Overview: OpenGov Community Barn Raising of 2010

Remember the good old days when you used to get together with your neighbors and build barns for each other?  Well, I hope you've kept your hammers and nails handy...

We are all part of a fantastic community of thought leaders and practitioners who are passionate about open government.  To take our community to the next level, we we must work on some of the fundamental "learning infrastructure" that is necessary to keep this community strong over the long haul.  You're invited to spend approximately 30 minutes working on any of the key projects described in the working groups below, or you can create a new project, or even a new working group.  We're calling this effort the Online OpenGov Barn Raising of 2010.  It's a light name for a serious effort which will take place between now and the NASA OpenGov Community Summit on October 13, 2010.

To participate, add your name to one of the working groups (OpenGov Inspiration, OpenGov Community Knowledge Management, OpenGov Community Standards), and write a single sentence describing how you'll spend your 30 minutes working on any of the following community infrastructure projects (or create new ones) between now and Oct 13th.  "Learning infrastructure" is the sum of all standards, knowledge resources, and lines of communication among all our organizations.  Infrastructure keeps our community operating efficiently, and although we've built many bits of this infrastructure and done some of the necessary thinking on our blogs and websites, each of us is too busy to begin assembling it on our own.  If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions about how to make this process better, please join the discussion here.

OpenGov Working Groups

This wiki page lists all the working groups and all the projects.  Options:

• Choose one of the infrastructure projects listed in the working groups below, or
• Create a new project for one of the working groups, or 
• Create a new working group and add it to the list below.

(If you're new here, please click the link on the right to request access to edit this wiki; we must do this to prevent spam.)

OpenGov Inspiration Working Group

Mission: To inspire citizens and government employees alike with the benefits of Open Government. If we are to sustain this movement, we must sell it beyond those of that have already drunk the kool-aid!

Steering Committee: Wayne Burke of the Open Forum Foundation, [join the Steering Committee by adding your name here]

Participants: Please join this working group's GovLoop group for updates and if you're so inclined: make a public declaration in the aptly titled discussion forum of how you'll spend 30 minutes working on this between now and the NASA OpenGov Community Summit on October 13th. 

Projects: 

There are discussions about each of these projects taking place in the GovLoop group. Please join us there to get involved.

• Spread the Meme. "Open government" doesn't mean anything to the average person, but the goals that we're striving towards stand to benefit everyone. What is the right meme to spread and how will we do it? (Here's the link to this project.)
• OpenGov Plans in a single location. There is not currently an official location that links to all the OpenGov plans. GovLoop has a page for this, we're working on getting OMB to provide the same info. (Here's the link to this project.)
• Case Studies. In order to spread the meme and help advance open government, we're looking to collect case studies (and examples of OpenGov failures). (Here's the link to this project.)
• Centralized Calendar of Events. There are a lot of "OpenGov" events each week, but no easy way to see all of them, or to compare them to decide which will be most appropriate for an individual's specific needs. We're looking to rectify this. (Here's the link to this project.)

OpenGov Knowledge Management Working Group

Mission: Organize and optimize the OpenGov Community's knowledge resources.

Steering Committee: Lucas Cioffi of OnlineTownhalls, Alexander Moll of American University, [join the Steering Committee by adding your name here]

Participants: You're invited to make a public declaration on our GovLoop group of how you'll spend 30 minutes working on these or other open gov infrastructure projects between now and the NASA OpenGov Community Summit on October 13th at the bottom of this page.

Projects:

• OpenGov Primer to help people that are new to open gov get up to speed quickly
• Compile a list of great open gov calendars, newsletters, mailing lists, and blogs for folks interested in staying current with open government. 
• OpenGov FAQ: a list of questions and links to answers on other blogs related to cultural barriers to implementation,  policy barriers to implementation, technical barriers to implementation, and general questions related to open government. 
• Figure out a way to organize the #opengov Twitter stream so that all it's contents last longer than two weeks and are searchable even after Twitter lets them expire.
• Links to lists of tools related to Gov 2.0 

OpenGov Standards Working Group

Mission: Identify and develop appropriate standards in information, security, compliance, and enforcement for open government.

Steering Committee: Stephen Buckley of OpenGovRadio, [join the Steering Committee by adding your name here]

Participants: You're invited to make a public declaration of how you'll spend 30 minutes working on these or other open gov infrastructure projects between now and the NASA OpenGov Community Summit on October 13th at the bottom of this page. Please do join this working group's GovLoop group for updates.

Projects: 

• Create the OpenGov Glossary of definitions of key open gov phrases and terms.
• Provide comments on OpenTheGovernment.Org's plan to evaluate the Open Government Initiative by October 4, 2010.