Category Archives: public policy

Urban Aboriginal Peoples Survey Launched

I’m very excited to share that today is the launch of the Urban Aboriginal Peoples Survey. For the last two years, more than 125 people have been working at various times to make this project a reality – the first ever survey of First Nations, Metis and Inuit who live in Canada’s major urban areas. I was lucky enough to sit on the steering committee of this project and so have had a very, very small role to play in this project. I’m happy to put anyone in touch with the amazing people who made this ambitious project a reality. People like Ginger Gosnell and David Newhouse (who is intelligent, compassionate and wise beyond description) are Canadians everyone should get to know.

Below is the press release that went out earlier today and you should be able to download the report here. This is a tremendously important piece of work as First Nations increasingly live in urban settings – indeed over half of the First Nation population now lives cities. Yes. Over half. And despite this, Canadians know almost nothing about this important group of citizens. Who they are or what they want. In short, there is almost no dialogue. I, like many involved in this project, hope this survey serves as a one starting point for changing that.

Urban Aboriginal peoples (First Nations peoples, Métis, and Inuit) are an increasingly significant social, political and economic presence in Canadian cities today.

First-of-a-kind Research Study takes new, in-depth look at growing population in 11 cities.

TORONTO, April 6, 2010 – An extensive new research study has gone beyond the numbers to capture the values and aspirations of this growing population.

By speaking directly with a representative group of 2,614 First Nations peoples, Métis and Inuit living in major Canadian cities, as well as 2,501 non Aboriginal Canadians, the Environics Institute, led by Michael Adams, has released the Urban Aboriginal Peoples Study (UAPS), which offers Canadians a new perspective of their Aboriginal neighbors living in Canada’s eleven largest cities. In the 2006 Census 1.172 million people self-identified themselves as “Aboriginal”, half of whom (one in two) reported living in urban centres.

“This study is about the future, not the past. The Urban Aboriginal Peoples Study offers Canadians a new picture of Aboriginal peoples in cities. Ideally, the things we have learned will help people understand each other better, have better conversations, and live together better in our urban communities.” ~Michael Adams, President, Environics Institute

Guided by an Advisory Circle, Aboriginal people designed the research themes, methodology, and executed the main survey. The Urban Aboriginal Peoples Study may be downloaded free from www.uaps.ca.

“When urban Aboriginal peoples are researched it’s often about problems like homelessness and sexual exploitation. There are hundreds of thousands of us living in cities, and there are a lot of positive things happening in our communities; it’s not all crises. But unless someone comes along and says, ‘This is interesting. Tell me about your choices; tell me about your community,’ then people don’t notice that they’re part of a wider social change.” ~Ginger Gosnell-Myers, UAPS Project Manager

KEY FINDINGS

For most, the city is home, but urban Aboriginal peoples stay connected to their communities of origin. Six in ten feel a close connection to these communities – links that are integral to strong family and social ties, and to traditional and contemporary Aboriginal culture. Notwithstanding these links, majorities of First Nations peoples, Métis and Inuit consider their current city of residence home (71%), including those who are the first generation of their family to live in their city.

Eight in ten participants said they were “very proud” of their specific Aboriginal identity, i.e., First Nations, Métis or Inuk. Slightly fewer – 70 per cent – said the same about being Canadian.

Urban Aboriginal peoples are seeking to become a significant and visible part of the urban landscape. Six in ten feel they can make their city a better place to live, a proportion similar to non-Aboriginal urban dwellers.

Six in ten were completely or somewhat unworried about losing contact with their culture, while a minority were totally (17 per cent) or somewhat (21 per cent) concerned. As well, by a wide margin (6:1), First Nations peoples, Métis and Inuit think Aboriginal culture in their communities has become stronger rather than weaker in the last five years.

They display a higher tolerance for other cultures than their non-Aboriginal neighbours: 77% of urban Aboriginal peoples believe there is room for a variety of languages and cultures in this country in contrast to 54% of non-Aboriginal urbanites.

Almost all believe they are consistently viewed in negative ways by non-Aboriginal people. Almost three in four participants perceived assumptions about addiction problems, while many felt negative stereotypes about laziness (30 per cent), lack of intelligence (20 per cent) and poverty (20 per cent).

