We hope to start podcasting again in September, and although I won’t be so foolish as to promise weekly episodes you can look forward to a semi-regular series of talks from Sameer and I soon.

So, enjoy the sunshine and we’ll see you when the season starts to change.

Darren

Missed Us?

A lot can happen in a month. We know. And while we haven’t uploaded a new episode of the podcast in a month, we’ve been watching the developments in the domain of public governance and new media.

Today, we’re talking about data.

Data: New Shiny Toy?

Data.gov is just one of the most recent examples of public institutions becoming enamored with open structured data. But why? Why does everyone feel like releasing data will be good for their constituents? Who’s actually doing anything with that data? Does anyone really care?

This week, Darren and I take a look at how data is being used — and how it’s not — and what organizations can do to make their open data more relevant.

A few links that we mention on the show related to data:

• Data.gov
• Vancouver Enters the Age of the Open City
• Toronto.ca/Open
• World Bank API
• New York Times Open (event)

And a few links with regards to the mapping and the geo-spatial web:

• O’Reilly Where 2.0
• Google Maps Data API
• Yahoo! Placemaker
• Yahoo! GeoPlanet
• Yahoo! FireEagle

We’ll surely be talking about geo-spatial web and what that has to do with public governance in a future episode. Let us know if you have any ideas about that.

In the meantime, are you using data provided by large institutions, whether public or private? How are you using the data? What would you like to see from organizations releasing data to make your participation easier and more interactive? Let us know.

The awesome music used in this episode is from the track Ventus Solaris by Revolution Void and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

Hybrid Organizations

Last week, Mark Surman wrote a fantastic post about the Mozilla Foundation and how it is a hybrid organization. Before listening to this episode of the podcast, go and read the post on his blog.

For those of you that didn’t heed my advice and read the post, here are the three basic tenets of a hybrid organization:

• Social Mission: Public benefit is the core reason that these organizations exist.
• Disruptive Market Strategies: These organizations use products, services and consumer choice to promote the ideas and move the issues that they believe in.
• The Web: The thing that makes these hybrid orgs unique is mixing mission and market with the scale and collaborative nature of the web.

Inspired by his post (and because we’re both huge fan of Mark Surman and his work) we decided to see if we could take his model of the hybrid organization and apply it to government and other public institutions. I’m not sure we did such a great job, but we tried.

You? You can do better. Read Mark’s post, listen to the podcast, and then help us figure out just how the model fits — or if it should fit in the first place.

The awesome music used in this episode is from the track sad robot by pornophonique and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

Of the people.

You’ve been hearing a lot from Darren and I these past few weeks, so this week, Darren decided to take his recorder out on to the floor at Mesh 09 in Toronto and ask a few people one question:

What are you inspired to do to improve democracy?

Seven different people, seven different answers. Good stuff.

What’s your answer? Let us know.

The awesome music used in this episode is from the track Perfume by Adult Only and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

Post-Hiatus

Yeah, we took a week off. It happens. We still love you. Promise.

You know who didn’t take a week off? Toronto’s Mayor, David Miller. He’s on Twitter and connecting with the people around him. Is that a good thing? We discuss, as always.

But what spurred the mayor to become a techno-geek? Was Mayor Miller’s life changed after a talk by Mark Surman at the City of Toronto’s Web 2.0 Summit? We think so — do you?

Room Full of Geeks.

David Miller apparently learned well from Toronto’s technorati. That said, is the best way to make elected officials understand the web by throwing them in a room full of geeks and making them understand what we do?

Perhaps not, but of course, we consider the pros and cons during the podcast. Let us know what you think.

And as an added bonus: the Democrats are using Urban Dictionary to slag off the Republicans. Effective? Maybe not. Hilarious? Of course.

Twitter. Urban Dictionary. What’s next? You tell us.

The awesome music used in this episode is from the track Bust This Bust That by Professor Kliq and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

Has Gordon Brown Gone Crazy?

Okay, maybe he’s not crazy, but I’ve got some issues with a recent remark he made about his proposal to have Ebay-style feedback for the public service in the UK:

“We have clearly got the balance wrong when online businesses have higher standards of transparency than the public services we pay for and support.”

Maybe I’m just overreacting, but I think this is a bad idea. In this episode, Darren tries to talk some sense into me and we face off, crossfire-style, on whether allowing comments and ratings for doctors, teachers, and police officers is a good idea and will really lead to change in the way government responds to the public.

What do you think? Do you want to rate and comment on the people that provide you with public service? Will it be useful in the long run?

Yes, You’ve Got Homework.

Well, not quite homework — we’ve got some picks for you to check out if you’ve got time this week.

• Open Source Cinema
• RIP: A Remix Manifesto
• Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable
• Old Growth Media And The Future Of News
• Future of Media: Is democracy written in disappearing ink?

Enjoy the picks. And let us know if you think Gordon Brown’s ideas are completely off base or right on the money.

The awesome music used in this episode is from the track Satellite by major Major and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

What is Open Source?

