U.S. Government Reaches Out to the Social Web for Collaboration, But Are Users Reaching Back?
In the quest to open government processes to citizens, collaboration and participation were identified as explicit goals in a presidential memo issued earlier this year.
Upon the appearance of a tenuously connected web of blogs, sites, wikis, and forums, many were excited about the refreshing availability of public channels for dialogue between ordinary Americans and policy makers when it comes to deciding what the 21st century American government will look like. On the other hand, the participation in these initiatives has been dwarfed by what one might see on ICanHasCheezburger. In spite of what could be seen as lackluster citizen response, The Open Government initiative's final drafting phase, which was to have closed already, has been extended until July 3.
When President Obama's office issued his memo on open government earlier this year, the document stated that transparency, collaboration, and participation were called for to improve the government's efficiency and effectiveness.
Phase One: "Thousands" Participated
The first phase of this program was a public online brainstorming session, which began May 21 and ended June 2. According to an Office of Science and Technology Policy blog post:
Some suggested creating a government-wide intranet and social networking tool to share contact information, resources, and otherwise facilitate collaboration. Others looked to flexible, third-party Web 2.0 tools, such as Wordpress, Wikimedia, Ning, and Drupal to strengthen collaboration. Still others recommended the use of Strategy Markup Language (StratML) to enable potential partners to more easily discover each other based upon common missions, visions, values, goals, objectives, and stakeholders.
While the site stated that mere thousands of participants were logged, it also contained language indicating that the most enthusiastic and engaged users were federal employees already working within government agencies.
Phase Two: Around Four Thousand Mini-Posts
An Open Government Dialogue page was then created - and largely ignored by users - as a second phase for discussion in this initiative toward openness.
What started off as a good idea apparently devolved into typically polarized flame threads and partisan insults. Serious suggestions about healthcare reform received comments numbering in the single digits, while politically weighted one-liners about Sarah Palin prompted hundreds of responses. Moderation of inappropriate or irrelevant topics and comments seemed as absent from the discussion as the deep thoughts of policy wonks who could have helped elevate the conversation. The Open Dialogue was closed, according to the site, on June 26.
Phase Three: Extended With Fewer Than 1,000 Participants So Far
An Open Government Directive page for a drafting phase has now been extended until July 3. Although the OSTP blog states that "well over 100 drafts of open government recommendations" were submitted by users, contributors number just 201 users, and fewer than 1,000 ratings have been registered by the site.
For example, what should have been a hot topic (enabling citizens' participation in government using new media) on the wiki-like MixedInk site only had 18 contributors.
Making Sense of the Numbers
Although measuring engagement isn't necessarily always a numbers game, when online debate, collaboration, and conversation is a stated goal of a project, it would seem that a higher percentage of the target audience (Internet-using Americans) should have been involved, if only through comments and ratings.
Millions of Americans have Internet access - around 75 percent of the population, according to a Nielsen report - and around 70 percent of those users are also using social media, according to a study from MarketTools. Even if we generously estimate the number of Open Government Dialogue participants at 10,000, the results are disappointing:
As the Open Government project's third phase draws to a speedy close, we are left wondering whether the initiative ran too silent and too deep for the average American to know or care about it, let alone feel that he or she could contribute to a meaningful, measurable dialog.
Do you think the U.S. government did an adequate job of publicizing its Open Government efforts? Do you think political and technology bloggers with a critical mass of traffic should have done more to spread the word and encourage user participation, much in the way that music television channels consistently harass youngsters to "rock the vote"?
Do you think that trends of citizen apathy have finally peaked to a point that - even when tools for participation are free and available via a simple Internet connection - no one cares enough to weigh in?
Or do you think that engagement measurement for this project is skewed, that meaningful and representative conversation actually has occurred through the Open Government websites? We look forward to reading your thoughts and encourage U.S. citizens to drop by the drafting phase website, as well.
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I believe the initiative is good but not the way its spread to the normal citizen. When Obama won his victory was quiet credited to the way he was viral all over the web. The intentions are remarkable but not the way it is passed on. Govt needs to gauge new ways to increase participation else this will not succeed.
Since this is the first time I've read about this, no, I don't think the administration has done a good job of reaching out and letting people know about this avenue for direct participation in our government. However, I'm not sure that people are apathetic.
