Goofy: Whitehouse Quora
Anil is backwards on this effort to create a question + answer site for the White House. The question isn’t how to collect the best/most qualified talent to contribute. It’s how to turn the best/most useful ideas into action.
All sorts of useful governance ideas out in the wild. Recreating that isn’t going to get the breadth or depth of… y’know, the internet. Why?
If you were interested in breaking into the niche-conference-attending DC group, you would have already done it and will probably participate in this new site. If you’re a guy with an idea, you’re not going to sign up/undergo a qualification process to contribute.
The real problem isn’t talent. It’s that none of those ideas are being executed. I’m not sold that a walled garden is going to do anything about it, more than the same ol’ people talking about the same ol’ stuff. So you need to source from the wild. And/or have a totally open contribution-based submission process. (Think Reddit.)
So the emphasis must be on getting a commitment (or hard coding into the system) that White House resources will be committed to whatever it is the community turns up. Emphasize that what the ecosystem produces will be valuable/used and the talent and ideas will bring themselves.
-Shlok
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