The first thing that "got" me interested in Obama, back early in the primary process when I was not particularly engaged by him, was his concept he called "Google for Government". And the promise that if he became President he would use the web to bring to light for the average citizen all the processes of government, opening them up to full transparency.
And we've now seen a first instance of this in the transition-initiative website change.gov . In diaries here since the election I see people excitedly suggesting we post our ideas for change over at ... change.gov.
Barack Obama wants us to submit our ideas over the website change.gov
That one was written in the Regional Train System diary yesterday. Now I have no doubt that Barack Obama truly sees this change.gov website as a viable next-generation toolset to help involve citizens in the governmental processes. And it most certainly should be. I also see that it could very well transform our entire at-arms-length/ go-between Representative Democracy into something more closely resembling direct democracy, at least in parts.
But, like Jack Cafferty, here's the question:
How much faith do you have that citizen ideas, proposals, feedback will be smartly shuttled through the Executive Branch, routed to highly experienced point-people in their respective areas of expertise, by task-dedicated Change.gov professional, whose entire jobs consist of thoroughly reading everything, top to bottom, when funneled up from the "first-pass-filter" software used to scan all inputs?
I would love to believe that the entire process is a reinvention of the conventional and ubiquitous web idea-submission forms -- today's version of the bulletin board suggestion box. I think it's fair to say that probably 9 times out of 10, a good and perhaps unusual idea hasn't got a chance in hell of making it past step one, where some admin who's got 5 or 6 other jobs occasionally skims the submissions and evaluates whether they should be passed on.
I'm curious to know what y'all think. Do you think change.gov will operate in a fundamentally different (and better) way?
I think it is reasonable to wonder about this. Afterall, at face value, the front-end is simply a web-mechanism that, simply put, is a neutral pipeline that moves data from our end to some computer, where it gets processed and routed "somehow".
The question is, what does "somehow" look like specifically.
I'm an information designer by trade, and, to date, I have never seen an idea-submission system that really works in an optimal manner. What I consider optimal is, a system that has various fail-safe check-points built in, whether human-based, algorithm based, or combinations thereof, that make sure that first-pass screeners of ideas are not given 100% gatekeeper ability -- to kill submissions that do not trip their personal switches of interest.. But rather, there are built in assurances that novel ideas, things never really expressed before as being possible, are recognized as needing breathing space -- and funneled to people trained in ideation and brainstorming, who know, professonally, how to filter first-pass ideas and discount the parts that may seem like "wishful thinking" or "ridiculous" and weight-heavier those components that look at ideas in completely fresh ways.
Put more simply: Does anyone have any idea of WHO exactly is the "Czar" or frontline manager of the whole routing & filtration system? Or -- is that not yet designed (which is okay and expected; they just won the election 3 weeks ago and can't have been expected to prep for each & every scenario of what might be instituted after winning)?
I don't mean to sound pessimistic in this New Age of Hope in Possibilities.. but, right now I would have zero faith that any new bold ideas would really, currently, get the kind of incubation and development they might truly merit. The last people I would ever hire for such a system would be staffers used to working in a US Senator's or House of Representatives office. If I base that on how my Senators' offices are run -- Boxer and Feinstein -- and my Represenative, Pelosi, I feel confident in saying that any adoption of, or carryover of, practices used in COngressional offices dealing with citizen "input" instantly equates to failure in the "Change" department.
Anyone know?
(this diary dashed off in Cincinnati Airport in between loud gate announcements, while I wait for my connection to New Orleans to visit my Republican family for Thanksgiving. If there are any replies here, please excuse that I won't be able to followup for another 4-5 hours. thanks! and happy T'sgiving all)