Mark’s Cheeky Posterous

If we aren't open with the gov 2.0 movement and, even worse consider that citizens are "not usually participants in how it should come about" will only see us replicate the "what we think is best" approach to online service delivery.

I don't think many of us expect 'average citizens' to participate in these camps but the fact that they could, or watch/follow the discussions online, and even provide input speaks to the spirit.

I agree with Bill Grundfest. We need to humanize what we're doing for whatever shape things are taking now, there is a new way of listening to and interacting with government and people should know about it.

@mjmclean

There is NO question that people in the government need to communicate with citizens better. However, I think how that comes about is a separate discussion than whether Government 2.0 has too much or inconsistent jargon. Working in science, I can say that many new fields are just like that - insular, with contradicting jargon. It must be that way. That's how new innovation happens.

I am very curious to know how many average citizens not involved in government, technology, or any topic of the sort, buy onlt interested in how government is changing and how it will help them in the future, follow Government 2.0 news through a medium like Twitter. Who has that data?

I disagree in the way that you don't dumb down the public by getting the jargon n what it means to citizens out there. Just don't have these psuedo expert citizens hold gov2.0 teaparties.

These are really great points. The audience is the key. As you stated, Grundfest isn't thinking about the jargon presented in his own field.

My critique of your critique of the critique is this.

You don't need to get more shoutey with people about gov and tech to make Gov2.0 work - you need to get better at listening. Both gov and tech-world have their jargon and own momentum. When these worlds collide it's the perspective of the citizen, individual or customer in whatver form that is lost. But when you base what you do with these new tools on what people really need, how they need it, and use their language, places and pace, you start to get it right.

It's not a movie we're going to project at some dumb audience. It's a new social engagement we need to create together. See eg http://idealgovernment.com/2010/01/why-idealgits-will-pay-special-attention-to-design/

So the really telling criticism of government (he resumes having now found a power supply) isnt the jargon; it's the self-serving introspection.

If you want "in-crowd" jargoney sessions with your pals (we love them over here in Europe too) I'd suggest that they become much more fun, much more challenging as they start to become inter-disciplinary or multidisciplinary. One very good discipline to invite in are designers (service designers, not people who design widgets. You've got loads of great ones in New York, Boston and California).

You've got the best tech people and the clunkiest administration, so you're well placed to make Gov 2.0 fizz.

But you get more and more benefit as you invite in more disciplines: psychologists, social workers, the professions, artists, bankers, constitutional specialists. You'd be surprised (I certainly was) how much sense some religious leaders speak about this stuff.

But above all you need the voice of common sense, the voice of people who are on the receiving end of public services. If it doesnt work for them/us what was all this for?

PPS: speaking of jargon and vocabulary at this special weekend for you, my dear American friends, what is so hard to understand about this? http://i.imgur.com/PfVPA.jpg

I look at the Bill Grundfest & Alan Silverberg recommendation to drop jargon and speak plainly as inspired for Gov20LA. Any activist can lose their message in jargon. Often it takes many attempts to create a workable message. Then it can take many attempts to cross the chasm to the customers who need the message most, e.g., the electorate. If information and communication were perfect, we would not have entire industries based on them.

So I see the Grundfest Manifesto more as practical insight from his TV and screenwriting experience: first, make an elevator pitch.

In his first talk Grundfest never mentioned "elevator pitch" but that's what it takes to get in the door in screenwriting which has some of the same cutthroat and passive aggressive qualities as politics: nobody wants waste time or say No, but nobody wants to miss a good thing -- so just give me a taste. The jargon-free elevator pitch is the door opener.

So I believe Bill Grundfest and Alan are just being realistic. Drop the jargon, and find the elevator pitch for Gov20(LA). Find yourself in language that resonates . It's an important and inspired message to define the movement now, rather than later when it'll be harder to shrug off the jargon.

As with every complex issue, you need both the people who can develop the necessary infrastructure (which will require a technical language -- 'jargon'), and people who develop the perspective on why the 'early adopters' are putting so much energy into Gov 2.0.  

The only way we're going to transform government the way it's needed is by changing this perspective, through the framing process articulated by George Lakoff among others. To further define these frames requires an ongoing conversation, where we need to engage all citizens.

The Gov 2.0 Expo Showcase provided a good start on the necessary reframing, identifying Government as Platform, Provider, Partner, Process, Peacekeeper, Protector.

What's missing is Government as Catalyst and Government as Referee.  Government as Catalyst is most likely implied by several of the Showcase frames, but needs to be featured.

Government as Referee is crucial. This is the frame in which we need to develop new language for regulations (challenges) and taxes (incentives).

Greedy team owners (transnational corporations) want to take the money the game generates (citizens' wages and our taxes), but the game doesn't exist without skilled players (citizens) or rules (laws and government regulations).

Not all regulations are bad: many involve safety. I want to buy food and not worry that it's contaminated and going to kill me. (Extreme violators deserve to go out of business, like a certain peanut butter manufacturer).

Regulations can be considered a challenge: as Ray Anderson did with Interface Carpets, transforming your manufacturing process can make regulations moot (no longer applicable). Interface Carpets' behavior should warrant a tax break, not some bank's leasing sewer lines in London.

The tax code can be transformed into a system of incentives, rewarding behavior beneficial to citizens, discouraging behaviors detrimental to the public good.

