On June 6th and 7th, many of the thought leaders from the open government community attended Personal Democracy Forum 2011 at New York University's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts. Out of this group of big thinkers came a number of wonderful presentations, if you scroll over the image below you can see most of them from PDF '11 (apologies to those left out, there weren't videos for everyone).

Here are some of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and allies over the past week:

Alan Fram with the Associated Press wrote about how the health insurance industry is fighting to prevent the Congress from passing a health care overhaul that includes a government-run plan to compete with private insurers. Fram cites data from the Center for Responsive Politics to show how health insurers have made $41 million in campaign contributions to current congressional lawmakers since 1989, “with more than half going to lawmakers on the five House and Senate panels writing this year’s health bills.” Since the beginning of 2008, insurers have spent $145 million on lobbying.

The New York Times' Jack Rosenthal, in writing the paper’s “On Language” column, mentioned how Andrew Raseij, Sunlight’s senior technology advisor and co-director of Personal Democracy Forum, is pushing for a federal law that redefines “public” to mean searchable and readable online. U.S. Rep. Steve Israel (N.Y.) is drafting just such legislation. Rosenthal also noted how the Senate does not disclose campaign-contribution information to the Federal Election Commission in an electronic form. “That means it must be digitized by the commission, by which time the next election may well have come and gone. Transparent? Yes, but also emasculated,” Rosenthal wrote.

Federal Computer Week’s Ben Bain wrote about how the Obama administration is asking federal agencies to gear their spending plans for science and technology in fiscal 2011 toward projects designed to drive economic growth, create energy independence, improve health, and bolster security, according to recently issued general guidance. Peter Orszag, Obama’s OMB director, outlined the new emphasis in an August 4th memo (PDF). Craig Jennings, a senior federal fiscal policy analyst with OMB Watch, said the memo is an indication that science and technology will be high priorities for the administration.

Colin Barr at Fortune magazine wrote about how skeptics are questioning a claim made by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner last Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” Geithner said taxpayers have made a small profit, $6 billion, on their investments in banks via the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Barr quotes Marcus Peacock, Pew’s project director of Subsidyscope saying the government isn’t doing enough to document what’s happening with the money. Peacock said government data collection projects are often “pockmarked” with omissions and outright errors, a pattern that hasn’t been broken with the financial bailouts. Despite the administration’s public embrace of transparency, it has failed to provide full and understandable disclosure of its actions in TARP, Peacock said.

The Brattleboro (Vt.) Reformer editorialized about the Blue Dog Coalition’s effect on the health care debate in Congress, using Dan Eggen’s article in last Friday’s edition of The Washington Post. The editorial notes Eggen citing Party Time’s compilation of records of political fundraisers since 2008. “America has been waiting for more than 60 years for universal health care. (The) Blue Dogs wouldn’t mind if it took another 60 years to give Americans what every other advanced nation in the world now has,” the editorial says. “This is yet another example of how our current system of legalized bribery, otherwise known as campaign contributions, distorts the democratic process.”

Beth Sussman, writing at the National Journal’s “Under the Influence” blog, OpenCongress' redesign. She quotes OpenCongress’ David Moore, “You never hear somebody at a bar talking about clause 56 in H.R. 3200.” So OpenCongress “enables peer-to-peer communication about the best information on bills in Congress.” Sussman reports how the site now has an email form, so you can send an email to contact lawmakers about legislation, a tracking tool so you can compare how you would vote on a piece of legislation with how your representative has voted and a personalized list of legislation you may support or oppose. “There was a real opportunity to bring together this confusing government data with helpful data and what people were saying about it,” David said. The site aims to “make all the information about Congress more accessible to people who aren’t necessarily Congress-buffs.”

USA Today wrote about documents made public by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) that showed how Amtrak wanted to fire its independent Inspector General, who was effectively forced to resign several weeks ago. The IG and the rail carrier had feuded since it was revealed in 2006 that Amtrak had spent more than $100 million in mismanaged fees to private lawyers over a five year period, allegedly violating Amtrak billing rules.

