OpenGovRadio 5/25/10: Talking with White House/OSTP's Eugene Huang

Here's what we'll discuss on this weeks's OpenGovRadio show (Tues., May 25th, 2:00 pm ET):

"Talking with White House/OSTP's Eugene Huang"

Your host on OpenGovRadio is Stephen Buckley, and his guest will be Eugene Huang, Senior Advisor to the U.S. Chief Technology Officer in the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).  We'll be talking with him about the White House's approach for implementing the Open Government Directive, both at OSTP and government-wide.

From August 2009 to April 2010, Mr. Huang served as the Government Operations Director for the National Broadband Task Force at the Federal Communications Commission, and was part of the team responsible for authoring “Connecting America: The National Broadband Plan”.

Mr. Huang served at the United States Department of the Treasury under two Secretaries of the Treasury from 2006 to 2009, as Policy Advisor to the Secretary and previously as a White House Fellow.  From 2002 to 2006, Mr. Huang served the Commonwealth of Virginia under Governor Mark R. Warner as the Secretary of Technology and previously as the Deputy Secretary of Technology. At the time of his appointment as Secretary of Technology in 2004, he was the youngest cabinet member in Virginia history at the age of 28.

In addition to listening to the show on your computer, you can add to the discussion with your comments and questions.  You can do that in either (or all) of three ways:

A.  Post a Comment/Question on this Blog at least one hour before the show begins.  Scroll down to "green box" (below) and click on "Comment".  It must be concise, and focused on the Open Government Initiative (or else it will not be approved).  Commentors can choose to remain anonymous.

B.  Email a comment/question Confidentially to your host Stephen Buckley, who fully understands the risk of raising unwelcome questions within the government.  Mr. Buckley can then raise the question "on-air" without identifying you.

C.  Call-in "live" to (917) 388-4210 with your comment/question.  However --  The host will NOT answer callers until AFTER all the posted Comments (see link, below) have been addressed.  Callers are welcome to add/ask a "follow-up" to those posted Comments.


Handy Links to "Open Government":

1.  President's Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government (1/21/09)

2.  White House's Open Government Directive (12/8/09)

3.  OMB's "Initial Assessment of OpenGov Plans" of Federal Agencies

4.  OMB's "OpenGov Dashboard" for tracking Compliance by Federal Agencies

5.  GovLoop's Chart of the OpenGov Plans

6.  Transparent Leadership by Roger Schwarz (Government Executive magazine, 4/7/10)

"When you are transparent, you create better results and relationships because others understand your thinking. People always are trying to find the meaning of actions, especially leaders' behaviors. When you fail to be transparent, you increase the chance that others will come up with their own theories about your intentions and motives - theories that often will differ from yours.

7.  Open Government Directive Workshop (#5 in Series) was Monday, May 24th (1:00 to 4:30pm) at U.S. Dept. of Treasury.  (OGD Workshops info here.)

8.  OSTP's Open Government Webpage, including the following links:

a.  OSTP's Open Government Plan 1.0 (4/7/10)

b.  "Following Public Evaluation, OSTP Upgrades Open Government Plan" and the resultant Open Government Plan 1.2 (4/26/10)

9.  OpentheGovernment's Evaluation of OpenGov Plans by federal agencies. For the press-release, click here.
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OpenGovRadio 5/4/10: "GovFresh at One Year: Talking with Luke Fretwell"

Here's what we'll discuss on this weeks's OpenGovRadio show (Tues., May 11th, 2:00 pm ET):

"GovFresh at One Year: Talking with Luke Fretwell"

Your host on OpenGovRadio is Stephen Buckley, and his guest will be Luke Fretwell, creator and operator of GovFresh, which "works to inspire government-citizen collaboration and build a more engaged democracy" and features "Gov 2.0, open gov news, guides, TV, tech, people and official U.S. government feeds, all in one place", including GovFreshTV and MilFresh. Luke grew up, worked and lived in the Washington, DC, area before moving to the San Francisco Bay Area.

In addition to listening to the show on your computer, you can add to the discussion with your comments and questions.  There are three ways for you to do that:

A.  Post it, now, as a "Comment" at the end of this posting (scroll down to "green box").  It must be concise, and focused on the Open Government Initiative (or else it will not appear).  Commentors do not need to identify themselves.  They may also choose to ...

 B.  Email a comment/question confidentially to your host Stephen Buckley, who fully understands the risk of raising unwelcome questions within the government.  Mr. Buckley can ask the question for you, but if you want to "call in", then he needs your phone number in order to see your incoming call.