T

I guess it depend on what "Gov 2.0" means to you. If you see it as chainging government to something more participatory - either participation in policy development or service delivery (crowdsourcing) then by framing citizens as "recipients" rather than "participants" you are building Gov 1.0 right in.

If you see Gov 2.0 as using emerging web technology to better deliver communications and services to citizen recipients then Mark's point is well taken.

Mark

Like many others, I enjoy reading your insightful posts. However, I am respectively in disagreement with your position here and I‘m going to take on our points in succession.

Specifically, I disagree with your negative response to your question, “Does the public currently need to understand what Government 2.0 is?” I do agree they don’t necessarily need to understand jargon; however that is totally separate from the concept. This response is not about the use of jargon, it’s about government’s responsibility to its citizens and being smart about it.

You point out the current audience for Government 2.0 conversations is currently not the American people; it is the tech and government elite.

Perhaps if the American people had a better idea of Government 2.0, they too, may wish to contribute to the discussion and the strategy. I suspect the public is in the dark partly because the “tech and government elite,” as you identify, still haven’t distinctly defined the concept of or a goal for Government 2.0. To a certain extent, that’s okay as this is a work in progress.

You state citizens are the intended recipients of Government 2.0 but not usually how it should come about, or be involved in what the policies governing the process should be, or which technologies should be utilized, etc. So in this scenario, we pretty much ignore our customer and proceed in a vacuum to build a structure of government for the people without the people.

I think about how far down the path we have traveled without bringing along our end customer or consumer. (I say “we” as a former government employee and someone who has been involved with G-C and G-G communication before there was “online”.) What company would lay out the same amount of resources (human and financial) to advance a product or service without understanding the wants and needs of their customer?

Actually, only government could get away with this before a company’s shareholders rebelled and customers switched brands. The American public is a consumer who cannot switch brands of government.

While you ask how many “average citizens” attended Gov 2.0 camps? A counter question is how many local and state governments or federal agencies were innovative in their thinking to send a citizen representative and pump them for feedback to either affirm their progress or ideas for improvement?

No doubt, there is jargon ad nauseam in government. It still easily rolls off my tongue in any conversation. But how we use “gov-speak” when talking policy with peers versus how we communicate with the public, most of us know how to switch gears. What citizen wants to spend tax dollars to improve infrastructure? Yet, a whole bunch of them will support spending it on new sewers to remove hazardous filth, or build highways to reduce traffic congestion.

When we continue talking about, and referring to Government 2.0 to American citizens that it’s all about data, access, transparency and participation, we’re missing the chance to communicate what these mean in terms of benefits.

Citizens do want goods and services and information. And they do care how that comes about. We have seen and heard their preference and expectation about how they want to engage government in a 2.0 world and government hasn’t responded. Political campaigns do understand, however. They know how to engage and facilitate vertical and horizontal discussions, and the public has developed a liking to that product. Unfortunately, that product is taken off the shelf and becomes unavailable once the election is over and it’s time for our winning candidate to govern as an elected official.

Why not let the “goverati” continue to wrap their heads around this challenge without the involvement of the American public? After all, citizens are not used to being engaged by government these days anyway. The downside is when all of this Gov 2.0 dust settles there will be a surplus of great technology tools and innovative processes available but no one outside of government will be using them. That’s a potential situation in which no one benefits.

I think Mark's key point is that citizen engagement is only one part of Gov 2.0. The key analogy I've been using for Gov 2.0 is the iPhone. Can government act as a platform provider rather than designing and offering all the "applications" itself.

If you follow this analogy, you realize that it doesn't matter whether iPhone users follow the jargon used by iPhone developers. What matters is engaging the developers to create the applications that people will care about and use.

I do think there's always a risk of jargon, and a benefit of wider outreach, but I don't think these two points of view are exclusive.

Virtually everything that matters in society is built by a small group of some kind or another, that communicates in a shorthand that appears as jargon to outsiders - until they work their way into the group and start speaking in the same shorthand.

To Tim's point, I wonder if it might be a good idea to either play down or remove "citizen engagement" from Gov 2.0 messaging and branding. I realize this is a developing movement so pieces will self-define as this evolves but there did seem to be some confusion at the Gov 2.0 conference in D.C. as to whether Gov 2.0 is intended to provide a platform for savvy tech developers to grab and mash up all sorts of open data, or if Gov 2.0 is about citizen engagement (for the common citizen), as I think I heard Beth Noveck define it. In any case, it's tough to criticize an effort that will absolutely benefit the citizens and I hope you, Tim, and others taking the lead on this aren't discouraged by recent comments.

Hi Darlene. I think that Gov 2.0 is about engaging citizens, but it's also about doing a better job within government. it's both. But I think that's a separate discussion than whether the average citizen understands the Gov 2.0 conversation. The important thing is that anything public facing *is* comprehensible. However, something like Gov 2.0 Camp does not necessarily have to be so.

Darlene and Mark

Now that is a very interesting proposal. Perhaps Gov 2.0 is too general or all-encompassing and should be refined or limited to a practice or process. Other, sub-groups such as Civics 2.0, or Citizen 2.0 (just keeping with the "2.0" theme) could be created and nurtured to address those specific elements of governance and democracy. As long as there are direct linkages and inclusion among all segments (separate but equal) then progress should continue and results should be realized. Dan