If I could start with a blank piece of paper… (part 2)
David Eaves is a member of the Taskforce’s International Reference Group. This post continues on from his previous post.
The other week Martin Stewart-Weeks posted this piece on the blog. In it he asked:
“…imagine for a moment it was your job to create the guidelines that will help public servants engage online. Although you have the examples from other organisations, you are given the rare luxury to start with a blank sheet of paper (at least for this exercise). What would you write? What issues would you include? Where would you start? Who would you talk to?”
Last week I responded with this post which explained why my efforts would focus on internal change. This week I want to pick the thread back up and talk about what applications I would start with and why.
First, Social Networking Platform (this is essential!):
An inspired public service shouldn’t ban Facebook, it should hire it.
A government-run social networking platform, one that allowed public servants to list their interests, current area of work, past experiences, contact information and current status, would be indispensable. It would allow public servants across ministries to search out and engage counterparts with specialized knowledge, relevant interests or similar responsibilities. Moreover, it would allow public servants to set up networks, where people from different departments, but working on a similar issue, could keep one another abreast of their work.
In contrast, today’s public servants often find themselves unaware of, and unable to connect with, colleagues in other ministries or other levels of government who work on similar issues. This is not because their masters don’t want them to connect (although this is sometimes the case) but because they lack the technology to identify one another. As a result, public servants drafting policy on interconnected issues — such as the Environment Canada employee working on riverbed erosion and the Fisheries and Oceans employee working on spawning salmon — may not even know the other exists.
If I could start with a blank sheet of paper… then I’d create a social networking platform for government. I think it would be the definitive game changer. Public servants could finally find one another (savings millions of hours and dollars in external consultants, redundant searches and duplicated capacity. Moreover if improving co-ordination and the flow of information within and across government ministries is a central challenge, then social networking isn’t a distraction, it’s an opportunity.
Second, Encourage Internal Blogs
I blogged more about this here.
If public servants feel overwhelmed by information one of the main reasons is that they have no filters. There are few, if any bloggers within departments that are writing about what they think is important and what is going on around them. Since information is siloed everybody has to rely on either informal networks to find out what is actually going on (all that wasted time having coffee and calling friends to find out gossip) or on formal networks, getting in structured meetings with other departments or ones’ boss to find out what their bosses, bosses, boss is thinking. What a waste of time and energy.
I suspect that if you allowed public servants to blog, you could cut down on rumours (they would be dispelled more quickly) email traffic and, more importantly, meetings (which are a drain on everybody’s time) by at least 25%. Want to know what my team is up to? Don’t schedule a meeting. First, read my blog. Oh, and search the tags to find what is relevant to you. (you can do that on my blog too, if you are still reading this piece it probably means you are interested in this tag.)
Third, Create a Government Wide Wiki
The first reason to create a wiki is that it would give people a place to work collectively on documents, within their departments or across ministries. Poof, siloes dissolved. (yes, it really is that simple, and if you are middle management, that terrifying).
The second reason is to provide some version control. Do you realize most governments don’t have version control software (or do, but nobody uses it, because it is terrible). A wiki, if nothing else, offers version control. That’s reason enough to migrate.
The third reason though is the most interesting. It would change the information economics, and thus culture, of government. A wiki would slowly come to function as an information clearing house. This would reduce the benefits of hoarding information, as it would be increasingly difficult to leverage information into control over an agenda or resource. Instead the opposite incentive system would take over. Sharing information or your labour (as a gift) within the public service would increase your usefulness to, and reputation among, others within the system.
Fourth, Install an Instant Messaging App
It takes less time than a phone call. And you can cut and paste. Less email, faster turn around, quicker conversations. It isn’t a cure all, but you’ve already got young employees who are aching for it. Do you really want to tell them to not be efficient?
Finally… Twitter
Similar reasons to blogs. Twitter is like a custom newspaper. You don’t read it everyday, and most days you just scan it – you know – to keep an eye on what is going on. But occasionally it has a piece or two that you happen to catch that are absolutely critical… for your file, your department or your boss.
This is how Twitter works. It offers peripheral vision into what is going on in the areas or with the people that you care about or think are important. It allows us to handle the enormous flow of information around us. Denying public servants access to twitter (or not implementing it, or blogs, internally) is essentially telling them that they must drink the entire firehose of information that is flowing through their daily life at work. They ain’t going to do it. Help them manage. Help them tweet.
