Category Archives: public policy

Access to Information is Fatally Broken… You Just Don’t Know it Yet

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I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about access to information, and am working on a longer analysis, but in the short term I wanted to share two graphs – graphs that outline why Access to Information (Freedom of Information in the United States) is unsustainable and will, eventually, need to be radically rethought.

First, this analysis is made possible by the enormous generosity of the Canadian Federal Information Commissioners Office which several weeks ago sent me a tremendous amount of useful data regarding access to information requests over the past 15 years at the Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS).

The first figure I created shows both the absolute number of Access to Information Requests (ATIP) since 1996 as well as the running year on year percentage increase. The dotted line represents the average percentage increase over this time. As you can see the number of ATIP requests has almost tripled in this time period. This is very significant growth – the kind you’d want to see in a well run company. Alas, for those processing ATIP requests, I suspect it represents a significant headache.

That’s because, of course, such growth is likely unmanageable. It might be manageable if say, the costs of handling each requests was dropping rapidly. If such efficiencies were being wrestled out of the system of routing and sorting requests then we could simply ignore the chart above. Sadly, as the next chart I created demonstrates this is not the case.

ATIPcosts

In fact the costs of managing these transactions has not tripled. It has more than quadrupled. This means that not only are the number of transactions increasing at about 8% a year, the cost of fulfilling each of those transactions is itself rising at a rate above inflation.

Now remember, I’m not event talking about the effectiveness of ATIP. I’m not talking about how quickly requests are turned around (as the Information Commissioner has discussed, it is broadly getting worse) nor am I discussing less information is being restricted (it’s not, things are getting worse). These are important – and difficult to assess – metrics.

I am, instead, merely looking at the economics of ATIP and the situation looks grim. Basically two interrelated problems threaten the current system.

1) As the number of ATIP requests increase, the manpower required to answer them also appears to be increasing. At some point the hours required to fulfill all requests sent to a ministry will equal the total hours of manpower at that ministry’s  disposal. Yes that day may be far off, but they day where it hits some meaningful percentage – say 1%, 3% or 5% of total hours worked at Treasury Board, may not be that far off. That’s a significant drag on efficiency. I recall talking to a foreign service officer who mentioned that during the Afghan prisoner scandal an entire department of foreign service officers – some 60 people in all – were working full time on assessing access to information requests. That’s an enormous amount of time, energy and money.

2) Even more problematic than the number of work hours is the cost. According to the data I received, Access to Information requests costs The Treasury Board $47,196,030 last year. Yes, that’s 47 with a “million” behind it. And remember, this is just one ministry. Multiply that by 25 (let’s pretend that’s the number of ministries, there are actually many more, but I’m trying to be really conservative with my assumptions) and it means last year the government may have spent over $1.175 Billion fulfilling ATIP requests. That is a staggering number. And its growing.

Transparency, apparently, is very, very expensive. At some point, it risks becoming too expensive.

Indeed, ATIP reminds me of healthcare. It’s completely unsustainable, and absolutely necessary.

To be clear, I’m not saying we should get rid of ATIP. That, I believe, to be folly. It is and remains a powerful tool for holding government accountable. Nor do I believe that requesters should pay for ATIP requests as a way to offset costs (like BC Ferries does) – this creates a barrier that punishes the most marginalized and threatened, while enabling only the wealthy or well financed to hold government accountable.

I do think it suggests that governments need to radical rethink how manage ATIP. More importantly I think it suggests that government needs to rethink how it manages information. Open data, digital documents are all part of a strategy that, I hope, can lighten the load. I’ve also felt that if/as government’s move their work onto online platforms like GCPEDIA, we should simply make non-classified pages open to the public on something like a 5 year timeline. This could also help reduce requests.

I’ve more ideas, but at its core we need a system rethink. ATIP is broken. You may not know it yet, but it is. The question is, what are we going to do before it peels off the cliff? Can we invent something new and better in time?

New Canadian Award on Transparency: Grace-Pépin Access to Information Award

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Last week I received an email from the Information Commissioner of Canada who, in collaboration with her provincial and territorial counterparts, has announced the creation of the Grace-Pépin Access to Information Award. If you know someone you think might be deserving of nomination there are more details here, including access to the nomination document.

Below is a blurb the office sent me promoting what I believe is a noteworthy award.

Do you take any opportunity to promote access to information? Do you spend your free time developing tools that facilitate access to information? Do you regularly ask for information under the Access to Information Act? Do your activities require public institutions to comply with policies that optimize transparency? Or, do you know someone who fits the above description?

