This is a meeting of senior federal managers who have been identified as “Champions of Participation.” They were convened by AmericaSpeaks, Demos, Everyday Democracy, and Harvard University’s Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. They met to discuss the president’s executive order requiring “transparency, participation, and collaboration,” which he signed on his first day in office. (For disclosure, I am on the boards of both AmericaSpeaks and Everyday Democracy.)

So far, the administration has focused on transparency and the use of technology to share information with citizens and collect their opinions. This group broadened the topic to include face-to-face participation and collaboration by federal agencies. The full report contains very concrete and challenging recommendations. But I was especially interested in some of the philosophical positions these managers took. According to my transcriptions from the video, they said:

Leaders engaging in public participation initiatives [should] value not knowing the solution before they begin and be willing to engage in collaborative learning and collaborative problem-solving to create the solution. And we believe that this approach, or this value, would represent a humility that is not often seen when government leaders engage the public.

Public citizen stewardship and local knowledge. … We thought it was important to make civic engagement part of every agency’s mission and citizen-centered delivery of the mission part of that.