Via PDF, Beth Simone Noveck, director of the Institute for Information Law & Policy at New York Law School, highlights the Peer-to-Patent experiment being conducted with the PTO in her very interesting article about using collaborative software in the regulatory process.
Our institutions of governance are characterized by a longstanding culture of professionalism in which bureaucrats–not citizens–are the experts. Until recently, we have viewed this arrangement as legitimate because we have not practically been able to argue otherwise. Now we have a chance to do government differently. We have the know-how to create “civic software” that will help us form groups and communities who, working together, can be more effective at informing decision-making than individuals working alone.Good stuff. Here’s more.
To bring about the new revolution in governance, the next president ought to issue an executive order requiring that every government agency begin to pilot new strategies for improved decision-making. For example, he or she could require that each agency, as part of their Semi-Annual Regulatory Agenda delivered to Congress and as part of a new collaborative governance report to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), set forth at least one “Peer-to-Policy” experiment to see how it could make its decision-making practices more collaborative.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.