Open Government: Collaboration, Transparency, and Participation in Practice

by Daniel Lathrop, Laurel Ruma, Don Tapscott (Foreword by)

Overview

In a world where web services can make real-time data accessible to anyone, how can the government leverage this openness to improve its operations and increase citizen participation and awareness? Through a collection of essays and case studies, leading visionaries and practitioners both inside and outside of government share their ideas on how to achieve and direct this emerging world of online collaboration, transparency, and participation.

Contributions and topics include:

• Beth Simone Noveck, U.S. Deputy Chief Technology Officer for open government, "The Single Point of Failure"
• Jerry Brito, senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, "All Your Data Are Belong to Us: Liberating Government Data"
• Aaron Swartz, cofounder of reddit.com, OpenLibrary.org, and BoldProgressives.org, "When Is Transparency Useful?"
• Ellen S. Miller, executive director of the Sunlight Foundation, "Disrupting Washington's Golden Rule"
• Carl Malamud, founder of Public.Resource.Org, "By the People"
• Douglas Schuler, president of the Public Sphere Project, "Online Deliberation and Civic Intelligence"
• Howard Dierking, program manager on Microsoft's MSDN and TechNet Web platform team, "Engineering Good Government"
• Matthew Burton, Web entrepreneur and former intelligence analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency, "A Peace Corps for Programmers"
• Gary D. Bass and Sean Moulton, OMB Watch, "Bringing the Web 2.0 Revolution to Government"
• Tim O'Reilly, founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media, "Defining Government 2.0: Lessons Learned from the Success of Computer Platforms"

Open Government editors:

Daniel Lathrop is a former investigative projects reporter with the Seattle Post Intelligencer who's covered politics in Washington state, Iowa, Florida, and Washington D.C. He's a specialist in campaign finance and "computer-assisted reporting" — the practice of using data analysis to report the news.

Laurel Ruma is the Gov 2.0 Evangelist at O'Reilly Media. She is also co-chair for the Gov 2.0 Expo.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780596804350
Publisher:	O'Reilly Media, Incorporated
Publication date:	02/23/2010
Pages:	402
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Daniel Lathrop is a former investigative projects reporter with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. He has covered politics in Washington state, Iowa, Florida and Washington D.C. He was a senior researcher on the New York Times bestselling "The Buying of the President 2004" by Charles Lewis. He is a specialist in campaign finance and "computer assisted reporting," the practice of using data analysis to report the news. He writes code in Perl, Python and PHP. He was the primary architect of the data for the Center for Public Integrity's successful Lobbywatch project, which provided the first truly searchable online database of federal lobbying available to the general public. He supervised the data team that developed CPI's Power Trips investigation of Congressional junkets.

Laurel Ruma is the Gov 2.0 Evangelist at O'Reilly Media. She is the co-chair for the Gov 2.0 Expo. Laurel joined the company in 2005 after being an editor at various IT research/consulting firms in the Boston area. Laurel went to Union College and is a photographer and homebrewer.

Table of Contents

• Foreword
• Preface
• Chapter 1: A Peace Corps for Programmers
• Chapter 2: Government As a Platform
• Chapter 3: By the People
• Chapter 4: The Single Point of Failure
• Chapter 5: Engineering Good Government
• Chapter 6: Enabling Innovation for Civic Engagement
• Chapter 7: Online Deliberation and Civic Intelligence
• Chapter 8: Open Government and Open Society
• Chapter 9: “You Can Be the Eyes and Ears”: Barack Obama and the Wisdom of Crowds
• Chapter 10: Two-Way Street: Government with the People
• Chapter 11: Citizens’ View of Open Government
• Chapter 12: After the Collapse: Open Government and the Future of Civil Service
• Chapter 13: Democracy, Under Everything
• Chapter 14: Emergent Democracy
• Chapter 15: Case Study: Tweet Congress
• Chapter 16: Entrepreneurial Insurgency: Republicans Connect With the American People
• Chapter 17: Disrupting Washington’s Golden Rule
• Chapter 18: Case Study: GovTrack.us
• Chapter 19: Case Study: FollowTheMoney.org
• Chapter 20: Case Study: MAPLight.org
• Chapter 21: Going 2.0: Why OpenSecrets.org Opted for Full Frontal Data Sharing
• Chapter 22: All Your Data Are Belong to Us: Liberating Government Data
• Chapter 23: Case Study: Many Eyes
• Chapter 24: My Data Can’t Tell You That
• Chapter 25: When Is Transparency Useful?
• Chapter 26: Transparency Inside Out
• Chapter 27: Bringing the Web 2.0 Revolution to Government
• Chapter 28: Toads on the Road to Open Government Data
• Chapter 29: Open Government: The Privacy Imperative
• Chapter 30: Freedom of Information Acts: Promises and Realities
• Chapter 31: Gov→Media→People
• Chapter 32: Open Source Software for Open Government Agencies
• Chapter 33: Why Open Digital Standards Matter in Government
• Chapter 34: Case Study: Utah.gov
• Memo from President Obama on Transparency and Open Government
• Colophon

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

We’re living in a world characterized by exponential change. Most government organizations weren’t built for this world. The movement from closed to open is one of the most important ways governments can adapt to faster change. Open Government offers insight on how to get from here to there. It should be required reading for anyone who cares about the future of the public sector.

— William D. Eggers, Author of If We Can Put a Man on the Moon: Getting Big Things Done in Government and Government 2.0

Editorial Reviews

Open Government is a comprehensive compendium of the who, what, how, and why of the emergent national "Gov 2.0" movement; it's a must-read for all who care about transparent, efficient, and participatory government, which, by definition, should equate to each and every one of us in our capacity as citizens and voters.

— Andrew Hoppin, CIO, New York State Senate

Andrew Hoppin

We’re living in a world characterized by exponential change. Most government organizations weren’t built for this world. The movement from closed to open is one of the most important ways governments can adapt to faster change. Open Government offers insight on how to get from here to there. It should be required reading for anyone who cares about the future of the public sector.

— William D. Eggers, Author of If We Can Put a Man on the Moon: Getting Big Things Done in Government and Government 2.0

William D. Eggers

Government is becoming more responsive and effective due to the Open Government movement. This book is written by the people, and for the people, who are interested in making Open Government happen.

— Craig Newmark, Founder of Craigslist

Craig Newmark

Open government is one critical part in making happen what some may think impossible: a government that actually works.

— Lawrence Lessig, director of the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics and professor of law at Harvard Law School

Lawrence Lessig

We’re living in a world characterized by exponential change. Most government organizations weren’t built for this world. The movement from closed to open is one of the most important ways governments can adapt to faster change. Open Government offers insight on how to get from here to there. It should be required reading for anyone who cares about the future of the public sector.

— William D. Eggers, Author of If We Can Put a Man on the Moon: Getting Big Things Done in Government and Government 2.0

From the Publisher