From the outside, everything looks splendid. But the truth on the ground is that Government 2.0 is gummed up like molasses on a steamy afternoon.

Problems Bubbling Up

Relatively archaic government policies, rules, and customs that impede progress are being covered by the Washington Post and reach the highest levels of government. To this day, Department of Defense workers, even some of whom are in charge of new media output, cannot access YouTube. At one government agency, public affairs employees use government-purchased Macs and wireless cards to circumvent social networks being classified as "dating sites" -- by other employees! And in extraordinary cases, contractors hired by agencies to carry out the work of Government 2.0 are banned from doing the very job they were hired to do.

Meanwhile, amid rapid iPhone sales and the permeation of mobile technology throughout society, senior counter-intelligence officials publicly discuss security risks they face while traveling. Hackers have a new priority target: the President's PDA.

All this is happening while many of Government 2.0's supposedly biggest fans -- the Web 2.0 enthusiasts -- behave like the biggest critics of government efforts, particularly regarding citizen participation in policy making. The rejuvenated WhiteHouse.gov website, the newly launched Recovery.gov site for making the economic recovery more transparent, and the preferential use of YouTube to share information with the public have all been criticized, often in near real-time. Adding to the confusion, social media news reports about such things as the White House's use of Twitter have turned out to be unfounded because of spoofed accounts and guesswork rather than source checking. And salivating hackers at events like DEFCON discuss the many vulnerabilities of social networks like LinkedIn and Facebook, which are nearly ubiquitous among young professionals.

The Midlife Crisis

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.

This midlife crisis was pointed out by one of Government 2.0's most outspoken evangelists, Chris Rasmussen, of the U.S. intelligence community, at a well-attended event held recently in the Washington area. As covered in a widely read trade press article, Rasmussen lamented the impossibly high standards that social tools are held to, even within government firewalls. Furthermore, many tools, such as Intellipedia, are used as supplements to (rather than substitutes for) legacy systems. As Clay Shirky once quipped, this is like putting an engine on a rowboat to make the oars go faster.

At this crossroads, "creative destruction" will require hard decisions about shutting down certain systems and processes and focusing employees on new ones. Employees at the grassroots level need to be given true executive empowerment, rather than dictatorial directives. But how to achieve this?

A Way Forward

In about a month, thought leaders from Washington and beyond will convene for the Government 2.0 Camp, an "unconference" designed to hash out these issues. The event is expected to build on previous ones, and its output will surely guide future agendas. Even now, organizers and other thought leaders are debating how Government 2.0 Camp can and should be used, and they are doing it in the open. On the agenda? How social software affects information security; social technology as part of everyday work versus fad products to be procured; and how to get citizens more involved in solving government problems.

An influential military thinker, Vice Admiral Arthur Cebrowski, once said: "You have a choice: you can either create your own future, or you can become the victim of a future that someone else creates for you. By seizing the transformation opportunities, you are seizing the opportunity to create your own future." How will Government 2.0 advocates create their own future?

The goverati includes not only government employees, but also people from think tanks, trade publications, and non-profits. And it includes high-profile thinkers outside of the government who have an interest in a more open, transparent, and efficient government; people such as Joe Trippi, Craig Newmark, and Tim O'Reilly. Using formal and informal social networks, the goverati is networking, sharing information, and changing how parts of the government interact with each other and with citizens.

About a week ago, President Obama issued a memo on this very topic. The memo, which affects all Executive Branch employees, has three main pillars: government should be more transparent, participatory, and collaborative. Social software will be part of an overall strategy to make this happen, spearheaded by the CTO, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and the General Services Administration (GSA). The naming of a "New Media" czar, Macon Phillips, will no doubt push the process along and keep branches well informed.

There are many barriers to this kind of change, so many they would be overwhelming to list. But the changes that are happenening are being covered by the mainstream press, and they are being enacted mainly by -- you guessed it -- the goverati.

Case in point: webmasters. Numerous policies and customs restrict the government's use of things like commercial websites to host video and cookies to track visitors. Insiders from across the government have written a number of white papers that explain the problems (without using jargon) and outline reasonable solutions (here's one of those white papers).

Former CIO of the Department of Defense, Dr. Linton Wells II, often comments to me that battles in government are often won by the most persistent. And the goverati are certainly persistent. It knows that momentum and timing are on its side, and it is pressing its agenda on Washington.

But changing the government is not like changing Apple Computer. President Obama issuing a directive is not the same as Steve Jobs issuing one. It simply doesn't work that way, for all kinds of reasons. To change government, you must be persistent, have a hook, and know when and how to leverage connections and power to "muscle" change. And there are usually competing factions, outside interests, political seasons, etc.; it's a very delicate business.

But interestingly, just as the goverati is fighting for a more transparent, participatory, and collaborative government, it is also leveraging the social tools it loves so much to become a body more powerful than the sum of its parts. The informal Government 2.0 social network GovLoop was developed by a DHS employee in his spare time; in a few months, it has surged to over 5000 members. Intelink, the intelligence community's internal social network and information hub, is awash in blogs and other communication about the topic. Events are sprouting up everywhere, most notably non-profit ones planned by insiders and advertised primarily by word of mouth.

The Sunlight Foundation, which uses the power of the Internet to shine light on the interplay of money, lobbying, and government, is hosting an unconference in late February called Transparency Camp, in which open-government advocates from all walks of life (tech, policy, non-profit, etc.) can talk across organizational and party lines in a casual atmosphere about new strategies for goverment transparency. It is sold out. This is exactly the kind of event you can expect the goverati in Washington and elsewhere to be holding in the next year as we transform President Obama's memo into a reality within government.

Closer to home, three partners and I have recently established the Government 2.0 Club, modeled on Social Media Club. Government 2.0 Club will bring together thought leaders in government, academia, and industry from across the country to explore how social media and Web 2.0 technologies can create a more transparent, participatory, and collaborative government. Local "Clubs" will hopefully also sprout up to discuss issues specific to them. And the first Government 2.0 Camp is happening in Washingston in late March.

The excitement over new social technologies has not abated in Washington. Change is indeed on the way. The intriguing part is the mechanism by which it is happening. By using these social tools to network and share information among themselves, the goverati is helping to spread the use of these very tools throughout the government.

Dr. Mark Drapeau is a biological scientist, government consultant, and author. He has a B.S. and Ph.D. in animal behavior, conducted postdoctoral research on complex genomic and neural systems, and has published writing in Science, Nature, Genome Research, American Scientist, the New York Times, the Washington Times, and other venues.