Education is their top priority, and an enduring aspiration for the next generation. Twenty per cent want the next generation to understand the importance of education, 18 per cent hope younger individuals will stay connected to their cultural community and 17 per cent hope the next generation will experience life without racism.)

Money was cited as the No.1 barrier to getting a post-secondary education among 36 per cent of those planning to attend – and 45 per cent of those already enrolled in – a university or college.

Urban Aboriginal peoples do not have great confidence in the criminal justice system in Canada. More than half (55%) have little confidence in the criminal justice system and majorities support the idea of a separate Aboriginal justice system.

A significant minority (4 in 10) feel there is no one Aboriginal organization or National political party that best represent them, or cannot say.

The perspective of non-Aboriginal urban Canadians:

Non-Aboriginal urban Canadians are divided on where Aboriginal people fit in the Canadian mosaic: 54 percent believe Aboriginal people should have special rights and 39 percent think they are just like any other cultural or ethnic group (this divide varies across cities).

Perceptions of the current state of relations between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people are divided, but there are signs of optimism.

NA urban Canadians are starting to recognize the urban Aboriginal community and their cultural presence, but have limited knowledge of Aboriginal people and issues, although they do demonstrate a desire to learn more. There is a widespread belief among NA urban Canadians that Aboriginal people experience discrimination.

The Study

Through UAPS, more than100 interviewers, almost all of whom were themselves Aboriginal, conducted 2,614 in- person interviews with Métis, Inuit and First Nations (status and non-status) individuals living in eleven Canadian cities: Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Thunder Bay, Toronto, Montreal, Halifax and Ottawa (Inuit only).

The study also investigated how non-Aboriginal people view Aboriginal people in Canada today through a telephone survey with 2,501 non-Aboriginal urban Canadians living in these same cities (excluding Ottawa).

This first-of-its-kind study, conducted by the Environics Institute, and guided by an Advisory Circle of recognized experts from academia and from Aboriginal communities, is designed to better understand the values, identities, experiences and aspirations of Aboriginal Peoples (First Nations, Métis and Inuit) living in Canadian cities.

Findings and insights from this research are intended to establish a baseline of information on the urban Aboriginal population in Canada, prompt discussion within Aboriginal communities and between Aboriginal and non- Aboriginal peoples, and inform public policy and planning initiatives that pertain to urban Aboriginal peoples.

Major sponsors:
INAC – Federal Interlocutor
Trillium Foundation
Province of Alberta
Province of Saskatchewan
Province of Manitoba/Manitoba Hydro
Province of Ontario (Aboriginal Affairs)

Sponsors:
Canadian Millennium Scholarship Foundation
Calgary Foundation
Elections Canada
The Mental Health Commission
City of Edmonton
City of Toronto
Province of Nova Scotia (Aboriginal Affairs)
Winnipeg Foundation
John Lefebrve
Tides
Edmonton Community Foundation
Toronto Community Foundation
Vancouver Foundation
Halifax Regional Municipality
Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami

Media contact:
Claire M. Tallarico: 416-616-9940, uaps@rogers.com.

The Environics Institute for Survey Research was established in 2006 to sponsor relevant and original public opinion, attitude and social values research related to issues of public policy and social change. We wish to survey those not usually heard from, using questions not usually asked.

The Future of Media in Canada – Thoughts for the Canadian Parliamentary Committee

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Yesterday, Google presented to a House of Commons Heritage Committee which has launched a study of “new media.” Already some disturbing squawks have been heard from some of the MPs. For those who believe in an open internet, and in an individuals right to choose, there is no need to be alarmed just yet, but this is definitely worth keeping an eye on. It is however, a good thing that the parliamentary committee is looking at this (finally) since the landscape has radically changed and the Canadian government needs to adjust.

In his SXSWi talk Clay Shirky talked about how abundance changes things. One an item ceases to be scarce – when it is freely available – the dynamics of what we do with it and how we use it radically change.

It is something government’s have a hard time wrestling with. One basic assumption that often (but hardly always) underlies public policy is that one is dealing with how to manage scarce resources like natural resources. But what happens when something that was previously scarce suddenly becomes abundant? The system breaks. This is the central challenge the Heritage Committee MPs need to wrap their heads around.

