This video on the Change.gov website provides an inside look into the Obama campaign’s Technology, Innovation and Government Reform group (TIGR).  The purpose of the group is to use information technology to create a more efficient and innovative government.  Part of me is skpetical (I see visions of (Al Gore shattering ashtrays on the David Letterman show).  But most of me is excited about the prospects. I mean people associated with the federal government using the world mashup and cloud computing?

It will be interesting to see what happens when the geeks are unleashed on Washington culture.  James Q. Wilson wrote a pretty good book on why the federal government resists innovation.  Basically he breaks it down to an issue of incentives and motivations…i.e. there are no build in incentives to innovate in the Federal government because the profit motive is not the main motivation of government.  What will happen when TIGR runs up against the idea that one person’s inefficiency is another persons vital program.  It is a truism of American government that once an agency or program is created, it is seldom abolished because interest group that benefits from the agency’s or program’s existence fight to maintain it while everyone else doesn’t have enough skin in the game to care (Ted Lowi called this interest group liberalism).

What makes this incarnation of reform different is the idea of using the crowd as a tool in government reform.  I love the idea of citizen briefing books.  If the reason “the crowd” doesn’t care about policy issues is because it’s too hard to get information about issues, then this initiative has a serious chance of instigating meaningful reform.  If most people don’t care because they just can’t be bothered at all, then  lowering transaction costs won’t make a different and this initiative will fail.  Looking forward to watching it all go down.