Note: I am on vacation this week, so I have the time to write blog entires (like this one) that are not reflective of the opinions of my employer. These thoughts and their form are entirely my own.

Last October, I wrote "if agencies' social media sites...

If most of government, and Gov 2.0, is about ordinary people doing ordinary (though necessary, ennobling, and underappreciated) things, Coordinators are the people who are doing extraordinary things. Both within government and beyond it, coordinators are the ones who are looking at the big picture and creating the tools that...

Why should people do "government work"? What's in it for them and how can we make it easier, more rewarding, or both?

In his book, "The McDonaldization of Society," George Ritzer points out an invisible obvious fact: McDonald's is able to keep its costs low in part because its...

What does it mean to be a creator and how can we make it easier and more rewarding?

To be a creator is to take the step from merely accessing information online (in the form of data or content) to adding new information (again, content or data) online. Using online...

What does it mean to be a consumer and why should anyone bother?

These are the first two questions that we, as Gov 2.0 advocates, should ask ourselves when exhorting our compatriots to take a more active role in their own governance.  The first question is easily answered: to be a...

Six months ago -- in internet-time, "the Late Pleistocene" back when Google Wave roamed the Earth -- people were decrying the immature state of Gov 2.0. In mid-March, Matt Rosenberg wrote an article for Social Capital Review responding to a post by Mark Drapeau...

The Center for American Progress (CAP) found that millennials, defined as Americans between the ages of 18 and 32, have far greater faith in and expectations of government than their older compatriots.  This proved true regardless of political affiliation or ideological bent.

Two graphs from the report, "

The Supreme Court has ruled 8-1 that Americans need to stop being such sissies. Clarence Thomas dissented.

Of course, they couched their ruling in legalese, and in response to a case (Doe v. Reed) that was ostensibly about some citizens' privacy vs. other citizens' right to...

Understandably, the most prevalent uses of digital media for government are for citizens to carp and governments to crow. The Web was founded as a way to share information and what most people wanted to communicate was "we want more services!" What government (including both bureaucrats and elected officials) wanted...

It's become trendy for pundits on the right to downplay (or even refute) the role of FDR's New Deal in ending the Great Depression. The title of Jim Powell's book tells you everything you need to know: FDR's Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression. Released...

Steve Radick recently posted an entry on his blog, Social Media Strategery in which he argued that

The public doesn't need to understand what Gov 2.0 or open gov is -- but they do need to understand that their government is actively trying to do more to communicate...

One of the goals of Gov 2.0, as I've written before, is to increase citizens' power over their own lives by participating in their own governing.

In my last post, I outlined one way for people to do that: help write laws and investigate which groups and individuals...

The health care bill, we've been told, runs to more than 1000 pages. Who can read all that? I know who: Wikipedia editors.

Bills are crowdsourced already. Legislators collaborate on bills, it's true, but lobbyists, lawyers, legislative assistants, and others have their pens out -- and their contributions, unlike...

Every day, Americans are looking for ways to lower their health care costs and understand rules that govern their care. Gov 2.0 can help them.

Now, I've been to WebMD and even joined Revolution Health (alav hashalom), but I'm no doctor. I've never even played one on TV. But...

In last week's post, I talked about the technology of G21. This week, I want to talk about the other side of the government-citizen relationship -- the citizens. What do they want from government? And how can government meet these needs? Also: what happens when governments do not fulfill...

In last week's post, I explained why I prefer the term G21 to Gov2.0. In essence, I argue that the change in government that "Gov2.0" supposedly stands for is much more than a slick new web site or communications strategy. It means more than adding a blog and a...

Last summer, I was interviewed by the CTO of Washington, DC, (yes, that CTO) for a position in his office. The city was planning a major overhaul of their entire Web property and they were looking for someone who would work solely on planning and strategy. I joined DC's...