#gov2

[espacey]

Open Renderments - Check it the Portal out!!

Open Renderments – Check it the Portal out!!

Open Renderments (OpenRend) http://renderments.org

Brought to you by Chronolabs Cooperative

Synopses:-

Open Renderments is a typal of ‘government’ that is from a point of history to unfathomable ahead of to now too/for refresh now!

Unfortunately most people don’t face realism an Open Government is a has-been and not possible, the word govern and meant is a double verb which is a closed system of…

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[espacey]

Unfortunately most people don't face realism an Open Government is a has-been and not possible, the word govern and meant is a double verb which is a closed system of language, there is no ability to leave it open; unlike a much better word that is not nonsense which is - Renderments.

Open Renderments the political direction and control exercised over the actions of the members, citizens, or inhabitants of communities, societies, and states; direction of the affairs of a state, community, etc.; political administration from a-far to now: Renderments is necessary to the existence of ultra-modern civilized society.

An open group of people that renders a community or unit. It sets and administers public policy and exercises executive, political and sovereign power through customs, institutions, and laws within a state. A modern open Renderments can be classified into many types--democracy, republic, monarchy, aristocracy, and stewardship are just a few.

[dobtco]

When Government Gets Tech Right Part I

Last week, I had an op-ed in the New York Times. The unfortunate headline (one that the Times came up with, but I consented to in a rush to get the op-ed out) was Why The Government Never Gets Tech Right. While I do agree that government rarely gets tech right, never is a dangerous word to use here, first because it's not true, and second because when government gets tech right, it's instructive and it's a bad idea to ignore where the success is for the sake of a clickable headline. Especially for the guy who wrote this book.

Healthcare.gov is instructive in a lot of ways because it highlights the failure of so many of our oversight, risk mitigation, and development systems. It's a project that draws attention to the fact that the systems that we use to buy and build technology are undeniably broken. But they're not universally broken. So I'd like to spend this week talking about where success is, and how those models can be replicated.

When those of us that work closely with government think about IT success, there's no greater technology success story than the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. It's an agency with an entire budget that's within the same ballpark as the cost of some larger IT projects, and they've built a reputation for being the best team in the league.

Last week they released their eRegulations tool, a way to browse through the CFPB's regulations. And you can see it in CFPB's Github repository. Now granted, this is no Healthcare.gov, but let's compare this to, say, the way that you browse the federal acquisition regulation. Or the whole corpus of US Federal Regulations. What a difference while the language of the CFPB's regulations are somewhat unavoidably bad (because lawyers write them, not people interested in clear and effective communication), certainly CFPB's technology and design initiatives have put an emphasis on making their regulations as accessible as their lawyers' cultural speech impediment will allow.

Just as a broken Healthcare.gov is a symptom of a larger problem, CFPB's well designed regulation browser is indicative of a strong and successful model for developing technology internally. Unlike many other agencies, CFPB brought much of its technology brains inside. Initially under the leadership of now Senator Elizabeth Warren, she brought in Eugene Huang and Merici Vinton[1]. I spoke with Huang and Vinton in the early days of CFPB and it was clear they wanted to build a different kind of agency, one with technical brains and acumen on the inside from the start.

That notion paid off. CFPB made key hires, and built a design and technology leadership organization on the inside. Now, when they want to build simple tools like the regulations browser, they can. And when they need to contract with an external entity to do things larger than their internal team is capable of, they know how to do it, and whom to select.

This isn't something that could really happen out of the blue at an agency like the Department of Health and Human Services, or the Department of Defense though. CFPB started from scratch, as a high-priority effort from the president. They got to invent their own culture and their own status-quo, that's not something that even a new Secretary of Defense gets to do. There were no entrenched vendors, entrenched processes, or entrenched culture inside of CFPB.

But now that CFPB has done it, it can be used as a model of success for other agencies. If there's a lesson to take away from Healthcare.gov, it's that while procurement reform is important, you also need people on the inside who know what they're doing.

[1]: Just a transparency note: Merici worked on my team at the Sunlight Foundation before moving on to CFPB.

[karenholtzblatt]

