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Wiki Government: How Technology Can Make Government Better, Democracy Stronger, and Citizens More Powerful Paperback – November 2, 2010
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Collaborative democracygovernment with the peopleis a new vision of governance in the digital age. Wiki Government explains how to translate the vision into reality. Beth Simone Noveck draws on her experience in creating Peer-to-Patent, the federal government's first social networking initiative, to show how technology can connect the expertise of the many to the power of the few. In the process, she reveals what it takes to innovate in government.
Launched in 2007, Peer-to-Patent connects patent examiners to volunteer scientists and technologists via the web. These dedicated but overtaxed officials decide which of the million-plus patent applications currently in the pipeline to approve. Their decisions help determine which start-up pioneers a new industry and which disappears without a trace. Patent examiners have traditionally worked in secret, cut off from essential information and racing against the clock to rule on lengthy, technical claims. Peer-to-Patent broke this mold by creating online networks of self-selecting citizen experts and channeling their knowledge and enthusiasm into forms that patent examiners can easily use.
Peer-to-Patent shows how policymakers can improve decisionmaking by harnessing networks to public institutions. By encouraging, coordinating, and structuring citizen participation, technology can make government both more open and more effective at solving today's complex social and economic problems. Wiki Government describes how this model can be applied in a wide variety of settings and offers a fundamental rethinking of effective governance and democratic legitimacy for the twenty-first century.
"- Print length247 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherBrookings Institution Press
- Publication dateNovember 2, 2010
- Dimensions6 x 0.62 x 9 inches
- ISBN-100815705107
- ISBN-13978-0815705109
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Editorial Reviews
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"A sweeping visionary yet highly pragmatic book! Beth Noveck concretely shows how to leverage the participatory nature of web 2.0 technologies to build a new kind of participatory democracy and a smart, lean government. She speaks from experience. A must read not just for policy folks and the digerati but for any of us wanting to understand how to tap the collective and diverse wisdom of the America to create a better, more connected style of democracy."—John Seely Brown, Former Chief Scientist, Xerox Corp and Director of its Palo Alto Research Center (PARC)
"Beth Noveck is one of the most innovative thinkers working today on how to reform government using digital technologies. Her theory of collaborative democracy is a genuine advance. Wiki Government offers indispensable advice for anyone who wants to learn how to foster democratic participation in digital environments."—Jack M. Balkin, Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment and director of the Information Society Project, Yale Law School
"A fascinating look at how government can be transformed for the needs and opportunities of the twenty-first century."—Don Tapscott, coauthor of Wikinomics and author of Grown Up Digital
"The Internet has taught us that good ideas come from everywhere. Wiki Government translates that lesson for policymakers. With a compelling blend of high theory and practical know-how, Beth Noveck explains how political institutions can directly engage the public to solve complex problems and create a better democracy."—Eric Schmidt, chairman and CEO, Google Inc.
"After more than fifteen years of public service, I've seen firsthand the difference it makes when government focuses on meaningful, measurable outcomes. Wiki Government shows how citizens' voices and expertise can transform and help deliver effective, efficient government. This book is a must-read for policymakers committed to participatory democracy."—Timothy M. Kaine, governor of Virginia
" Wiki Government both instructs and motivates policymakers to use collaborative tools to strengthen government accountability and engage citizens directly in this critical endeavor. This book is not just for tech geeks and policy wonks but also for the millions of Americans who demonstrated in 2008 how eager they are to engage individually in government reform."—John Podesta, president and CEO, Center for American Progress, and former White House chief of staff
"At once visionary and pragmatic, Wiki Government offers the first glimpse of how public officials might enlist the wisdom of crowds in order to improve government's decisions—while promoting participation at the same time. A brilliant book and a truly extraordinary achievement."—Cass R. Sunstein, Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
"Beth Noveck concretely shows how to leverage the participatory nature of Web 2.0 technologies to build a new kind of participatory democracy and a smart, lean government. A must-read not just for policy folks and the digerati but for any of us wanting to understand how to tap the collective and diverse wisdom of the American people to create a better, more connected style of democracy."—John Seely Brown, former chief scientist, Xerox Corp.
