Andrew - As you point out my role is to help move the system from the inside. I have really only ever had direct interaction with the public on a couple of occasions and in neither of them was a an official representative of the Crown, just a citizen who happens to be a public servant. The first was ChangeCampOttawa, the second was Ignite Ottawa. As a speaker at Ignite I found myself having to completely rewrite my presentation because I was no longer trying to fire up public servants, but also citizens. In my talk I urged them to get more involved because as a public servant I can leverage the pressures that citizens can bring to bear from the realm of the political. After my talk a group of younger students came up to me and asked me how they could step up their civic engagement. I think they were looking for me to point them in a specific direction, instead what I did was ask them what their interests were, then encouraged them to connect with people already championing those interests (using the web). I think that that is where Citizen 2.0 begins. Citizen 2.0 hinges on the ability to quickly self-organize without involving the government until there is a reason or need to. I actually think that citizen 2.0 is more likely to turn to government as a last resort because it tends to respond slower than other citizens.

However if Government 20 and Citizen 2.0 hinge on web connectivity we need to do something to address the digital divide as it may quickly become the democratic deficit of the 2.0 era.