01/13/09 04:23 pm ET
Barack Obama said he will use Web 2.0 technology to reach out to Americans to ask for input on policies and to make government operations more transparent. The Obama administration might just have a benchmark on how using technology to engage the public may or may not change Americans' feelings about their government.
The government consulting firm Accenture released on Monday a report, "Leadership in Customer Service: Creating Shared Responsibility for Better Outcomes," which surveyed 8,600 citizens in 21 countries on a variety of opinions they held about their governments.
Here are two relevant graphs from the report. The first shows how citizens feel about how well their government seeks their opinions. In only one country -- Singapore -- did at least half the country's citizens believe their government did a good job asking them what they thought about public policies. Accenture concluded that most countries are "highly critical of the extent to which their government seeks their opinions."
Then there's this graph, in which Accenture plots how well citizens think their governments are accountable and transparent versus how much trust they have in their government improving the quality of their life. "When customers feel better informed about services and performance and believe that their government is accountable for what it achieves, they trust their government more," Accenture concluded.
Singapore, which scored well in both areas, is considered one of the more technologically advanced governments in the world. Can the United States improve its scores by using technology to engage the public and make government more transparent and accountable?
COMMENTS
Does anyone ever consider what their responsibilties as citizens are today? To what extent does our form of government rest on citizens executing their responsibilities correctly? How will increased transparency, etc., change the responsibility part of the equation? Seems to me that as we move to make government more transparent and accountable, we had better also consider what that means in terms of changing citizen responsibilities. The work is incomplete otherwise, and we may only be creating a situation where nobody will want to serve in government because they will be in even more of a piranha bowl than they are now.
arclight 01/15/09 08:20 am ET
It will be interesting to see how the new Administration transitions from its successful use of Web 2.0 technology during the campaign to its use in governing.
Without similar engagement methods used during the campaign, we risk discouraging or disenfranchising especially those younger voters who thought they had found a way to their liking and preference to participate in our nation’s democratic process.
Here's an idea how first to utilize Web 2.0 in any government administration: http://tinyurl.com/86vcmp
Dan Bevarly 01/14/09 08:39 pm ET
I'm looking forward to a more transparent government, and it has entirely to do with Web 2.0 and citizen involvement in the political process.
This is partly why we're launching PopRule, a new social media platform for politics, on January 20th: http://www.PopRule.com. Because all politics is social.
Rob Reed 01/14/09 11:47 am ET
Web 2.0 is great and glad he is using it. We all want to see CHANGE and a president that really understanding technology. However, did anyone explain to Obama what is Web 2.0?
William 01/14/09 09:54 am ET