"Noveck's approach to e-governance is to study where citizen online collaboration can have an impact, and she shows that one can design for participatory democracy with compelling results."— Library Journal
"An inspiring and ambitious book, Noveck uses the United States Patent Trade Office (USPTO) "Peer-to-Patent" model which invites the public to participate in the patent examination process, as the central example of how ordinary people can participate within democracy in the digital age."— OhMyGov!
"Book of the week"—Michel Bauwens, P2P Foundation
"Good reading."—Ben Shneiderman, University of Maryland, Science
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Brookings Institution Press; Reprint edition (November 2, 2010)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 247 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0815705107
- ISBN-13 : 978-0815705109
- Item Weight : 12.5 ounces
- Dimensions : 6 x 0.62 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #5,497,012 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #924 in Science & Technology Law (Books)
- #3,719 in Public Affairs & Administration (Books)
- #6,218 in General Elections & Political Process
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Beth Simone Noveck directs The Governance Lab (www.thegovlab.org) and its MacArthur Research Network on Opening Governance. Funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and Google.org, the GovLab advises dozens of governments and public institutions on how to use technology to improve how we govern.The GovLab designs and tests technology, policy and strategies for fostering more open and collaborative approaches to strengthen the ability of people and institutions to work together to solve problems, make decisions, resolve conflict and govern themselves more effectively and legitimately.
The Jerry Hultin Global Network Professor at New York University's Tandon School of Engineering, she was previously the Jacob K. Javits Visiting Professor at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and a visiting professor at the MIT Media Lab. Beth is a professor of law on leave at New York Law School and a Senior Fellow at the Yale Law School Information Society Project. She served in the White House as the first United States Deputy Chief Technology Officer and director of the White House Open Government Initiative (2009-2011). UK Prime Minister David Cameron appointed her senior advisor for Open Government, and she served on the Obama-Biden transition team. Among projects she's designed or collaborated on are Unchat, The Do Tank, Peer To Patent, Data.gov, Challenge.gov and the Gov Lab's Living Labs and training platform, The Academy.
A graduate of Harvard University and Yale Law School, she serves on the Global Commission on Internet Governance and chaired the ICANN Strategy Panel on Multi-Stakeholder Innovation. She is a member of the Advisory Board of the Open Contracting Partnership. She was named one of the "Foreign Policy 100″ by Foreign Policy, one of the "100 Most Creative People in Business" by Fast Company and one of the "Top Women in Technology" by Huffington Post. She has also been honored by both the National Democratic Institute and Public Knowledge for her work in civic technology.
Beth is the author of Wiki Government: How Technology Can Make Government Better, Democracy Stronger and Citizens More Powerful, which has also appeared in Arabic, Russian, Chinese and in an audio edition, and co-editor of The State of Play: Law, Games and Virtual Worlds. Her new book Smart Citizens, Smarter State: The Technologies of Expertise and the Future of Governing will be published by Harvard University Press on November 2nd. She tweets and writes on Medium @bethnoveck.
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The book is well written and edited, easy to read and full of examples that will spur your creativity. I read it quickly and thought it was very good, but as I go back and re-read sections I think it's extraordinary.
Peer-To-Patent
Wiki Government starts off by recounting one successful use by government of the interactive technology of Web 2.0. The author directed this project when she was a Professor at New York Law School. The demonstration project is the Peer-To-Patent Initiative, a system that now facilitates the processing of patents in the field of information technology at the US Patent Office.
The problem faced by the Peer-To-Patent demonstration project is multi-faceted: the allocated time for a bureaucrat to approve a patent is short, many patents are approved in error, and this leads to costly litigation. The solution is to provide government officials with better information when they are making decisions. This information comes from the online collaboration of relevant volunteers who participate in Peer-To-Patent.
A volunteer user of Peer-To-Patent initially chooses from a list of patent applications and joins a team that's reviewing one. The reviewers discuss the application's focus and quality with posted comments, suggest further research, and inputs of prior "art." The latter is documentation of significant advances in information technology that occurred before the date of the patent application. The intellectual property in this prior "art" is protected by functions that are built-in to Peer-To-Patent.
