Transparency innovation means citizen involvement

We’ve written before about how governments are sponsoring contests involving citizens and small technology companies to better deliver government data.

The outcome of these contests has been positive. The contests have resulted the data released on data.gov becoming useful, data previously criticized as being low quality, into maps that display geographic clusters of asthma, for example. In Washington, D.C., the value of the software created by the first Apps for Democracy competition is estimated to be in excess of $2.2 million. That contest gave out $20,000 in cash prizes.

David McClure of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies for the Obama Adminsitration stated that the government must learn to accept the notion that innovation in governing will increasingly occur beyond the government sphere. In other words, he is urging governments to get used to the fact that they benefit from, and need to, collaborate with citizens in order to maximize the good we get from innovation. And, as noted, that is a good message. The benefits of giving citizens a key to open data are many.

However, that statement doesn’t go far enough. Citizens are important in helping government deliver information in usable, innovative ways, but they are also the most important part of the equation. Government isn’t doing us a favor by collaborating with us; it’s the government’s job to have an ongoing discussion with its citizens.

Innovation in transparency is a great means of ensuring this discussion happens. Ealier this week, the New York City Council held an open meeting, inviting experts and citizens to testify on how the city can make good use of data released by every city agency under a new bill.

Now, private companies are providing a means for beating government to the punch. Bing.com has just launched an app contest, and open data fans are taking that as a cue. The trend of citizens taking advantage of information the government allows us to have is only growing, and we look forward to the continued positive outcomes.

California and Gov 2.0: Innovation in transparency

Gov 2.0 isn’t just hip and trendy; it can lead to real change.

What is Gov 2.0? Any government initiative designed to better give citizens information through online innovation, whether that be a sleek website design or a revolutionary application that brings local government transparency to your phone.

The state of California, with the help of the Center for Digital Government, will partner with Microsoft, Google and Programmable Web to run an apps contest this summer to seize the benefits of Gov 2.0.

California’s transparency app contest comes with a refreshed Data.CA.gov, which contains over 100 million records in several different file types.

California wants to improve its data for citizens’ use. But as one article notes, such contests come with added benefits to states in rough financial shape:

The value of the software created is often worth more than the prize money distributed. Peter Corbett, the founder of iStrategy Labs, recently said Washington, D.C. estimated the value of the software created by the first Apps for Democracy competition to be in excess of $2.2 million. That contest gave out $20,000 in cash prizes.

That’s a great deal: $2.2 million for the price of 1/100 of that. But the deal is in actuality much greater. The projected price does not take into account several positive consequences. First, the fact that government is involving citizens in helping improve government-to-citizen communications does a great deal to increase the legitimacy of that government. Second, government watchdogs have their job made easier with these enhanced tools, which means they can do a more effective job of uncovering discrepancies, weeding out corruption, and finding honest mistakes. Lastly, having interesting and new ways to display data makes the data valuable in the first place. It’s great for governments to make their data available, but it’s all for nothing if citizens don’t understand it.

Government app contests is a growing trend. The District of Columbia hosted an Apps for Democracy contest, based on Washington’s data catalog, and was followed by Apps for America, which used datasets from data.gov. The Army has joined in the fun and plans on announcing winners of its Apps for the Army contest in August. The World Bank also plans on bringing innovation to its new data catalog, data.worldbank.org.

As boring as this may sound, it is a great source of excitement. For example, this morning on Twitter, the big news on the #opengov hashtag list was the fact that the Department of Health and Human Resources unlocked its data. The Department is also welcoming and tracking suggestions for how to improve its (sleek) website and the data available.

It’s good to see governments start caring about things like usability and innovation. They can be assured that we care back.

Innovation in transparency

When thinking about transparency, we often think in terms of the benefits that will come to private citizens. However, there are many direct benefits for governments and officials, including increased legitimacy, reduced duplication, better cross-pollination, and the ability tap into innovation.

The innovation is already under way as governments and private companies look to cell phone programs, known as “apps” (short for “applications”) to make transparency easier, as smart phones are expected to become the dominant platform to access the Web. DotGov, Inc. is developing a mobile program that will provide citizens with tools to interact with and benefit from all the information and services that local governments offer. The company plans to launch its app in May 2010.

One of my biggest gripes against many well-intentioned transparency projects is their lack of usability: either the platform the information is released on is confusing, or the information itself is too raw to interpret. But innovation is starting to touch this problem, too. A $30,000 prize by iStrategy Labs worked to motivate technologists to develop phone applications that help with usability issues, and the results were apps valued at $2.6 million.

It seems that expectations are changing. Now, we ask not just that the government give us information, but that it help us use it. The questions becomes one of making available information better, as opposed to making that information available.

Still, posting information remains commendable, and any government that moves to posting information online deserves praise.