Obama Should Use Technology to Bring About Real Change
By: John Wonderlich, OpEd Contributor
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November 20, 2008
The history of the American experiment has seen a constant struggle for fundamental change and reinvention. President-elect Obama ran on change, and now faces high expectations for a radical transformation in how the public relates to the presidency.
At the core of every “government reform” initiative has been the urgent sense that government was failing in its basic responsibilities, and that citizens' needs were not being adequately represented in Washington.
Caused by economic hardship, government waste, flagrant corruption or over-concentrated power, these eras all saw constituents' hostility coalesce into new expectations, to which public officials were forced to respond.
Now is no different. Obama campaigned in accord with the anti-incumbent mood, placing change and innovation over tradition and experience, running as an agent of reform.
Our question now, though, should be whether the coming change is any different than those that have come before it—not just an ideological swing, but perhaps an opportunity to establish a new trust between citizens and their government. If there is a chance for governance to fundamentally change, though, the thing that has changed is our collective capacity to help solve our own problems.
New solutions are developing through technology. A receptive government should experiment with new technology to create a closer relationship with citizens, and should expect to be held to a much higher standard as a result.
Corruption and waste stand little chance when the public has access to the real-time government data. Citizens' innovation and creativity can jump-start efficiency only when they are treated more like partners in governance.
That's not to say that any of this will be easy. Implementing new technology at a broad federal level is fraught with difficulty. Any new CTO or technology office will face a complex system of closely guarded jurisdictions that control executive branch operations.
Legacy systems and entrenched procedures present enormous inertia for the would-be reformer. Concerns of privacy and security are also very serious, and the consequences of missteps are only multiplied at the federal level.
These risks, though, are offset by the opportunities created by the same technology. Just as the Obama administration can create a collaborative working environment to face our nation's current troubles, they are not alone in facing challenges in reinventing their technological foundation. Obama's record suggests that he will lead as a president who can find solutions through technology and public engagement.
As a senator, Obama sponsored the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, which mandated the creation of a public database of grants and contracts following the model of OMB Watch’s FedSpending.org, now available at USASpending.gov.
He also cosponsored an amendment to require Senate committees to post transcripts of their public meetings online. While neither these nor the other technological provisions he supported constitute a revolution in public access, they do represent a basic recognition that the public should have a role in helping to solve our problems, and that government needs to take the first step to do that, to enable us to help shoulder the responsibility.
If competence, efficiency and openness are the goals of the change that Obama campaigned on, then it is up to his administration to make those things possible. It is up to the rest of us to be sure that he delivers them, and to be ready to step up when he does.
Without public scrutiny and engagement, Obama's reforms will likely just be another effort in a long line.
John Wonderlich is program director for the Sunlight Foundation.
