Gov 2.0 – Open Information before Open Participation

Open Information comes before Open Participation

44 pages of pure gold when it comes to defining Gov 2.0 principles, and actual examples. Too bad this is from our neighbours to the south, the USA, and not from Canada, which should be leading in this field. Unfortunately a local Victoria BC Canada example illustrate the worst case of the attempt to use online social media for citizen engagement – the flawed message and program.

As a director of johnsonstreetbridge.org I have watched with some amusement, and alarm, at the City of Victoria forging ahead with a new website for a bridge replacement project and starting a city facebook page. (the bridge discussions, or lack thereof, on the facebook page demonstrate how citizens felt about the effort). Why? The entire issue was based on a false premise of outside funding – taxpayers, community volunteers and city staff were engaged to forge ahead on choosing a new bridge design, when the actual program had never been economically certified. Since the ‘hopeful’ funding fell away, the Mayor and Council have to play a Mea Culpa, and try to re-engage citizens on how to move forward; in the mean time trust in the process has been lost.

Why is this local example important? The premise was false from the start. Civic participation in a Web 2.0 world is a worthy aim, one to be sought, but it requires the enacting government body to fully understand, and adopt Web 1.0 principles beforehand. Open participation follows open information.

The movement to adopt openness and transparency
principles and strategies, including those related to
participation and engagement, is coming at a time when
government entities are struggling to master Web 1.0.
According to most definitions, Web 1.0 refers to Web
infrastructure, including basic Web pages, Web sites, the
implementation of basic search technologies and
metadata schemes. The basic open Web standards for Web
1.0 should be the foundation of a government’s Web
infrastructure plans, to ensure the intended goals are
achieved, a solid infrastructure is in place, and the
demands of new technologies and opportunities are met.
Once the Web 1.0 standards are understood, governments
should begin to learn and incorporate the open Web
standards that allow for a richer experience via the Web.
What some describe as Web 2.0 – including engagement,
participation, transparency and openness – requires
incorporating or extending Web 1.0 principles to allow for
advanced and complex functions, and a richer and more
dynamic online experience.

What every other municipal government body has realized from the start is that participation in a Web 2.0 world requires open information – simply put, restricting information, requiring citizen groups to question the provided documentation, and seek clarification (in the case of the Johnson Street Bridge through Freedom of Information requests) only degenerates the process.

Rules of Engagement
The success of AmericaSpeaks’ work can be ascribed to a
set of core principles that underlie all of its citizenengagement
activities and set them apart from other
approaches:
1. Diverse representation ensures that the full
community is represented in the process.
2. Informed participation provides participants with
highly accessible materials that neutrally frame the
issues and provide a baseline of information to begin
discussions.
3. Facilitated deliberation makes certain all voices are
heard and that each participant plays an active role in
the deliberations.
4. Shared priorities are the endgame, so the process is
designed to foster a high level of agreement among
participants’ common priorities.
5. Links to action are the backbone of civic participation,
requiring active involvement from decision-makers and
key leaders throughout a project.
6. Large scale meetings (500 to 5,000 participants)
enable the outcomes to have greater visibility and
credibility with policy-makers, the media, key
stakeholders, and the public as a whole.
7. Sustaining citizen engagement in the policymaking
process – through opportunities to take action –
develops civic leadership and enhances implementation
of public priorities.

Point number two is where the City of Victoria failed in the first place, and where it continues to create problems for itself as it tries to sort the mess they themselves created. How they can rectify that is actually fairly simple – open information. Publish a wealth of documents, information, opinion and potential options – make the information freely available – then let informed citizens engage and drive towards a common, and acceptable solution.

According to Columbia University law professor Eben
Moglen, when relevant public information can reach
interested people with sufficient structure, “government
learns it has users.” A longtime champion in the free
software movement, Moglen says that if government
provides usable data “without platformizing it or
productizing it,” then people will engage “not in some
Platonic way, but at the fish market, in the schools, in the
places where they want to take action.”

There is no doubt the City of Victoria has entered the Web and Gov 2.0 age – now they have to realize and accomplish those aspirations. That means new forms of council and committee minutes, announcements of agendas – and I note with regret, the upcoming Governance and Priorities Committee, which has a public forum on the Johnson Street Bridge, has only been profiled though an agenda PDF on the CoV website – not on the bridge website, on the Facebook page, or in the media. Another example of providing the engagement tools, but not utilizing them.

This is a learning experience for all concerned. There is no going back, the genie has left the bottle. The future for the City of Victoria will be in defining the roles of the platforms they have created over the Johnson Street Bridge project, the application of open information resources, changing the internal communication culture (and assisting in the community shift) – and ultimately providing the systems and education to staff and elected officials for each engagement profile.

Planning is Key – Open Information is Key – Engagement is Key.

As a final quote from the Document…

So we won’t forget the ongoing worldwide collaboration to
create universal standards that makes open government
feasible, The Importance of Open Web Standards for
Open and Transparent Government emphasizes the
importance of available and accessible interfaces and
tools, so that what is saved, discoverable, archived and
managed will be available in the future on demand.
Countries around the world are creating opportunities for
citizens to participate in government. The Web is fostering
better communications and allows people to participate in
improving the operations of their government. By
harnessing the collaborative nature of the Web, democratic
governments are engaging the public like never before. In
the memorable words of folksinger Pete Seeger, who
single-handedly inspired the citizens’ campaign that
successfully cleaned up the Hudson River in New York
State: “Participation—that’s what’s gonna save the human
race.”
Darlene Meskell is the Director of the GSA Center for
Intergovernmental Solutions in the GSA Office of Citizen Services
and Communications.

The USA Online Governance Document (PDF) is available here.

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