If you answered yes to one of these questions, if you are involved in any other activities that promote access to information and increase government transparency and accountability, or if you know someone who does, Canada’s federal, provincial and territorial Access to Information and Privacy Commissioners want to recognize these efforts and invite you to submit a nomination to the first-ever Grace-Pépin Access to Information Award!

The Grace-Pépin Award was introduced on September 29 by the federal, provincial and territorial Access to Information and Privacy Commissioners. Presented in memory of John Grace, former Information Commissioner of Canada, and Marcel Pépin, president and founder of the Commission d’accès à l’information du Québec, the award recognizes those who promote access to information principles in Canada.

For more information on the Grace-Pépin Access to Information Award, visit the section about the award on the official Right to Know Web site.

Game Theory: Coalition, Libya, Gaddafi and the exit strategy

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Great question Andrew – one that deserves answering.

Here’s my quick assessment. My guess is that the intention of the military action is to give Gaddafi alternatives to fighting. The goal of the no-fly zone and other military activities is designed to bring about a stalemate in the Libyan conflict. It’s goal is to provide the rebels with a clear safe haven which they can defend and sustain themselves. This fact, over time, would foster circumstances by which a negotiated agreement (or internationally mediated agreement) between the Libyan government and the rebels would be seen as necessary by both parties. This could, of course, come about with (or without) Gaddafi’s endorsement – but it would leave him some leverage if he chose to go down this path. Indeed, this political negotiated outcome is an explicit goal of the UN resolution. Moreover, the removal of Gaddafi is not called for. There is a wonderful analysis of the resolution on the BBC website, I’ve extracted the relevant parts below:

Screen-shot-2011-03-20-at-4.48.03-PM

The stalemate outcome analysis also feels plausible given it is hard to imagine the Libyan rebels have either the equipment, training, resources and resolve to topple the Libyan government, with or without air support. Occupying vast swaths of the country may simply be sufficient for the rebels to achieve their goals – to force Gaddafi to accept he can no longer rule the country alone.

So in short, Gaddafi has as simple choice. He can fight and try to win outright (or gain enough leverage so as to create a negotiated outcome that would achieve the same outcome as winning). This has the benefit of huge upside if he wins (with disastrous outcomes from the west – expect some retaliatory terrorism) but it also has more dramatic downsides. If he loses, a complete loss of power, death and/or imprisonment all seem very likely. So this is a high stakes path.

Alternatively, he can choose to negotiate. This route has more ambiguity, something that presents a risk in of itself (a reason why the back channels will matter so much – see below). Here the upsides and downsides are slightly less extreme, although there is a possibility of an outright “win” for Gaddafi is not off the table completely.

Given these choices it wouldn’t be inconceivable for Gaddafi to choose to fight at first to test the resolve of the Allies and the rebels (something we are seeing now) and, should that not work (which it probably won’t, but could) he can always change gears and retreat into a stalemate negotiation and put forward offers that attempt to fracture the rebel coalition. If he can do that, he could still win back enough support to retake the country, find some way to influence the next government, or at worst, be forced to retire.

I’ve tried to sum all this up on a choice matrix below. The sum of it is, the top lefthand outcome seemed a certain outcome a few days ago. Now the allies are forcing the right column back into the picture. Have downsides down the left become significant enough? And the upsides or exit strategies for Gaddafi on the right certain enough to chance the calculus? That’s really the question – but I do think it remains a possibility.

david-eaves-gaddafi-analysis

There are, of course, at least two other parts of the puzzle that need to be in place to ensure that Gaddafi isn’t forced into fighting.

1. Someone would need to back channel to him the allies intentions: that the UN resolution is designed only to force a stalemate, not oust the current government. It might be logical for Gaddafi to then try to continue fighting and see if he can win despite the airstrikes (as this would maximize his leverage) and, he can always choose to back down later.

2. The western allies and the rebels would need to not interpret the retreat or adoption of a defensive posture by Gaddafi forces as signs of imminent collapse and try to press the advantage.

Obviously I do not know if condition number 1 is in place. In regards to condition number 2, this is also unclear, although I suspect the risks are relatively low. The UN resolution would appear to suggest this isn’t as possible but maybe the biggest unknown is France, which appears unusually keen for battle. The worst case scenario here is that Sarkozy sees the conflict as a way to establish is “presidentialness” in the lead up to an election and so seeks to exploit it, dragging the rebels, and the rest of the allies down a path that needn’t be trodden. But even here, the likelihood feels relatively low.

