I did make many of these points since the very beginning of the open government initiative, and I have been warning other jurisdictions not to enter a competition based on how many data sets, or how many Facebook pages or idea contests they would run vs. other jurisdictions.

What very few have done, and should have been hardwired in the directive, is to link openness to value and mission objectives. There is still time, although the clock is ticking as the Congress – which is no longer as favorable as it was at the beginning of the Obama administration – starts looking more closely into this matter.

Gartner analyst, Andrea Di Maio, comments on the recently released US Congressional Report on Open Government, which appears to challenge some of the rhetoric of open government supporters - Di Maio clearly thinks, to put it in commercial lanaguage, its all about return on investment.

I haven't had time to read the report myself, so I'm taking Di Maio's comments on face value - surprisingly, I agree with some of them in principle. It is very easy to get caught up with app building and open data, while not actually really doing anything innovative to extend, improve or reduce the cost of community services, they way they organise or how they are delivered.

However, the thing I would challenge is who exactly do we mean as the beneficiary of the return on investment in open government - the institutions or the citizens? And is this report really just the sign of government institutions fighting against change and the FUD created by Wikileaks?

The issue of what Clay Shirky calls "Coase's Floor also comes to mind - the problem might be that governments are making it too expensive is some cases to move to open government, by trying to measure and make the effort visible so they can analyse it before taking action.

Since I was talking about Shirky's new book the other day. I'm also a fan of Krotoski via the Guardian's Tech Weekly podcast, although her own blog looks quite interesting too.

This week on Outriders a longer discussion as Clay Shirky chats about his new book Cognitive Surplus and how he switched from theater and the arts to new media observation.

The time that we may use to passively watch television or take in traditional media could be changing as audiences become active and productive consumers, not content to sit and watch when they can create something for themselves and their friends. A tricky dilemma while traditional media formats flounder or panic about new media models, but are we all prepared to play nice with the new arenas available to us?

An absolutely great interview with Clay Shirky. You can download the podcast recording.

BTW I haven't read Cognitive Surplus yet, but in the meantime Peter Kim has posted a review on the Dachis Group blog. My 1998 review of Shirky's earlier book, Here Comes Everybody, is on my old blog.

SIMON: We, as you know, have tried to work the use of social media into our program. We do get some resentment from people who, some people, not everybody has access to the internet or think that they have no interest in social media sites.

Mr. SHIRKY: The conversation around the digital divide, this gap between who can participate and who can't, has shifted. In the '90s, it was mainly about access to hardware and network connections. Right? Not everybody has a computer. But as computers have gotten cheaper and spread, as they started showing up in specific places like libraries, and as phones increasingly have, even just through SMS, these kind of functions, the conversation's really shifted from the question of access to a hardware to the sense of permission and to the sense of interest. And that's a much squishier, more social question.

So part of the digital divide question, the new digital divide question is, how do we go to people who don't sense they have permission to speak in public and offer them that permission? And then the other, as you say, is the interest. If there are people who are just uninterested in this stuff, how can you make an experience that's still satisfying for them as, you know, traditional consumers of media, without making them feel bad for not being the people posting the Flickr pictures of potholes or, you know, adding a comment to an NPR story?

This is from an interview of US National Public Radio with Clay Shirky. The Digital Divide issue is often seen in simple terms - those that can access and those that can't. However, I think Clay is right that the issue has shifted. While not discussed in this interview, another point is the gap between those that do want to engage online but in a particular domain are not given the chance (such as local government consultations that are only conducted face-to-face).