Structured Content has Benefits, but the Government Web Manager Must be Editor-in-Chief and Client Relationship Manager too!

Recently I came across an interesting paper from Princeton University titled "Government Data and the Invisible Hand." The paper proposes ways that government can do a better job making information more available to citizens. It's a good read and only ten pages: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1138083

The paper makes a strong statement that government web sites have failed to provide government data to the public, and that private industry can do a better job. I don't agree with this view, but I believe that the paper makes many insightful observations and provides useful direction to policy makers as well as government professionals involved in planning the future of the web and e-government within individual agencies.

The bottom line from my standpoint:

1)       As the authors of the paper suggest, government should put far more energy into publishing information in highly-structured formats so that the information can be repurposed for distribution by other organizations (private, public, non-profit, etc.).

2)       The authors think government should make structuring content the top priority, but they discount two areas where the government Web manager plays a critical role.  First, the government Web manager acts as an editor raising awareness of the most valuable content.  An agency may have 50 publications on its website on a certain topic, the government Web manager can feature the publication that is most current and has the most potential public valuable.  Second, government agencies are increasingly acting as citizen/customer relationship managers by learning what citizens are interested in, recommending complementary services and content, and creating ongoing ways of receiving updates direct from the government.  In my opinion, the biggest obstacle for a citizen trying to get content or services from the government is time.  Government Web managers are increasingly adept at making interaction with their agencies more efficient.

On the web, we value Amazon's ability to create an efficient and pleasant shopping experience over its ability to offer lots of different products.  Amazon features the most interesting (or maybe profitable) products, allows users to see suggestions based on what other users have purchased, and gathers information from users so it can notify them when new information and products of interest are available.  In working with federal agencies since 2003, I've seen enormous strides in how government Web managers understand their audience and play the role of trusted editor.  In addition, we've seen many government websites deploy strategies to use the website as the hub of the citizens relationship with the agency so that it serves not just as a content repository, but also as a place to signup for email updates and submit questions and comments.  In full disclosure, my company, GovDelivery, is a private sector organization that serves many governments with a digital communication platform.  This might make me bias, but it also gives me insight into how government websites have leveraged at least one platform created in the private sector to offer tens of thousands of different topics for subscription and send over 50 million digital messages out every month.  This seems to be the best of both worlds.  Government controls the content, the message, and the citizen relationship, but is able to leverage the best technology from the private sector.  Should GovDelivery fail to continue to innovate and meet government needs, another company will step in to fill the new needs of the government (this is exactly how companies move between technology providers over time). 

Highly-structured content on government websites has the benefit of making the websites easier to manage and facilitating easy deployment of new services that leverage the content in different ways.  This is a tremendous benefit, but expecting the private or non-profit sectors to manage and improve this type of service without a direct connection to the government agency is, in my opinion, like telling Amazon to outsource its homepage and its customer database.