Of course, there are always thousands of other variables and I’m sure there are more than a few holes to poke in this analysis (I’m all ears for those who want to take a stab – would be great to hear more), but hope this is a helpful attempt to answer that important question. If the only choice you give someone is to fight, expect a fight. And it isn’t clear that we have the resources or stomach to fight back to the bitter end, so I hope someone in Paris or Washington DC has thought this through from this perspective.

Canada launches data.gc.ca – what works and what is broken

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Those on twitter will already know that this morning I had the privilege of conducting a press conference with Minister Day about the launch of data.gc.ca – the Federal Government’s Open Data portal. For those wanting to learn more about open data and why it matters, I suggest this and this blog post, and this article – they outline some of the reasons why open data matters.

In this post I want to review what works, and doesn’t work, about data.gc.ca.

What works

Probably the most important thing about data.gc.ca is that it exists. It means that public servants across the Government of Canada who have data they would like to share can now point to a website that is part of government policy. It is an enormous signal of permission from a central agency that will give a number of people who want to share data permission, a process and a vehicle, by which to do this. That, in of itself, is significant.

Indeed, I was informed that already a number of ministries and individuals are starting to approach those operating the portal asking to share their data. This is exactly the type of outcome we as citizens should want.

Moreover, I’ve been told that the government wants to double the number of data sets, and the number of ministries, involved in the site. So the other part that “works” on this site is the commitment to make it bigger. This is also important, as there have been some open data portals that have launched with great fanfare, only to have the site languish as neither new data sets are added and the data sets on the site are not updated and so fall out of date.

What’s a work in progress

The number of “high value” datasets is, relatively speaking, fairly limited. I’m always cautious about this as, I feel, what constitutes high value varies from user to user. That said, there are clearly data sets that will have greater impact on Canadians: budget data, line item spend data by department (as the UK does), food inspection data, product recall data, pretty much everything on the statscan website, Service Canada locations, postal code data and, mailbox location data, business license data, Canada Revenue data on charities and publicly traded companies are all a few that quickly come to mind, clearly I can imagine many, many more…

I think the transparency, tech, innovation, mobile and online services communities will be watching data.gc.ca closely to see what data sets get added. What is great is that the government is asking people what data sets they’d like to see added. I strongly encourage people to let the government know what they’d like to see, especially when it involves data the government is already sharing, but in unhelpful formats.

What doesn’t work

In a word: the license.

The license on data.gc.ca is deeply, deeply flawed. Some might go so far as to say that the license does not make it data open at all – a critique that I think is fair. I would say this: presently the open data license on data.gc.ca effectively kills any possible business innovation, and severally limits the use in non-profit realms.

The first, and most problematic is this line:

“You shall not use the data made available through the GC Open Data Portal in any way which, in the opinion of Canada, may bring disrepute to or prejudice the reputation of Canada.”

What does this mean? Does it mean that any journalist who writes a story, using data from the portal, that is critical of the government, is in violation of the terms of use? It would appear to be the case. From an accountability and transparency perspective, this is a fatal problem.

But it is also problematic from a business perspective. If one wanted to use a data set to help guide citizens around where they might be well, and poorly, served by their government, would you be in violation? The problem here is that the clause is both sufficiently stifling and sufficiently negative that many businesses will see the risk of using this data simply too great.

UPDATE: Thursday March 17th, 3:30pm, the minister called me to inform me that they would be striking this clause from the contract. This is excellent news and Treasury Board deserves credit for moving quickly. It’s also great recognition that this is a pilot (e.g. beta) project and so hopefully, the other problems mentioned here and in the comments below will also be addressed.

It is worth noting that no other open data portal in the world has this clause.

The second challenging line is:

“you shall not disassemble, decompile except for the specific purpose of recompiling for software compatibility, or in any way attempt to reverse engineer the data made available through the GC Open Data Portal or any part thereof, and you shall not merge or link the data made available through the GC Open Data Portal with any product or database for the purpose of identifying an individual, family or household or in such a fashion that gives the appearance that you may have received or had access to, information held by Canada about any identifiable individual, family or household or about an  organization or business.”

While I understand the intent of this line, it is deeply problematic for several reasons. First, many business models rely on identifying individuals, indeed, frequently individuals ask businesses to do this. Google, for example, knows who I am and offers custom services to me based on the data they have about me. It would appear that terms of use would prevent Google from using Government of Canada data to improve its service even if I have given them permission. Moreover, the future of the digital economy is around providing customized services. While this data has been digitized, it effectively cannot be used as part of the digital economy.

