The United States General Services Administration (GSA) and the White
House Open Government Initiative are soliciting your feedback on a
concept for next generation citizen consultation, namely a
government-wide software tool and process to elicit expert public
participation (working title “ExpertNet”). ExpertNet could:
- Enable government officials to circulate notice of opportunities to participate in public consultations to members of the public with expertise on a topic.
- Provide those volunteer experts with a mechanism to provide useful, relevant, and manageable feedback back to government officials.
The proposed concept is intended to be complementary to two of the ways
the Federal government currently obtains expertise to inform
decision-making, namely by convening Federal Advisory Committees and
announcing public comment opportunities in the Federal Register.
Cool. Was just reading the full article here. Thanks for posting.
One of the things I hope to post when wading into the wiki is to recognize the need for balancing formality and structure with openness and flexibility in how expertise sharing networks operate. The last thing we need is something structured online that apes the regional hearing structure that sometimes emerges around policy initiatives. Adding too much structure and formalism to how expert input is sought kills participation. We need to make it easy for people to share expertise.
Dennis McDonald
Alexandria, Virginia
http://www.ddmcd.com