The Lincoln (Neb.) Journal Star editorialized about the need for congressional lawmakers to read legislation they are voting on. They mentioned how Sunlight is one of a number of organizations advocating that Congress put all legislation online 72 hours before they conduct a vote. The editorial called on Nebraska’s congressional delegation to support such a proposal.

Here are some of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and allies over the past week:

National Journal's Eliza Newlin Carney wrote about how the health care industry is unleashing big money as the health care debate in Congress intensifies. She notes the blog post from Paul Blumenthal, Sunlight's senior writer, about how five of Sen. Max Baucus' (Mont.) former staff members now work for a total of 27 different organizations that either represent the health care or insurance industries, or have a vested interest in the debate. She also quotes Paul, "We thought it was important to show the public that the senators aren't crafting the policy by themselves. They have all these other connections, through relationships, that have a huge stake in this legislation." Trudy Lieberman with the Columbia Journalism Review also highlighted and linked to Paul's post and the graphic he and Kerry Mitchell, Sunlight's creative director, produced. The "study shows exactly what advocates of real and substantive health reform are up against," Lieberman wrote, adding that Sunlight provides clarity on just who has the senator’s ear.

Speaking of Kerry's graphic art skills, The New York Times' "First Look" blog includes one of his illustrations in a post highlighting great visualizations created by designers using the Times APIs that "both beautify and clarify information." Kerry's graphic illustrates the Times' usage of the word "transparency" since 1990.

David Talbot at MIT's Technology Review, in an article how volunteers are using the Web to help make the U.S. government more accountable, highlighted Transparency Corps. Talbot quoted Clay Johnson, director of Sunlight Labs, "Government puts out a ton of data that is really interesting about what it does, but people can't understand it." Transparency Corps launch roughly coincided with the launch earlier this month of the White House's IT Dashboard, the administration's effort to chart the progress of information-technology projects in various federal agencies. The article quotes Andrew Rasiej, Sunlight's senior technology advisor and co-founder of Personal Democracy Forum, saying the dashboard may be just the tip of the iceberg heralding a new age of transparency regarding federal spending. "Once people get used to this type of information being so readily accessible, they will demand to see (it) for all other federal spending too, and then the genie will be completely out of the bottle."

Dan Eggen at The Washington Post wrote how the debate about health-care reform has been a boon to the political fortunes of the 52 members of the Blue Dog Coalition, who have become key brokers in shaping legislation in the House. Eggan used Party Time data to show show U.S. Rep. Mike Ross (Ark.), a leader of the Blue Dogs, has had a steady schedule of fundraising events sponsored by the health industry or lobbying firms that represent health-care companies. Eggen used data from the Center for Responsive Politics that showed Ross had received nearly $1 million in contributions from the health-care sector and insurance industry during his five terms in Congress. On the topic of Party Time, be sure not to miss National Journal's interview with Party Time's director Nancy Watzman.

The (Riverside, Calif.) Press-Enterprise quotes data from Taxpayers for Common Sense that shows the $636 billion military spending bill passed Thursday by the House contains 1,100 earmarks totaling roughly $2.75 billion. Rep. Jerry Lewis (Calif.) inserted 19 earmarks worth more than $70 million for defense firms with Inland Southern California branches and other area institutions, according to Taxpayers.

Joe Davidson, "Federal Diary" columnist for The Washington Post, wrote about how 10 years of work paid off Wednesday when the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs advanced S. 372, the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2009, meant to further protect federal whistleblowers. Because of important differences between the House and the Senate on the bill, there was real concern that the legislation would flounder. But "shuttle diplomacy" conducted by the Obama White House "left those involved feeling as if they gained more than they gave up," Davidson wrote. He quoted Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, "There were genuine concerns that people worked through. It's the way you want government to work."

