Communication Overtones Comments
Kami--
Sounds interesting. Come join the conversation on how to reboot government over here: rebooting.personaldemocracy.com. Glad you heard the NPR bit.
Best,
Micah Sifry
Term limits. Then our representatives would be people who were passionate about running government effectively, rather than a career in politics.
Hey Kami - as you know, it's really hard for organizations to open up communication when they want to control the conversation. Our government is having trouble relinquishing that control, but it's starting. The Department of State's blog, unfortunately named "Dip Note," allows some pretty critical comments and they've responded to a couple, though not really on policy grounds.
By now you're probably aware that 10 Downing is on Twitter, and they actually use it to have brief conversations and answer questions. The White House is on Twitter as well, but they just use it as another RSS feed. (the Senate and House do the same.)
David Milliband, the British Foreign Secretary, is really out in front on social media in government. You might want to check out what he's doing.
Funny you should mention this. I did a webinar for government web managers(through the GSA's Webmaster University) and among the sites I showed them were the Dell IdeaStorm and MyStarbucksIdea. It certainly raised some eybrows and some participanats were excited by the idea of crowdsourcing with the public at large. You never know, Kami, you may see some movement in a few years (the wheels of government grind exceedingly slow). In the meantime, at the airport in Dallas yesterday, I saw a sticker on the X-ray machine at the TSA screening area inviting comments from the public at www.tsa.gov/blog. The TSA's "Evolution of Security" blog is, in my opinion, a terrific example of a government agency engaging in genuine conversation with its key public (in this case, travelers).
Hey all,
I am so glad that Micah is leading this conversation because I really believe that the government has a real opportunity here to truly foster government that is "for the people by the people."
Steve; I totally understand your stance on term limits, but here in San Antonio, where the city council has 2-year term limits I have see the er...limitations of that model in action. Term limits also sometimes give that stepping stone feeling, meaning they are looking for the "next thing" instead of focusing on the task at hand.
David, Thanks for bringing up these other great examples.
Shel; I have also heard some rumblings behind the scenes. I am excited to see what will happen over the next few years. While the tech guys are stumbling in the coming recession the government might take up the baton. Who knows.
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