GovLaunch – OpenNY Plan

Andrew Cuomo today released his “OpenNY” plan, part of his expanded “Clean Up Albany: Make It Work” agenda. The plan has three major components, which apparently will be instantiated through a central OpenNY website, as well as new OpenNY websites for each New York State Agency and Authority.

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.