A vision for Open Government, Worldwide Collaboration

Knowledge Collection People & Projects
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While my personal journey matters far less than the goals we share I will do my best to provide an answer to the question, how did I get here?

I grew up in the United States, in the state of Vermont, a rural environment where I gained an appreciation for, as well as and understanding of, the importance of the natural balance of the world around us.  A tinkerer, I was always interested in how things were put together, how they were created, and studied as an engineer.  Throughout my career it became increasingly clear that open communication, honest dialog, is a key component for success for all individuals, organizations, and governments.

I founded Government in the Lab in early 2011 with a desire to help create a positive transformation in government and politics throughout the world, via shared knowledge and community.  Our writers, collaborators really, share insights with our readers in the native languages, writing articles in english, russian, german, french, spanish, arabic, and more.

A community built upon a shared vision, a shared purpose, can thrive when it is complemented by open and respectful collaboration.  These same principles went into my definition of open government:

“Open government is a citizen-centric philosophy and strategy that believes the best results are usually driven by partnerships between citizens and government, at all levels. It is focused entirely on achieving goals through increased efficiency, better management, information transparency, and citizen engagement and most often leverages newer technologies to achieve the desired outcomes. This is bringing business approaches, business technologies, to government. – John F Moore”

I view the Edgeryders community as onefocused upon positive transformation; a community that could create an engaged and active citizenry focused on improvement for all.  I look forward to taking this journey together my friends.

John

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Thanks for being an active member of Edgeryders, John.

I share this vision with you.

I tried to bring it to the Francophone world. Unfortunately, I hit the wall…

How to translate this vision into reality is one of my main concerns. I have not found the winning formula yet. I had to let go. Maybe other people than me will take over, and will succeed.

Thank you for all your efforts, perseverance and kind attitude.

As long as John Moore is standing, straight as an arrow, sometimes bending like a reed, but tireless, I continue to be hopeful.

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Manifesto

Throughout my career it became increasingly clear that open communication, honest dialog, is a key component for success for all individuals, organizations, and governments.
That's a true manifesto. But what I really like about the GovintheLab story is this: that it applies to itself the principles of its own agenda or, as some would say, it eats its own dogfood.

I myself became a contributor of GovintheLab way before Edgeryders. Somebody showed me a tweet saying “we look from bloggers from all over the world”. The doors appeared, and were, wide open. You, John, have been super transparent from the start: when we did have some hiccups, you honestly acknowledged and corrected them. In a sense, you were very consistent with Vinay’s “power of networks” point (in fact, I suggest John heads there and validates it against his own experience).

There is a great strength in being coherent with your own principles. It just saves a lot of time, attracting well-meaning people and keeping the trolls at bay.

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GovInTheLab makes a great work!

It’s amazing John!

GovInTheLab makes a great work in order to explain and to share the Open Government concept across the World.

And, moreover, it’s using several languages, not only English :slight_smile:

Thanks,

MarcG

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Delighted

I am delighted to see that TheLab receives gratitude, and also glad to read that the multilingual strategy is appreciated.

How many hours has spent John to pursue his vision? The number, if it was possible to determine, would be impressive.

How does he keep it up? I noticed that many people wonder when John Moore finds the time to sleep! Maybe he does not sleep much? Maybe he has a knack for managing large amounts of information? It must be a bit of both, plus a combination of many other skills.

There is an incredible force in John Moore that I find fascinating to observe. A relentless optimism which propels forward. While he pays attention to every detail and distributes kind words to everyone, he keeps an eye on the future.

What I like above all is that John sees the highest vision of people and situations, of what they can become. Does he realize he has this gift? Even when people make mistakes, and the situations are far from being the best, he sees development opportunities in everything. Concilliant and patient.

I suppose it is his high degree of hope, that attracts me as much. And that there is only one way to learn, it is through action.