If I had just woke from a 5-year coma and read that the real estate market had collapsed, and that the government had spent over $200 billion dollars to bailout nearly every major American bank, how many of you could explain what happened?

Many of us couldn’t, and that’s an unsettling statement considering that we just lived through it. But it’s not your fault. The media has turned into more of a spectacle than the informative service it was designed to be. The biggest spectacle of them all is Fox News, I’m looking at you Shepard Smith. With all of their exploding sound effects and fancy graphics, it feels like you’re watching a poor mans Independence Day. Except there are no aliens, and the movie never ends. CNN, CNBC and even newspapers aren’t doing any better.

Enter Jonathan Jarvis and The New Mediators. The business sounds like a rock band, and Jarvis is already a rock star when it comes to conveying complicated issues in a simplistic fashion. He does this by using graphic representations for events and combines them with fluid animations and tops it off with transparent, unbiased commentary.

The graphs, imagery, and animation make for a very entertaining but informative experience. The best part is that Jarvis even has his own exploding text that would make Fox News’ knees weak. Simply because Jarvis uses them with integrity.

Jarvis intends to keep the progress moving forward as he will take on more real-time challenges. He actually uses the same giant touch screens as every major news channel, except he uses them for something more than debating or CGI firestorms. He is informing the public of what is happening with a brilliant display of understanding.

Now I won’t get ahead of myself and say that this should be used for every public speech and presidential address. But the fact that the government has a new ability to speak clearly to the public and doesn’t utilize it doesn’t make sense. The government should take some of that stimulus talk and stimulate the way they speak to the public.

With increasing complexities of government operations, we can only hope that more people like Jarvis will take the reins and keep all of us informed. Using technology as a tool to keep us connected to the government.

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.)

Tonight, I headed over to the Science Club, a cool little bar in Washington, D.C.  (trust me, it’s cooler than it sounds)  and I heard Tim O’Reilly talk about government 2.0 and social media.  He specifically talks about government transparency,  public/private partnerships and trying to bring web 2.0 into the government.  I was fortunate to have my camera on me and I filmed him talking.  Try to zone out the darkness and background music…