PC World reports on a call from the Center for Democracy and Technology to the Obama administration to answer several questions about the privacy implications of a new version of a computer intrusion detection system that can reportedly read email. On Tuesday, CDT released a report (PDF) calling on the administration to provide information about the legal authority for the so-called Einstein intrusion detection system currently being employed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Resource Shelf, a daily newsletter with resources of interest to information professionals, educators and journalists, highlighted OpenCongress' redesign. "If you or those you work with have any interest in the workings of the U.S. Congress and related matters, OpenCongress is one impressive (and free) resource," the post says. "We strongly recommend taking a look at it."

Here are a few of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and allies from the week:

Last Friday evening's June 26th program, CNN's Lou Dobbs broadcasted a piece by correspondent Louise Schiavone about the Cap and Trade Energy Bill that the House of Representatives was to vote on and pass later that evening. Schiavone interviewed Jake Brewer, Sunlight’s engagement director, who said, "This is the kind of bill that's going to affect our economy on a massive scale, our climate, our national security, and is not the kind of thing to be taken lightly. The opacity of this process is -- to be perfectly honest, it's infuriating." Schiavone then stated erroneously that Sunlight opposed the bill. For the record, Sunlight has no position on the content of the bill itself, but advocates for the Congress to put all non-emergency legislation online for 72 hours before voting on it. The transcript can be read here, and the video is below.

Along those lines, Sunlight’s advocacy for the 72-hour rule helped generate a couple of good editorials. Heather Long, deputy editorial page editor for The (Harrisburg, Pa.) Patriot-News , wrote a strong editorial in favor of the 72-hour rule. "It's so basic it should not even have to be said: Lawmakers should know what they are voting on. In order to do that, they need time to review bills, and that takes more than a few hours for things as lengthy and complex as climate change and health care."

The (Olympia, Wash.) Olympian editorializes about U.S. Rep. Brian Baird (Wash.) introducing House Resolution 554, which would require the House to honor the 72-hour rule with all non-emergency bills and conference reports. "If Congress is at all interested in restoring public trust and confidence in its operations, the members will pass Congressman Baird’s 72-hour rule," the editorial says.

National Public Radio's Don Gonyea reports on the Obama administration backtracking on openness, centering on the White House's refusal to make public its visitor logs. He quotes Melanie Sloan, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington’s director, "Once all the pretty speeches were over in the first couple of days, the record now isn't quite so great." Regarding the visitor logs, "Not only did the administration refuse to provide those records, we have sued them, and... they are making the same argument that the Bush administration did, that these are presidential records, even though this argument has already lost in court," Melanie said. Gonyea quotes Ellen Miller, Sunlight's director, noting the positive steps taken by the administration on opening government data. "What the administration is beginning to deliver is an openness when it comes to a certain level of White House deliberations and with respect to government data. Time will tell how this all plays out, but even in the first six months of the administration, we're seeing far more openness than we've seen in modern history." Listen here

The Wall Street Journal used Center for Responsive Politics data to show how the financial industry did something quite surprising...They cut spending on lobbying and campaign contributions. In this year’s first quarter, banks and other financial institutions spent $104.7 million to lobby Congress and the administration, down 8% from the same period last year. And the industry made $19.9 million in political contributions in the first three months of 2009, which is a 65% decrease from the same period in 2007 and a 13% drop from the same period in 2005, just after the last presidential election cycle, the Journal reports. Since CRP has been keeping records, the financial industry has been the top giver of political contributions and the top spender on lobbying activities, giving $2.2 billion since 1990 and spending $3.6 billion on lobbying since 1998. This year’s decline coincides with the public’s diminished image of financial institutions. Meanwhile, the health care industry is spending the most on lobbying these days, increasing its spending in the first quarter by 12% to $127.1 million.

The Boston Globe highlighted a CRP analysis that shows how consumer groups that favor health reform are being "decidedly outspent and out-lobbied by drug manufacturers, insurers, HMOs, and doctors' associations." In the first quarter of this year, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the biggest spender on lobbying since 1998, and the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America together spent $22.5 million to influence the debate. In contrast, Families USA, a leading advocate for health reform from the consumer’s perspective, has spent $10,000 on lobbying this year.