Ok, so maybe everybody reading  this blog and listening to our podcast knows what Open Source is, but just in case I take a crack at explaining it in simple terms. In case any of you are going to take umbrage with our cavalier use of "Open Source" and not "Free Software" , we’re using the term that everyone knows but do in fact understand the difference .

Open Source, Open Benefits

So, with that out of the way, what’s the big deal with Open Source anyways? And why aren’t governments rushing to use it anyways? It’s free isn’t it?

If you want to follow along with our conversation you can browse through the report Sameer talks about (PDF link - 1.7 mb). It’s long, but worth the work and will set things like the Open Source Observatory in context.

Public Sector, Open Source?

Washington seems to have gone ga-ga for drupal , with a new administration that definitely knows and wants to use open source software and methods. New sites using cool tools seem to point the way forward, but is it all just at the surface?

Will the US administration follow the UK’s lead and commit to Open Source on a deeper level ? Will we ever see a rash of governments doing what the World Bank did and start actively contributing software to the community via Open Source licenses? Certainly it looks that way in the USA , but what about the rest of us?

What do you think?

Should governments and public institutions be using Open Source software? What about giving preferential treatment to Open Source software in procurement decisions? Should they be developing it?

Lots of questions this week, but good topics always raise lots of questions.

The awesome music used in this episode is from the track It Doesn’t Matter by The Dots and is licensed under a Creative Commons license .

People Love Camping

We looked back at ChangeCamp last week, so we’re looking forward to another Camp this week.

Why all this talk about Camps? Because watching this slew of unconferences about government and transparency and participation bubble up in the world psyche tells us one thing: people are ready for some change, and they’re working together to try and find ways to make that change happen.

The Goverati Convenes

This week, we talk to Maxine Teller from MiXT Media Strategies, one of the organizers of Government 2.0 Camp taking place in DC later this month. In the interview, she tells us a bit about the event, but also about why these kinds of events are important and what they’re learning from similar gatherings in the past.

Government 2.0 Camp is the inaugural event for the newly-formed Government 2.0 Club. Here’s a bit of information if you’re looking for some context before listening to our interview:

If you’re going to be attending Government 2.0 Camp, be sure to stop by and say hullo. I’ll be there (@vasta) and would love to talk to you. Sadly, I don’t think Darren will make it, but he’ll be there in spirit, of course.

Are you convinced that these Camps actually make a difference? Do you think any action will really come out of these kinds of unconferences? Or are you a bit skeptical?

Let us know in the comments and we’ll be sure to bring up your thoughts and questions to Maxine and the rest of the Gov2.0Campers — and address them in future episodes of our podcast, of course.

The awesome music used in this episode is from the track Lovely by Tryad and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

We’re Reading Your Comments

We didn’t quite have the time to respond to all your comments from the last episode on the blog, so we decided to make it up to you by responding in this week’s podcast episode. We’ll probably do a bit of that every week.

Don’t worry, we’ll still do our best to respond on the blog as well. And we’ll try and write some blog posts that aren’t just episode updates. We’re getting there, we promise.

A Look at ChangeCamp

I missed ChangeCamp in Toronto, and was pretty upset that I did. Since we couldn’t get Mark Kuznicki to chat with us about the event (completely my fault — my scheduling just didn’t work out) I decided to pick Darren’s brain and ask him a few questions about the unconference and what came out of it.

For those of you that don’t know much about ChangeCamp or about unconferences in general, click on the links in this post for more information. We’ve tried to explain as best we can in the episode, but you’ll get more by visiting the ChangeCamp website.

For those of you that were there at ChangeCamp: what did you think of it? Was it valuable? What kinds of things did you take away? Is this a good event to replicate in other places?

Will it really lead to change? Let us know what you think in the comments.

The awesome music used in this episode is from the track Lemmings in Love by Pornophonique and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

Are you a member of the Goverati?

According to a recent article on ReadWriteWeb by Mark Drapeau, the Goverati is defined as:

People with first-hand knowledge of how the government operates, who understand how to use social software to accomplish a variety of government missions, and who want to use that knowledge for the benefit of all.

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. 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.

In today’s podcast, we argue whether the rise of the goverati is necessarily a good thing, and I (Vasta) play the devil’s advocate trying to argue that there’s a lot more that needs to be done in order to create change — a bunch of social media elite aren’t necessarily the best change agents we’ve got.

Needless to say, Darren destroys my arguments in this episode — and seeing as how we’re both creating a podcast about public governance in the age of participation, it makes sense that I didn’t necessarily believe everything I was saying — but maybe you’ve got some good ideas yourself.

Is the Goverati legit?

Do you think that engaged citizens and government workers can effectively use new participatory tools on the web to truly create change in public governance? Or do you think my arguments had some validity?

Do you self-identify as a member of the Goverati? What does that mean to you?

Let us know in the comments. We’d love to hear from you. (And if you want to stay anonymous because of where you work or any other reasons, we completely understand.)

The awesome music used in this episode is from the track Prelude in C# Minor by Maya Filipic and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.