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Good start David,
I would add a couple more applications to the list:-
1) A government wide HR system
I have transferred (internal APS transfers) several times between agencies in Canberra. Information does not get easily transferred from one agency to another with the result that you, as an employee have to tell the APS exactly the same information every time you move – it is crazy and highly inefficient. For example each agency you work at requires to sign a TFN Declaration form – the APS knows what your TFN is, they shouldn’t keep asking the same question. Let’s link the HR systems together so that information is shared.
2) A government wide meeting system
Each agency currently runs its own email and appointment systems – so setting up a meeting which involves people from a number of agencies is difficult. On many occasions I have reverted to calling pople on the phone before sending out a meeting appointment – because this is the only way I can find out if people are available at the proposed meeting time. The alternative is for me to send out a meeting appointment and hope/pray that people will be available – not very effective. Lets link the agency Exchange/Notes systems.
I agree David – as I did when you posted this first at your blog last week (though I didn’t have time to comment at the time).
I think there are several large cultural shifts embodied in the relatively easy and fast wins you list above:
1) Support for public servants to express their professional voices online – inside and outside their organisation.
2) Shift from a belief that, as I put it, ‘Knowledge is Power’ to ‘Knowledge Shared is Power Squared’ (hmm I will use that as a blog title!).
Most government departments could unblock social networks, set-up internal blogs and start tweeting in under a day. We could set up a government-wide Wiki just as quickly (NZ has a few worth looking at already).
However changing the cultural beliefs that underlie the current patterns of behaviour is the work of years.
And there’s also the need to:
- ensure that Departments have appropriate management policies in place when they remove the easy crutch of their IT policies (clarifying appropriate usage rather than technically blocking usage). This should only take a few months however – there’s excellent templates available!
- educate staff on appropriate conduct online. Hot house flowers don’t learn how to thrive in the wild – as we’ve kept public servants from engaging online they’ve not all had opportunities to learn how to do it well. Maybe we need a ‘license’ system where people have to pass through Learner and Provisional training and support stages (where they have differing levels of approval requirements) before they get a full license to engage online…..
Cheers,
Craig
Excellent ideas.
Clay Shirky in his writing http://www.herecomeseverybody.org/ describes the process of group collaboration and communication as being driven by the technology. That is, we are not exactly sure how the systems will develop but we know collaborative systems will happen when the appropriate tools come along. As social animals we cannot help it.
A critical underlying tool we need is the ability to control electronic information about ourselves and about our organisational entities. This is fundamental to trust in communication which is a requirement for effective social interaction. If we set up appropriate technologies to control electronic information at the personal level then the systems will evolve.
We must know and trust the “credentials” of the other parties in any communication. We must know what others know about us as it is relevant to the context of the communication. We must know as best we can the understanding of the other parties and we must be able to come to a shared mental model of what it is we are talking about.
A necessary building block for any electronic social interaction are “electronic presences”. We have many such electronic presences (you can estimate the number you have by counting your user codes passwords plus all the organisations that have information about you in their databases) One electronic presence is your “facebook” data, the ability for you to control it, to release what you want and to whom you want. It is the functionality that we build into our electronic presences that will determine the shape and capabilities of the “applications” that will arise.
One such presence could be our government presence. That is, each of us can have an electronic presence that enables us to deal with others in the context of government. At the moment we have separate electronic presences for each government agency with whom we deal. Governments of all persuasions are torn between the convenience of us having a single presence – the Australia Card – or multiple presences to prevent the potential abuse of personal information.
The world of the Internet and communications technology has changed the need for the single id, single signon, approach. What we can do is to have the tools that enable us to have trusted electronic presences that we use as appropriate and as required. The only prerequisite is that we are in control of our electronic presences rather than them being something granted to us by government or the organisation (e.g. facebook) who currently holds our electronic presences.
Our presences do not all have to “reside” at any one place or in any particular database as the physical location of our electronic presences is a matter of convenience and efficiency. The critical factors are that we are in control of our electronic presence and others know that when they communicate with an electronic presence they can verify who it is they are communicating with and have enough information to be able to respond accordingly.
Government departments are talking to each other about “federating” authentications. There are moves towards single signons for access to government information. The concept of federating authentication systems is a good one but it is made even more powerful if the individual or any organisation can become part of the federation. So the model is still the same. We have a system where each entity can share credentials with other entities but where the smallest node in the network is the individual.
