by Jack Rosdale

Created on: December 16, 2008

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What is at stake?
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President-elect Obama faces many daunting challenges as he prepares to take office. In particular, there is one word with which he most captured the attention and imagination of supporters: change.

However, in a nation of nearly 400 million citizens, how does a leader define what changes to make, and in what order, to maximize the benefits to the largest number of people? Priorities must be set, hard decisions made, and ultimately there will be many who will feel that they were cheated of the change that they were expecting. In fact, weeks before our new President even takes office, there are already rumblings of discontent over some of the decisions that been made even now. Setting the sails for a new direction must be done properly if it is to succeed.

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What is being proposed already?
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Obviously, a discussion of "transparent government" cannot begin without a clear understanding of exactly what that is. A sampling of blogs and other publications by the emerging leaders of the movement does not yield a single, concise definition of the term, but several key ideas are repeated often enough to give a sense of what is wanted.

First, many are focused on developing technologies commonly labeled "Web 2.0"; software and design principles that can be used to build Internet applications and web sites that are truly interactive. With such programs, users whether individuals or larger organizations can selectively access data from one or more sources, viewing that data in various presentation formats, and even combining it with data from other sources in ways that may yield new insights and uses for the data.

Doing this has its problems, though. One is the availability of resources: programmers and designers who already have access to this data, and who have the skills and tools needed to build public-facing portals. The shortage of these resources is not limited to government agencies: Web 2.0 is still quite new, the tools have not yet matured or even been standardized, and the designers are still learning how to build such applications. Additionally, communication channels through which such systems could be published by government agencies or requested by private entities are poorly defined or nonexistent.

Next, there has been a growing sense among many that the Federal government in particular has become too secretive. How are we to know what our government is doing on our behalf, if so much of what it does is "classified", when it is recorded at all?

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What

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