OPEN GOVERNMENT PARTNERSHIPS

IDEASCALE

At the beginning of his term, President Obama charged the government with

ushering in a new era of accessibility and transparency in American politics with the

Open Government Directive. In January 2009, he said “we will work together to

ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation,

and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency

and effectiveness in Government.”1

Since then, various departments and government branches have enacted strategies

that serve those core values of the Open Government Directive: transparency,

participation, and collaboration.

And now, as a result of this program’s success, the Open Government Partnership

has been launched – it is a global effort to raise government accountability around

the world. Some countries (like Brazil, Norway, South Africa, The United Kingdom,

and the United States) have already delivered their commitments to participate.

And these commitments are no small pledge. As part of their consultation,

participating countries will be asked to

• Share the details of their consultations

• Consult with the national community

• Raise awareness and encourage public participation

• Engage citizens through various mechanisms

• Create a forum for multi-stakeholder consultation2

The challenge now facing these countries is that of integrating and encouraging the

participation of, literally, millions of people. “Managing the voices from multiple

sources is a democratic imperative,” says Josh Folk, Vice President of Government

Relations at IdeaScale, “and it’s no small task, but countries participating in the Open

Government Partnership are already seeking to commit to a solution that leads their

people and their countries into a better future. It’s the right challenge.”

2OPEN  GOVERNMENT  PARTNERSHIPS

A New Era of Communication

3

The Open Government Partnership was started with the specific goals of promoting

transparency, empowering citizens, fighting corruption, and harnessing new

technologies to strengthen governance. Because transparency, participation, and

collaboration all work towards meeting these goals, citizens are not only encouraged

to participate, the benefit to them is personally palpable.

According to David Cameron (U.K. Prime Minister and advocate of Open Government

initiatives), open government serves its people by

• Enabling choice

• Raising standards and expectations

• And allowing for innovation in solving real problems3

Open Government initiatives that have been served by IdeaScale have also found that

these solutions result in positive outcomes for governments (as well as their people)

across these three categories: innovation, engagement, and savings.

The Benefits of an Open Government

OPEN  GOVERNMENT  PARTNERSHIPS

Innovation  

In 2011, the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) turned to IdeaScale for an

employee innovation challenge. The online competition encouraged VA employees to

discuss what improvements could be implemented in order to benefit veterans’

health. As a result the Department of Veteran Affairs...

• Saw over 4,650 ideas generated by a community of 50,755 employees.

• Received over 325,000 votes and nearly 9,000 comments.

• Saw additional interaction between employees beyond the voting itself;

IdeaScale’s crowdsourcing platform was also used as a knowledge sharing

forum among VA staff

• The top 125 ideas were vetted and 32 were selected for funding.

Engagement  

Across the board, citizens and users are ready to submit their ideas in an easy, efficient

way. More than 20 U.S. Federal Government departments have employed IdeaScale

technology.

The U.S. Department of State is using IdeaScale to crowdsource ideas and suggestions

on policy. The Obama administration also used IdeaScale to solicit ideas from

government agencies on its Open Government initiative last year, and many others.

In each case, thousands of ideas were submitted which means that thousands of people

were suddenly evaluating, participating in, and engaging with their government. For

example, the National Dialogue on the new Federal Mobility Strategy generated a flurry

of dialogue over the course of the campaign, resulting in valuable feedback over how to

use mobile technologies to improve services to citizens, engage citizens in government,

reduce costs, and increase employee productivity.

Savings  

In 2009, President Obama called for “a process through which every government

worker can submit their ideas for how their agency can save money and perform

better.” For the past three years, the President’s SAVE (Securing Americans’ Value

and Efficiency) Award fulfilled this commitment by enabling Federal employees from

across the government to submit their ideas for efficiencies and savings as part of the

annual Budget process and the American people can vote online to choose the

winner.

The President’s SAVE Award has resulted in:

• More than 19,000 entries posted most recently in 2011 with nearly 13,000

comments and 82,000 votes from 21,000 users.

• Nearly 75,000 suggestions over the course of the past three years

• Innovations that include full use of all Veterans’ medicine, a NASA “lending

library” and reducing Federal Register hard copies by more than 24,000

subscribers.

According to the Office of Management and Budget, “On their own, these cuts will

not solve our fiscal problems, but they are a critical step to creating a more

responsible and accountable Government and a key component of a comprehensive

deficit reduction strategy. It is never easy to end or cut a program; they all have

advocates. But removing the burden placed on us by years of irresponsible policy

decisions that helped generate these deficits is essential to creating an America that

can compete in the world economy—and that can win the future.”4

3OPEN  GOVERNMENT  PARTNERSHIPS 4

An  Elegant  Solution  for  Complex  Questions  

IdeaScale presents a unique opportunity to governments seeking to truly

democratize a citizen’s experience. IdeaScale technology allows citizens to submit

ideas to a site and then vote on their favorite ideas. The ideas that have the most

favorable votes bubble up to the top. Agencies and other departments can then

join in the discussion by commenting on ideas and posting updates, effectively

creating a community throughout the creative suggestion process.

Among IdeaScale’s many benefits, it provides

• Public and private communities

• Unlimited ideas, users, comments, moderators, and admins

• Accessible to users with Screen Readers

• SSL/TLS Security Single Sign-on

• SAS 70 Type II audited servers

• Custom Domain and CSS/Stylesheet Customization

• Mobile Optimized and mobile apps with social integration (Twitter,

Facebook)

• Full API access

• Gov Consultation / Pre-Flight Check

• Gov Domain (.gov) access restriction

• Gov “of topic” idea status

Additionally, because governments represent a melting pot and cross-section of

cultures, traditions, and heritages, IdeaScale offers multi-language support, all

while continuing to evolve at the speed of innovation, integrating social media and

mobile capabilities (including mobile application support for iOS and Android).

IdeaScale is the premier idea management tool for the government sector. Over

80,000 ideas have been collected from customers that include the White House,

the Department of Veterans Affairs, global governments, NASA, the FCC, and

dozens more.

FOR  MORE  INFORMATION  sales@ideascale.com

Global  /  Americas  +1  800-­‐549-­‐9198

New  Zealand  +64-­‐080-­‐099-­‐5088

Australia  +61-­‐02-­‐9037-­‐8414

United  Kingdom  +44-­‐0-­‐808-­‐189-­‐1476

OPEN  GOVERNMENT  PARTNERSHIPS 5