Earlier this year, amidst intense rabble rousing to herald the arrival of 08, I had what at the time seemed like a vision. Perhaps even an epiphany. Dare I say…a revelation. Admittedly, most things that penetrated my champagne haze were met with an internal “dude…that is a great idea” but unlike my notion of genetically engineering peanuts to grow in butter form, one in particular stuck. It stuck so much that it became a resolution. And now, at roughly lunch time for 2008, I have kept my resolution.

My resolution was to “listen to more talk radio”. (I know, I know…far from earth shattering. But listen, when you start about 25 degrees south of “somewhat informed”, any news will help.) And in keeping my resolution, I had the chance to hear Don Tapscott interviewed on NPR about the applicability of Web/Enterprise 2.0 for government. Thanks to that interview, and a rising demand from clients, I have decided to start a series of posts focused on the specific applicability of Enterprise 2.0 for the government organizations I have worked with either directly or indirectly.

I mused earlier on transparent international development work and am happy to see what I believe are some excellent steps in that direction from the Millennium Challenge Corporation. As a baseline, I think MCC has done an excellent job in adding functionality to their website that fosters a sense of transparency as well as enlightens taxpayers to the challenges of development work. One of the most interesting additions in recent months is the posting of the models used to determine a significant funding driver, the Economic Rate of Return. Additionally, the CEO Blog and Poverty Reduction Blog provide insight into the complex and challenging work of executing billions of dollars of international aid with a staff capped at 300. External stakeholders are waving the 2.o flag and sharing MCC content for the world to see. I believe MCC’s web property is fast becoming a popular and effective way to not only educate, but engage constituents from many perspectives. At the very least, odious SEO jockeys think so.

MCC has undoubtedly made strides toward the Gov 2.0 goal line, but I posit that more can be done. MCC can and should engage the international development online community to not only increase awareness, but to harness their collective intelligence in addressing difficult challenges. The blogs and ERR models are a great step forward, but it is almost transparency for transparency’s sake. Use that transparency to foster a community that not only talks to you, but more importantly, interacts with each other to solve your problems.

• What if instead MCC’s blogs expressed various internal perspectives and gathered external feedback on something like Google’s lobbying to include ICCR obligations in their funding determination?
• What if MCC publicly embraced a pre-existing development professional social network, another development agency, and a professional services firm to orchestrate insight around common problems from otherwise disconnected perspectives?
• What if MCC implemented an idea market for to determine funding priorities of US taxpayer dollars or innovate on solutions to what must be the daunting challenge of breaking new ground in the development world?

With private sector examples of the value of crowdsourcing like the Goldcorp Challenge, it is easy to see the potential crossover into Government 2.0. As a government corporation with an emphasis on operating like a business, MCC is well positioned to realize those same benefits for US taxpayers.

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