K Street Cafe

This weekend, nearly 300 top transparency and open government experts from non-profit, technology developer, and government staff communities gathered at George Washington University to attend the Sunlight Foundation’s Transparency Camp 2010. The purpose of this second annual “unconference” was to clarify the needs for making government transparent, both from a philosophical and a how-to perspective.

As with all of these self-organizing, “barcamp-style” unconferences, participants are actively tweeting their thoughts throughout the sessions. The depth of these sessions and Twitter discussions is such that this article cannot adequately cover them. Thankfully, the tweet-stream is available online here (or you can follow the hashtags #TCamp2010 and #TCamp10 yourself).

Some of the key points raised in sessions include:

1. Making government data accessible in online, machine-readable format is essential.

2. Transparency is essential to improve trust in government by making it more accountable.

3. Transparency is a long-term need, so building a strong foundation to ensure it continues to develop is essential.

4. Building a foundation for transparency means we cannot use as a short-term success metric how many people use what we are building now (that audience will grow over time).

5. Digital divide issues remain important and they are building universal broadband network, getting computers and mobile devices into the hands of underserved communities, training them on how to use these tools, and developing a culture that encourages people to use these resources.

The conversation will continue on Twitter and elsewhere, so book mark the Tweetstream link, follow along, and add your thoughts.