An encouraging sign from the increasingly wired White House that they're hearing the critique that not everyone in the circa-2009 U.S. is ready or able to engage online -- submitting YouTube questions to the President online, or interact with a website for voting up or down open government ideas, to highlight two examples. Sonal Shah, the director of the White House's Office of Social and Civic Participation, and deputy CTO Robynn Strumm are asking for advice on the White House blog for how to increase citizens' participation in government:

What skills and subject areas are the most important for civic literacy today? How do we promote the kind of civic education necessary to enable people to make greater use of government data, like the information available on Data.gov, or participate in online commenting processes, like this one or regulations.gov?

But, interestingly, the focus here is somewhat different than you might expect to hear from government. Rather than focusing on creating analog opportunities for engagement, they're highlighting the idea of getting folks up to speed with modern, digital tools of engagement.