Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic

1. Strong Examples from Other Countries

In the UK, the Power of Information Taskforce has released gigabytes of new or previously invisible public information from the census, health care, and education with a very interesting challenge to the public. The site is called Show Us A Better Way and it invites people to submit mashup ideas for development funding (the best will receive £20,000). Innovative examples have already surfaced that latch onto government location data to streamline the street repair process (FixMyStreet) and allow residents to know a lot more about crime, housing prices, and statistics of their local areas (UpMyStreet). From the realm of public discourse, there is SpinDifferent, which compares public policy from the UK, US, and UN, and CommentOnThis, that allows the public to comment line by line on governement documents.

While freeing your data is one of the strongest commandments of Web 2.0, so is sharing and dialogue, the social in social media. Both the United Kingdom (They Work For You) and the European Union (myparl.eu) have created social networks that allow citizens to keep tabs on and communicate with elected and unelected government officials. Recently, the Canadian government has been using Second Life for recruiting purposes. And the governments of Thailand, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand are using blogs, both officially and unofficially. In March, political blogging changed the outcome of the Malaysian election.

2. The Start of US Government 2.0

Not to say there haven't been any examples on domestic soil. Web 2.0 is slowly seeping into government sites at all levels. The state of Virginia portal website features podcasts, a YouTube channel, and a series of blog/social widgets. The Maine portal supports microformats and mobile serveices. USA.gov has a blog actually run by real people who use authentic language instead of PR voice. But still, each of these are lacking that open data and citizen collaboration that is needed to really push govenment into 2.0. Award-winning mashups like ChicagoCrime.org, which has now been sucked under the greater effort EveryBlock, prove that if you open the data, the developers will come.

3. November 2008

While not trying to use ThreeMinds as a political platform, it is hard to talk about Government 2.0 without discussing the upcoming election. In one corner, we have a candidate who has admitted to not knowing how to use a computer and who has outright said that he hates bloggers. In the other corner, we have a candidate who has used Web 2.0 to its fullest capacity through out the campaign and who stands for an unprecendented plan for open internet and open government.

Technology and net neutrality have been seemingly footnotes in a debate focused on economy, the war, gas prices, and health care. That is too bad, because in a country where typical policy change can move excruitiatingly slow, innovative changes in technology and web, where data already exists, where people already congregate, and where tools are already built, could promise some fairly quick and powerful change.

Some items off of one candidate's extensive technology plan:

- Make government data available online in universally accessible formats to allow citizens to make use of that data to comment, derive value, and take action in their own communities.

- Require his appointees who lead Executive Branch departments and rulemaking agencies to conduct the significant business of the agency in public, so that any citizen can watch a live feed on the Internet as the agencies debate and deliberate the issues that affect American society. Ensure that these proceedings are archived for all Americans to review, discuss and respond.

- Lift the veil from secret deals in Washington with a web site, a search engine, and other web tools that enable citizens easily to track online federal grants, contracts, earmarks, and lobbyist contacts with government officials.

- Give the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days before signing any non-emergency legislation.

- Employ technologies, including blogs, wikis and social networking tools, to modernize internal, cross-agency, and public communication and information sharing to improve government decision-making.

With Gen Y, a group reportedly as large as the Baby Boomers, stepping into the booth this election season, it will be interesting to see how policies like this could influence their vote. Gen Y is looking for online communication, collaboration, and calls to get involved.

"Ys are going to be demanding voters, pressing for two-way, detailed and honest communication with the president and his administration," said Jeff Chao, IT specialist, Integrated Technology Services, General Services Administration (GSA). "It's not E-Gov to them, it's My-Gov. TV will provide broad reach, but it will not be enough to satisfy Ys' needs for real-time information and interaction."

As brand after brand embraces consumer collaboration, the expectations within every generation will turn to the government. The time for MyGov is now. Let the revolution begin!

Marta Strickland