On Adobe’s Government Bits blog, Bobby Caudil comments on the evolution of the Open Government Directive, and hopes for further opportunities to engage with citizens, including through the ways in which all this newly public data is used and distributed:
“I am suggesting that by focusing primarily on data vs. human consumable information, the Open Government Directive is missing a great opportunity to engage directly with the general public. As a general rule, people do not engage with data, they engage with information presented in some format that is applicable to the topic, such as documents, videos, images or maps. As a citizen, not only am I interested in information gleaned from government data by 3rd party organizations, I am also keenly interested in hearing directly from my government. I truly hope that in the evolution to transparency our government does not loose its direct voice to us.”
Read the full post here: “Executing Open Government, an Evolution not a Revolution“
We are on the vanguard of how governments around the world will and should engage with its citizenry going forward. We have the tools to effectively engage in meaningful dialogue with the public, whether in-person or online.
What’s required is the willingness of governments to lose sight of the shore and explore the sea of possibilities. There are some great examples of public engagement, but they are few, especially those that leverage social media and online tools.