Government 2.0: Architecting for collaboration
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Tara E. Hunt
Tara Hunt has spent most of her adult life online, either participating in or building communities. A Canadian online marketing professional based in San Francisco, she co-founded Citizen Agency, an Internet consultancy that specialises in developing community-centric strategies around product research, design, development and marketing. She has a blog at HorsePigCow.
Government 2.0: Architecting for collaboration
Much has been written about this so-called 'new era' of the web. The growth is about the democratisation of publishing tools, thus spreading the 'wealth'. More and more people have the means to produce personal content. The individual has an audience...and because of the growing number of distribution tools, this audience is growing.
These amateur voices are being heard far beyond social networks and the core early adopter audience. What does this mean for governments and especially for government services, who directly liaise with the public daily?
Web 2 Dot What?
Web 2.0, as defined by, O'Reilly Media, the company that coined the term, included the following Core Tenets:
- The Web as a Platform
- The Long Tail
- Data Is the Next Intel Inside
- Users Add Value
- Network Effects by Default
- Some Rights Reserved
- The Perpetual Beta
- Co-operate, Don't Control
- Software Above the Level of a Single Device
Looking down the list, I started to envision simple, yet powerful ways government services could adopt these core tenets to create a more involved public. And the more I thought about it, the more it made sense:
1. Government Services as a Platform
Platforms are merely enablers between two parties. In the case of government services, you enable relational transactions between:
- individual citizens
- a citizen and a service provider
- a researcher and the information
- a citizen and a public servant
- a citizen and her information
- a citizen and her experience with the government
The best platforms allow the data/experience to travel in both directions and become the intelligence broker between parties. They are flexible and secure. They increase the value of the network by connecting applicable parties faster. They spawn new industries and empower their users. Instead of thinking about government services as providing the entire experience, why not open up both ends of the process to citizen involvement?
2. The Long Tail of Citizens
New Zealand is a very diverse country, filled with many people with different needs. Therefore: Leverage citizen-produced content to reach out to the entire population, to the edges and not just the centre, to the long tail and not just the head.
Today, we are more and more used to gaining more control over our lives. People are posting their photos, videos, stories and lives online more and more. This creates all sorts of opportunities to partner with the citizens of New Zealand on projects that they are personally passionate about.
3. Data is...tricky
As we become more and more connected online, we become more and more aware of the power of data. Now the eyes are turning towards services. Why don't we have easy access to our medical files? Our kid's school records? Our driving records? Why not wikify it? Allow us to correct or append our health records, but keep the change history around?
The idea of offering shared control with accountability on both sides is the most exciting to me. If I have a right to access my records, why can’t I access them realtime, and why can’t I request you store them somewhere online, where I choose, where I can access them?
4. Go to the Edges for Feedback
With the tools available and the amount of people out there talking, there are better opportunities for getting feedback on how the government is doing and collecting ideas for the future, and for listening and learning:
- Fill your RSS readers with blogs you find by a NZ citizen. Listen to what they are thinking about.
- Start collecting attention data. Watch how people use your services.
- Involve the public (not focus groups) in fixing stuff.
- Learn how to respond to feedback productively.
5. Community Is Paramount
The goal with government services isn't to grow the community...the goal here is to connect with those already in the community. So, where does Government Services belong in this? You need to change the way you approach service, viewing the public not as a recipient, but as more of a partner. And government services are the platform that enables more of these projects to grow and be born in a country as forward thinking as New Zealand.
6. Ideas Need Freedom
Government is in a good place to re-examine Intellectual Property. Creative Commons Licensing (www.creativecommons.org) is a very decentralized, user-centric way of licensing. It's super simple for people to find a license that suits their needs and apply it. It's the enforcing part that you can help with. There is so much wrong with current DRM. It breaks our interactions with content that we've already paid for. Government can look out for the rights of their citizens, the consumers of this content. There is no reason why ideas can't be free and multiple businesses prosper from them.
7. Quicker, More Agile Implementation
Every government can find many ways to streamline their process. Why not slap a beta or two on ideas? Get them out there and people involved in the evolution of them? In the kingdom of Bhutan, the King drafted a new constitution and sent copies out to each region to get feedback. All along the way, they were actually trying implement the changes and finding bugs, holes and places where it fell apart. As everyone knew they were part of the process and that it was evolving, more people felt ownership of the document and, when it was finalized, suited everyone. Although an entire constitution may be radical for New Zealand, there may be more ways you can 'beta test' ideas.
8. Internalizing Trust
Trust is the single hardest barrier for all of us to get. Open source is an industry built on the premise that most human beings are, basically, good. Yet, government is built on the premise that most human beings are, basically, bad (or dumb) and need to be watched or led. Are we naturally selfish? Or is it the systems that encourage it?
9. Government Services Available Anywhere
People need info on the go. Think about accessing your services via SMS, web, desktop, online, offline, etc. We conduct huge financial transactions through secure mobile apps, why can't we access our child's latest test scores? The technology is at the stages that it is quite secure and much easier to access. There are loads of open source solutions as well as applications that may provide good, solid, secure solutions for delivering content. Heck. Just supply the APIs and let people build the solutions for you.
Imagine This
What if...there was a connected desktop app that every citizen who owned a computer could download that would be their window into their information - connected to the Government platform. It would be wikified, so they could append it and correct it with a 'recent changes' screen to keep track of the history - keeping all parties accountable. For those without personal computers, they could login to a secure website to access and change the information. It would be mobile compatible with data in/out abilities. You could SMS your request from your registered phone to get up to date information. Or SMS your updates in. Service professionals, with the right permissions, could also log in to update.
This same platform would have a series of APIs, so that doctor’s offices, schools, universities, researchers, community groups, local businesses and anyone with an interest could build applications, mashups and widgets that could use the data for the long tail of citizen needs. The API key would be free and simple to access and governed by Creative Commons licensing. Everything built off of the API would have to be licensed similarly, encouraging an overall culture of openness.
This is Government 2.0.
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