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The Future of Government-Citizen Engagement

Moderator: Jerry Mechling
Chris Csikszentmihalyi Laurel Ruma John Wonderlich Nick Grossman: March 1, 2010; Running Time: 1:03:57

About the Lecture

About the Lecture

As the U.S. moves toward universal broadband access, look for increased government openness, new opportunities for civic engagement, and some dangers along the way, say these panelists.

While Chris Csikszentmihalyi acknowledges the civic potential of broadband, he does not believe it will be a simple matter for geographic communities to aggregate information and make collective decisions. The amount of data is growing, he says, but “even sophisticated people’s understanding is not growing.” He cites online crime mapping, which posts reports from police departments, but avoids white collar crime. “Are you offering information or facile statistics that look like red lining...?” He applauds online citizen journalism, but worries that legal protections applied to traditional media are not being extended to digital journalists. “We could have national broadband and things could go south quickly in terms of what kind of speech we can have.”

“Government needs to play catch up,” says Laurel Ruma, when it comes to utilizing digital technology. It’s time to move away from the “social web,” where we “vote on silly things on Facebook,” to a civic web. This means that “digital natives who work until 7 p.m. and don’t have time to get to public meetings... go online” to watch and comment on streamed videos of government meetings. This kind of technology can make citizen actions more effective, and government programs more cost-efficient. She believes open government applications should be available not just on computers and smart phones, which many people cannot afford, but in less expensive, freely available forms, such as information displays at city bus stops.

“A rush of new information” flows from open government directives, says John Wonderlich, which “has a broad systemic effect through society.” New public data empowers all of “us to be better researchers, lobbyists, and journalists.” Information that used to come with a price tag is now free. But since we are at an early stage in open and participatory government “where best practices are unclear,” Wonderlich foresees a balancing act between laws dictating government’s responsibilities, and guidelines to encourage certain behaviors. He also believes that public perceptions about government transparency may be based on false or outdated assumptions; data posted online may be inaccurate, so we “need to grow better cultural expectations.”

Nick Grossman finds it exciting that “government services are potentially a gateway…to civic engagement.” It’s not “just about politics and government, but about the city and how we use it,” he says. He likes being able to deploy his smart phone for real-time information on public transportation, and to provide feedback to operators, so he’s “now having a conversation with those people.” One risk of a rapid expansion of open government via broadband, believes Grossman, is that government will “try to do too much,” building tools and providing services itself that might better come from the private sector. The flip side, he adds, is moving “too incrementally” and running the risk of spending too much money “in something that doesn’t work well enough.”

Lecture Details

Location: Wong Auditorium

“Don’t fear technology. ... It can make government more efficient, open and allow citizens more participation in civic processes.”

Laurel Ruma

About the Speakers

Moderator: Jerry Mechling

Lecturer in Public Policy, Leadership for a Networked World Program, Harvard Kennedy School of Government

Jerry Mechling focuses on the impacts of information and digital technologies on individual, organizational, and societal issues. He consults on these and other topics with public and private organizations locally and internationally. Most recently he was author of Eight Imperatives for Leaders in a Networked World and is presently finishing Leadership for a Cross-Boundary World.

A Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and four-time winner of the Federal 100 Award, he was formerly a Fellow of the Institute of Politics, served as an aide to the Mayor and Assistant Administrator of the New York City Environmental Protection Administration, and served as Director of the Office of Management and Budget for the City of Boston. He received his B.A. in physical sciences from Harvard College and his M.P.A. and Ph.D. in economics and public affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton.

Chris Csikszentmihalyi

Research Scientist, MIT Media Lab
Director, MIT Center for Future Civic Media David and Roberta Loge Fellow, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study

Chris Csikszentmihályi directs the Media Lab’s Computing Culture research group, which creates unique media technologies for cultural applications. He has worked at the intersection of new technologies, media, and the arts for 13 years, lecturing, showing new media work, and presenting installations in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas.

Csikszentmihályi is a 2005 Rockefeller New Media Fellow, author of Skin | Control (2005), and recently finished a solo exhibition at the Location One Gallery in New York’s Soho. He developed the world’s first robot journalist for battlefield reporting, the Afghan eXplorer, and the first robotic hip-hop dj, the DJ I, Robot Sound System. He is currently at work on an inexpensive Unmanned Aerial Vehicle for journalists doing war reporting, and a set of robots to explore and report information from Guantanamo.

Csikszentmihályi received an M.F.A. from U.C. San Diego, and a B.F.A. from the Art Institute of Chicago.

Laurel Ruma

Editor, O'Reilly Media

As an editor, Laurel Ruma covers the Microsoft and Gov 2.0 topic areas. She is the co-chair for the Gov 2.0 Expo. She joined O'Reilly Media in 2005 after being an editor at various IT research/consulting firms in the Boston area, including Forrester Research. She went to Union College and is a photographer and homebrewer.

John Wonderlich

Policy Director, Sunlight Foundation

John Wonderlich leads collaborative examinations of government, and also works with both Congress and public communities, developing and implementing government reform policy for the Sunlight Foundation. The Sunlight Foundation uses cutting-edge technology and ideas to make government transparent and accountable. He has a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Penn State University.

Nick Grossman

Director, TOPP Labs, The Open Planning Project

Nick Grossman runs The Open Planning Project (TOPP), an incubator for civic technology initiatives. TOPP advocates for open data, open source and running code.

Grossman has spent his career at the intersection of technology, planning, and transportation, attempting to make our cities more usable and livable. As the Director of Civic Works, he spends his time developing new products around smart transportation, participatory planning, and open city IT infrastructure. He originally joined TOPP in 2006 to produce Streetsblog and Streetfilms.

Prior to joining TOPP, Grossman worked at the Project for Public Spaces, driving bottom-up planning processes in communities around the US, and developing online tools for planning and collaboration. He also draws on experience as design director for a tech startup and as an independent web designer and developer.

Grossman holds a B.A. in Urban Studies from Stanford University.