Tag Archives: eups20

The road to Malmö: government reform from the bottom up

As I had noted before, Public Services 2.0 left a small legacy: a group of people – just a couple of dozens, from all over the planet, rallied around David Osimo and Paul Johnston. This group has the knowledge and the stamina to try and bring the voice of the Net People in the European policy debate on e-government. As a pun, we call ourselves “the rowing committee”: there’s no helmsman, the harder you row the more respect you earn.

So, we started a collaborative process (with quite a few steps, and some very healthy mistakes), coordinating on a mailing list, writing a joint blog, and using other tools for collaborative editing. This way we produced a draft declaration, which is now receiving a last round of very helpful comments (people from my favourite e-gov projects, from Farmsubsidy to Patientopinion, are right at the forefront) before settling down in its final form.

We asked the European Commission that our declaration is presented at the Malmö ministerial conference, alongside the declaration of European ministers responsible for e-government. Please note that no one offered us a place: we claimed it. And the Commission – fair play to them – accepted; so next month in Malmö our small global tribe will establish a small precedent. This is (small scale) innovation, too.

There’s still room to help out. Go here, read and comment, help us spread the word, and walk with us the road to Malmö.

UPD October 13th – Today is the last day to comment the open declaration. Tomorrow we go live with the final version and on to the endorsement phase.

The internationalists: the government 2.0 conversation goes global

Kublai, the Italian central government’s first (or at least one of the first) government 2.0 project, has quickly gained a certain international visibility. After the two showcases with the European Commission (EUPS20 and Wikicrats) and the French exchange of ideas, last week it was the World Bank, following up on an interview I had given to the NYC-based blog Betterverse

As it becomes clear that the Internet is great at producing public goods, the conversation on e-government 2.0 goes global. Ideas circulate smoothly among us Europeans (the EUPS20 group, or Headshift, recently acquired by an American company), Americans (Sunlight Foundation) and Asians (Futuregov), and it seems there is a good deal of mutual trust out there. Maybe there is hope.

Internazionale: la conversazione globale delle amministrazioni 2.0

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Kublai, il primo (o uno dei primi) progetto di governo 2.0 dell’amministrazione centrale italiana, si è conquistato velocemente una piccola visibilità internazionale. Dopo i due showcase con la Commissione Europea (EUPS20 e Wikicrats) e lo scambio francese, la settimana scorsa è stata la volta della Banca Mondiale, che riprende un’intervista che avevo rilasciato al blog americano Betterverse.

Man mano che si capisce che internet funziona bene per produrre beni pubblici, la conversazione sull’e-government 2.0 si globalizza. Le idee circolano rapidamente tra noi europei (il gruppo di EUPS20, o Headshift – peraltro recentemente acquisita da una società americana), americani (Sunlight Foundation) e asiatici (Futuregov), e mi sembra che ci sia un buon livello di fiducia reciproca. Forse c’è speranza.