Before Asking 'Where's the Digital Democracy," Ask if Anyone Wants It

I've been trying to decide if it's good or bad that I had not read Beth S Noveck's book Wiki Government before preparing this presentation for Barcamp Tacoma, a tech event near my home. Maybe it's good I didn't include her points, because the talk went on long enough. I was trying to summarize a wealth of information about how close, and yet so far, we are to tying people, participation, and government together in the digital age. It seems to me a truly collaborative government could not engage citizens but really solve some problems.

The Static Age: Challenges to a More Digital Democracy

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You don't need to view the slideshow to follow the rest of this post, which refers to a paragraph from Noveck's book that hit me in the face like the proverbial gush of cold water. I just read it in a diner in Edgewood, Washington, and was so absorbed that I looked down and realized at some point I had eaten two chicken burritos and some white chili but had no memory of them. The book is a good read for anyone interested in the future of participatory democracy.

To be honest, it had not occurred to me that the problem is a lack of demand for digital democracy.

Clearly, there is widespread recognition we have a long ways to go. I will share more about the Noveck book, but I just had to share this comment from page 147 because it seems starkly on target and deadly right on:

While there has been a groundswell of attention to the problem of transparency in government and the need for government to release information that is accessible, searchable, and usable, there is no similarly widespread outcry for participation or collaboration.

Perhaps because the ideal of citizen engagement in government – as distinct from civic life – seems so unattainable or because our experience with citizen participation has been so anemic or because neither government professionals nor the public has yet embraced the theory of shared and collaborative expertise, no blue-ribbon commissions have been convened to address what it might require to reengineer the role of the public in governance.

(Walter interrupts the paragraph: Wow, I would have edited that last sentence differently, but read it again. It's a Zinger. What Beth Noveck is basically saying is that we are asleep to the potential of a stronger democracy)

Just as incumbent businesses are slow to rethink old business models, there does not seem to be a great deal of political will among professionals, who are understandably mired in the day-to-day, to use the newly available technology to develop more effective governance through collaboration.

That's a new way, to me, of considering the question. Creating demand: what will it take to get the public excited about the potential of collaborative government?