Does Gov 2.0 really mean Sunshine 2.0?

Update: Drafting guide from here.

I had the honor of speaking to the national League of Women Voters conference in Atlanta last week. It was a great crowd.

In the coming two months we will be developing the first draft of the Sunshine 2.0 guide for local Leagues (and anyone really including governments themselves) to evaluate their online “sunshiny-ness.” In addition to my prior blog post, these slides help illustrate some of my thinking going into this work. As I prepared these slides, I wondered if those who use terms like “Government 2.0” see that reality in these slides or if the real transparency and interactivity is still too challenging to happen widely in most communities. Your thoughts?

Our survey remains open for drafting input.

Key to the League’s approach is working with local governments to help them score as high as possible for the benefit of their community. So, rather than beat governments over the head with poor grades from out of the blue, the guide will suggest key measures or indicators to look for online or in policies. Imagine a League volunteer sitting down with a government communicator or webmaster for a thoughtful exchange. Some missing democracy items be “fixable” in a day by interested local governments and others will likely require them to put pressure on their vendors to upgrade them to the democratic standard or for new features to be installed. We certainly hope to hear from more governments on how they would like to be “judged” so the Sunshine 2.0 standard connects to reality in the years to come.

As the work progresses, we encourage you to comment on the blog and watch this space or Twitter for updates or my broader @democracy Twitter account.  Sign-up for blog e-mail updates on the left so you don’t miss a beat.