42 Voices About Open Government – Continuous Improvement

I am part of an international project called “42 Voices About Open Government“. The Catalan version was presented at the Mobile World Centre in Barcelona on April 10, 2014, with the participation of the Catalan writer Màrius Serra, who conducted the event. The English and Spanish versions will be coming (before summer).

Open Government is a process, not a product, and continuous improvement calls on government agencies to innovate in all areas, not just technology. This was the core message of my presentation to the Federal Intranet Content Managers on the topic of Open Government at NASA. What I meant at the time was that open policy making should be a core aspect of any strong Open Government plan, but apparently that message was lost in the translation. So I will reiterate this message again, with a stronger emphasis on legislative reform and ensuring that internal government and business policies are inclusive, and allow for an open process whereby contributors can comment, edit and review policy before it goes into effect.

Why is this so important, and why is open policy making a key part of “continuous improvement” of Open Government? History has not been kind to the average citizen, to civil society as a whole, or to the average worker. So, we are faced with daunting challenges that include growing income/wealth gaps all over the world, extreme poverty in many nations, worldwide long term unemployment, and government structures that favor the well-connected few at the expense of the many.

In many parts of the world we have seen some small changes to the legislative process in the form of wiki-based law-making and the ability to vote and comment on legislationCreating and passing legislation is one of the most effective ways of ensuring open government reforms have long-lasting effects on government practices. Technical specifications: Act of creating or r... before it gets into the hands of the legislators. But for the most part, parliamentary and congressional process is an obstruction to legislative reform, and the individual states have been left to try to close the wealth gap on their own and to work around a divided and divisive legislative process at the national levels.

Corruption is rampant all over the world, with governments working hand in hand with corporations to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. So why is the growing wealth gap an issue for Open Government? In my view, it is the core issue for OpenGov, along with supporting healthy democratic processes, and the central theme that the Open Government PartnershipThe Open Government Partnership (OGP) is a multi-stakeholder initiative focused on improving government transparency, ensuring opportunities for citizen participation in public matters, and strengthen... More should rally behind. Closing the gap is the basis for solving many of the other extreme problems in the world today: extreme violence, climate change, racism, religious intolerance, ignorance, and so forth.

I’ve put together a list of what I feel are the “Top 10 Disruptive Trends “ for this millennium: exponential growth of social media via business policies and executive orders; arms control, gun control and nuclear disarmament; quantified everywhere; open government; millennium development goals; sustainability; digital diplomacy; good governance; crowdfunding; and human population control. It’s time to move beyond hackathons, and beyond technology as a central theme for Open Government. The best Open Leaders model Optimism 2.0. Innovators don’t conquer, they pioneer.

What steps can the OGP participating countries take to close the wealth gap via their action plans?  What steps can civil society take to encourage policies and laws that support a healthy middle class?  What steps can philanthropy take?

Press Release: Presentació “42 veus sobre govern obert” The Making of “42 Voices About Open Government” Xarxa d’Innovació Pública (XIP) YouTube: Synthesis of the principles and concepts that interact in Open Government Wealth Inequality in the US Influence over Public Policy in the US High Income Households in the US Investing is Gaining and Work Declining as Sources of Income in the US The Missing Wealth of Nations: Are Europe and the U.S. net Debtors or net Creditors? Income inequality, mortality, and self rated health: meta-analysis of multilevel studies Open Policy Making – Beta – UK Top 108 Disruptive Trends: A Working Document LIS at a Glance: LIS, formerly known as The Luxembourg Income Study, is a data archive and research center dedicated to cross-national analysis.