Great article – if you’re a lawyer (or have a legal background) and work with software or patents, this is highly recommended reading:
“we’ve spent a lot of time and effort explaining the legal process to geeks; now it’s time for the geeks to help the lawyers out with the tech. They actually do want to get it right, you know.”
“They actually do want to get it right, you know.” … everyone says that. And most of the people saying so have the playsible deniability to go with it.
I was talking about the use of IT in law as far back as mid-80s. To my sister and brother in-law, both of whom are lawyers. (Their dad is a judge.) The same blow-off back then as I get now.
But I’ve persevered. (John Willinsky’s “Open Access” meets Jurgen Habermas’ “discourse ethics” … truly!) And my design has evolved. (The newest site I found, just last week, uses a design I worked on with a friend years ago … 1998, to be precise.)
It’s about up-take and buy-in. Both dynamics are determined by personality politics and short-term greed.
As for Gov2.0? The best attempts show how shallow is our understanding of Web2.0.
What will slash the Gordian Knot is when some monied entity obtains a truly cutting edge design. And I’m not about to give away / surrender mine to some “OpenSource” scam!