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What Should Obama’s CTO Do With Public Data? Now You Can Vote On It

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Two days into the new Presidential administration, Barack Obama issued a memo calling on the still unfilled new office of Chief Technology Officer to make a list of recommendations for an Open Government Directive. The recommendations are due within 120 days of that memo, which called for “a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration.” What would you like to see on the list of recommendations?

This morning the highly effective nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation launched a new microsite called Our Open Government List, everywhere anyone can make suggestions for government transparency and all of us can vote on our favorite thoughts. It’s like Digg for steps to open up public data.

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The project includes some initial thoughts from Sunlight and a moment ago submitted thoughts from site visitors.

Anyone can surrender thoughts or vote on those already submitted; no account creation is required. Click on the titles and you can post and read comments on the thought.

What’s in the lead so far? The number one vote getter this morning has been to start a “Digital deposit of government information to libraries.” APIs and bulk data access, and metadata standards are also getting a lot of votes. Voting has just begun, though, so now is a fantastic time to jump over to the site and have your voice be heard.

The Sunlight Foundation is a very respected organization and we’re sure that the results of the voting will be seen by the Obama administration. The group is co-producing a sold-out Barcamp called TransparencyCamp in D.C. this weekend, and we hope they’ll see some key Obama staffers here. So head on over to Our Open Government List and place in your two cents!

If you like thoughts like this, you must check out the UK’s Show Us a Better Way, a mashup contest to fund developer use of public data.

We don’t know who the people’s first CTO will be yet (here are rumors) but whoever it is must have plenty of fantastic publicly generated thoughts to deliberate as soon as he or she takes office. Given the falter in the appointment, we imagine the CTO will appreciate the Sunlight Foundation’s help in meeting the 120 day deadline for transparency suggestions.

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