In my first post, titled Are you taking notes? I introduced Canadian writer Gourlay and his (a)musing history of the Ottawa Valley, Canada's seat of government. Inspiration has zany origins. With Gourlay, we're dealing with a well-read, fervently Christian Canadian who was highly versed in the Valley's history. Lucky for us, he didn't bury the main jewel a number of pages in. He placed it on the front page. He argued that human history is marked by the loss of records and repeating of errors, that is "to indolence and carelessness may be attributed the meagre information we possess regarding the origin, progress, growth and decay of so many branches of the human race." Government is plagued with the same routine forgetting. Government 2.0 (slang for: a restored and renewed civil service) is a way of discussing government that is positive, that emphasizes strengths while acknowledging critical challenges. Gourlay's prescription is one of the earliest intimations of Gov 2.0 that I've come across. In 1896 he wrote:

Intelligent young people should keep short notes of stirring events that come within the range of their observation as these must be of interest and in the hands of one who could classify and arrange and generalize they would not be heavy, but readable.

The implications of Gourlay's insights requires that we (those concerned with the cultural-technological transformation of Government -- Gov 2.0) focus on: intelligent (young) people (1) [young as both age and zeal], short notes (2), stirring events (3), ranges of observation (4), those who classify, arrange, and generalize (5-A,B,C), the notion of heaviness related to accessing records (6), and the notion of readable relating to the records and their accessing (7).