Writing at The Wall Street Journal's "Digits" blog, Marisa Taylor reported on the Personal Democracy Forum conference held earlier this week in New York. She quotes Ellen from a closing panel, “I think that we’re going to look back on 2009 as the year in which the tide shifted." Rather than placing the burden of government transparency on non-profits to create online databases that track government spending, new government Web sites like Data.gov and Recovery.gov are creating a “remarkable shift in responsibility” wherein the government must explain itself to its citizenry, Ellen said. But Congress will be “the tougher nut to crack."

Sunlight Labs’ launch of TransparencyCorps at the PDF conference generated good media interest. Eliza Krigman with the National Journal quoted Ellen, "Sunlight and future partners can provide micro-tasks that when aggregated, help solve research and data analysis problems when computers alone cannot properly scrutinize government information." Columbia Journalism Review’s Clint Hendler quoted Clay Johnson, Sunlight Labs’ director, “We have a problem at Sunlight. That is that our government gives us data that our computers can’t understand, and there’s nothing we can do about it but work harder.” Marshall Kirkpatrick with ReadWriteWeb wrote, "The innovative system is a pleasure to use and is being open sourced for other organizations interested in crowdsourcing similar tasks. You can honestly do something useful and important in 5 minutes or less on this site." And on his Joho the Blog site, David Weinberger, co-author of “The Cluetrain Manifesto,” highlighted both TransparencyCorps' launch and OpenCongress' redesign.

Vivek Kundra, federal CIO, and Macon Phillips, White House new media director, unveiled Office of Management and Budget's IT dashboard this morning at the Personal Democracy Forum Conference in New York City. And the PDF attendees gave him a well-deserved standing ovation.

The dashboard was built to monitor more than $70 billion in government information technology spending, showing all contracts within every agency, and is one of the features of the redesigned USASpending.gov, re-launched early this morning.

During the presentation, Kundra mentioned that launching a platform that will allow the government to tap into the best thinking and the best ideas. And Phillips added that it’s just the beginning. Kundra also admitted that announcing that the federal data will be available online to the public has spurred government bureaucrats to start cleaning it up, proving the rule that sunlight is the best disinfectant. The initial dashboard is for IT expenditures only. And I’d add, however, that if you want the data on the government investments in General Motors or AIG you’ll need to go to SubsidyScope.com.

In the question session, Andrew Rasiej, PDF co-founder and Sunlight senior technology advisor, asked Kundra if we should redefine “public” as “searchable, accessible and readable online. Kundra replied with an affirmative absolutely “yes.” As Jay Rosen, N.Y.U. journalism prof,  tweeted, “What we've been watching with CIO Vivek Kundra at #pdf09 is the undoing of the opacity agenda of the Bush years, right before our eyes!”

NextGov.com’s Gautham Nagesh noted today that the site’s new visualization tools are a definite improvement. “It's now possible with just a few clicks to see how much money an agency has invested in IT projects and what percentage of those projects are behind schedule or over budget,” Nagesh wrote.

We are told that OMB will be holding a press conference this afternoon at 3:30 (Eastern Time) to highlight the redesigned USASpending.gov and the IT dashboard.

Check it out!

Personal Democracy Forum kicks off Monday in New York. This will be PDF’s sixth event, with this year's theme being "We.gov,” as in all the ways that we, the people are using technology and new media to transform politics, campaigns, media, governance and civic action. This is one conference I never miss willingly (I think I've only missed one!) and I'm honestly not that much of a conference-goer. I think of it as my annual "brain food." I can't wait.

A “two-day tech + politics brainfest” is how Tim O’Reilly described PDF last week.  PDF will be tracking the state-of-the-art online politics, exploring government 2.0., looking at the new tools for organizing that are being used, as well as looking at the future of political journalism, blogging and networked media.

