I, for example, work on Government 2.0, a term that is now applied half-hazardly to any government activity associated with social media, wikis, or participative tools – no matter whether the result is closer to the 2.0 than the 1.0 on the scale.

If you were to ask us for a definition we’d answer that “Government 2.0 is a new breed of public sector organization that opens its doors to the world; co-innovates with everyone, especially citizens; shares resources that were previously closely guarded; harnesses the power of mass collaboration; and behaves not as an isolated department or jurisdiction, but as something new – a truly integrated organization.” Government 2.0 isn’t just about Obama, or just about engagement but rather it about how agencies provide services, create policy and structure the workplace using new technologies, tools and most important, a new culture of participation, openness and trust.

So when Mark Drapeau (Associate Research Fellow directing the Social Software for Security project at the Center for Technology and National Security Policy of the National Defense University in Washington, DC) blogged about “Renaming Government 2.0” we were evidently interested. Anthony and I have discussed a possible name change over the past several months but have yet to find anything better.

So can the crowds do a better job and find a title that does this transformation justice?

So far the top submissions include Quantam Gov, WeGov, YouGov, etc… nothing that I find any better or more descriptive than the 2.0. Can you think of anything better?

If anything this comment takes it…. “How about…democracy?! Isn’t this what democracy has always supposed to have been – participation from everyone?”

Or maybe even better: “This may be the one opportunity to NOT get caught up in tech marketing jargon. Why not just Government. Did we rename it when we went from the pony express to the modern day postal system?”

But, I’ve always been willing to concede that twitter may well have it’s use in the business world, and we’ve had some great discussions with a company called CoreMedia, who uses a homebrew version of twitter internally to great effect. I only know in general terms how it works, but it seems to go like this: everyone at work networks up with one another, and they’re able to ask questions to one another with an @coworker message. Individuals can also just put up generic notes about what they are doing, or ask questions without any specific recipient.

When you add more and more people into the mix, the community stream starts looking like this:

Steve is looking to see a movie, any suggestions?
Bill @Steve: Hey have you seen tropic thunder?
Steve @Bill: No, Is it good?
Justine @Steve: Sorry to cut in, but it’s great, go see it!
Bill @Steve: She’s right.

Now, to anyone from the old school internet, that should look pretty familiar to you: it’s basically an IRC channel, or by the name most people would know it, a chatroom.

I recognize that this is only one aspect of how twitter is used, but it still strikes me that a new technology has come onto the scene, and has shown itself to have emergent properties that mirror, almost exactly, one of the first communication technologies of the Internet.

This twitter approach is clearly superior, as because of the api, you can participate in the discussion from anywhere, and there’s no clumsy software to deal with (be it web-based or not), so it’s very easily accessible to everyone.

While I still don’t like twitter for personal updates, you have to opt-in to to seeing them, so I can’t really complain with any legitimacy. But for the business world, it’s somehow nice to see IRC crop up in its own disembodied way to unite people once again.

The website is filled with research papers, news, and reports highlighting what innovative governments, businesses, and educators can do to empower the people. It also breaks them down into a variety of case studies like Debate Europe where European citizens can share their opinions, concerns and ideas on the future of the European Union. The French National Commission of Public Debate (CNDP) has an innovative site that allows citizens to debate on infrastructure projects in France. Chunceon, Korea citizens have direct web access to the Mayor’s office to submit ideas and then receive feedback on them. Seeing case studies like these can really help allowing people to interpret and to better understand the opportunities available to their countries, states, provinces, and small towns. They even have some of our own Anthony Williams’ stuff in there.

As I went through the website I discovered that the information has been posted for a while now but a large portion hasn’t even been viewed.

The old saying, “knowledge is power” comes to mind. The United Nation’s purpose is to bring the people of the world together to make it a better place to live. Ken Leebow wrote an interesting comment on my blog post a few months back suggesting that, education is the most effective way to protect us. It was in regards to protecting children from pornography, but the benefits of knowledge are universal; protection, innovation, empowerment.

The great power of web 1.0 was transparency and access to incredible amounts of information…the power to inform. Now we have web 2.0 that, if used effectively, can connect people, ideas, and resources…..the power to innovate and execute.

I have mixed emotions about finding this site. I am excited at finding the incredible resource but disheartened that the important information is just sitting there untouched.

It seems to me that the United Nations Website would be a pretty important one to take advantage of. Are there other “goldmines” out there like this that are stagnant? How have you seen websites like this one take off? Finally, people can view the information but then what can they do with information like this?

On RealBlogging, a real estate blog, Stefan Swanepoel writes about how Gen Xers, the Net Geners (and maybe soon Gen Z’s) have made their mark on the internet by creating web 2.0 and bringing inventive new approaches to well established ideas. Stefan provides a list of real estate sites to watch that follow in kind with the new trends of the Internet.

Luke Naismith writes, on his blog Knowledge Futures, about the differences between coordination, cooperation and collaboration.

The team at Future Majority has a great piece on the task of updating the U.S. congress to a modern, wikified state. They also provide some examples of government institutions that are using web 2.0 technology. There’s also coverage of Don’s upcoming book, Grown Up Digital.

Across the world, the Gulf Times reports on how the Qatar Academy and 9 other schools internationally are participating in the Horizon Project, bringing wikis into the classroom.

Finally, if you’re in the mood for a decidedly non-web 2.0 approach to Wikinomics, it seems that there are numerous discussions about Wikinomics going on on the internet’s grandfather, usenet. I had no idea people still posted on usenet.

Addition: Mike just came across this fantastic profile of the Wikinomics book and blog.