Why?

Because this is precisely what is happening with the broadcast industry generally and Canadian content rules specifically. And it explains why Canadian content rules are so deeply, deeply broken.

In the old era the Government policy on Canadian content rested on two pillars:

First, the CRTC was able to create scarcity. It controlled the spectrum and could regulate the number of channels. This meant that broadcasters had to do what it said if they wanted to maintain the right to broadcast. This allowed the CRTC to mandate that a certain percentage of content be Canadian (CanCon).

The second pillar was funding. The Government could fund projects that would foster Canadian content. Hence the CBC, the National Film Board of Canada and various other granting bodies.

The problem is, in the digital era, creating scarcity gets a lot more complicated. There are no channels to regulate on the internet. There is just the abundant infinity of internet content. Moreover you can’t force websites to produce or create Canadian content nor can you force Canadians to go to websites that do (at least god hopes that isn’t a crazy idea the committee gets into its head). The scarcity is gone. The Government can no longer compel Canadians to watch Canadian content.

So what does that mean? There are three implications in my mind.

First. Stop telling Canadians what culture is. The most offensive quote from yesterday’s Globe article was, to quote the piece Bloc Québécois MP Carole Lavallée quote:

Bloc Québécois MP Carole Lavallée highlighted the often low-brow, low-budget fare on YouTube. She accused Google of confusing leisure with culture.

“Leisure is people who play Star Wars in their basement and film one another and put that on YouTube,” she said. “ But culture is something else.”

Effectively, she is telling me – the blog and new media writer – and the 100,000s if not millions of other Canadians who have created something that they do not create Canadian culture. Really? I thought the whole point of the Heritage Ministry, and tools like the CBC was to give voice to Canadians. The internet, a tools like YouTube have done more on that front than any Government program of the last 5 decades. Lavallée may not like what she sees, but today, more Canadian content is created and watched around the world, than ever before.

Second. Be prepared to phase out the CRTC. The CRTC’s regulatory capacity depends on being able to create scarcity. If there is no more scarcity, then it seizes to have a lever. Yes, the TV industry is still with us. But for how long? Canadians, like people everywhere, want to watch what they want, when they want. Thanks to the internet, increasingly they can. The CRTC no longer serves the interests of Canadians, it serves to perpetuate both the broadcast industry and the cable industry (yes, even when they fight) by creating a legal scaffolding that props up their business models. Michael Geist understands this – the committee should definitely be talking to him as well.

Third, if the first pillar is dead, the second pillar is going to have to take on a heavier load and in new and creative ways. The recent National Film Board iPhone app is fantastic example of how new media can be used to promote Canadian content. If the Commons committee is really worried about YouTube, why not have Heritage Canada create a “Canadian channel” on YouTube where it can post the best videos by Canadians and about Canada? Maybe it can even offer grants to the video creaters that get the most views on the channel – clearly they’ve demonstrated an ability to attract an audience. Thinking about more micro-grants that will allow communities to create their own content is another possibility. Ultimately, the Government can’t shape demand, or control the vehicle by which supply is delivered. But it can help encourage more supply – or better still reward Canadians who do well online and enable them to create more ambitious content.

The world of new media is significantly democratizing who can create content and what people can watch. Whatever the heritage committee does I hope they don’t try to put the cork back on that bottle. It will, in effect, be muzzling all the new emerging Canadian voices.

Update: Just saw that Sara Bannerman has a very good post about how Canadian content could be regulated online. Like much of what is in her post, but don’t think “regulation” is the right word. Indeed, most of what she asks for makes business sense – people will likely want Canadian filters for searching (be it for books, content, etc…) as long as those filters are optional.

Competitive Bureaucracies: Why is IDRC a Success?

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A long time ago a friend of mine was talking about how some organizations thrive by being under constant threat. His favourite example was the US Navy’s Marine Corp. The Marines are, operationally, the cheapest army corp in the United States forces, among the most mobile and, many would argue, possibly the most effective.Why, he asked, do you think the Marine Corp is considered so excellent? Why does it work so hard to excel in every way?