I’m excited to see old and new friends, many who are keynote speakers. A radically truncated list includes emerging technology expert (and Sunlight board member) Esther Dyson; senior fellow at Demos and PDF senior editor Allison Fine; now-former Washington Post “White House Watch” blogger Dan Froomkin (Dan posted his last earlier today…A must read!); New York State Senate CIO Andrew Hoppin (I blogged about him earlier today); journalism prof and Buzzmachine.com blogger Jeff Jarvis; Obama administration CIO Vivek Kundra; Craigslist founder (and Sunlight board member) Craig Newmark; law professor Beth Noveck; “Here Comes Everybody” author Clay Shirky; campaign re-inventor Joe Trippi and “The Cluetrain Manifesto” co-author and blogger David Weinberger. Really there are too many good people coming and speaking to mention

Congratulations, in advance to Andrew Rasiej and Micah Sifry, PDF’s co-founders, and Sunlight’s senior technology advisors. It’s going to be a very exciting couple of days.

Maybe you can join at the last minute.

Here are a few of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and grantees from this week:

David Herbert with the National Journal (subscription required) wrote about the grades new media experts from across the political spectrum gave the Obama administration’s Web presence. The experts gave WhiteHouse.gov an average grade of C+. Although they mostly see it as an improvement from the previous administration's site, many noted that it remained a one-way forum and suggested it be opened to allow comments and other interactive features. Herbert quotes Ellen Miller, Sunlight’s executive director, "This occasional use of interactive tools" is impressive, but "90 percent of the time the site is pretty straightforward, as it was under [George W.] Bush." Recovery.gov, the administration’s site where citizens can monitor the expenditure and use of recovery funds, fared even worse in the Journal's poll, averaging a C. The most common gripe about the site, Herbert writes, is that it's "the view from 30,000 feet," as Micah Sifry, senior technology advisor for Sunlight and Personal Democracy Forum (PDF) co-founder, told him. Without providing on-the-the ground details, Recovery.gov offers taxpayers few tools for staying on top of where their money is going, reviewers said. Recovery.gov has competition in the form of privately-operated Recovery.org, which has "more granular data and a real search tool, which one assumes we'll eventually see on Recovery.gov," Micah explains. "I don't think it's fair to compare this site to other Web sites yet, as it's just weeks old," Micah added. "Let's take another look in three to six months, OK?"

Chris Lefkow with Agence France-Presse gained a different take by interviewing academics, technology analysts and nonpartisan groups on the administration's technology efforts. Lefkow writes that they all said the first "tech president" is off to a good start. Lefkow quotes John Wonderlich, Sunlight’s policy director, "their first pronouncements are very encouraging,” and added that the challenge, however, is going to be the implementation. Andrew Resiej, Sunlight’s other senior technology advisor and PDF co-founder, said the administration been doing as much as it can to fulfill its promises in regards to transparency and technological innovation. “However they've been constrained by decades of industrial-age rules and regulations and procurement protocols that are handicapping the speed at which they can implement that vision," he said.

Declan McCullagh at CBS News' "Political Hotsheet" blog also wrote about how President Obama's follow through on his transparency vow is receiving mixed reviews. In the post McCullagh highlights how Sunlight's Our Open Government List is allowing users to vote on what's most important to see in the 120-day review. McCullagh reports that the winner so far is formal data standards, which would allow programmers to extract government databases to be incorporated in their own applications. McCullagh also mentions that Sunlight hosted TransparencyCamp.

Dan Eggen at The Washington Post wrote about how some of the nation's largest defense contractors, labor unions and trade groups are forging an alliance to try to stop the Obama administration from cutting certain weapons programs. They are arguing that the proposed cuts would threaten 100,000 or more jobs. Eggen cites Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) data to show the defense sector’s influence in Washington, where it gave nearly $26 million to congressional candidates last year and spending $150 million on lobbying.