More disconcerting is that these terms apply not only to individuals, but also to organizations and businesses. This means that you cannot use the data to “identify” a business. Well, over at Emitter.ca we use data from Environment Canada to show citizens facilities that pollute near them. Since we identify both the facilities and the companies that use them (not to mention the politicians whose ridings these facilities sit in), are we not in violation of the terms of use? In a similar vein, I’ve talked about how government data could have prevented $3B of tax fraud. Sadly, data from this portal would not have changed that since, in order to have found the fraud, you’d have to have identified the charitable organizations involved. Consequently, this requirement manifestly destroys any accountability the data might create.

It is again worth noting that no other open data portal in the world has this clause.

And finally:

4.1 You shall include and maintain on all reproductions of the data made available through the GC Open Data Portal, produced pursuant to section 3 above, the following notice:

Reproduced and distributed with the permission of the Government of Canada.

4.2 Where any of the data made available through the GC Open Data Portal is contained within a Value-Added Product, you shall include in a prominent location on such Value-Added Product the following notice:

This product has been produced by or for (your name – or corporate name, if applicable) and includes data provided by the Government of Canada.

The incorporation of data sourced from the Government of Canada within this product shall not be construed as constituting an endorsement by the Government of Canada of our product.

or any other notice approved in writing by Canada.

The problem here is that this creates what we call the “Nascar effect.” As you use more and more government data, these “prominent” displays of attribution begin to pile up. If I’m using data from 3 different governments, each that requires attribution, pretty soon all your going to see are the attribution statements, and not the map or other information that you are looking for! I outlined this problem in more detail here. The UK Government has handled this issue much, much more gracefully.

Indeed, speaking of the UK Open Government License, I really wish our government had just copied it wholesale. We have a similar government system and legal systems so I see no reason why it would not easily translate to Canada. It is radically better than what is offered on data.gc.ca and, by adopting it, we might begin to move towards a single government license within Commonwealth countries, which would be a real win. Of course, I’d love it if we adopted the PDDL, but the UK Open Government License would be okay to.

In Summary

The launch of data.gc.ca is an important first step. It gives those of us interested in open data and open government a vehicle by which to get more data open and improve the accountability, transparency as well as business and social innovation. That said, there is much work to be done still: getting more data up and, more importantly, addressing the significant concerns around the license. I have spoken to Treasury Board President Stockwell Day about these concerns and he is very interested and engaged by them. My hope is that with more Canadians expressing their concerns, and with better understanding by ministerial and political staff, we can land on the right license and help find ways to improve the website and program. That’s why we to beta launches in the tech world, hopefully it is something the government will be able to do here too.

 

Apologies for any typos, trying to get this out quickly, please let me know if you find any.

MP Jim Abbott: The Face of the Sad State of Open Data in Canada

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“I guess my attack to this has always been from the perspective of are we working in a bubble. In other words, when this was… under this initiative by the President, how quick was the takeup by the population at large? Not by the people that we affectionately call geeks, or people who don’t have a life, or don’t come up out of the dark, or whatever. The average person walking through Times Square I guess is what I’m trying to say. How quick was their take up, and in fact has there been a takeup?”

– Jim Abbott, ETHI Meeting No. 47, Open Government Study, March 2, 2011

Yes, the above quote comes from Jim Abbott, Member of Parliament (Conservative) for Kootenay—Columbia during the testimony of Beth Noveck, President Obama’s former Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Open Government (her statement can be found here). You can see the remarks in the online video here, at around the 1:17:50 mark.

First, I want to be clear. This is disappointing, not on a political level, but on an individual level. During my testimony for the ETHI committee (which I intend to blog about) I found members of all parties – NDP, Liberal, Bloc Quebecois and Conservative – deeply interested in the subject matter, asking thoughtful questions and expressing legitimate concerns. Indeed, I was struck by Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative MP for Napean-Carleton, who asked a number of engaging questions, particularly around licenses. That’s a level of sophistication around the issue that many people don’t care to ask about. Moreover, many of the committee members grasped the economic and social opportunity around open data.

Jim Abbott, in contrast, may believe that describing technologists and geeks as people who “don’t have a life” or “don’t come up out of the dark” is affectionate, but I’m not so sure these stereotypes are so endearing, especially given how they aren’t true. Moreover, his comments are particularly unfortunate as it’s the people he (affectionately) demeans who created RIM, OpenText, Cognos, and thousands of other successful technology companies that pump billions into the Canadian economy, employ hundreds of thousands, and do actually impact the “person on the street.” But a few simple demeaning words can make one forget these contributions or worse, make them sound insignificant.

