Here's an interesting blog entry on how President Obama has been doing in his first six months in the area of public involvement from the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation:

On his first day in office, U.S. President Barack Obama issued a memorandum to leaders of executive departments and government agencies calling for a new era of transparency and open government.  In the memo, Obama asserted “we will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration,” and called for an Open Government Directive “that instructs executive departments and agencies to take specific actions implementing the principles set forth in this memorandum” on transparency, public participation, and collaboration.

Read about what happened after President Obama issued the Open Government directive here.