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Government CXO

Beth Noveck, former US Deputy CTO in interview: part four

By Laurence Millar | 25 March 2011

So Beth, what will you be doing next?

Leaving the White House doesn’t mean I’m leaving the topic of public sector innovation by any means. [I’m excited by being back in academia, because it means I can focus on the impact of open government: what works, what doesn’t and how do we try new strategies. I want to take advantage of the network of open government aficionados, in the private sector and academia as well as inside government, to explore what’s working based on two years of experience and progress. I am looking at three projects:

First, what is the relationship between open government data and economic growth?

Second, what are the principles for next-generation citizen consultation, based on my previous insights from the peer to patent work, as well as the White House work.

And third, the creation of an open numbering scheme for tracking data about corporations, which we are calling the Orgpedia project

I am developing one page descriptions of each of these, which will be up on the website soon.

Tell me about your blog – what is your connection with Cairns in Australia?

Actually, there is no connection, sorry. A cairn is a pile of rocks used by hikers and trekkers as a trail marker to indicate which way the path goes. The photos on the site may look like Australia, but they are in fact from Arizona.

I see the cairn as a metaphor for collaboration, using the technology of rocks to solve the problem - which way do I go on this trail? Cairns make great photos - they have a dimension that is pragmatic and tool based, and also an aesthetic that is highly visual. I had this light-bulb moment on a trail in Sedona wondering which way to go - every direction looked the same. Arriving at the cairn and sensing the community of people who had come before me on the trail who helped to solve the problem, and then being able to contribute to the cairn myself by adding a rock to make the marker even clearer.

What a wonderful metaphor. I guess that shows it is always a good idea to read the “about” page on any site. In your testimony to the Canadian Parliament you say that:

“Transparency, participation, collaboration” is, by no means, an exclusively American mantra. Ten countries have launched national data portals to make public information transparent and accessible in raw formats.

The only national sites within our readership at this stage are in Australia and New Zealand. I hope you get a chance to visit the region in the future, and we are able to learn first-hand from your experience. Thank you very much Beth.

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