C.  Call-in "live" to (917) 388-4210 with your comment/question.  However, preference will be given to callers who have already provided their question/comment by posting on this blog.


Handy Links to "Open Government":

1.  President's Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government (1/21/09)

2.  White House's Open Government Directive (12/8/09)

3.  OMB's "Initial Assessment of OpenGov Plans" of Federal Agencies

4.  OMB's "OpenGov Dashboard" for tracking Compliance by Federal Agencies


5.  GovLoop's Chart of the OpenGov Plans

6.  Transparent Leadership by Roger Schwarz (Government Executive magazine, 4/7/10)

"When you are transparent, you create better results and relationships because others understand your thinking. People always are trying to find the meaning of actions, especially leaders' behaviors. When you fail to be transparent, you increase the chance that others will come up with their own theories about your intentions and motives - theories that often will differ from yours.

7.  Notes from Open Government Directive Workshop (#4 in Series) held 4/28/10 at USDA HQ

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First Step: Define "Transparent", "Participatory", "Collaborative"

When I only post about once a month, so much has happened that I have to boil things down to the most fundamental and important information. But, of course, that's better for you (the reader).

So I will lead into it this way.

I know this has happened to all of us. You're having a great conversation with someone when, at some point, you both realize that you were both talking about something different. That's when you say, "Wait a minute, the Bob Smith that I know is a dentist!"

Of course, before that realization, you were having a really good conversation. You both thought that were talking (and agreeing) about the same thing. But you weren't. (How embarassing.)

And that's the biggest problem in discussing Open-Government: we're all agreeing that we need more "Transparency", "Participation" and "Collaboration" (TP&C) -- but we haven't really stopped to make sure that we all are talking about exactly the same things.

Such is the nature of "buzzwords". Their meanings are so fuzzy that anyone can throw them into a conversation without really having to explain to others just what exactly they're talking about. Why spoil a perfectly good conversation with specifics, right?

Unfortunately (at least, for heavy buzzword-users), there eventually comes a time when people begin to ask "Hey, what exactly do you mean by that?" And, for discussions surrounding the development of the White House's "Open Government Directive", that time is quickly approaching. And there are two things driving that.

The First Driver: The President wants to improve the "public engagement" by federal departments and agencies. He wants federal departments and agencies to become:

1. "More Transparent"
2. "More Participatory"
3. "More Collaborative"

Sounds good, but the federal depts. and agencies are beginning to wonder: How does he want us to do that? In essence, the President wants them to "jump", and they want to clear directions about: How high, When, Where, etc., etc.

And that is why the "Open Government Directive" is being drafted: to give federal depts. and agencies more specifics, so they can better understand just "what it is" that the President wants them to do.

And the reason that the federal depts. and agencies want clear direction is because they know that their performance will be graded by the President. Actually, they will be graded by the President's Chief Performance Officer, Jeffrey Zients, who indicates that "improving transparency is one of his priorities" and believes in "measuring the goals for the organization.

So, to be fair to federal depts. and agencies, the Open Government Directive will have to be very specific about the "TP&C" goals for "public engagement". It will explain how the White House (CPO) will measure "TP&C" performance towards those goals. But, to do that, the Open Government Directive (as issued by OMB, where the CPO works) first has to define just what "TP&C" are, and how they relate to "public engagement".

In other words, the White House will need to figure out "what it is" before it can figure out (and then tell others) how to measure it.

I have tried a number of times, during the "Open Government Dialogue", to point out the need to -- first -- come to some agreement on accepted definitions for "Transparency", "Participation", and "Collaboration" (TP&C) before having group-discussions about how to achieve them. However, almost all the people in those discussions are excited about this subject and, understandably, want to talk about Solutions (how to do it) without first understanding the Goals (what it is).

But that doesn't really matter now, because I know -- from my federal experience -- how federal directives are drafted and implemented. And the Open Government Directive will have TP&C definitions and criteria and metrics and measurable goals. Otherwise, the CPO will have no way to measure the "public engagement" performance of federal depts. and agencies.

The Second Driver: In the meantime, it is interesting to note that the Mainstream Media (MSM) is beginning to pick up on this "public engagement" thing. Some members of the White House press corps are now asking "Just what is a 'townhall meeting'?" The Press Secretary did not know, and then tried to side-step the question. See video here.

But, because the White House has already been presenting "townhall meetings" as a form of "public engagement", then it is only a matter of time before those same White House reporters begin asking "Okay then, so what do you mean by 'public engagement'?" And that, of course, will lead to "what is TP&C".

So the White House may be explaining what "TP&C" is, even before they offer up a draft of the Open Government Directive for public comment.

Things are going to get interesting. (Stay tuned by subscribing to my Feedburner email in right-hand column.)

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Please See My Four Ideas at White House.gov/OPEN (and then vote for them)

Last week, I told you about the White House opening up its "Open Government Initiative" by creating a special website for the public to suggest ideas on how federal departments and agencies can be more "transparent, participatory, and collaborative". Visitors to the website can also vote and comment on the "brainstorming" ideas.

Full-disclosure: I want you to give a "thumbs-up" vote to my ideas (below) the White House website for "open government" -- before it closes down on Thursday. Update 5/27/09: The links (below) have been corrected.

Supposedly, the ideas with the most votes will "bubble up" and receive special consideration by the White House "Open-Gov" team that is headed up by Beth Noveck, Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Open Government.

The main goal of this "brainstorming" session (along with two other phases that will be open to the public) is to answer the overarching question:

"How can we strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness by making government more transparent, participatory, and collaborative?"

PLEASE NOTE (and VOTE): This first "brainstorming" phase ends sometime Thursday (5/28/09) and, in order to vote, you will have to give then an email and create a password). As I write this, there are already 500 ideas, but here are four ideas (below) that I ask that you consider and VOTE for. (Yes, they are my ideas.)

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1. "MyGov.gov" --> Customized to What Affects YOU

The government should be trying to engage YOU (not vice-versa). For example, an email-notice can reach out and engage you, but an obscure website does not. "MyGov.gov" would let you fill out a profile, so that you will get email-notices ONLY about those things that affect YOU. (This is how USAjobs.gov already works.)

Give that idea a "thumbs-up" here:
http://opengov.ideascale.com/akira/dtd/2929-4049


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2. Make It Safe for Govt. Workers to Innovate to Save Money

I'm a former federal employee who worked at five different agencies, and I know from experience that the only way for to make it safe for government workers to talk about saving money with innovative ideas (or simply pointing out waste) is to have an online system that allows them to raise the idea BUT hides their true identity. (FYI: The existing Inspector-General system does NOT do this.)

Give that idea a "thumbs-up" here:
http://opengov.ideascale.com/akira/dtd/2481-4049

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3. Give Citizens a Simple Checklist for Rating "Public Engagement"

Citizens should have a simple checklist that they can take when they attend a public meeting so that they can rate how "open" the meeting was (i.e., with respect to Transparency, Participation, and Collaboration).

This simple checklist could be the standard tool for citizens to provide feedback to government agencies about the quality of their public engagement activities. In fact, the requirement for federal department and agencies to "solicit public feedback" about their public engagement is mentioned three (3) times in President Obama's Memorandum on Transparent and Open Government. (BTW: The League of Women Voters has something similar to this.)

Give that idea a "thumbs-up" here:
http://opengov.ideascale.com/akira/dtd/2789-4049

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4. Let's Be Clear on the Terminology about "Public Engagement"

We need to better define the terms that we are using in order to have a better discussion about how we achieve Open Government. For example: If a "town-hall meeting" can be a political speech followed by couple questions, then does that qualify as "public engagement" (or is it just a photo-op)?

If we all have different ideas about what is (and is not) "public engagement" or "transparency" or (insert buzzword here), then we will have a very hard time reaching consensus about how to go forward. (This, of course, is one lesson from "The Tower of Babel").

Give that idea a "thumbs-up" here:
http://opengov.ideascale.com/akira/dtd/2693-4049

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And if you are still interested ...

PHASE TWO: On June 3rd, the White House will begin Phase Two of the "Open Government Iniatitive" in which there will be an online discussion to "dig deeper on the ideas and challenges identified during the Brainstorm phase." However, there is an ongoing (unofficial) discussion about the "Open Government Directive" that anyone can join by going to http://groups.google.com/group/opengovernmentdirective

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Update (6/3/09): I was on the radio! To listen to me interviewed last week about this blog-post on D.C.'s "FederalNewsRadio" (1500AM-WTOP), click here.

Public Commenting on the "Open Government Directive"

According to a notice that will appear in the Federal Register on May 21 (see link, below), the White House is inviting members of the public "to participate in the process of developing recommendations via email or the White House website at www.whitehouse.gov/open offering comments, ideas, and proposals about possible initiatives and about how to increase openness and transparency in government."

Federal Register notice as it appears on May 21, 2009:
(Text) http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/E9-12026.htm
(PDF) http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/pdf/E9-12026.pdf

Note: The deadline for comments is June 19, 2009.

Once their website is open, I'd be interested to see your comments about it.

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