For the last week or two, some of the Bitcurrent folks have been working with Visible Government on a fundraising campaign. Called Beers for Canada, the goal is to raise money to fund the creation of applications that link citizens to their governments.

I’m a board member of Visible Government, and I’m a strong believer that technology can eliminate much of the friction that often exists between citizenry and elected representatives. It’s our best bet at replacing hierarchies, a necessary evil of disconnected civilizations, with self-organization. This is a theme echoed by Clay Shirky and others.

There are three steps to this.

1. Make data free and open. This means encouraging governments to publish information on their activities in open, re-usable, freely licensed, properly archived formats.
2. Make the data accessible. This involves visualization, analytics, and easy, approachable interfaces that anyone can use.
3. Encourage everyone — both citizens and those they elect — to make use of these systems and change how government makes decisions.

This isn’t just about “auditing” government. A good example of a two-way project is Fix My Street, a website where people can report things that need fixing. Governments can check the site and find out. It’s crowdsourced maintenance. It makes both parties more effective, but it’s something that’s only possible now that everyone has a camera on their phone.

Visible Government is just one of the many organizations trying to build these bridges between governments and citizens. In the US, there’s the Sunlight Foundation, Transparency.org, and many more. Here in Canada we have ChangeCamp too.

So — if you’re a fan of transparent government, help us kick things off. Buy your country a beer (or a pitcher, or a round, if you’re feeling generous.) Visible Government will put the money to good use, building apps that connect people and governments.