I recently attended the annual conference of the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors, http://natoa.org/events/annual-conference/2009/. NATOA is a national trade association representing local governments. It includes both elected and appointed officials and staff who oversee communications and cable television franchising.
It was great interacting with the attendees and hearing the kinds of issues that local officials face, as well as spending a little bit of time in New Orleans, where the meeting was held. It was the first time I was in New Orleans.
The panel I served on discussed Government 3.0, what it might be, and some of the issues associated with it.
My major points were that the ‘classical’ description of 3.0 has been that the next step is to implement what is called the Semantic Web. The term is generally used to mean that the web will understand its own content and with that knowledge allow more robust searches and interactions. I call it the “Return what I want, not what I ask for” web. I expressed some skepticism about the likelihood of this happening.
I pointed out that there was much to do with the old-fashioned Government 2.0 approach, which still is very young. And I brought up my favorite topic, the integration of fast sensors into networks and its implications to local and state government.