Well, he claimed, it was because the Marines are always an obvious target for budget cutters and larger rivals. If were looking cut duplicating services it would be easy to look over at the Marine Corp and ask… Why does the Navy need an army? Isn’t the army supposed to be our… army?

And trust me, this is a questions the Army asks regularly. Indeed, reading the Wikipedia page about the Marines – one can quickly see how the Marine Corps dissolution has been sought at various points in history:

The Marine Corps combat capabilities in some ways overlap those of the United States Army, the latter having historically viewed the Corps as encroaching on the Army’s capabilities and competing for funding, missions, and renown. The attitude dates back to the founding of the Continental Marines, when General George Washington refused to allow the initial Marine battalions to be drawn from among his Continental Army. Most significantly, in the aftermath of World War II, Army efforts to restructure the American defense establishment included the dissolution of the Corps and the folding of its capabilities into the other services.

So what does this have to do with International Development Research Centre?

I confess that I am not involved in development issues that much. But every time I do stray into the space and am impressed with a project that is innovative or interesting, it seems the IDRC has had a hand in funding it.

For example, readers of this blog know that I’ve become involved with OpenMRS, a community-developed, open-source, enterprise electronic medical record system platform specifically designed for doctors in the developing world. IDRC is a funder. Or, guess who is helping fund a community driven approach to bring connectivity and the internet to developing countries… IDRC is. There have been others over the years that I’ve seen, but can’t remember.

Some of this relates to part of the IDRC’s mission, which centres around the use of Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) but I also believe that part of it has to do with the fact that the bigger and more amply funded Canadian International Development Agency is just a kilometer away across the Ottawa river the IDRC must always be demonstrating that it is leaner, faster and more effective to justify its existence.

Just like the Marine corp must always justify its existence by being both excellent, effective and cheap. So to must the IDRC. It is the organization in government that – from what I can tell – is more likely to embrace technology, promote an innovative culture and, to be blunt, get the job done. Why? Because it has to.

This is not a defence of duplication of services (and, to be clear, I do not think that IDRC and CIDA’s services directly overlap – but they do operate in similar spaces). But it cannot be denied that competition helps. But I’m not sure it is enough, either. Sometimes, duplications of services simply leads to two poorly performing institutions. I would love to be able to explore what it is about the IDRC and Marine Corp that enable them to channel the threat to their existence into innovation. Is it history? Was it the personality of their founders? Corporate culture? I suspect it is more than the threat of the budgetary axe wielder. But what… I’m not sure.

Perhaps someone will make it a thesis topic some day. I’m going to give it more thought myself.

Case Study: 3 Ways Open Data are making Vancouver better

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It is still early days around the use of Open Data in Vancouver but already a number of interesting things are afoot.

Everybody here knows about Vantrash – which has just garnered its 1500th user. Our goal was to get to 2500 users (as this would represent 1% of the city’s households) and would really be more like 3% market penetration given that many households have private garbage contractors. This without any advertising or marketing.

But Vantrash is no longer the only example of open data hard at work. Three other stories have emerged – each equally interesting:

Big Players Start to Experiment – Microsoft:

Microsoft recently held an internal apps competition – I served as a judge – and many of the winners I blogged about back in February have been released and updated for public use (and the code, so that others can fork or improve the applications). Indeed, on Thursday at Goldfish in Yaletown, Microsoft held a demo event so people could see what they’ve been up to. (There’s a full article here.)

My favourite was VanPark2010 – an application for finding parking spaces, and parking meter costs/hr around the city. One of the things I loved about this app is how it prompted other actors – like the various parking companies to share some of their data as well.

Also of interest is VanGuide (also available on the iPhone, yes, a Microsoft app coded for the iPhone…) – a platform any number of companies could use to create mashups of whatever they wanted around a map of Vancouver. Personally, I like the geo-tagged tweet indicator – let’s you see what people who geo-tag their tweets within Vancouver are talking about.

The linked news article above also talks about FreeFinders (another app that some local newspapers or arts groups should consider looking at) that can allow you to see what free events are taking place around the city; MoBuddy (for planning trips and then caching your trip plans so you don’t have to use data roaming when traveling) and Mapway.

