Recently I’ve come across two great examples of how representatives of government are actually listening to citizens before formulating policies and programs that will directly impact them. For those of us who are interested in the concept of Government 2.0 and utilizing new tools and technologies in a way that truly democratizes decision making, this is really good news.

First, the City of Austin, through its AustinGO initiative, has been reaching out to the community it represents to get input on its new website. By asking citizens what would be most useful in a new website before beginning the process of designing and developing it, city leaders are following a key component of a 2.0 approach. They are listening first. The city is conducting a thorough survey of city employees as well.

I’ve pointed out several times on the Squared Root that Austin is the creative capital of the United States. It makes complete sense to harness the knowledge of the entire community by using social media and networking tools and strategies when creating our new website. Who better than the people who use the website regularly and those who will use it in the future to gather input from?

On the federal level, The Washington Post ran a story about Tom Daschle, Secretary of HHS designee apparent, utilizing the network that congregates on President-elect Obama’s transition website to solicit input on major health care reform.

While this might sound like common sense today some us still remember the situation in 1994, the last time a major health care effort was being contemplated at that level, when the opposite was true.

A task force was formed to craft omnibus legislation that would impact almost every one of us and nearly a fifth of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). I was a Congressional lobbyist for the American Medical Association in Washington D.C. at the time. Even though my colleagues and I had some great contacts on Capitol Hill and in the administration, we had very little ability to find out what was being done in the task force behind closed doors.

Our predicament was being shared by people with much more clout than us, including then U.S. Senator Tom Daschle. Eventually the secretiveness of the approach was a major contributor to the eventual collapse of the bill.

To see Daschle now openly solicit input at the beginning of the process is very encouraging and will increase the likelihood of its success. Using social media tools makes total sense to those of us who are already seeing the tremendous value they can add when used in a strategic manner in our businesses and daily lives and at the local, state and federal levels of government.

If you would like more information on how FG SQUARED is pioneering efforts in government 2.0 and social media, please comment below or email me at Mike.Chapman@fg2.com or contact me @MikeChapman on twitter.