08 June 2006

G2TT in the Ottawa Citizen | Web 2.0 in governments

The Ottawa Citizen (main newspaper of Canada's National Capital Region) featured today a full two page story in the tech weekly section, written by Peter Hum, on Government 2.0 Think Tank ("G2TT"), a private association dedicated to open source government. This marks the official launch of G2TT.

To the extent you are interested in web 2.0 happening in governments, please publicize this post on your blog and in your own networks. This is the welcome message on the G2TT site:

Government 2.0 Think Tank, or "G2TT", is an outlet of participation for those who are passionate about Public Service and want to solve problems in their fields.

Thought leadership. Vision. Skill. Comprehensiveness. Common sense. Not only can you find these attributes on G2TT, but you can, and should, contribute yours. You can register and view all content on this site. You can also become a member and participate to G2TT endeavours, including its first project, Leveraging Web 2.0 in governments.

G2TT promotes governmental efficiency. G2TT does not promote any particular viewpoint on any political issue. G2TT seeks to offer quality information to governments and members of the public about improving the way government does business, leveraging an open source community spirit.

G2TT is a private association, made of members drawn from the Global Public Sector ecosystem: Public Servants, citizens - anyone interested in operational issues facing any government, world-wide. Whether you are cynical, dispirited, passionate or just curious; there is no excuse not to get involved: G2TT puts within your reach an architecture of participation in which your voice can contribute to governments moving forward. Join us. We are thought leaders.


The first project of G2TT, called Project Eureka, specifically targets web 2.0 and related issues in a governmental context:

Throughout the world, governments are facing unprecedented opportunities and challenges in how they manage information. For example, the commoditization of Information Technology ("IT"), coupled with Web 2.0 trends and technologies, present a basket of solutions often leveraging Open Source Software and Open Standards. The Information Technology ("IT") landscape is dramatically changing, at a pace that few governments and large corporations are able to keep up with.

While these fundamental changes are occuring on the IT front, the traditional governmental silos of Information Management, such as Records Management, Library Management, Archives, Metadata & Taxonomy, Access to Information & Privacy, etc. are breaking down to make room for an increasingly unified version of information management, reconciled and working with IT.

These major transformational currents will completely reshape the way governments operate and interact with the Public they serve. How these changes will occur, however, is difficult to predict, because few governments entrust the full spectrum of responsibilities related to Integrated Information Management to a single Chief Information Officer (CIO's). Current CIO's are often "Chief IT Officers" as opposed to "Chief Information Officers".

Many public servants possess the necessary knowledge to empower their governments to embrace these major trends. However, they are typically responsible for only one piece of the problem. This is where G2TT comes in.

This is the first association project, seeking to bring Public Servants and any other interested parties to work on a common goal, leveraging open source community spirit: Leveraging Web 2.0 in governments. This project, similarly to other G2TT projects, is designed in accordance with a common set of project principles, in particular, the need to identify a clear, well-articulated deliverable. This project deliverable is a report structured as follows.

(read more)

I am excited by the potential of G2TT, as it embodies the best of open source software communities in an altogether different context: open source government. For more details, please see the G2TT Association Charter. Digg the article! ;-)