The Obama Administration released the long anticipated Open Government Directive on Tuesday. It lays out some ambitious steps for executive departments and agencies to take over the relatively near-term to be more transparent, participatory, and accountable, such as:

• Within 45 days, each agency shall identify and publish online in an open format at least three high-value data sets and register those data sets via Data.gov
• Within 60 days, each agency shall create an Open Government web page, and respond to public input received via that page
• Within 120 days, each agency shall develop and publish an Open Government Plan that will describe how it will improve transparency and integrate public participation and collaboration into its activities

Not sure how to get started? We can help.
We've worked for many years helping organizations develop effective approaches to be more transparent and accountable online. We can help you develop and document a credible Open Government Plan that meets OMBs objectives and at the same time aligns with your organizational realities and challenges. Opening your organization up to invite and respond to public input can be scary. It helps to have well crafted plan that is rolled out smoothly. For most organizations, there will be some easy wins that you can already take credit for or accomplish quickly, along with some more challenging actions to be taken over the longer term.

Have a plan for your data.
To meet the requirements for publishing open data, we can help you identify and prioritize candidate data sets that might be well-suited to publishing online and to Data.gov. We can help you understand what formats are most appropriate for the data and put in place a communications strategy to accompany its release.

Kudos to the administration for pushing the envelope on open government. It's going to be an exciting several months to watch everything unfold.