The New York Times republished Robin Bravender’s piece from Greenwire exploring President Obama’s regulatory actions taken during his first 100 days in office. Bravender quotes Gary Bass, OMB Watch’s executive director, "In most instances, the administration has moved away from a presumption of government secrecy to one of government openness, and Obama has scrapped some of the most damaging revisions of the regulatory process that Bush and his team imposed on the nation." The article highlighted OMB Watch’s “Advancing the Public Interest through Regulatory Reform” report (pdf), which is one of two reports, both released on Tuesday, assessing the Obama administration’s work on government transparency and regulatory reform at the 100-day mark. The second report, titled “21st Century Right-to-Know Agenda” (pdf) looked at the administration’s follow through on transparency and openness. Overall, the reports state that the president and his team have made significant progress in both the right-to-know and regulatory areas, but much more work needs to be done.

Carol D. Leonnig with The Washington Post reported that U.S. Rep. John Murtha (Pa.), chair of the House defense appropriations subcommittee, got the Pentagon to spend about $30 million on “the little-used airport named for him so it can handle behemoth military aircraft and store combat equipment for rapid deployment to foreign battlefields.” Most of the improvement, Leonnig writes, were funded through appropriations approved by Murtha's subcommittee, and have not been used for their intended purpose. The article includes comments by Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.  "Nobody wants to say no to Congressman Murtha or make him mad because he controls defense appropriations," she said. "Murtha wanted an airport, and he knew he could get one. It's like he's a billionaire, except it's not his money."

Robert O'Harrow Jr., writing at The Washington Post's "Government Inc." blog, writes about a new report from the Inspector General for TARP, which says the bailout is growing more complex and costly, and is operating with no clear leadership. O'Harrow highlights and extensively quotes from Anu Narayanswamy’s Real Time Investigations report that found the program is shrouded in secrecy, making it difficult to determine who is managing it.

USA Today published an editorial about how the federal government, when faced with the option of making information public or hiding it, is predisposed toward concealment. Federal Web sites are usually full of data, the editorial says, but are also notoriously hard to navigate. It mentions Google's new tool, Google Public Data, it launched this week to make it easier to search federal sites. Congressional sites can be even more inscrutable, they write, and mentions and links to Sunlight’s Senior Fellow Bill Allison's Real Time Investigations report regarding U.S. House of Representatives lawmakers disclosing their earmark requests, and how many responded by burying the links or posting unreadable pdf files. Kim Hart with The Washington Post also wrote about Google’s new tool, and quotes Clay Johnson, Sunlight Labs director, saying he’s encouraged by it.

Joab Jackson with Government Computer News wrote about how through mashups and Web apps, third parties are remixing and making innovative use of government agencies' information. Jackson quotes Clay as saying there are a lot of developers who are eager to get access to government data. "The nongovernmental sector will likely always have more talent and artistic capability than inside the government," Clay said. The article discusses Sunlight Labs' Apps for America contest, as well as Sunlight’s role in developing OpenCongress.org, OMB Watch’s FedSpending.org, CRP’s OpenSecrets.org and EarmarkWatch.org. Jackson also highlights Josh Tauberer's work at GovTrack.

Federal News Radio interviewed Clay about Data.gov, new federal CIO Vivek Kundra's soon to launch central repository for government data and research, and links to Sunlight Labs' mock up of the site.

Thanks, and see you next Friday!

Weekend before this most recent one, Government 2.0 Camp took place here in Washington and by all accounts it was a huge success. Andrew Rasiej, founder of Personal Democracy Forum and Sunlight’s senior technology advisor, led a panel discussion about what the meaning of transparency is in the Obama administration. During the discussion, Andrew and the participants came up with "Top 10 Measurements for Transparency." And it’s quite a comprehensive list.

Here’s a photo of the board they were taking notes on:

Ten Measures for Transparency Success from Gov 2.0 on Vimeo.

