Gov 2.0 Expo

I took most of this week off from work (what's up, 7-day weekend?) to attend the inaugural Gov 2.0 Expo in DC.

I realize that I'm clearly not the target audience for this type of conference (my manager bluntly told me that I'm a weird kid for taking days off work to attend an expo), but it was definitely an informative and inspiring experience. The best part is that there was zero pressure since I was literally just there to listen and observe - I'm assuming this is akin to auditing a class in college.

To sum it up, the Gov 2.0 movement - headed by Tim O'Reilly (who also galvanized Web 2.0, xml, web services, and laid the foundation for much of the social networking we have today) - is aiming to create a more open, transparent government by leveraging the lessons/tools of Web 2.0.

Obviously, this is a monumental task given that the government - at all levels - is notoriously slow to change and adapt, and due to non-trivial obstacles that stand in the way (e.g. data integrity, security/privacy, fundamental shift in power from top-down to bottom-up, etc.).

However, the past 2 days have shown that the movement is well under way with buy-in (and measurable, substantial results) from many of the major players - speakers included White House personnel, an Australian senator, former British government officials, and many generals from the Department of Defense.

While some of the 50-minute sessions seemed to drag, and became repetitive by the second day, the 10-minute keynote speeches were nothing short of inspiring and a complete validation of everything the conference was aiming to achieve.

The challenges facing Gov 2.0 are vastly different than those that faced Web 2.0. For a social network to be successful, it was necessary to already have a network in place. People were only likely to join Facebook or Twitter if their friends were already on Facebook/Twitter.

Although the aims of Gov 2.0 are varied, it seems the big push right now is for openness - or making the data that each agency holds (e.g. The Smithsonian only displays 1% of its total collection at any given time) available to the public in some form. The first way that comes to mind is via web services or crowd-sourcing. While discussing the Smithsonian, it was brought up that there are thousands of amateur photographers who would love to photograph the collections in the vaults and upload them to the website or via an app.

However noble the intentions of the general public may be with regards to making use of the vast amount of data that is currently locked up in these agencies, there is a justifiable concern that the quality of this data will raise eyebrows. This data has never been seen by the public - and probably not by the majority of the people within the agency. Making this data available in a form and with a level of quality that would be acceptable to the public is a non-trivial undertaking.

It is also worth noting that making this data available to the public on a grand scale creates a great vulnerability to an agency that is used to making all decisions internally and with limited public input. With all the lip service that is paid to wanting public feedback and valuing public opinion, it is a major policy and procedural shift to consider the public's viewpoint in every decision.

All in all, it was an exciting conference and it was great to see some fascinating and impactful applications of technology. Web 2.o was a necessary predecessor to Gov 2.0 in order to energize a population of users and developers - and to allow the the technology itself to catch up to what is needed in order to process these massive data sets in a timely manner. It will be very interesting to see what direction Gov 2.0 heads, and to see what our government looks like in a few years.

Stay tuned.