I suspect there are a number of influences, one may be that reading, thinking and then writing about anything significant takes time, and many people come to the web for fun, not to spend time giving feedback to the government.
Also, I think that we've been trained to expect to be ignored. President Obama's administration may be trying to change that, but there's a deep seated mistrust because we haven't had such a mechanism in the past, and what we've tried has been unsuccessful, so why try again?
Thank you so much for starting this conversation. These are questions that I've wanted to ask for some time.
I live in Washington, DC, am active in the tech scene, and have had many conversations with folks within the transparency and government 2.0 movements. There has been so much focus put on opening the data and creating the tools (which is GREAT) but MUCH less focus around getting people excited to use the tools...getting people excited about participating in government.
The government needs to go above and beyond to reach out and show people that they care so that we can get past the apathy which I think is SOOO rampant. "If we build it, they will come" isn't a successful marketing strategy for government 2.0.
I think of myself as the perfect test case. I'm very politically minded. I have lots of thoughts... plenty that I'd love to share but I get the feeling that the folks in Congress don't care. They don't really want to start a genuine dialogue with me. So... I don't participate.
Maybe I'm a lil biased because this is my day job but what if government agencies & congressman had community managers?
Thanks for the reality check. Here in Europe, where the recent elections to the European Parliament recently reached new depths in terms of voter turnout, the Obama campaign is regularly invoked as being some sort of 'miracle cure' that we need to adopt wholesale.
@Nancy: I agree that the issue is trust. Why on earth should anyone believe that their online view will be listened to? Only when government starts listening to, and acting on, those views, rather than paying lip service to the idea.
I can feel a meme coming on - how about "putting their policy where their mouths are"?
@Justin: yesterday I posted a tongue-in-cheek job ad for an EU community manager (click my link above). Feel free to take a look ... ;-)
I think your graph shows the answer: more than half of the American population is already using social media. Which raises the question, "What can the government bring to the table that isn't already there?"
The answer is "not much". If the government wants to know what it's online constituents are thinking, there's already a plethora of websites that can help them answer that question. If our politicians want to join in on the online conversations, then they should set up an account and post away (as many of them have).
Perhaps the one thing that government can do that can't be done by anyone else is to make it's data publicly available. Unfortunately, that's another part of the "open government" initiative that is not going well.
"Government 2.0" was a catchy phrase that appealed to a certain demographic; but ultimately it was a solution to a problem that never really existed.
The citizens of the US form an incredibly powerful body of knowledge, insight, aspiration, desires... you name it, the citizens on mass have it.
The trouble is that no one yet in government has found a way of tapping into it effectively to solve problems.
The analogy to use comes from the origins of the oil industry. Oil has existed under the ground for millions of years. And yet, up until 1858 oil was barely used at all as an energy resource (the East coast used to butcher whales to support the 'Illumination Industry'). It took a cross-over technology from salt water drilling to actually commercially extract oil, and it was this new technique that allowed the resource to be tapped effectively.
And this is the key point. The resource had always been there. The tools we used to extract the resource were the problem.
That is the issue here with Open Government 2.0 I believe. The tools to date have been the wrong tools, inappropriate for the task at hand. The resource is a good resource, a great resource, we just need different tools.
I've been working in this area for the past 15 years, and have practical experience from the corporate side from the last 10 years. Recently my firm, Imaginatik, has been working to apply the techniques for social good projects (charities, NGOs, etc) and we are just starting to approach the area of Gov 2.0. Same problem, same resource - and this time we believe we have the right techniques and tools to extract value.
Thanks for an important article - it is good to not get carried away with the hype and to occasionally look back at results. Nice work!
Mark Turrell
CEO, Imaginatik plc
www.imaginatik.com
I think this shows a clear distinction between building an audience and building a community on the Web. The later is much harder.
A lot of the early examples of social media success has been in creating targeted audiences. Granted they participate and often react to initiatives, but I don't think they evolve into creative self-sustaining communities--the goal of the open government initiatives.
Does this make sense? For anyone that has really tried creating a valuable community online I think understands this distinction. Audiences are quick, fleeting, flash mobs. Communities are just that collaborative efforts that require contribution and work.
