports page. This year it is available as both PDF and Excel. The Excel file essentially consists of topic headers and data tables extracted from the PDF and reformatted to individual sheets within the Excel file.

Though the BBG should be applauded for at least posting something to Data.gov, what they did post doesn’t particularly meet the requirements of the directive. However, the BBG data set reveals not as much about BBG as it does about the challenges facing all agencies as they try to meet the requirements and fulfill the vision of the Open Government Directive.

Chief among those challenges is standardizing on common reporting formats. For instance, the Social Security Administration itself has posted their 2008 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Annual Report to Data.gov. Their data set, however, is posted as a CSV file (a comma-delimited file). Though both the BBG’s and the SSA’s data sets contain similar information, they are sufficiently different, in both format and content, that it would be near impossible to correlate information between the two but through a manual process.

The Open Government Directive does hold great promise to improve government IT and bring Web 2.0 tools and technologies to agencies in a useful way. But the effort will fail without a community of interest growing around tracking agency performance, critiquing where appropriate, and finding solutions to the obstacles uncovered.

I will be making my way through the Agency Participation page over the next few weeks, and reporting accordingly.

The Sunlight Foundation is also tracking the Open Government Directive via the Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group. And, this morning, Federal CIO Vivek Kundra announced on the White House blog that on February 6th the Administration will, “launch a public dashboard to provide an ongoing assessment of the Executive Branch’s progress against the Directive.”

Let me know if you know of other efforts to track agency performance, or if you have any thoughts about agency performance, so far.

Spend a minute reviewing government websites (see USA.gov) and it is apparent how un-dynamic, un-collaborative, and behind the curve government websites are. So, the Obama Administration’s Open Government Initiative, which aims to use contemporary tools and technologies to bring transparency, participation, and collaboration to government, is a welcome effort.

The challenge of seeing this effort to fruition, however, is immense. Last week, the White House held a Forum on Modernizing Government to discuss this challenge with the nation’s leading business executives. Among those who attended was Ping Fu, the founding chief executive of Geomagic, a company that makes 3-D imaging software to aid designers and manufacturers.

Ms. Fu was interviewed about the event by the New York Times reporter Robb Mandelbaum. Two of Ms. Fu’s responses are of particular interest:

Q. What did the Obama administration officials say they wanted to hear from you?

A. On Obama’s first day in office, he signed an open government, modernizing government initiative, and this meeting was almost one year from that time. He talked about how the government systems are so backwards, and many of them are not off-the-shelf products but rather custom-developed legacy systems that cost a lot of money to maintain. He wants to bring government to the 21st century, and he wanted us to give him feedback on using technology to modernize the government — not just make it more efficient but make it also work for the people.

Q. You had a chance to speak at a break-out session on return on investment — what did you say?

A. …They’re also really interested in when to terminate a failure. And I said that with I.T. projects, a failure has intangible value. If you put all the smart people together and you couldn’t solve that problem, you really should look at what’s the problem, rather than just terminate the project. The failure itself crystallizes the problem.

Government custom develops far too many applications. And government too often throws good money after bad on failed projects. It is encouraging that the Administration at least recognizes these problems.

It should also be noted that the release of Apps.gov (GSA’s cloud computing effort) should go a long way towards enabling agencies to utilize more best-of-breed, off-the-shelf tools and technologies.

As reported by iHealthBeat.org, last year FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg “established a task force to develop recommendations on how to make the agency’s operations and decision-making processes more transparent .” Last week the FDA released FDA Basics, a site directly resulting from the efforts of the task force.

FDA Basics website

The site presents a general introduction to the mission and operations of the FDA, and enables people to stay informed of agency activities through both email updates and RSS feeds. Additionally, the site prominently presents a feedback form through which to submit suggestions and questions.

The site ably demonstrates how to write for the web. Most agency sites tend to be overly wordy and lacking in basic design sense. FDA Basics is aesthetically pleasing, and effectively “chunks” information for better web reading.

The site doesn’t validate against the W3C validator, but does not (at a glance) appear to be an accessibility nightmare. The information is well organized and headings are used effectively.

Other tools include the Apps.gov sanctioned “Add This” widget, and a database of FDA Acronyms and Abbreviations.