Is the “Open Government Directive” Engaging Citizens?

The initial deadline for Federal agencies to meet the Open Government Directive (OGD) has come and gone, and many of them have checked the necessary boxes to prove that they are more "open" and transparent. They have new websites with new features and some new data that new people can use if they choose. And there's more new things to come in 2010.

But, as I noted in a quote within this Federal Computer Week article on the OGD,

“What concerns me about the Open Government Directive is the notion of ‘check-box government’ it seems to encourage. Very little emphasis seems to be on the actual engaging, or even on the strategy for doing so. The focus is on the technology. Where's the focus on the humans?”

Knowing that these new websites, user interfaces, and datasets are what the public wants and needs, and that the new forms of public engagement are actually, truly effective is far more important than merely peacocking them on the Web. Where is, in fact, the focus on the human side of the equation? I haven't studied every single open website in depth, but generally the emphasis is on new technology or new data, and not new engagement.

FCW also quoted me as saying,

“Engagement is hard, very hard, and it doesn't happen completely from behind a computer terminal in a cubicle on Independence Avenue,” he said. “It happens through genuine, human interactions with people, and through caring about the communities your agency is supposed to be supporting.”

When you hear Gary Vaynerchuk speaking about openness and engagement in the video above (possibly the single best video I've ever seen on social engagement with stakeholders in your organization), you don't hear about putting more options on a website, nor about this or that technology very often. You hear an awful lot about people – talking to people, listening to people, providing content that people want, and generally caring about people. And a lot of it is very one-on-one, not email blasts and blog posts. It's human and authentic.

In a talk long ago, I heard Gary use an acronym that I still use to this day, one that should be at play in all the discussion about the OGD. The acronym is RAT. RAT means Real, Authentic, and Transparent. RATs win. RATs use technology, but aren't focused on it. They're focused on people.

How the new open government websites and tools are used to interact with individual people, to engage citizens around topics (not agencies, topics), and act as platforms to build communities around those topics remains to be seen. But there's one thing anyone involved in communities already knows – these things take time and are not subject to artificial deadlines.

Joseph Jaffe recently wrote a truly excellent post about the Toyota recall, and their engagement with customers and other people online. He's fairly critical of their efforts. And what I couldn't help thinking about as I read it was the OGD. In Toyota's case, they seem to be doing all the right things (i.e., checking off all the boxes): apology in the newspaper, some of their website devoted to the crisis, 15k Twitter followers, an official Fan Page on Facebook, and more. But they're not engaging, because there's more to engaging than having a presence. It's about being alive within that presence. (Read the post for details on how Jaffe thinks they can "flip the funnel" on their communications crisis.)

Deadlines are good for checking off boxes in some kind of scientific manner. Engaging people is an art, a true street-smart craft that few are good at. Can one mandate such an art?

Posted via email from Mark’s Cheeky Posterous