There’s been recurrent discussion of the tech-savvy of Obama’s campaign and transition team. An early legislative manifestation of this tuned-in-ness appears in the “implementation instructions” of last week’s stimulus bill. The instructions mandate that agencies report the specific allocation of funds in a feed.
“For each of the near term reporting requirements (major communications, formula block grant allocations, weekly reports) agencies are required to provide a feed (preferred: Atom 1.0, acceptable: RSS) of the information so that content can be delivered via subscription.”
The idea here is simple: Individual, organizations, and general gov’t oversight will have a far easier task of monitoring the use of monies when expenditure information comes to them, not the other way around. This sort of openness provides potentially enormous utility effectively without cost.
And beyond this particular instance, the RSS requirement is the first indication I’ve seen that the Obama administration sees a robust use of information services as not only invaluable to a successful campaign, but also to a more open and efficient government.
*via: RSS Hits the Big Time (Aaron Swartz’s Raw Thought)
p.s. If your not using a feed reader yet, you should be. Am I right, Alex and Barry, or am I right?! For the uninitiated, check out this cute video on RSS and Google Reader.
p.p.s. A teaser from the almost-done 2008 mix: You! Me! Dancing! by Los Campesinos!
Neat as hell. I think it makes total sense in theory. Maybe it would elevate the general level of knowledge about goings on within government.
At the very least, it would make it easier to know without having to expend alot of effort. After all, isn’t that what contemporary Western society is all about?
Also, damn. That picture of Obama can’t be more than 4 years old, and he looks 20 years younger.