A subject that I believe will be critical to whoever is elected: the seemingly arcane (but in truth quite fascinating and dynamic ) subject of widespread, automated releases of government data combined with new Web 2.0-based tools to turn that data into informative, illustrative visualizations.

I've just finished a white paper on the subject for Don Tapscott’s Gov. 2.0 project<http://tinyurl.com/54buw6> , which was the basis for my presentation at Personal Democracy Forum 2008, which you can download at SlideShare<http://tinyurl.com/4pgfnp>.

My argument is that government can transform itself both internally and externally, improving performance, lowering costs, and building public support and involvement, through a combination of:

 *   automated (preferably, real-time) data feeds, at first behind the firewall, and then externally as well, in a variety of formats such as RSS and KML
 *   easy access for both employees and (again, eventually) the public, to the growing number of easy-to-use Web 2.0 data visualization tools that allow taking data that may be hard to understand in tabular form and instead turn it into eye-catching and informative visualizations -- plus Web 2.0 tools such as tags, topic hubs, and threaded discussions that encourage sharing the data and insights -- and increase the chance of "wisdom of crowds" knowledge emerging as a result!

I just received some crucial support from academia for my argument that government agencies should make it a policy to release, on a real-time basis, a wide range of data feeds in RSS, geospatial, and other formats, as the keystone of their e-gov reform projects. A new  study from Princeton<> concluded that there's nothing a government agency can do to be more responsive to the public than to follow the leads of the District of Columbia (to my knowledge, no one is in their league, since they publish more than 150 real-time data feeds) and release data feeds:

“…we argue that the executive branch should focus on creating a simple, reliable and publicly accessible infrastructure that exposes the underlying data. Private actors, either non-profit or commercial, are better suited to deliver government information to citizens and can constantly create and reshape the tools individuals use to and and leverage public data. The best way to ensure that the government allows private parties to compete on equal terms in the provision of government data is to require that federal websites themselves use the same open systems for accessing the underlying data as they make available to the public at large.” (my emphasis)

IMHO, the Princeton study is excessively pessimistic about enlightened governmental agencies' ability to serve the public by creative use of these data, not does it address the secret sauce from use of public data and visualization tools either behind the firewall or among the general public — the potential for “wisdom of the crowds” to emerge when a large and varied assortment of people use the data feeds plus Web 2.0 tools, such as those on the Many Eyes<> and Swivel<> data visualization sites.

It also doesn’t deal with the benefits D.C. has gotten by using the data feeds behind the firewall to erase barriers between agencies, coordinate programs, etc.. In my paper for the Gov. 2.0 project (and in the Slideshare presentation), I argue that internal data visualization sites are great ways for agencies to test the water regarding data feeds: the steps needed to have an effective internal program to share data feeds government-wide are essentially the same as for external sites, and the benefits (increased inter- and intra-agency cooperation, empowering a wide range of users, improving coordination between programs serving the same geographic area, etc.) are also similar -- and substantive.

I truly believe this is the most important steps that government agencies on all levels can take, with low cost and a minimum of planning, to improve responsiveness, cut operating costs, and involve the public in a substantive way (please note the complete list of benefits I cite at the end of the presentation -- they're impressive and achievable!).

W. David Stephenson
The Homeland Security 2.0 Blog<http://stephensonstrategies.com/> |  Twitter<http://twitter.com/DavidStephenson>