Government 2.0 has reached its midlife crisis. Despite some leadership from influential individuals on using social software in government, there is still in many cases a disconnect between authorities issuing directives and ground troops carrying them out. In some corridors of Washington, this impervious middle section of government is jokingly referred to as “the clay layer,” the layer through which no light shall pass. Resistant to change and adhering strictly to doctrine even when nonsensical, people in the clay layer can halt progress. Despite their intentions and being in a strategic position, they often stop the progress being called for.

He also will be charged with using technology to lower the cost of government operations and making government data more accessible to citizens, two things he championed as the District’s chief technology officer.

Definitely wish him the best of luck!!!!  Hopefully he’ll really be able to cut through the BS and get some stuff done.

The team that ran the most technologically advanced presidential campaign in modern history is finding it difficult to adapt that model to government. WhiteHouse.gov, envisioned as the primary vehicle for President Obama to communicate with the online masses, has been overwhelmed by challenges that staffers did not foresee and technological problems they have yet to solve.

Obama, for example, would like to send out mass e-mail updates on presidential initiatives, but the White House does not have the technology in place to do so. The same goes for text messaging, another campaign staple.

Beyond the technological upgrades needed to enable text broadcasts, there are security and privacy rules to sort out involving the collection of cellphone numbers, according to Obama aides, who acknowledge being caught off guard by the strictures of government bureaucracy.

If all the data that we want opens up, standardizes, and were able to make great tools, how are we going to get folks to use them? How are we going to get folks wanting to participate in a relationship of trust with the government? You’re not going to get a rush of people just by creating the tools.

When it comes to communicating with the American people, it seems like most congressman and government agencies don’t actively pursue public response and participation into the process. They wait for people to come to them.

I live in Washington, DC so my representative to Congress is Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton. My only interaction with her has been the multi-page and multi-color newsletter that I got in the mail a few weeks ago. It makes me think that she doesn’t really care about keeping me up to date about what’s going on or actively soliciting my opinion.

What if a congressman or government agencies had a community manager? This would be a person that everyone in the community knew. On the Web site, there’d be a photo of them and every possible way to get ahold of them. They’d hang out at coffee shops, bars, churches, town squares, barbershops, or any public place where their constituency spent their time. I could easily walk up to them and talk to them about what my problem is or what’s on my mind.

Or…How cool would it be if government agencies and congressmen had Get Satisfaction pages? It’d be manned and monitored by the community managers.

Maybe if there was this culture of community within Congress and the governement maybe I’d feel like it’d be more worth while for me to get involved… to check/use the great tools that are made by folks like the Sunlight Foundation or even Thomas from the Library of Congress.

This is the description they give:

Government 2.0 Camp is the unconference that will bring together the leading thinkers from government, academia and industry to share Government 2.0 initiatives that are already in process and collaborate about how to leverage social media tools and Web 2.0 technologies to create a more collaborate, efficient and effective government — Government 2.0.

I’m definitely going to be there.  This event also kicks off Government 2.0 Club which looks quite interesting.

Update: There are two other organizers for this event: Dr. Mark Drapeau and Jeffrey Levy.

Social media is set to make a big splash in 2009 and beyond, especially with President Barack Obama’s administration openly embracing online marketing tactics. What does this mean for government contractors, government focused media outlets, and those actively engaged with government agencies that face challenges around social media adoption? Small and large contractors who focus on military, defense, intelligence, public service and other sectors will all benefit from this open discussion on social media in government. We’ll discuss the overall government strategy and what the potential roadmap for 2009 looks like, how government agencies and contractors have collaborated so far, what works and what doesn’t, how to harness the collective intelligence of people to contribute to government, and what’s next in the relationship between social media and government.

• YouTube
• Flickr
• Twitter
• Podcasts
• and even Facebook

But I ask… what’s the overall strategy?  It’s great they they’re using all these different tools but what are they looking to accomplish?

I’m not really sure what the answers are to these questions.

Hopefully as the State dept goes through what appears to be their “lets see what sticks” approach to trying new things out, they’ll start to identify how all the different pieces fit together.

The mission of the activity is to “to explore how to improve access to government through better use of the Web and achieve better government transparency using open Web standards.”  This will manfest itself in a series of published best practices and guides.

Having worked for a large government organization that made government data available to the American people, I’m aware that nothing happens quickly.

I hope and pray that this Interest group will be able to get buy in, engage, and create community around these ideas with government officials and people all across the world.

A legislative information systems are the systems that are designed by the legislative bodies to make their systems available to the public and themselves.

Who makes them?  This is tough.  There is no CEO of Congress or Parliament.  Before THOMAS there were 7 stove piped LIS systems.

Everyone uses LIS systems.  People are using the Web to find out more information about politics and their politicians.

One of the challenges is that legislative documents can be very cryptic and complex.  There are complex procedures.  There are readings without readings.  Sometimes yes means no and no means yes.

Gingrich authorized the LC to put up the THOMAS system.   The initial system was there but weak.  The public loved it.  Bills were available to the public at the same time they were open to members.

Staff wanted more.   The liked some of the features of the old legacy systems.

There were some additional standards that had to be met.  The documents needed to be accurate.  The systems needed to point to the right documents.  What is timeliness?  Hours? Same Day? Next Day?  Things should be complete.  Everything that is relevant and useful should be linked.  The document should be clear and explained.   There is also context.

A comparative study was done between the US Congress and the European Parliament.  There needs to be better integration of related information/documents.  There is some integrated data like CRS summary or CBO budget estimates.

What’s exciting is when the public sector gets involved.  There are things like OpenCongress.org  There is information on the bill but also links to blogs talking about it.

We need to start filling in the gaps.  We need technologists who are familiar with the legislative process who can talk with Congress when they’re aware.

There are too many impediments within the institutions so public sector use of the data will be important.

The world is changing.  Over half of the World’s population is under 17.  We need to change to accomodate these new users.  More people are connected to the Web and go often.

We need to be starting a participatory volunteerism.  Its community based interaction, sharing, assistance, managing, and changing.

It’s about relating what you’re doing to the user. How do you allow the participation when you’re the authoritative source?

We have a very diverse user base: Scholars/Researchers, Teachers, Students, Librarians, Publishers, and Public.

In the Web 2.o space, online libraries are really content and media companies.  We must compete in a dynamic world of the Internet and strive to maintain relevance.

The Library is a 207 year old institution.  We don’t do anything quickly.  The technology and the users are changing.  We need to compete.

RSS is now available.  The LC has launched a Meta Search and Beta Search.  LC was a beta tester of the Open Site Maps Project.  In the future there will be podcast, second life, flickr, tag clouds, widgets, and much more.

The blog has become very popular.  There has been traffic coming into the site because they visited the blog.

There are currently 18 RSS feeds currently available.  By the end of the summer there will be one for THOMAS.

We will be putting images on Flickr.  We want to get the photos out there, see how people use our photos,  and see how people tag our photos.   Flickr has been very co-operative.

We want to meet users in their worlds through Second Life.

By the end of the summer there will be widgets.  One will be for Today in History.  There will be others for our thematic portals.  Hopefully it will drive traffic back to the LC site.