Implementing the Open Gov Directive

President Obama’s Open Government Directive was released a week ago with lots of anticipation and a series of deadlines. Now agencies are moving quickly to develop their plans. A series of interesting resources are already popping up to help them:

The White House directive said OMB would create a dashboard to track agency progress. Interestingly – in a nod toward collaboration and openness – the White House Open Government Blog is inviting input as to what the dashboard should include! It offers examples of both quantitative and qualitative measures that might be included. Visit and offer your suggestions!

The White House also created an Open Gov Twitter feed: sign up at @opengov . . .

In addition, each agency is supposed to create its own Open Gov webpage. The Sunlight Labs has created a quick scorecard to show which of the 13 major agencies have created such a page, and provide a convenient counter of how many days left they have to do so!

In addition, the Sunlight Foundation is offering specific suggestions on what agency social media should consider doing, like including a blog on their “/open” page. They are also offering “office hours” to offer real-time questions-and-answers with their staff.

Another interesting resource is an open wiki, called “Open Gov Playbook,” organized by Lucas Cioffi. The Playbook wiki allows you to post and answer questions, as well as post case studies and describe various tools that can be used. If you go there now, you’ll see a framework of topics. . . you have to help fill in the blank spaces!

Organizers of the November 2009 cross-agency workshop on Open Government (see presentation materials here) are sponsoring another one next month. The next all-day cross-agency Open Government Directive Workshop will be held January 11, 2010. Plans are for 10 presentations by federal employees involved in open government initiatives, followed by 3 hours of break out groups focusing on key aspects of the Open Government Directive. It will be held at the Department of Transportation’s headquarters building next to the Navy Yard. More info is available at info@opengovplaybook.org. If you aren’t in the DC area, the workshop will also be available live via webcast.