It's still hard to be an informed citizen

Cool tools aren't helping us fit political decisions into the daily moments of our life. Yesterday was voting day in a local town election. One week ago we didn't know there even was an election. We found out on our walk when we saw a sign to Vote Yes for the rail trail bike path. "Must be an election" I said. "What's this about the bike path along the old train line?" my husband said, " I don't want it messing up our walking path in the marsh." The Cool Concept of Accomplishment http://bit.ly/qksibM reveals that people are motivated to get their whole life done on a daily basis, anything that makes that easier is experienced as "Cool!". Town politics isn't central enough to us to take up big chunks of the time of our life. So any investigation is stuffed into the minutes of walking and relaxing. For us, we expended extraordinary effort to be informed. Here is what we did: * We got email, as usual, from our friend active in local politics telling us why to vote for his candidate. "I'm not just voting because Carl said so! We have to find out what the referendum is about and who the candidates are!" * My husband, the newsaholic and web searcher, search with his iPad while lounging around the house. "I can't find much" * He told me about the issues while we were walking - "There is always a summary in the Town Crier" I said. We sat on the bench in the marsh with our iPhone to find the Town Crier (Google missed it). There was a PDF download of Q&A with candidates. But we had to go to the website to get it-and we couldn't on that device. * We finished our walk concluding we didn't want any bike trail through our marsh - but we weren't yet properly informed * At home, we used the iPad over lunch to look at the PDF-which was better than other info but didn't talk about the referendum * We continued searching and talking all weekend trying to figure out what the 40B issue was and where the bike trail was located. We found a pro-biking site talking about it - one sided. We concluded it didn't go through our marsh. * We didn't like the angry face of one candidate in the PDF and thought the other long standing selectman was in office too long. And we found that we were supposed to vote for the Planning Board members also-lord another bunch of information needed! * We deleted the phone message automatically sent from one candidate stating his position - without listening. We don't like that medium. * On Sunday, the day before the election, we drove the planned rail trail, noting that the signs against were all in front of the houses that boarded the trail. "What is the balance of the privacy of the few with the recreation opportunity of the many? Does it devalue house prices? What is the overall impact on the town budget?" We couldn't find out anything about house prices and only a little about the overall cost. We counted the signs for and against each selectman. * Monday, another friend sent an email for the same candidate-and an email from the candidate explaining the "charges" against him which seemed reasonable actions to us. Monday we voted - still not really well informed, realizing that town management decisions are much more interconnected and complex than we could understand in the time we had available. We voted for the bike path and our friends' candidate. And we found that there was no Town Crier app - but there was one for Metro West news - and wondered if we should start getting the local paper again. We did go to the town website-but it is more like an events list. You could say we, who primarily follow national news, are simply not good citizens. But with an intention to be informed, cool tools did not really making it easier. The government has an initiative Gov 2.0 http://red.ht/GTUlRA to make government services and information more accessible http://1.usa.gov/7TMUNW. Today websites are simply no longer enough-they are not availible anytime anywhere in the unstoppable momentum of daily life. Citizens have to get their information and take their actions while they are on the go. If we are going to be informed-it just has to take less work-or we will defaut to trusting our friends, favorite commentators, and others who we are letting, whether we like to admit it or not, do the thinking for us. .0 K

[lucianteo-blog]

By Any Other Name - A Case for Online Anonymity

At the recent Singapore Govcamp, Professor Ashish Lall brought up the need to abolish anonymity from the internet.

I appreciated his point of view, authentication of identity has always been a bugbear for communications and tech professionals alike. Like Professor Lall, I'm also a proponent of open communication, but I see the need for anonymity on the web despite its warts and all.

I tweeted my immediate response at Govcamp, "Anonymity will remain necessary as long as there is unfair (real or perceived) repercussions to free speech."

In an ideal world, where one can speak freely without fear of unfair repercussion, openness ought to thrive. We should not hide behind masks or alternate personas for nefarious motives, or make hurtful or insidious comments without bearing the responsibility of having made that comment in our own name. There should be a direct correlation between words that are uttered and the person who uttered them.

But many of us live in a less than ideal world. In some areas those who wield power do not take well to criticism, and brandish a heavy rod upon those who speak up against them. The options available to people in those places are submissive silence or anonymous speech.

That option should remain open.

But let's not leave this discussion at this point of doom and gloom. For a great number of us live in societies that are generally accepting of open speech, but live in submissive silence or speak anonymously due to fear. There will always be this dissonance; we will always scrutinise those in power, and to varying degrees judge their reactions to criticism as apathetic, appropriate or alarming.

To move towards the ideal environment that allows for open identities and speech, we need both sides - speaker and listener - to be fair.

For speakers:

Keep speech constructive. Identify issues, recognise the tradeoffs, explore and suggest solutions where possible.

Speak as a collective. Offer the initial benefit of doubt to those in positions to effect change. The most effective change-makers are leaders. They need not be official in positions of power, but are able to gather people together to solve problems. Tone of voice is important here.

Be patient. We live in a complex world where there is an overload of information. Change might take time, but keep looking for signs of change. Be encouraged, however small those signs are.

But be creative. Look at innovative ways and angles to solve the problem. Set a threshold for persistently trying out a single approach. When the threshold is reached and the approach exhausted, try a different one.

For listeners, particular those in positions to effect change:

Listen. Give speakers time and space to voice things out. Be flexible and thick-skinned enough to overlook emotive responses, and insightful enough to draw actionable items from them. Wait for your turn to speak.

Educate as a collective. When you do respond, do not dumb it down. Speakers who are passionate enough to speak up are your greatest assets. Empower them. Arm them with facts. Allow them access into the dilemmas you face, that they might emphatise with the decisions that need to be made. They'll come out of the exchange stronger activists and some maybe even advocates. You'll come out of it wiser, trust me. You'll realise you don't know everything, and that's very important given the power you wield.

Respond in a timely manner. While it is reasonable to expect some level of patience, this once common virtue has grown exceedingly scarce in the internet age. Provide cues that views are being heard, and wheels are in motion. Learn from user interfaces: progress bars, spinning hourglasses are all there to provide reassurance.

Take responsibility if you are in that position to effect change. Don't pass the buck. Stay in the conversation, be part of the collective gathered to tackle the problem. Communicate authentically, human being to human being. Don't hide behind organisations, acronyms, jargon, press releases or paperwork.

"Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth." - V for Vendetta.

And truth is, we all want a better world for our children.