So a recommendation that would provide the underlying infrastructure for electronic cooperation via federation is to establish the ability for individuals (and any other entity) to be included as nodes in any federation of government entities. The requirements for this to evolve are:
1. Entities to know where information about them may be held.
2. The right to ask the holder of information if they have information about them.
3. If information is held about the entity then the requirement, if the holder of the information agrees, and the information requestor is able to prove their identity to the satisfaction of the holder of information, to release the information in a verified form.
I would like to add a commercial perspective to Government 2.0. I’ve taught or developed systems for/or in conjunction with Public Servants from 1998-2007 at all levels – Federal and 3 States/Territories either freelance or as senior/managing consultant in a small firm.
My general observation would be that public servants are often, on balance, not different to corporate people. I would however the system does NOT reward “sticking your neck out” – let alone innovation. For different reasons, the corporate world may punish innovators, or may reward them. This depends on culture – but in Australia this is typically ‘cost-control’ in corporate firms.
Every innovator in public service I’ve worked with was a ‘covert maverick’ who invariably had a corner, and sometimes an overloaded desk – as they had a reputation at being ‘able to get things done’, so often got more to do.
The public service – and this may not be a popular view – in certain departments allows certain people to coast (which the corporate system does differently) and this stems in part from various cultural aspects of those departments.
This means those innovators – those who do take risks, get more work – and those who don’t get their leave approved! Or to read the trading post/eBay.
Or as a senior public servant once told me – “let’s not make a rod for our own backs.” This has the result of demoralising people who try to innovate.
However, I have another point beyond the obvious here. Actually, perhaps the culture of ‘contract management’ of outsourced duties has actually increased the public sevrice. And outsourcing to big firms has weakened the public service of its core skills of service delivery in areas like transport or health.
In my view we need to examine whether Government should actually provide services, and this seems caught up in many ideological battles of the 70s and 80s and 90s.
Fortunately we may have some generational change now, which Govt 2.0 is part of, and this also seems to be bringing out all of you public service innovators – who have survived taking risks in those decades!
So we need, in my view, to look at the true costs of continual outsourcing and re-align the public service (in SOME departments) with actual service delivery. Then we need to examine innovation teams, and other corporate approaches – which then must examine the risks of change (law of unintended consequences) – before implementing.
Oh, and if I was in some sort of Wizard of Oz world remove the politicisation of the public service. Of course, Open Data/Gov 2.0 etc provide opportunities in this area. Non-sensitive data should be in the public domain.
I have extensive experience dealing with Government – good and bad – but there needs to be a reality check. Big consulting firms/investment banks are given a free pass to extract as many fees as possible, whilst small firms/employees end up quibbling over $400 or whether they bring their own instant coffee.
On one occasion, I once had a client with a heated debate over $400 at the lowest government rate, removed the charge but refused all work on our firms behalf, and the next firm charged then 400% times our charges. But they were ‘corporate’. I then refused another contract which was awarded for 300% times our charges to a big name vendor. I don’t think they disputed the magnitude of that firm’s charges.
I for one, think the system of fee extraction by large firms pretty much is one of the key drivers of blocks to innovation, as simply put, the ability to drive outcomes is replaced by contract management.
Those are just my top of the head thoughts. I’d love to do an analysis paper on this, but quite frankly, I live in the commercial world and have to go earn an income!
The key point – is that perhaps public bureaucracy likes to deal with corporate bureaucracies, and bureaucracy rarely leads to innovation or even creative approaches. And the system from tenders to meetings is set-up to reward that. Other governments – like the U.S. and increasingly in the E.U. – are challenging this approach and supporting smaller firms that innovate.
Keep innovating,
Christopher Hire
Executive Director of Innovation
2thinknow
Well said Christopher – especially your points about service delivery. We desperately need some part of government to design a capability which makes government look like one entity to our clients when they are looking for or using government services. We need some body, project, agency, committee to stand up and initiate this work IMO.
Neil
Neil,
If you open up the sources and allow government services to advertise their wares anywhere they see fit then you are likely to serve the public more effectively than trying to have a single source for government contact.
