Today on NPR's Talk of the Nation there was a interview with Don Tapscott from NGenera on how the US government can take advantage of existing web technologies to remove some of the walls between the bureaucracy and the people it serves.
Overall, the point is simple; an open government has no choice but to be a fit government. Traditionally, the openness of the United States Government has been directly tied to how much the press is willing to expose strengths and weaknesses and how well the government was able to communicate its own agendas (again, through the press). With the rise of the internet, it is far easier for governments to reach the masses directly, but it's also easier for anybody to critique the government as well. In many ways, they're just another voice vying for attention.
So why should the government bother at all? The easy answer is PR. Since many of the positions in government are elected positions, they have a stake in keeping the citizenship happy, and one way to convince people that you're not terrible at your job is to show them. A spot on the web for the government is an easy way for them to spread the message of their competence.
More importantly, though, the government should open up because it makes it easier to serve. In theory, US citizens live in a democratic republic where we, as citizens, elect people to listen to our problems and take care of them in a fair manner. Since this process involves listening, any steps that can be taken to make this process easier and more effective for everybody involved should be considered.
Ultimately, it's a no-brainer. The only way people know you're really listening is to show action based on what they've told you. If you can shrink the amount of time or effort needed to listen so that you can spent it solving problems, why wouldn't you?
Here are two simple things that governments can do to better open itself up to the citizens they serve using existing technologies.
Open Accountability - Pothole Map
In the town that I live in, potholes are a major problem. The roads in town are pretty nasty; it seems like a new pothole opens up every day or so. The normal way to report a pothole here is to either call or email the Street Department with the complaint. While this process is fairly straightforward and direct, it keeps the accountability of fixing the potholes squarely on the shoulders of the Streets Department. It also forces the department to rely on one or two people to pass on complaints to the people who actually fix the potholes.
This gatekeeper system is unnecessary. Rather than funneling all complaints through whomever is answering the phones, a city government should set up a site where a driver can go and point out where the potholes are in town. The site should provide a way to point out an address, plus a map to approximate the location of the pothole. The site should also give options to comment on the severity of the pothole and allow other users to add additional commentary on each submission. Throw in a way for the city and its citizens to mark whether or not the potholes have been fixed (and how long it took to do so) and you'll have the beginnings of a great communication service between government and citizens.
This idea doesn't have to end with just potholes. Any governmental system that requires a public service that affects more than one person could use a similar setup to achieve results. This would be a great way to report repair issues at national parks or, by combining the idea with an open discussion, allowing citizens to comment on rezoning laws for schools or development.
- Bakersfield, California Pothole Map via the local paper
- Detroit, Michigan Pothole Map via a local radio station
- Lancing, Michigan Pothole Map via Lancing State Journal
- Southeastern Minnesota Pothole Map via the Post Bulletin
- Fort Wayne, Indiana Pothole repair request form via the city (no map).
Current examples:
Open Records - Crime Map/Listings
Many police departments use maps and police reports to figure out hots spots and allocate patrols accordingly. When the first wave of police departments hit the internet, many larger departments placed electronic versions of their maps online as a public service. These systems pull from the police's records and plot the results, usually in a proprietary system.
This is a great first step, but this setup lacks any real accountability from citizens. In order to truly engage those they protect, these mapping sites need to allow users not only the ability to search on the police's site, but they need to make it easy to share that information with others. By using web standards for their maps and providing widgets for users to pull onto their own sites, the police can better reach the citizens they serve.
Again, this doesn't have to stay local nor strictly as law enforcement. The CIA and other intelligence agencies are already using an internal wiki system to share information between agencies. This could be expanded even further with legislation listings from state and national levels that conform to web standards. On a national level, this is already being done to some extent by the Library of Congress.
- Los Angles, California Crime Map via LAPD
- Fresno, California Crime Map via Fresno Bee
- Spot Crime, a 100+ city crime map
- Intellipedia, an internal wiki for US Intelligence Agencies (wiki article)
Current examples:
The beauty of all of these innovations is that the technology is already developed. Online map applications and wikis have been on the scene for years and have matured into integral components of the web. The only thing in the way is an unwillingness by government either by ignorance or laziness to take a look at how it does business and to see if there's a better way.
Post new comment