Tag Archives: transparency

Tim Berners-Lee gave a great talk at the recent Gov 2.0 Expo in which he describes the criteria for creating open and linked government data. In the beginning of his talk he describes a star-based rating system for putting data up in machine readable format, open formats, as a CSV file, etc. As with many things that Tim does, he almost completely had me until he started describing what “linked data format” is in his mind. His notion of linked data is that the values of attributes in a data table would be URLs to some web page somewhere that points to the “definitive” source of data about that thing. There are several reasons why this is incredibly short-sighted and wrong: Read more »

While attending the Government 2.0 “unconference”, I was struck by the number of people playing technology buzzword bingo instead of discussing real problems and solutions. This wasn’t surprising, since it’s easy to be drawn to the Cool New Thing™, which for government is social media.

However, all social media is not alike. Usually that label is used to denote user-contributed content and two-way conversations. It’s a reasonable working definition, but in practice social media is usually focused almost exclusively at the creation of what I’ll call “low fidelity” content. That includes tweets, posts, videos, wiki entries, etc.

Don’t get me wrong — these all have value to an organization trying to attract a larger audience. In fact, they’re a great way to get broad audience participation. But, that breadth comes at a price — the participation itself is shallow. BTW, feel free to substitute “constituency” or “customer” for “audience” if that makes more sense to you. Read more »

Rhiza will be in DC from today, March 25, through Saturday, March 28 to visit our partners in the capital and to attend Government 2.0 Camp, an “unconference about using social media tools and Web 2.0 technologies to create a more effective, efficient and collaborative U.S. government on all levels (local, state, and federal).” We’re looking forward to continuing the conversation began at last month’s Transparency Camp.

Are you attending Gov 2.0 — or just in the DC area — and interested in learning more about Rhiza„ Tweet us @rhiza, or shoot an email to .

Organize your program data on the web and broadcast your impact.

Folio websites. New tools for transparency and impact.

In these challenging times, donors, investors and volunteers are demanding higher levels of accountability from the organizations they support. Working closely with major foundations, Rhiza Labs has designed the ultimate impact and transparency tool that will transform your organization’s existing website into a powerful showcase where impact is both substantiated and transparent.

Folio websites seamlessly integrate with your existing website.

With Folio you can:

• Organize your program data into a searchable online system
• Make your documents, photos, legal agreements, and maps always available
• Create maps, timelines, presentations, brochures and reports
• Protect sensitive data from unauthorized users with secure access tools
• Support your organization’s broader community by making project data available for download into other analysis systems.

Order today and your Folio website can be up and running in as little as two weeks. Websites start at $1,500 per month for a fully hosted online solution.

On February 28, 2009, Rhiza Labs CTO Michael Higgins and CEO Josh Knauer presented at Transparency Camp ’09 on creating public information systems that support truly public decision-making. Josh focused on community-level transparency efforts; Mike focused on incorporating transparency into the design process. View Mike’s presentation, and notes from Josh’s, below: Read more »

This weekend, the Rhiza team will be joining “a trans-partisan tribe of open government advocates from all walks” at Transparency Camp, an un-conference at George Washington University for sharing “knowledge on how to use new technologies to make our government transparent and meaningfully accessible to the public.”

We’re hoping to raise awareness of how sharing public data in the Information Commons promotes a positive feedback loop between government transparency, accountability, efficiency, and permanence. We’re also hoping to learn more about other folks’ efforts to promote government transparency with new technology.

Can’t make it yourself„ Check Josh and Andrew out on Twitter for live updates over the weekend, and read more about Rhiza’s open government solutions.

Planning to attend, or just planning to be in DC this weekend„ We’d love to meet you. Send an e-mail to before Friday; during the conference, get in touch with us via Josh’s Twitter. We can’t wait to hear your story.

If Flickr closed tomorrow and turned off its servers without a word to its users, what would happen to all our photos„ They would go the way of our GeoCities sites and our AOL Hometown Pages, of course — except for the copies that users had saved on their own hard drives.

What if the Library of Congress, like most libraries across the nation, faced such severe funding cuts that it did not have the funds necessary to preserve our nation’s public documents„ What if the outgoing President of the United States deleted all electronic records of his communications under the assertion of executive privilege„

Read more »

This tax season, nonprofit organizations will, for the first time, be required to undergo what K&L Gates health care attorney Ed Weisgerber describes as a “corporate endoscopy”:

If the hospital has affiliated for-profit businesses, the IRS wants to know about them in detail. Do the executives fly first-class on business trips„ There’s a place for reporting that information. If two board members have a 10 percent stake in the same business, the IRS wants to know that, too — even if the business has nothing to do with the hospital. More people will have to disclose their salaries.

And the form will grow yet again a year from now, as hospitals will then have to fill out a special Schedule H to document exactly what “community benefit” they contribute to justify their tax-exempt status.

Read more »

A letter to the New York Times details another reason why accountability is critical for good government: the retention of talented career public servants.

“…the biggest reason to pursue accountability: the morale of current and future career employees of the very agencies so poorly served by most government officials for most of the last eight years… For all the fickle revolving-door political appointments that… departments have had to endure… nothing so demeans worthy men and women as the abrogation of trust.
People of character will not choose to subject themselves to personal and professional debasement when they have no faith in the integrity of the offices we ask them to serve.”

Read more »

In June 2008, Senators Barack Obama and John McCain collaborated on a groundbreaking bill to post the full text of all federal contracts with private agencies online for public review. Senate Bill 3077, the Strengthening Transparency and Accountability in Federal Spending Act of 2008, died in committee and was stricken from the books when the 111th Congress met earlier this week. Meanwhile, just as S.B. 3077 was wiped from memory, a cascade of government-related financial fiascos began. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson declined appointment as Secretary of Commerce amid allegations that his administration improperly awarded a contract to a California consulting firm. Read more »