Of course, it will be the work of these people that creates the open data applications that, in the US at least, already impact the average person walking through Times Square (consider this lifesaving app that was created by a hacker using opendata). Indeed, there are a growing number of businesses consuming and using open data, some even valued in the billions of dollars and used by millions of americans every day.

The sad part is they will only be available to the people in Times Square, or Trafalgar Square or on the Champs-Élysées since the Americans, British and French all have national open data portals (among numerous other countries). There will be no uptake for people on Wellington St., Queen St., Robson St. or wherever, since without a national open data portal in Canada, there can be no uptake. (It’s not easy to be behind the French government on an issue related to the digital economy, but we’ve somehow managed).

But forget the economic opportunity. There is also the question of government transparency and accountability. What makes the above statement so disappointing is that it exposes how an MP who for so long railed for greater transparency in government, has suddenly decided that transparency is no longer important unless “there is sufficient uptake.”

One wonders what Jim Abbott of 2000 would say of Jim Abbott of 2011? Because back in a pre-2001 era Jim Abbott had fantastic quotes like this:

I suggest in the strongest way possible to the minister that even if we can get him to clear up the history of the Canada Information Office, which I do not have a lot of hope for but I am asking for, from this point forward there must be proper transparency of the Canada Information Office. The country needs openness and transparency because democracy cannot be true democracy without openness and transparency.

– Jim Abbott, June 8th, 2000 / 11:10 a.m.

and this

Second, the difficulty the government has created with the Canada Information Office is that many of the contracts and much of the ongoing activity have been conducted in a way that does not befit what we are in Canada, which is a democracy. In a democracy the people depend on the people in the Chamber to hold the government accountable for the affairs of the government and to be as transparent as possible.

– Jim Abbott, June 8th, 2000 / 11:10 a.m.

and this

It will never have the transparency that it must have in a democracy. It is just absolutely unacceptable.

– Jim Abbott, June 16th, 1995 / 3:25 p.m.

I could go on…

(If you are wondering how I was able to dig up these quotes, please check out OpenParliament.ca – it really is extraordinary tool and again, shows the power of open (parliamentary) data).

But more importantly, and on point, it seems to me that Jim Abbott from the year 2000 would see open data as a important way to ensure greater transparency. Wouldn’t it have been nice if the Canada Information Office had had its budget and expenditures available as open data? Wouldn’t that have brought about some of the accountability the 2000 Jim Abbott would have sought? Sadly, and strangely, Jim Abbott of 2011 no longer seems to feel that way.

Yes, if only he could meet Jim Abbott of 2000, I think they’d have a great debate.

Of course, Jim Abbott of 2000 can’t meet Jim Abbott of 2011, and so it is up to us to (re)educate him. And on that front, I have, so far, clearly failed the tech community, the open data community and the government accountability community. Hopefully with time and more effort, that will change. Maybe next time I’m in Ottawa, Jim Abbott and I can grab coffee and I can try again.

Today in the Toronto Star: End the silence on aid

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Sorry for the cross post – I have this piece today on the opinion page of the Toronto Star. They’ve actually done a nice graphic for it so do encourage you to check it out.

End the silence on aid

For the past two weeks, Canadians have slowly watched the minister of international development, Bev Oda, implode. Caught in a slowly escalating scandal, it’s become clear that the minister misled Parliament — and the public — about how the government chooses whom it funds to do international development work.

The scandal around Oda, however, is a metaphor for a much larger problem in Canada’s foreign aid. The world is dividing itself into donors who hold forth an open model of evidence, accountability and, above all, transparency, and those who cling to a model of patronage, ideology and opacity.

So the question is: Where will Canada land on this debate? So far, the answer is not promising.

Internationally, the Kairos decision suggests Canada is on the wrong side of the divide. Indeed, the gap between CIDA and the world’s leading institutions is growing. Consider a recent report by the U.K.-based international advocacy group Publish What You Fund. Of the 30 institutions assessed in its 2010 report on aid transparency, the Canadian International Development Agency ranked 23rd. Among countries, Canada ranked 15th out of 22 (the Netherlands, U.K. and Ireland held the top three spots).

We are, by any metric, near the bottom of the pack. For a country and a government that prides itself on accountability and transparency, it’s a damning assessment.

What’s all the more frustrating is that transparency isn’t just about accountability. It’s about effectiveness and saving taxpayers’ money — something our major allies have already figured out.

So while Canada’s international development minister fights allegations of making the decision-making process more opaque, a coalition of leading countries is moving forward — without Canada — to do the opposite.

Take, for example, the newly founded International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI). A coalition of donor governments, developing countries and NGOs, the IATI has a single goal: to improve aid effectiveness by making information about aid spending easier to access, use and understand.

