The above article was published in the August 2009 edition of FEDTECH Magazine. It addresses my musings on the transparency agenda of the Obama administration. The article is one in the series I write entitled "The Business of IT."

1. The Business of IT
By Paul Wohlleben
On a Clear Day
The administration’s transparency agenda seeks to extend the
data-driven view citizens have across the breadth of government.
result from access to information will
promote accountability and greater
understanding of what the government
does and what it’s trying to achieve.
• Technology: Government will use
technology to provide citizens with
improved access to information, and
to solicit and incorporate feedback.
• parTicipaTory democracy: The
result of increased access to govern-
ment information will be greater
interaction between citizens and
government, which will promote
and enable greater participation in
the process of governing.
A simple comparison between tra-
ditional information access policies and
those that are part of the administration’s
new direction provides an understand-
ing of the sharp contrast between where
government has been and where it wants
to go now.
D
In the near past, if you wanted infor-
uring the presidential course, political influence. The system is mation, you had to specifically ask for
campaign, the Obama large and complex, often slow to react it. In response, the government would
organization made open, and generally lacking in clarity of pur- decide what it would (or could) release
participatory government pose, expectations and results. And al- and then would charge you for it (through
a plank of its campaign platform and a though the federal government certainly the Freedom of Information Act). The
differentiator as part of its “Change You does a number of quite extraordinary new plan seems to be that citizens own
Can Believe In” theme. things — and has shown the capacity to the information, which the government
Now that President Obama has taken rise to the occasion when necessary — will push out aggressively using technol-
office, it’s appropriate to take a look at the public mostly views agencies as inef- ogy, while asking: What do you think
what is happening with respect to open ficient and unresponsive. about it, and will you share whatever
government and the implications for The Obama administration recently implications you draw from it?
federal IT. published its management agenda, aptly
titled “Building a High-Performing Early Transparency in Action
A New Perspective Government.” One of the six components Certainly, government has made in-
Traditionally, the political and career directly addresses the policy shift toward formation available over the years
workforce that constitutes the Executive open government: Transparency, through access methods less onerous
Branch has operated in an environment Technology and Participatory Democracy. than FOIA. There is a lot of data in the
where most decision-making is invis- To paraphrase a bit, the strategy of this public domain, in libraries, on websites,
ible to the citizenry. It is almost a text- component involves: in reading rooms. During the mid-90s, I
book example of a large bureaucratic • Transparency: Federal information personally worked on a project to push
organization at work — integrating ex- is a national asset to be shared with out information at the Environmental
perts with data, policy, processes and, of the citizens. The transparency that will Protection Agency.
16 FedTechmagazine.com | August 2009

2. The legacy process for improving
environmental protection, stated simply, “Clearly, in the right situation,
was to conduct science, issue regula- transparency works.”
tions, monitor compliance, litigate and — Paul Wohlleben
attempt to recover damages or force
compliance through court order where
abuses were found. What happened with
some frequency was that the govern- both nongovernment organizations and primitive web browser called Mosaic.
ment received a judgment in its favor, the government began to make data and Though fairly featureless in retrospect,
but the defendant corporation had no software for accessing and understand- at the time the step-up in capability was
ability to pay damages. ing this information available. The early frankly startling, and I vividly remem-
EPA collects a significant amount of attempts saw state and federal agencies ber the excitement that simple dem-
data related to its monitoring of pol- trying to download data and software onstration stirred in almost everyone
lution releases and levels at regulated over 300-baud modems; the intent was who saw it.
facilities. It houses most of that informa- there, but not the technology. Subsequently, EPA has been a leader
tion in databases that are inaccessible I also can remember several meet- in providing the public access to data.
to the outside world. Gradually and, as ings at which this new innovation, the Although most of the laws that require
I recall, with some level of resistance, “Internet,” was demonstrated using a the legacy process described above
remain in place, and compliance is still
an important part of the approach, that
Keys To success access to data has become integrated
The prospect of greatly increased transparency and higher levels of participation by into the core strategy of environmen-
citizens in the process of government signals a significant transformation — if it can tal protection. Informing concerned
be achieved. Like most change, it will involve overcoming resistance to change as well citizens regarding the sources of pol-
as mitigation of unintended consequences. Here are four intrinsic keys to success: lution and the potential health effects,
• support for data and information access. and leveraging their energy and passion
This must extend beyond the transmission of data and include support targeted at into political action at the local level, has
ensuring that citizens understand the data, how agencies collected it, and what proved at times to be a much more effec-
they use it for now and into the future. This will create a demand for support that tive strategy for achieving results than a
exceeds current requirements. Providing sufficient support will be important in compliance process that sometimes only
improving understanding and in demonstrating that transparency and openness enriched the lawyers involved.
are worthwhile. Clearly, in the right situation, trans-
• set the right pace for introducing new data and access. parency works.
The pace should be aggressive, but should not exceed the public’s capacity to Through its open-government ini-
absorb new information, the government’s capacity to support citizen access and tiative, the new administration wants
the overall capacity of all involved to deal with the consequences. Like any trans- to generate significantly higher levels
formation, the pace of change needs to be appropriately modulated to ensure an of feedback and discussion between
appropriate equilibrium can be maintained. citizens and government than any of
• ensure appropriate security for the data, access to it and its predecessors have done. How will
management of it. those communications be handled and
This probably goes without saying. But it is important that the sources of data supported? How will key points of dis-
be protected against corruption; it is also important that the sanctity of individual cussion be incorporated into decision-
access be considered as a privacy matter and protected as well. making processes across government
• create a plan for dealing with unintended consequences. and within agencies? These are some
Such consequences will likely be numerous. One example occurred recently with basic questions for which no convenient
the online forum Open Government Dialogue (opengov.ideascale.com). The intent answers are yet available. They will need
of the forum is to foster ideas for improving transparency of government operations to be addressed and the processes of
and data. But the discussion moved off-track when a number of participants government transformed to achieve the
focused their posts on President Obama’s birth certificate. This incident clearly stated objectives.
ElizabEth hinshaw
raises a conundrum for the government as it tests the use of social media tools
to engage the public: Is it possible to conduct an open online dialogue that is Paul Wohlleben, a former federal CIO,
reasonably free from off-topic political agendas? consults with government as a partner at
Grant Thornton.
August 2009 | FedTechmagazine.com 17