"I gather it's been the worst kept secret in politics for the last few days," said Peggy Nash at the Friday morning announcement that she hopes to be the new NDP leader, "but that's OK, I believe in open government."

The proclamation showed that a certain terminology has worked its way into her subconscious. But the finance critic wasn't talking about "Making 'Open Government' About Actual Government" — discussed last week at a Metaviews event in Ottawa.

Rather, it reinforced that politicians are now forced to put so much energy into burnishing their social media image, that it comes at the expense of understanding how the departments that they're charged with overseeing need to be fully accessible online.

Going down the rabbit hole of Open Government-related rhetoric can be as maddening as the efforts to hash out solutions to salvage the information or entertainment industries from disruption. The difference is, while technology will transform our tastes in decades ahead, a traditional structure of public service will remain.