So to follow up on the previous post of today I just finished reading over lunch Phil Weiser's paper, FCC Reform and the Future of Telecommunications Policy that was presented at yesterday's conference on FCC reform. It is entirely worth reading as it presents a comprehensive review of FCC performance within the existing paradigm of administrative procedures for U.S. government agencies. I do wish there had been more consideration of how to push through the existing paradigm but clearly that wasn't part of Weiser's focus for the paper.
One paragraph, however, does point out how the FCC (and really any U.S. government agency) could incorporate new approaches and new technology to improve its processes:
In developing new databases of information, it is not sufficient merely to make them available to the public-the FCC also should enable citizens to manipulate information and use it in creative ways.[168] At present, unfortunately, the FCC databases are not only difficult to search, but they do not give citizens the opportunity to use that data and make connections between different data sets-say, broadband deployment and job creation. Consequently, the agency has failed to spur what one commentator calls “wikinomics”-i.e., enabling user-generated content.[169] This trend is just now taking root, as groups of ordinary citizens are combining information related to a variety of topics, ranging from crime rates in Chicago neighborhoods and L.A. communities at risk of fire violations, using technologies like Google Maps to make interesting connections.[170]
If it was up to me, I'd start with a complete review of the FCC website and more comprehensively, a review of how the FCC uses technology and Internet-enabled services to interact with the public.
UPDATE: Former FCC'er Michael Marcus agrees on the website revamp:
FCC Website
The current FCC website design was created under Chairman Hundt and was well designed for that era. However, it is hopelessly out of date in the contemporary world and almost inaccessible for the real public. While it has a huge amount of information, needless clutter makes it nearly impossible to find anything. For example, EDOCS and ECFS, the 2 separate systems for rulemaking documents, are easy to use if you know the docket number but there is no general system to find docket numbers if you don’t know them or to find comment due dates.On the other hand, FCC is the only commission/board in the whole federal government to list all its commissioners on the top home page, so that information is certainly easy to find!
I'll quibble with the last bit though -- it would be even easier if we had URLs for the commissioners like
