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Clay Johnson
How We Can Open Our Government
"Transparency will be the touchstone of my presidency" said president Barack Obama.
"The Internet is an incredible vehicle for transparency, honest leadership and open government." said Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
"It's time for open government, transparency, and it's a time for results." said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
The leaders of our country are all calling for a more open government. But we cannot just wait for them to open it up for us, we have to do some of the work ourselves. Coding, after all, is faster than consensus. In my presentation I'm going to talk tactics-- about what we can do now to break down these walls.
About Clay Johnson:
Clay is Director of Sunlight Labs. Prior joining Sunlight, Clay was one of the four founders of Blue State Digital, the progressive left's premier technology and online strategy firm. This firm, which was born out of the Howard Dean campaign, was also responsible for Barack Obama's Web presence. At Blue State Digital, Clay was responsible for developing the organization's brand and building its initial client roster. He also had a hand at building some of the company's early technical tools. Before joining Blue State, Johnson was the lead programmer for Dean for America in 2004, overseeing the development of grassroots tools like GetLocal, DeanLink and Project Commons. Prior to entering politics, Johnson was a technologist at Ask Jeeves (now Ask.com) where he helped to develop the company's Web syndication product. He also started the first Internet Knowledge Exchange, KnowPost.com, and worked as an entrepreneur-in-residence at a Venture Capital firm, but still claims that he learned the most from his first job -- as a waiter at Waffle House in Atlanta, Georgia.