Here’s a quick outline of the 10 measurements:

1.    Open data: The federal government should make all data searchable, findable and accessible. 2.    Disclose spending data: The government should disclose how it is spending taxpayer dollars, who is spending it and how it’s being spent. 3.    Procurement data: How does the government decide where the money is getting spent, who gets it, how they are spending it and how can we measure success. 4.    Open portal for public request for information: There should be a central repository for all Freedom of Information Act requests that are public to that people can see in real time when the requests come in, how fast the government responds to them. 5.    Distributed data: The government should make sure it builds redundancy in their system so that data is not held in just one location, but held in multiple places in case of a disaster, terrorist attack or some other reason where the data is damaged. Redundancy would guarantee government could rebuild the data for future use. 6.    Open meetings: Government meetings should be open to the public so that citizens can tell who is trying to influence government. All schedules should be published as soon as they happen so that people can see who is meeting with whom and who is trying to influence whom. 7.    Open government research: Currently, when government conducts research, it usually does not report the data it collects until the project is finished. Government should report its research data while its being collected in beta form. This would be a measure of transparency and would change the relationship that people have to government research as it is being collected. 8.    Collection transparency: Government should disclose how it is collecting information, for whom are they collecting the data, and why is it relevant. The public should have the ability to judge whether or not it valuable to them, and giving them the ability to comment on it. 9.    Allowing the public to speak directly to the president: Recently, we saw the president participate in something called “Open for Questions,” where he gave the public access to ask questions. This allowed him to burst his bubble and be in touch with the American public directly is another measure of transparency. 10.    Searchable, crawl able and accessible data: If the government were to make all data searchable, crawl able and accessible we would go along way in realizing all the goals presented at the Gov 2.0 Camp.

I wanted to note all this for posterity. We'd love to hear you comments and thoughts about it.

Elizabeth Newell, at GovExec.com, writes about how federal agencies are beginning to stick their toes in the social media pool. It’s beginning to dawn on agency leaders that when citizens search for government information, they will want to use the same systems they do in their everyday lives. But as David Herbert at the National Journal writes (reposted here by NextGov.com), many agencies still struggle to make connections online.

Newell cites the GSA’s GovGab, the Defense Department's roundtable with military bloggers, and she referenced the growing list of federal agencies that post on Twitter. Herbert points to the TSA is an agency that gets it. The Evolution of Security blog is an effort by TSA to explain the bizarre airport security system and offer tips for travelers. The agency realizes that in the online world, “if you build it they will come” is not the way things work. At airport security lines they advertise their site with signs saying “Got Feedback?” The site has been up for a year and posts average 3,000 page views and 100 comments.

NextGov.com has posted a "Best Practices for Government Web sites," where they highlight five agencies that pay careful attention to what their users want to see and do online. NextGov.com consulted with online experts who told them, that meeting the needs of the public will always be the foundation for any great government site. The five agencies they selected are: NASA, Library of Congress, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Social Security Administration, and TSA. They have an interactive "Best Practices" presentation where they explain why they picked each agency.

Despite this progress, bureaucratic barriers and inefficiencies still exist to further governmental embrace of social media. For instance, government agencies get hung up on terms of service agreements, legal jurisdiction and issues over advertising. And as Herbert reports, many agencies have put content online, but much of it is useless, boring and unable to attract an audience. He quotes Sheila Campbell, co-chair of the Federal Web Managers Council, "It doesn't make sense to be using Web 2.0 tools for the sake of using Web 2.0…(they need) to make sure they're developing compelling videos that resonate with their target audiences."

Newell quotes several agency communication and technology leaders as being encouraged by the rhetoric coming from the Obama administration about service, citizen engagement and transparency. And they are hopeful that the administration’s pro-new media attitude will further speed up the embrace of these tools by their agencies. As one observer is quoted as saying, "We really hope . . . the White House from its bully pulpit says, 'This is OK,' and gives agencies the comfort level to make that leap of faith."

Herbert quotes Micah Sifry, co-founder of the Personal Democracy Forum and senior technology advisor for Sunlight, about the federal government has a long way to go in embracing Web 2.0, but he remains optimistic. "Right now you can point to some failures of some interesting experiments, but six months to a year from now things will be very different," he said. "And it's about time."