Bill Rice really nailed it. What differentiated the mybarackobama.com site during the election was that it was built as a community of like-minded people aimed toward a common goal. For the most part, there wasn't a ton of partisan bickering because both sides had their own communities.
Where we're failing is on bringing the dialogue into a community. The Open Government ideas site was a good idea, but incorporating Digg features guaranteed that it would be gamed and the best ideas buried, similar to what happens all the time on...Digg.
I had hoped that the dialogue would come out of online communities on these sites. That means taking the time and effort to build them, to have a presence, to have a conversation. Conversation means having people willing to monitor and engage. That's what's been missing.
As to the wiki...well, let's just say that wikis are not my deal. I'd much rather write a blog post and link it up because I know I would hate the editing wars that would ensue as a result of partisanship and the general bile that comes out of opposing factions.
@Mark Turrell, I partially agree with your comment. I think one of the problems has been that all the recent efforts for getting citizen involvement have been coming from the executive branch.
Do we really think that the White House is going to be able to distill the likes and dislikes of the entire USA (350 million?)?
Isn't this why the founders made the legislative branch (the people's branch)? They're supposed to be the ones that are taking constituent feedback getting it into the system... representing the people. In Congress isn't the ratio more 600k to 1 (instead of 350M to 1 in the White House)?
Where is my congress person? Why isn't she out there using social media tools trying to build a relationship with me and forming community around her ideas?
@Justin, good points! But my congresspeople probably don't know about me. I'll go and find them, check them out and see what they're doing on the social web. Hopefully something better than online newsletters.
A commendable initiative. People need to be involved in govt issues and even if it's not the best tool, it is a great way for allowing a great number of people to provide feedback. It is hard to believe that the govt is interested in so many opinions or even that anyone is listening, but why be skeptical? Even more people should get involved, contribute and make themselves heard.
Monika Lorincz
http://surchur.com/
Correction:
Phase 2 of the Open Government Initiative (the "discussion" phase, June 3 through 29) did not use the same tool as in phase 1 (IdeaScale). Rather, phase 2 took place on the Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP) blog. The blog runs on Wordpress, which allows threaded discussions. For comment rating, flagging and removal, it appears they used the "Comments Vote" plugin.
Convener involvement during phase 2 was much more pro-active compared to phase 1. Various Open Government team members were actively participating in the discussions. For the most part, moderation happened swiftly and regularly. During the first week of phase 2 alone, 142 of 536 comments seem to have been moved to the off-topic section (roughly 25%).
From what's currently still visible on the site, phase 2 counts 967 comments spread across 13 blog post. In terms of quantity (both number of comments as well as word count), phase 2 was indeed much smaller than phase 1. However, comments were much more on topic and overall quality of contributions was considerably higher.
What's important here is that the White House is taking unprecedented steps to engage the public. Beth Noveck recently said: “What we’ve seen is enormously thoughtful suggestions that no small group of people in the White House could have come up with themselves.” That's exciting because there's a recognition that the government doesn't have a monopoly on wisdom, a recognition that there is a lot of expertise among Americans. The fact that they are benefiting from distributed knowledge from "ordinary Americans" is what's important... That most people don't have an opinion on how to make data more open doesn't invalidate their efforts. That said, yes, more outreach would be great & bloggers should be encouraging people to "rock the participation!"
I am kinda connected to the community that cares about this stuff, so I knew about it, read it, and thought that it made the world better than it would have been otherwise.
If I was outside the community/echo chamber I doubt I would have been told about it on Fox News (or any other of the popular news outlets). This does mean that the engagement will have been with those people more closely connected to government activity and the current administration.
Sure there could be more people involved, and whether that is lack of awareness, disengagement, disenfranchisement, conditioning, or disinterest that prevented more involvement the idea that the results of one try constitutes a "fail" or a "success" is absurd and the kind of thinking that discourages trying new things/ taking risks.
Perhaps we should just applaud the effort and see how we can help better engagement next time around.
My experience was that there was nothing to get involved with - apart from something valueless, like saying "I agree". Maybe it is just all too agreeable and polished. If there is nothing to disagree with, nothing to 'fix', and what is there is largely good why would I get involved?