» democratization of data

One of President Obama’s first actions when he took office was to sign the Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies on Transparency and Open Government (a mouthful). The first sentence of the memo lays out his administration’s commitment to an open government.

From this bold beginning, Obama’s administration has created Data.gov and updated existing sites like USAspending.gov. All of this is part of a much broader agenda known as Government 2.0. Think Mac OS 10.5. The government is upgrading. Don’t get too excited. It doesn’t mean the government is actually changing, it just means that now they are finally grasping the power of the computer and information. They finally understand that the American people are tired of being kept in the dark and that we want to know what is going on with our elected officials. My soap box is high today, so you’ll have to excuse me.

One of the most notable aspects of the Government 2.0 initiative is what is called the democratization of data. Another mouthful. It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but we have to give the government a break; their job isn’t being clever like ours is. That’s why we’re calling it an Open Data Democracy. It sounds much better. It sounds official. I’ll go so far as to say it sounds presidential. I’ll even give Obama’s administration permission to use it, as long as he calls and asks personally. The goal of democratizing data is to make data more easily available to the public. We all know how difficult it is to find or get anything from the government, so the new push for a transparent and easily accessible government is an amazing advancement.

In honor of the founding of our very own Open Data Democracy, BOALT has created Sound Off to give a voice to the people. Sound Off searches Twitter to find out what people are saying about our government officials. We have the first couple, John McCain, Sarah Palin and several others. Some of it is good, some of it is bad but it’s all real and straight from the mouths of the people.

Here’s a screenshot below. But I’m not giving it all away. You have to visit the site to see everything. Most of you won’t be surprised to see who the more popular person is on Twitter right now. (Sorry Mrs. Palin, it’s not you.)