Each member of a Peer-To-Patent team rates the team's findings and the best are provided to the US Patent Office in an Information Disclosure Statement. In this way, the team influences, but does not make, the decision of the US Patent Office on a patent application.
Problems At (...)
Right now there is a US government web page, (...), where citizens can leave comments about government regulations. An overall evaluation of this site indicates that it has not increased the amount of useful information available to government. It has become a place where participants tend to "notice and spam" rather than "notice and comment."
Noveck sees a need to transform sites like (...) into places where citizens become better informed by reading others' comments, collaborators build on the inputs of others, and experts criticize and respond to what they see. Such processes are facilitated when each participant is assigned to a group whose members are discussing similar issues and topics. The resulting teams of participants will develop more meaningful outcomes that convey better information than the flood of one-off pronouncements that are currently received by (...).
New Initiatives
Beth Noveck foresees developing further Internet based applications, like Peer-To-Patent, in her current position of US Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Open Government. She leads the Open Government Initiative.
One proposal is for a "bubble up" system for determining questions for the US President to answer in regular media sessions. In such a system, participants submit questions, the questions are rated by other participants, and only the best are presented to the President. Wiki Government tells of similar systems being used with the politicians in other countries, and television personalities.
Another proposal is for a "civic jury." The jury is randomly chosen from volunteers to monitor the decisions of a policy maker in a government department - the example given is for policies in education. The jury members read and comment on an electronic blog in which the policy maker gives reasons for decisions taken. Sub-groups of the jury keep up wiki's about specific decisions and policy areas.
Motivating the Right Participants
Wiki Government does discuss problems of motivating knowledgeable people to participate in a system of electronic commenting. Wiki Government points out that the screens in successful systems are designed to respect users and give feedback in such a way that contributors feel that they are part of a community. The systems are also designed to quickly weed out frivolous communications so that meaningful participants feel they are speaking with others of similar stature.
There may still be problems of motivating knowledgeable volunteers and specialists to spend their free time by continually returning to an Internet site and commenting on more than one issue. One way of obtaining the regular contribution of time is through public-private partnerships. As it is, many participants in Peer-To-Patent were employees of the major sponsoring
If you have read a few articles on the peer-to-patent experiment, then there is probably no need to buy this book.
This is my first Amazon review. I loved the book so much that I decided to write a review. Happy reading!
[Note and hat tip: I first discovered Wiki Government via Lucy Bernholz's (@p2173) tweetstream which lead me to her thought-provoking blog post, "Open Philanthropy: A Modest Manifesto." [...]
~Emily
@emahlee
"Wiki Government" delineates how technology can be leveraged to move us from wishful thinking concerning the myriad problems facing society to focused action. Noveck goes beyond analysis of the world's ills; she uses current Internet capabilities to focus the vast resources of the many on tasks traditionally the purview of a tiny handful of government employees. The expertise of specialists in any given field, as well as the insights of serious lay people, can successfully confront problems that currently overwhelm government resources. At the same time, online collaboration, by linking people into a problem-solving team, can create feelings of shared responsibility and achievement that enhance mutuality and community, and thus strengthen society as a whole.
Noveck has accomplished something very rare: She has taken our dreams and shown how to render them real.
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 24, 2009
"Wiki Government" delineates how technology can be leveraged to move us from wishful thinking concerning the myriad problems facing society to focused action. Noveck goes beyond analysis of the world's ills; she uses current Internet capabilities to focus the vast resources of the many on tasks traditionally the purview of a tiny handful of government employees. The expertise of specialists in any given field, as well as the insights of serious lay people, can successfully confront problems that currently overwhelm government resources. At the same time, online collaboration, by linking people into a problem-solving team, can create feelings of shared responsibility and achievement that enhance mutuality and community, and thus strengthen society as a whole.
Noveck has accomplished something very rare: She has taken our dreams and shown how to render them real.



