Vivek Kundra describes the District of Columbia's vision of a digital public square where data is available to for-profit and non-profit organizations and government workers have modern technology tools to support their work. Catchy.

Must viewing for all techPresident and Personal Democracy Forum readers:

With just hours to go before the Obama transition finishes and the new government is born, the Technology Innovation and Government Reform group (i.e. TIGR) is featured on the Change.gov website. (Scroll to the bottom of this page to see a list of its members.)

Three rising stars of open and collaborative government are featured in the video: Beth Noveck, author of the forthcoming book Wiki Government and longtime pioneer in this arena (she and her partners convinced the US Patent Office to embrace user-generated content with their Peer-to-Patent program); Vivek Kundra, Washington DC's pathbreaking Chief Technology Officer (check out his "Apps for Democracy" contest); and Andrew Mclaughlin, head of global public policy and government affairs for Google.

The video is only a few minutes long, but it gives a useful glimpse at the TIGR group's work and hints a broader changes to come under the Obama Administration. Noveck talks about Change.gov's "Citizen's Briefing Book" project as a prime example of new ways of involving the public in bringing valuable ideas to the attention of the president. Kundra talks about the power of open data to spur economic growth and government efficiency. And Mclaughlin offers a tantalizing vision of new troves of government data being mashed up in new ways to help citizens understand better what their government is (and ought to be) doing.

She's been uncharacteristically quiet since her confirmation as Secretary of State, but the Obama Administration's other rock star seems poised to change all that with her first big overseas trip to Asia - with the help of a Twitter-fueled blog audience that has increased three-fold since Barack Obama's inauguration. And while she inherits massive foreign policy challenges from her predecessor, Hillary Clinton also inherits a new media team at State that's at least a year into remaking America's digital image on the web.

Started under former Secretary Rice - and emphatically seamless, professional and non-partisan in its transition to Secretary Clinton - the expansion of State's online operation seems primed for President Obama's primary international goal: rebuilding the U.S. brand overseas.

This week's Government Computer News features an update on Intellipedia, the Intelligence Community's internal version of Wikipedia. While the project is going well, IC social software advocate Chris Rasmussen says that cultural barriers are keeping the project from crossing the chasm.

We all have wishes for what Federal CIO Vivek Kundra will do during his term. The item at the top of my list concerns data.gov, which Kundra mentioned yesterday to the press:

Kundra, in conference call today with reporters shortly after President Barack Obama named him as federal CIO said one of his first projects is to create a data.gov Web site to "democratize" the federal government's vast information treasures by making them accessible in open formats and in feeds that can be used by application developers.

"How can we leverage the power of technology to make sure the country is moving in the right direction?" asked Kundra, stressing that his ambition is to "revolutionize technology in the public sector." (emphasis added)

A lot of people are really excited about Kundra's appointment. Most of these people want to see government data mashed up for public consumption. Such applications of this data are great, but I care more about mashing it up for internal consumption: government IT is decrepit, and the public tools that we (rightfully) complain about are light years ahead of the stuff available from government desktops. So I was excited to read that last sentence: Kundra wants data.gov to help the government. He is probably envisioning for data.gov something similar to Apps For Democracy, a project that, while successful, resulted primarily in public-facing applications instead of better tools for DC employees.

If his goal for data.gov is to help government IT, he'll need to engage more than application developers.

Over in the Open Government Google Group (which you might want to consider joining) Alexis Madrigal admits that the Wired story on open government he's been working on wasn't working: "The actual mode of journalism with its traditional endgoal of a 'finished product' article that tells people how it is wasn't up to the task." So, he figured, hey, what's good for the government is good for the writer, and went open source with the project. Be sure to check out Wired's new How-To Open Government Data wiki, built on MediaWiki. The goal is pick a wide assortment of brains on specific areas where data sets the government produces should be put to better use for lay citizens and government employees alike, like turning USDA spreadsheets on crops and cattle into far more user-friendly XML feeds.

Madrigal's wiki joins a suddenly more crowded field of folks working to help incoming CIO Vivek Kundra figure out to marshall the information the government has at its fingertips. The W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) eGovernment Interest Group is holding a meeting in DC March 12th and 12th aimed at "develop[ing] a road map for developing Web standards to realize open and interoperable solutions."

Vivek Kundra, the federal government's new Chief Information Officer, has been spotted at his desk, doing his job. We're hearing that his temporary leave of absence, in the wake of last week's arrest of two individuals individuals running a kickback ring from inside the Washington, DC CTO's office, has been lifted and that he's been reinstated in his job.

Obviously, this is very good news for the transparency movement. Stay tuned for more details.

I'm in DC this weekend for the Gov2.0 Unconference, a semi-formal get-together to discuss all sorts of topics in the government/politics/technology/transparency milieu: mobile platforms for emergency management; how to engage citizens through social media; technology options for health care reform; digital privacy; tech tools for state legislatures; and on and on.

I'm finding, however, that this conference fit the pattern of most others: the sessions are okay, but they seldom yield any breakthroughs. Instead, the value of the conference comes from the break-time conversations that evolve by having all of these people in the same place. And this time, it is especially interesting given the people that are here...

co-written and data assembled by David James

This weekend’s Government 2.0 Camp is further proof that something very exciting is happening around the concepts of open, participatory, self, government. The Camp, the inaugural event of the Government 2.0 Club, is one of a series of mostly volunteer-led events tackling the meaning and implementation of the next generation of democracy and government.

Approximately 500 people interested in Government 2.0 assembled. It was a diverse group, including government employees, entrepreneurs, government contractors, and interested citizens. Through discussions, panels, and lots of hallway conversations, the participants came together to figure out what Government 2.0 means, where it is going, and how it applies to their work.

Last week, Vivek Kundra spoke about an extremely important topic with an extremely boring name: government technology procurement. What he said has huge implications for everyday developers. These developers have always had zero role in government, but if his words are realized, these developers will have a prime opportunity to change the way our government works (and make money in the process).

Because jargon like this is so easy to ignore, I've translated a few of his quotes--which were delivered to an audience of government geeks--into plain, everyday geekspeak: