Open Government: Collaboration, Transparency, and Participation in Practice

If the truth be known, governments have found scaling to be very difficult. The theme is actually about risk. By definition, the results cannot long follow a set gameplan. Scope and speed are significant. The 34 articles and more authors are stimulating. It is hard to define open administration. Add potential results such as infinite congress, powerless proxies, or resistance to notion of evolution. Web2.0 may not be sufficient to inform the architecture or its defenses, if not creating more bureaucratic network branches for the usual government departments. Case studies are discussed, many in terms of web sites. This is a challenge to model verifiably since it may be more complex than the internet, eg for effect on democracy. Can wonder how much of a role each of several dozen forms of government may have, how tolerant they are, or who will be the people to take equivalent positions and present dire warnings, perhaps including an uberclass of network lobbyists. If party colors are used, the center of change becomes where the palette is most varying. Unexpected effects can be further outlined, such as a balance of power online opposite to realword due to generational shift. Terms differ, eg absentee may be obsolete. Acronyms seem longer at 5 characters or more. There are differences between opensource, crowdsource and open data. Questions remain as to how open other functions must be. New methods of preparing people are necessary. A lot of popular buzzwords show up, eg sustainable participative efficient realtime transparent collaborative interoperable accountable webservice marketplace. Yet another killer app is expected to succeed government internet web search. Secrecy and privacy need to adapt. The signal event that (in)validates this approach needs to be defined with respect to finance, legislation and security for citizenry, business, and environment. Also need to see how intelligently it handles local politics, partisanship, global policy, propaganda, big corporate contributions, marketing manipulation, fundamentalism, costs or censorship. Reading the interactive news may become interesting when that itself changes system conditions. Thanks. 

A terrific resource like no other in its field. It offers an amazing diversity of viewpoints covering virtual every aspect of the debate over transparency and open government. It deserves a place on your bookshelf if you care about transparency and Government 2.0 issues.