It’s a deeply pragmatic exercise, one far removed from the partisan politics around aid seen in Canada. In one of its first reports, it outlines how setting up systems to make aid data available would involve a one-time cost of between $50,000 and $500,000, but would save taxpayers in countries like Canada several times that amount every year.

Part of these savings would come just from reducing bureaucracy. Making data publicly available would eliminate the need for civil servants to respond to duplicate information requests from international organizations, other governments and Canadian organizations. Instead, the relevant information could just be downloaded. It’s the kind of efficiency we expect from our government.

It’s also the kind of transparency Canadians are starting to see elsewhere. The World Bank — at one time loathed for its opacity — has made transparency a core value of its operations. It recently launched an open data portal where it shares enormous quantities of information on the global economy and aid projects. It has also promised much more and is slowly rolling out a “mapping for results” website where every project the bank funds and how much money it receives can be viewed on a downloadable map.

Canada sits on the sidelines while others move forward implementing proposals that could — ironically — fund several Kairoses every year.

The costs aren’t borne just by taxpayers, but also by Canadian NGOs. They have to provide the same information, but in different forms, to every government and organization that funds them. This means aid workers spend precious time and money filling out CIDA’s unique forms. Repeat this cost over the hundreds of projects that CIDA funds and the collective waste is enormous.

Perhaps more importantly, making our aid more transparent and accessible would close another gap — our inability to measure our effectiveness. One of the reasons countries like the U.K., Denmark and Sweden have signed up to the International Aid Transparency Initiative is so they can more easily compare the projects they fund with one another. These are countries that are serious about getting bang for their buck — they want to compare the evidence, see which projects work, and which ones fail.

It’s a lesson leading Canadian organizations are taking to heart. Engineers Without Borders, for example, regularly publishes a “failure report” in which it outlines which of its projects didn’t work and why. This honest, open and evidence-based approach to development is exactly what we need to demand of our government. Anything less constitutes a waste of our tax dollars.

And yet, the current debate in Parliament suggests we may be mapping a different route — one of opaque, ideologically driven development that is blind to both effectiveness and accountability. This serves neither Canadians nor donor recipients well.

Regardless of whether Oda resigns, Canadians should not lose sight of the larger issue and opportunity. We are in the midst of a global movement for international development aid transparency.

The benefits are clear, our allies are present, and even five of our focus recipient countries have signed up. And yet, Canada is nowhere to be found.

Lessons from fashion's free culture: Johanna Blakley on TED.com

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This TEDx talk by Johanna Blakley is pure gold (thank you Jonathan Brun for passing it along). It’s a wonderful dissection – all while using the fashion industry as a case study – of how patents and licenses are not only unnecessary for innovation but can actually impede it.

What I found particularly fascinating is Johanna’s claim that long ago the US courts decided that clothing was “too utilitarian” to have copyright and patents applied to it. Of course, we could say that of a number of industries today – the software industry coming to mind right off the bat (can anyone imagine a world without software?).

The presentation seems to confirm another thought I’ve held – weaker copyright and patents protections do not reduce or eliminate peoples incentive to innovate. Quite the opposite. It both liberates innovation and increases its rate as others are able to copy and reuse one another. In addition, it makes brands stronger, not weaker. In a world where anybody can copy anybody, innovation and the capacity to execute matters. Indeed, it is the only thing that matters.

It would be nice if, here in Canada, the Ministers of Heritage (James Moore) and Industry (Tony Clement) would watch and learn from this video – and the feedback they received from ordinary Canadians. If we want industries as vibrant and profitable as the fashion industry, it may require us to think a little differently about copyright reform.

Saving Healthcare Billions: Let's fork the VA's Electronic Health Records System

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Alternative title for this post: How our Government’s fear of Open Source Software is costing us Billions.

So, I’ve been meaning to blog this for several months now.

Back in November I remember coming across this great, but very short, interview in the Globe and Mail with Ken Kizer. Who, you might ask, is Ken Kizer? He’s a former Naval officer and emergency medicine physician who became the US Veteran’s Affair’s undersecretary for health in 1994.

While the list of changes he made is startling and impressive, what particularly caught my attention is that he accomplished what the Government of Ontario failed to do with $1Billion in spending: implementing an electronic medical record system that works. And, let’s be clear, it not only works, it is saving lives and controlling costs.

And while the VA has spent millions in time and energy developing that code, what is amazing is that it’s all been open sourced, so the cost of leveraging it is relatively low. Indeed, today, Ken Kizer heads up a company that implements the VA’s now open source solution – called VistA – in hospitals in the US. Consdier this extract from his interview:

You have headed a company that promoted “open-source” software for EHR, instead of a pricier proprietary system. Why do you think open source is better?

