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I'm not sure that's a sell you can make to a federal CIO to be honest. Often times "Openness" and "Transparency" somehow get synonymous to "Budget and Expenditu

by cjoh 17y ago

I'm not sure that's a sell you can make to a federal CIO to be honest. Often times "Openness" and "Transparency" somehow get synonymous to "Budget and Expenditure Oversight by citizens." But that's simply not true. Open data from government, and government transparency has created massive markets. Check the weather this morning? How about using a google map? That's, in part, Government data. Telling a federal CIO: "Make this data available because people will be able to do amazing things with it, and you have the capacity to create whole industries out of your data, elevating the importance of you and your agency" seems a lot more viable of a sell than: "sacrifice yourself for the common good"

TomOfTTB 17y ago
I don't know, you might be right but I've found it much more effective to appeal to someone's idealistic instincts rather than their obvious character flaws. In other words, many bureaucrats are exactly as you describe: Power hungry people who will take every opportunity to expand their little fiefdom. But generally they don't want to think of themselves that way or have other's think of them that way. They certainly don't want to hear it out loud. Again, you could be absolutely right. But in my experience very few people openly speak about being power hungry and those that do are far too aggressive to work as a Government bureaucrat.
- shard 17y ago
  Even better is to appeal to people's selfish interests as opposed to their idealistic instincts. The question is what are those interest in terms of a federal CIO?
jerf 17y ago
Today, I am a federal CIO. --------------------------- "Make this data available because people will be able to do amazing things with it," - Not only do I not really care, I see a sudden new constituency that will be making new demands on me in the future to improve my new service. "and you have the capacity to create whole industries out of your data," - so, I'm begging for new interest groups to be looking over my shoulder? Oh boy. "elevating the importance of you and your agency" - Bullshit! Elevating the importance of the monied interests based on the "industry" you just promised me! 'course, I might be able to extract rent, but it would take some time to entice regulatory capture... Oh, and despite you not mentioning it, I still hear "Budget and Expenditure Oversight by citizens" loud and clear. --------------------------- I still don't think you're quite putting yourself in the shoes of a generic government executive here. The thing is, if there really was something in it for them, they'd have already voluntarily opened up their data, instead of being forced.
- Semiapies 17y ago
  Not to mention non-budgetary criticisms mined from the data. If a department or agency isn't already leaping forward to offer data (like the USGS, which is all about offering data), it's reasonable to assume that the relevant people in that agency have no interest whatsoever in providing data. There's only so much low-hanging fruit before things start to better resemble pulling teeth.
- yters 17y ago
  Yeah, government orgs are already is enough of a cluster with all the mutually incompatible demands being placed on them.

by cjoh 17y ago

TomOfTTB 17y ago

I don't know, you might be right but I've found it much more effective to appeal to someone's idealistic instincts rather than their obvious character flaws. In other words, many bureaucrats are exactly as you describe: Power hungry people who will take every opportunity to expand their little fiefdom. But generally they don't want to think of themselves that way or have other's think of them that way. They certainly don't want to hear it out loud. Again, you could be absolutely right. But in my experience very few people openly speak about being power hungry and those that do are far too aggressive to work as a Government bureaucrat.

shard 17y ago
Even better is to appeal to people's selfish interests as opposed to their idealistic instincts. The question is what are those interest in terms of a federal CIO?

jerf 17y ago

Today, I am a federal CIO. --------------------------- "Make this data available because people will be able to do amazing things with it," - Not only do I not really care, I see a sudden new constituency that will be making new demands on me in the future to improve my new service. "and you have the capacity to create whole industries out of your data," - so, I'm begging for new interest groups to be looking over my shoulder? Oh boy. "elevating the importance of you and your agency" - Bullshit! Elevating the importance of the monied interests based on the "industry" you just promised me! 'course, I might be able to extract rent, but it would take some time to entice regulatory capture... Oh, and despite you not mentioning it, I still hear "Budget and Expenditure Oversight by citizens" loud and clear. --------------------------- I still don't think you're quite putting yourself in the shoes of a generic government executive here. The thing is, if there really was something in it for them, they'd have already voluntarily opened up their data, instead of being forced.

Semiapies 17y ago
Not to mention non-budgetary criticisms mined from the data. If a department or agency isn't already leaping forward to offer data (like the USGS, which is all about offering data), it's reasonable to assume that the relevant people in that agency have no interest whatsoever in providing data. There's only so much low-hanging fruit before things start to better resemble pulling teeth.
yters 17y ago
Yeah, government orgs are already is enough of a cluster with all the mutually incompatible demands being placed on them.