I am not convinced that separating government sources from other sources is necessary and may be less usable for the citizenery as tend to be concentrated on assistance or services not necessarily on government assistances or services uniquely. In other words people search for tax matters, information sources, health matters – rather than looking at all the things governments might do. E.g. put links to passports on travel sites, links to medicare on health sites, etc.
Thanks Neil
I tend to be of the view that we should integrate I.T. back office operations in government and remove duplication, but keep the departments operationally separate in their core competencies. So, Dept of Finance, is – according to what I heard at CeBIT eGovernment in May – working on this.
But I take the view that operations should be decentralised, but admin centralised, and the key is getting the balance right.
I’d love to formulate an analysis on the topic.
I hope that Government agencies don’t again hire McKinseys/Allens/ etc to do these things – and get the same results through the same management-thinking 1990s paradigm written by MBA graduates with no operational experience. I take the view we need more bottom-up decentralised solutions, and less top-down. The internet is fundamentally decentralising, and being stuck in centralism ‘if only we had more control’ is an affliction of many decision makers and management consultants. The alternative is decentralist pragmatism. It’s also scary for command and control, but it’s how networks work. The risks can be lower, because costs are lower.
That’s my broad view of innovation – tension between central objectives and decentralised tactics.
Keep innovating,
Christopher Hire
Executive Director of Innovation
2thinknow
We are working with the Australian Access Federation (AAF) to allow the Universities to share identification verification services as part of their Authentication Services. AAF is using the Shibboleth standards. Federated authentication services are a good platform for the sharing of data via single signon and via trusted gateways to other Federated organisations. This approach decentralises service provision but within a standard framework. It also allows any trusted parties to participate.
The Universities could provide a good test bed for the sharing of data both between Federated entities and with the general public. Simple examples are access to research papers and results and even to some library resources.
The linking between a group of Federated government departments with the Universities Federation could provide a mechanism for the public to access much of government data.
Interesting comments Christopher…the ‘covert maverick’ rings somewhat true..in the public service people with ideas or a desire for change can even be viewed as ’subversive’.
My two cents worth.
A system that does not encourage new challenges allows stagnation of skills and motivation, hence ‘coasting’ is just a rational response.
All is not lost, however.
The majority of public servants I know have are more likely to listen to people who have ‘been around’ a while having demonstrated long term commitment to their sector. We need to win over potential influencers, one at a time, by helping them in developing applications targeted at their own interests, and getting them to a point where they are comfortable enough to then talk to their friends in a way that demystifies the technology and theory.
I would add Yvonne, that in some aspects I agree.
The loss of valuable operational experience throughout restructures of departments/outsourcing has seen departments. And I would add that a lot of the innovators, the covert mavericks, were more often than not experienced public servants.
In short they knew how to get things done inside the department, and probably, it seemed as an outsider they also had a healthy dose of peer respect.
I would add that both corporate and government innovators I have met, have tended to have a firm grasp on operations. Not an MBA (unless as an adjunct to operations), nor management consulting experience, nor spin doctoring – which seems in vogue at the state level. The superior innovations came from less focus on politicisation/message control and more on operations. i.e. actually what the department was chartered to achieve in real terms.
So in my view it is the lack of on the ground operational experience – in some departments – that reduces the potential innovation.
Those are just some more quick thoughts.
Keep innovating,
Christopher
David .. nice ideas: underneath the four suggestions you make lie ideas like communities of interest/practice, rhizomatic networks and (as the ensuing comments, and the last decade of web 1-> 2 have shown) behaviour change.
concepts like engagement, both inside gov and across the gov/citizen divide.
Engagement isn’t created by introducing new technologies or platforms alone. In fact, these actions often exacerbate the situation… but they also often uncover the kinds of practices and behaviours required to make the kinds of interaction you describe possible.
Implementation matters, and people like Andrew McCaffee have been thinking about this in the E2.0 arena – check out his post on the elements of an E2.0 perfect storm
hope this helps
I just read the article in this mornings age and cannot beleive the governments potential reliance on the current fads of social media. In any organisation, to dilute your brand is a big nono. It is important the government control the content put on face book and others to bring readers back where they can be qualified as real people and not unknown techies with a half a dozen email accounts that spam and waste your employees time and de rail any future efforts for the governt to create a reallife community more localised to not only australia but its communities that make this country. Please by all means look at and read our web site and see what we are doing for small business, imagin this concept working for the government. Have a great day Michael…