I believe the solution to health-care information technology lies in the open-source world that basically gives away the code. That is then adapted to local circumstances. With the proprietary model, you are always going back to the vendor for changes, and they decide whether to do them and how much they will cost. In Europe, open source EHR software is zooming. It’s the most widely deployed EHR system in the world, but not here.

Sometimes I wonder, do any Canadian government’s ever look at simply forking VistA and creating a Canadian version?

I wonder all the more after reading a Fortune Magazine article on the changes achieved in the VA during this period. The story is impressive, and VistA played a key role. Indeed, during Kizer’s tenure:

  • The VA saw the number of patents it treat almost doubke from 2.9 million 1996 to 5.4 million patients in 2006.
  • Customer satisfaction ratings within the VA system exceeded those of  private health care providers during many of those years.
  • All this has been achieved as the cost per patient has held steady at roughly $5,000. In contrast the rest of the US medical system saw costs rise 60 percent to $6,300.
  • And perhaps most importantly, in a time of crises the new system proved critical: while Hurricane Katrina destroyed untold numbers of cilivians (paper) healthcare records, VistA’s ensured that health records of veterans in the impacted areas could be called upon in a heartbeat.

This is a story that any Canadian province would be proud to tell its citizens. It would be fascinating to see some of the smaller provinces begin to jointly fund some e-health open source software initiatives, particularly one to create an electronic healthcare record system. Rather than relying on a single vendor with its coterie of expensive consultants, a variety of vendors, all serving the same platform could emerge, helping keep costs down.

It’s the kind of solution that seems custom built for Canada’s healthcare system. Funny how it took a US government agency to show us how to make it a reality.

Sharing Critical Information with the public: Lessons for Governments

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Increasingly governments are looking for new and more impactful ways to communicate with citizens. There is a slow but growing awareness that traditional sources of outreach, such as TV stories and newspaper advertisements are either not reaching a significant portion of the population and/or have little impact on raising awareness of a given issue.

The exciting thing about this is that there is some real innovation taking place in governments as they grapple with this challenge. This blog post will look at one example from Canada and talk about why the innovation pioneered to date – while a worthy effort – falls far short of its potential. Specifically, I’m going to talk about how when governments share data, even when they use new technologies, they remain stuck in a government-centric approach that limits effectiveness. The real impact of new technology won’t come until governments begin to think more radically in terms of citizen-centric approaches.

The dilemma around reaching citizens is probably felt most acutely in areas where there is a greater sense of urgency around the information – like, say, in issues relating to health and safety. Consequently, in Canada, it is perhaps not surprising to see that some of the more innovative outreach work has thus been pioneered by the national agency responsible for many of these issues, Health Canada.

HC-Widgethc-appThe most cutting edge stuff I’ve seen is an effort by Health Canada to share advisories from Health Canada, Transport Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency via three vehicles: an RSS feed, a mobile app available for Blackberry, iPhone (pictured far right) and Android, and finally as a widget (pictured near right) that anyone can install into their blog.

I think all of these are interesting ideas and have much to commend them. It is great to see information of a similar type, from three different agencies, being shared through a single vehicle – this is definitely a step forward from a user’s perspective. It’s also nice to see the government experiment with different vehicles for delivery (mobile and other parties’ websites).

But from a citizen-centric perspective, all these innovations share a common problem: They don’t fundamentally change the citizen’s experience with this information. In other words, they are simply efforts to find new ways to “broadcast” the information. As a result, I predict that these intiatives will have a minimal impact as currently structured. There are two reasons why:

The problem isn’t about access: These tools are predicated on the idea that the problem to conveying this information is about access to the information. It isn’t. The truth is, people don’t care. We can debate about whether they should care but the fact of the matter is, they don’t. Most people won’t pay attention to a product recall until someone dies. In this regard these tools are simply the modern day version of newspaper ads, which, historically, very few people actually paid attention to. We just couldn’t measure it, so we pretended like people read them.

The content misses the mark: Scrape a little deeper on these tools and you’ll notice something. They are all, in essence, press releases. All of these tools, the RSS feed, blog widget and mobile apps, are simply designed to deliver a marginally repackaged press release. Given that people tuned out of newspaper ads, pushing these ads onto them in another device will likely have a limited impact.

