“Open gov” advocates and civic hackers have had an exciting few months. The White House has launched a series of bold initiatives aimed at advancing the use of new tech and increasing data sharing - and hired some very smart folks to lead the way. But the federal bureaucracy is enormous, consisting of more than 1.8 million employees across 15 departments. How is this bold, digital agenda filtering down to the folks who will actually have to implement it?
For years the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has been seen by many as more a tool to fulfill political favors than an agency charged with providing and ensuring safe, fair, and affordable housing. Secretary Alphonso Jackson, who led the agency from 2004-2008, was forced to resign amidst a flurry of patronage and conflict-of-interest scandals. He once famously warned a conference of black contractors, “Why should I reward someone who doesn’t like the president, so they can use funds to try to campaign against the president? Logic says they don’t get the contract. That’s the way I believe.”
But things are changing at HUD. There’s new leadership that some are calling the “Dream Team,” and under new Secretary Shaun Donovan HUD is certainly trying to use new media. There’s now a HUD Facebook fan page, Twitter account (@HUDNews), and their Web site has gotten a makeover. But upon closer examination, they have yet to make any substantive changes.
As of October 1, 2009 HUD had not yet posted a single data set or link toData.gov (despite having a trove of data online already at www.HUDuser.org). Their Web site has recently been given the same treatment most other federal sites have received, but dig into its archives and you find that it’s just a facelift - the structure of the site is unchanged and many pages still have their old look and feel.
There are links to Twitter and Facebook, but neither social media site is being used in very ’social’ ways. Their Facebook page seems to be a one-way communications system; there is no clear HUD response to any of the fan questions or comments posted. Their Twitter account occasionally responds to an @ message, but just this week they sent out a multiple-tweet narrative account of a conference - and incurred the anger of some followers in the process.
It’s certainly still early and the federal bureaucracy has never been the most nimble of entities. But the new administration has set a high bar for participatory and open government - and it will be interesting to see how HUD progresses over the coming months.
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