Sept 10th, Startup Weekend NYC, “Start Gov 2.0 Startups!“

Oct. 15th, TEDxGotham: “Mesh Government to the Rescue“

Oct 26th, Open Data Working Summit, “Open Senate”

Oct 27th, GOSCON, The Government Open-Source Convention: Executive Open Data Round Table: The State of Open Government (keynote)

Oct 27th, GOSCON, The Government Open-Source Convention: “How to Root Your Agency“

Nov 3rd, GovLoop New York City “GovUp“

Nov 5th, New York City Technology Forum: “Crowdsourcing and Social Collaboration Tools“

Nov 7th, The Great Urban Hack: “Let Them Eat Data: Creating Civic Benefit from Open Government Data“

Nov 9th: Drupal Business Summit, New York: “Using Drupal to Open Up the New York State Senate“

Nov 16th: NYS Forum Cloud Computing Working Group Kickoff Meeting (co-Chair)

Nov 17th: US GSA International Open Data Conference: “Open Government Sites – Where Have We Been and Where We Are Going“

Nov 18th: Drupal Business Summit, Washington DC: “Using Drupal to Open Up the New York State Senate“

1. Streamlined digital information management will make it easier to publish government open data, for purposes of government transparency and also to make these considerable digital assets that we have all paid for with our tax dollars available to the private sector and the rest of the public sector.
2. The Council’s streamlining plan relies on identifying inefficiencies (e.g.: business processes that can readily be streamlined) and fraud in government spending; these needles in haystacks can best be found by publishing the underlying data publicly, so that as many actors as possible– including you and I as citizens– can spend our collecting time identifying these inefficient and fraudulent needles in a haystack, rather than relying on government itself to find them.  This requires comprehensive timely publishing of open data, and in some cases the crowdsourcing of the work required to clean and structure the data, so that this analysis can be carried out.
3. This technology streamlining effort will doubtless involve giving new government technology contracts to commercial vendors, some of whom sit on the Council itself; in order to ensure that streamlining proposals don’t themselves become encumbered by the bias of business opportunity, timely intuitive availability of government technology contracting data is also necessary to keep the vendors honest in this process.

Finally, a natural next question is, what is the municipal and State level version of this plan, and how much could be saved in aggregate at the local and State levels, if analogous streamlining were undertaking across many cities, counties and States in parallel with this streamlining effort at the State level… Could the aggregate savings therein amount to $1.5 Trillion?  $5 Trillion?

Whether at the local, State, or Federal level, I expect that we’ll see the greatest potential upside in terms of realized savings if technology-enabled government streamlining plan are carried out in close coordination with corollary comprehensive open government plans.

1. Open Information, a commitment to proactively publishing a massive trove of government data online on a central website; think of this as the Data.gov of New York;
2. Open Government for Performance, a commitment to make the State’s budget and spending (including contracts, grants and subsidies) more transparent and intuitive online; think of this as usaspending.gov for New York.
3. Open Collaboration, a commitment to engage New Yorkers hands-on, online in the process of governing, including through expanded us of social media; this could be a combination of efforts like Challenge.gov, Open For Questions, and effective cross-Agency use of the major social networking platforms.

While the document is more of a call to action and a set of high-level commitments than an executable plan, I believe those details will come, and I’m thrilled that a likely next Chief Executive of my State is putting these three important stakes in the ground.

I know of lot of people inside New York State government today, as well as a lot of cynical citizens outside of government, who would be inspired and re-engaged if these commitments were acted on seriously by the next Governor.  I further believe that, if done right, OpenNY can help New York State improve government services while saving the State significant money in the bargain, by helping to modernize how the State manages its data, and by empowering citizens to take a more active hands-on role in their government, thus reducing the workload of government itself.

Kudos to the Cuomo campaign for this worthy beginning.  I hope we’ll now see groups of New Yorkers committed to better government heed this call, begin to self-organize, and prepare to help in planning, implementing, and engaging in a new era of open, efficient, participatory government in New York State.

Read the OpenNY plan below, or the full Clean Up Albany: Make It Work on the Cuomo campaign website.

March 4th: Presentation to Senator Liz Krueger‘s High School Civics Class at the Julia Richman Education Complex

March 10th: PACE University Political Science lecture

March 19th: Panelist for “Meaning of Open Government in the Digital Age” at the Open Government In the Digital Age Summit (organized by the New York State Office of the Chief Information Officer / Office For Technology)

March 24th: Presentation at Web 2.o For Government (organized by The New York Forum Emerging Technologies Working Group)

March 26th: Keynote Address at Open Gov West (organized by Knowledge As Power); archived video here

April 5th: Lecture at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government

April 9th: Presentation at PSFK New York

April 21st: Keynote Panel at Drupalcon San Francisco

Aprul 22nd: Government CRM talk at Civicon

April 28th: Government Transparency talk in the Capitol to staff of the Armenian Legislature (US State Dept International Visitor Leadership Program and International Center of the Capital Region)

April 29th: “Open Government” Panel at the 2010 CIO Academy (Organizing and Moderating)

May 4th: NYS Forum Government Cloud Computing Presentation

May 25th: Presentation at Gov 2.0 Expo; preview video here

June 10th: Presentation of Open Legislation at the Personal Democracy Forum

July 23rd: Organizing “Getting to We.gov” panel at Netroots Nation

August 20th: Presentation at the second annual CapitolCamp in Albany