Several times over the last few months we have mentioned here another project AmericaSpeaks is working on - AmericaSpeaks: Our Budget, Our Economy is a national discussion to find common ground on tough choices about our federal budget.  Americans from across the country will come together to weigh-in on strategies to ensure a sustainable fiscal future and a strong economic recovery.  As a part of this national discussion, on June 26, 2010, thousands of Americans across the country will participate simultaneously in an unprecedented National Town Meeting.

After months of preparation, June 26 is upon is, and it is going to be a sight to see! If you can’t join us in one of our 19 main sites or many many community conversation sites (find information here about participating), then you can check it out on Second Life or simply navigate to www.usabudgetdiscussion.org beginning at 11:30am Eastern time to watch and participate.

AmericaSpeaks: Our Budget, Our Economy will be an opportunity for people to truly engage, discuss, and make decisions together about the values and priorities important to them as Americans. I strongly encourage you to visit the website to:

• Read blog post by Carolyn Lukensmeyer, President and Founder of AmericaSpeaks about the unique national town meeting;
• See the “Federal Budget 101″ and Federal Budget Options Workbook participants will be using to guide their discussions and decisions;
• View a list of the diverse National Advisory Committee, the group of experts and advocates who advised AmericaSpeaks: Our Budget, Our Economy; and
• much much more!

If you haven’t seen it, the OpenGov Playbook is a must view for anyone interested in or working on open government. Lucas Cioffi is spearheading the website and the monthly OpenGov Community Summits. OpenGov Playbook is described as:

This workspace is for open government practitioners at the federal, state, and local levels to share questions and effective practices about the Open Government Directive (OGD).  Knowledge about the OGD is spread out across the Web; the purpose of this site is to serve as a useful directory to those resources.  If you have videos, blog articles, and other content on your website that is applicable to the Open Government Directive, you are welcome to links to the OpenGov Playbook in the appropriate place; this will provide more information for open government practitioners and bring more visibility to your blog.  Start at the Table of Contents.

As agencies have developed and implemented open government plans over the last few months, formal and informal networks have developed among the people working on similar issues. John Kamensky at the IBM Center for the Business of Government posted here and here about problem solving networks, well worth reading if you are finding yourself creating networks around open gov (or any other issue or challenge, frankly).

Today the White House released the tenth “episode” of West Wing Week, described as “your guide to everything that’s happening at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.” Watch it here.

“West Wing Week” is a weekly collection of video clips, providing a look at the activities of the White House in the preceding week. In the open government world, there’s some discussion about how open this video series actually is, even in this AP article about the series:

Kathleen Jamieson, an authority on political communications at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Center, says the videos allow the White House to give the impression of openness.

“That’s the value of it before you’ve ever looked at the substance,” she says.

The Washington Post also discusses it: “White House video blog offers and inside view”, discussing among other things the relationships between media and the White House, and how “West Wing Week” fits in with broader coverage of the White House:

White House officials deny that they are attempting to end-run reporters. In fact, they say such initiatives as “West Wing Week” are evidence of greater candor. “These videos are just one part of the president’s effort to have the most transparent White House in history,” said Nick Shapiro, a spokesman, who added that “West Wing Week” “is yet another way for people to get a better sense of what’s happening at the White House and why.”

Speakers addressed that question from a variety of perspectives at the Brookings Institution yesterday, as part of the event I posted about last week. Video is available from CSPAN here, in two parts – well worth watching!