Government 2.0: Using Technology to Improve Education, Cut Red Tape, Reduce Gridlock, and Enhance Democracy - Softcover

Government 2.0 should be required reading for all policy makers; it showcases the power of harnessing new technologies in a readable fashion with wonderful, real-life anecdotes. The information is vital for anyone helping to chart the political, cultural, and economic future of our country. -- Cathilea Robinett, executive director, Centers for Digital Government and Education, and executive vice president, e.Republic, Inc. Bill Eggers effectively identifies that democracy in America today is increasingly being played out by everyday citizens in front of computer screens. He shows that political leaders can be in constructive two-way conversations with their constituents if they understand the dynamics of today's technologies. -- R. T. Rybak, Mayor of Minneapolis Bill Eggers is one of the country's leading experts on government reform. I have been reading and listening to him for a decade, since I first was elected mayor of Indianapolis. His new book, Government 2.0, provides a major contribution to the public policy debate. -- Stephen Goldsmith, former Mayor of Indianapolis, former Chair of the Corporation for National and Community Service, and Professor of Government at the John F. Kennedy of Government at Harvard University Every year, more governments are using technology to become more user-friendly and transparent for citizens, and, ultimately, more effective-moving from old-style patronage politics to performance politics. Government 2.0 is a great place to start for government leaders who want to make the right choices to have the biggest impact. -- Martin O'Malley, Mayor of Baltimore The author makes a compelling case that state and federal government agencies have been slow to benefit from the digital revolution. -- Current Affairs * Forecast * In this important book, William Eggers shows convincingly just how much promise technology holds for making government more efficient, transparent, and responsive to its citizens. Eggers displays a keen understanding of policy-making in the digital age. Accompanying his insightful policy prescriptions are invaluable tips for putting the ideas into practice. Government 2.0 is a great contribution to freedom and democracy. -- Bill Owens, Governor of Colorado The scope of [Eggers's] work is ambitious. Eggers surveys major government services from schools to security, and offers a detailed overview of the ways in which technology is-or could be-transforming government from a centralized behemoth into a responsive entity, offering the kind of personalized, flexible service we've come to expect from private firms. -- Megan McArdle, columnist at Bloomberg View * New York Post *

A well-written, lively, optimistic book that calls for the transformation of technology in government from 'lipstick on a bulldog to total information awareness.' This book is proactive in nature (see what these governments are really doing), does not call for a wholesale and costly transformation, and employs a subtle shaming of those governments that have not yet joined the 21st century. William Eggers's argument, conservative in nature, states that the world of politics would quickly and markedly benefit from this digital transformation in terms of a fiscal payoff, but a more profound change would result as governments become more transparent, more democratic, and more efficient.