As a result, I suspect that those likely to pay attention to these innovations were probably those who were already paying attention. This is okay and even laudable. There is a small segment of people for whom these applications reduce the transactions costs of access. However, with regard to expanding the numbers of Canadians impacted my this information or changing behaviour in a broader sense, these tools have limited impact. To be blunt, no one is checking a mobile application before they buy a product, nor are they reading these types of widgets in a blog, nor is anyone subscribing to an RSS feed of recalls and safety warnings. Those who are, are either being paid to do so (it is a requirement of their job) or are fairly obsessive.

In short, this is a government-centric solution – it seeks to share information the government has, in a context that makes sense to government – it is not citizen-centric, sharing the information in a form that matters to citizens or relevant parties, in a context that makes sense to them.

Again, I want to state while I draw this conclusion I still applaud the people at Health Canada. At least they are trying to do something innovative and creative with their data and information.

So what would a citizen-centric approach look like? Interestingly, it would involve trying to reach out to citizens directly.

People are wrestling with a tsunami of information. We can’t simply broadcast them with information, nor can we expect them to consult a resource every time they are going to make a purchase.

What would make this data far more useful would be to structure it so that others could incorporate it into software and applications that could shape people’s behaviors and/or deliver the information in the right context.

Take this warning, for example: “CERTAIN FOOD HOUSE BRAND TAHINI OF SESAME MAY CONTAIN SALMONELLA BACTERIA” posted on Monday by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. There is a ton of useful information in this press release including things like:

The geography impacted: Quebec

The product name, size and better still the UPC and LOT codes.

Product Size UPC Lot codes
Tahini of Sesame 400gr 6 210431 486128 Pro : 02/11/2010 and Exp : 01/11/2012
Tahini of Sesame 1000gr 6 210431 486302 Pro: 02/11/2010 and Exp: 01/11/2012
Premium Halawa 400gr 6 210431 466120 Pro: 02/11/2010 and Exp: 01/11/2012
Premium Halawa 1000gr 6 210431 466304 Pro: 02/11/2010 and Exp: 01/11/2012

However, all this information is buried in the text so is hard to parse and reuse.

If the data was structured and easily machine-readable (maybe available as an API, but even as a structured spreadsheet) here’s what I could imagine happening:

  1. Retailers could connect the bar code scanners they use on their shop floors to this data stream. If any cashier swipes this product at a check out counter they would be immediately notified and would prevent the product from being purchased. This we could do today and would be, in my mind, of high value – reducing the time and costs it takes to notify retailers as well as potentially saving lives.
  2. Mobile applications like RedLaser, which people use to scan bar codes and compare product prices could use this data to notify the user that the product they are looking at has been recalled. Apps like RedLaser still have a small user base, but they are growing. Probably not a game changer, but at least context sensitive.
  3. I could install a widget in my browser that, every time I’m on a website that displays that UPC and/or Lot code would notify me that I should not buy that product and that it’s been recalled. Here the potential is significant, especially as people buy more and more goods over the web.
  4. As we move towards having “smart” refrigerators that scan the RFID chips on products to determine what is in the fridge, they could simply notify me via a text message that I need to throw out my jar of Tahini of Sesame. This is a next generation use, but the government would be pushing private sector innovation in the space by providing the necessary and useful data. Every retailer is going to want to sell a “smart” fridge that doubles as a “safe” fridge, telling you when you’ve got a recalled item in it.

These are all far more citizen-centric, since they don’t require citizens to think, act or pay attention. In short, they aren’t broadcast-oriented, they feel customized, filtering information and delivering it where citizens need it, when they need it, sometimes without them even needing to know. (This is the same argument I made in my How Yelp Could Help Save Millions in Healthcare Costs). The most exciting thing about this is that Health Canada already has all the data to do this, it’s just a question of restructuring it so it is of greater use to various consumers of the data – from retailers, to app developers, to appliance manufactuers. This should not cost that much. (Health Canada, I know a guy…)

Another advantage of this approach is that it also gets the Government out of the business of trying to find ways to determine the best and most helpful way to share information. This appears to be a problem the UK government is also interested in solving. Richard A. sent me this excellent link in which a UK government agency appeals to the country’s developers to help imagine how it can better share information not unlike that being broadcast by Health Canada.

However, at the end of the day even this British example falls into the same problem – believing that the information is most helpfully shared through an app. The real benefit of this type of information (and open data in general) won’t be when you can create a single application with it, but when you can embed the information into systems and processes so that it can notify the right person at the right time.

That’s the challenge: abandoning a broadcast mentality and making things available for multiple contexts and easily embeddable. It’s a big culture shift, but for any government interested in truly exploring citizen-centric approach, it’s the key to success.