Horry County starts streaming meetings, and other innovation in transparency

Horry County in South Carolina is a great example of how a little innovation in transparency can go a long way. Horry County will stream its County Council meetings online, live.

This isn’t innovative in the sense that the county has invented a new tool, but it does mean that the county is using technology it to collaborate with citizens. Now, citizens that are interested in becoming engaged in local politics but are too busy with their daily lives can watch council meetings from home and experience government as if they were physically at the meetings. The fact that the county is streaming its meetings is symbolic of the county’s is readiness to open its doors and invite citizens in.

In terms of inventing new tools, innovation in transparency is moving forward. Top officials in government are working on a “National Dashboard for Open Data.” This project would put together available data from governments, but present it in a usable format that citizens and policy makers could use with ease. The officials involved in very preliminary brainstorms for such a project include San Francisco CIO Chris Vein, Beth Noveck, Obama’s deputy CTO for open government, and Federal CIO Vivek Kundra. One plan for furthering this project would involve taxpayer-funded lobbying associations such as the National Association of Counties and the National Governors Association.

This is only an idea right now, but there is little doubt that it is possible. What could be potentially in doubt is whether the participating government agencies would be transparent… about the creation of the transparency tool. With taxpayer-funded lobbying associations, which have to be forced to share information and hardly ever do it willfully, this may be a great opportunity to get them to practice what they preach.

Regardless, it seems that innovation in transparency will continue, inspiring some governments to take small steps with big and symbolic outcomes, and improving the quality of the information we already have. We look forward to seeing what comes next.