Open government is one of those terms that has different meanings depending upon your perspective.You might feel it is mostly about open data, or making information freely available, or you might think it is about engaging with constituents.

In 2014 and 2016 I had the opportunity to ask a lot of folks (mostly academics, civil society and public servants) why they thought open government was important. No one talked about open government as something inherently good, they talked about:

• solving complex problems and creating social opportunity
• fairness, objective knowledge and opportunity for positive change
• understanding measuring, and connecting government
• learning from the past and financial transparency
• growing a healthy democracy
• improving government
• economic opportunity
• citizen empowerment

They do care about Open Government they just don’t call it that.

p.s. For me, that healthy democracy item is flashing in my mind these days.