President Obama is already speaking to a large choir with this particular hymn:

In one of a handful of memorandums released during his first full day as president, Obama said he planned to issue an open government directive, which will instruct agencies to make their operations more transparent and to create a process that asks the public to submit opinions on policy issues and enable collaboration with organizations in the public and private sectors.

It’s certainly true that there is a lot left to accomplish to truly meet this goal. However, a lot of government operations have already embraced a philosophy of transparency and collaboration, and are doing very well as a consequence. The NITRC program at the NIH, which is a collaboration platform for research grantees to share some of the products of their research, is one example that TCG is involved in. Others will be highlighted by the 2009 Excellence.gov Awards, whose theme this year is “Transparency: Using IT to improve the interaction between Government and its Stakeholders.” Nominations are due today so, if your program is already meeting the President’s goals, get your information submitted quickly!