The lesson: A large company like Microsoft can see open data as a catalyst for new applications and services, and for getting developers excited about Microsofts tools. They are willing to experiment and see open data as part of the future of a software/service ecosystem.

Open Data Drives Research and Development:

Over at the Centre for Digital Media at the Great Northern Way campus, a group of students has being experimenting with the city’s open data catalog and Bing Maps and have created a taxi simulator that allows you to drive through the streets of downtown Vancouver. This is exactly the type of early R&D that cities that do open data get to capitalize on. In the future I can imagine not only video games being developed that use open data, but also driving or even traffic simulators. I’m really pumped about the great work the Taxicity team at GNW has been doing (and, full disclosure, it has been a real pleasure advising them). Check out their website here – and yes, that it me in the Ryerson sweatshirt…

Open Data Allows for Better Policy-Making and Research:

For a policy wonk like me I’m really excited about this last example.Bing Thom Architects Foundation released a report analyzing the impact of rising sea levels on the City of Vancouver. In a recent Georgia Straight article on the report, the researchers explained how:

The firm was able to conduct this research thanks to the city’s open-data catalogue, which makes information about the shoreline available on the city’s Web site. Heeney, Keenan, and Yan recently visited the Georgia Straight office to talk about their work, which examined the impact of sea level rising in one-metre increments up to seven metres.

Now city councilors are better able to assess the risks and costs around rising sea levels thanks, in part, to open data. This is the type of analysis and knowledge I hoped open data would enable – so great to see it happening so quickly. (sorry for the lack of link – I’ve been unable to find a link to the report, will post it as soon as I find it)

Getting Political Parties to think about Open Government/Data

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Next week the Liberals will be hosting a “Thinkers Conference” in Montreal. In preparation for the event the party has been hosting articles outlining ideas for Canada’s 150th anniversary. Because of my work around open government and open data they asked if I would pen a piece on the subject for them.

I agreed.

The odds of getting open data increase dramatically if politicians get behind the initiative (it certainly helped a great deal here in Vancouver with both the Mayor and Councilor Reimer being vocal advocates). So, since they asked, I wrote.

You can read the piece here (et, en francais, ici). More importantly, if you have a moment, please consider leaving a comment under the piece. Political parties react to what voters and citizens say matters – so having a number of people react to the piece would send a message that citizens want better, more open government, as well as a strategy for building a 21st century economy.

Also, my piece from yesterday ended up in the Globe in case you missed it.

YouTube Interviews: Strengths and Weaknesses

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I’m pretty much expecting to wake up today and read a number of stories about how the YouTube interview of the Prime Minister didn’t work, about how we should leave interviews to journalists, and that all this internet, audience driven stuff is a big waste of time.

I’m not sure I agree.

Was the interview good? It wasn’t amazing. But was it terrible? Definitely not. And not nearly as bad as some interviews with the Prime Minister that I’ve seen… So what worked and what didn’t work and what lessons can we draw from all this whether you live in Canada, the United States or wherever else in the world. What makes for a good crowdsourced interview?

Weaknesses:

Be careful of refocusing questions: Many of the Prime Minister’s responses were great. However, during some of the questions the Prime Minister reverted to some very well trodden talking points – or didn’t even answer the specific question asked. For example the question on mandatory minimum sentences he spoke of the Canadians say they want, not what, as the question stipulated, the research shows and the question of Marijuana become about drugs writ large – not about cannabis specifically. This is, of course, standard practice among politicians when answering reporters questions. The challenge is, that if these types of forums become popular and are watched by a number of people, it is unclear how favourable people will view a politician who avoids – however delicately or lightly – a question posed by a citizen. Maybe this medium changes nothing – but I again agree with Ivor Tossell and many others have to say:

Succeeding with social media comes down to being honest, having a frank, unfiltered voice and letting personality go along with policy.

Re-directing questions does not qualify. The public recognizes that journalists are not politicians friends and so give politicians more license when dealing with them – not so when dealing with a smart clear question from a fellow citizen.

Follow Up Questions: This of course raises the formats main weakness. There are no follow up questions allowed. So when someone evades or redirects a question there is no way to hold them to account. This doesn’t mean accountability and credibility disappear. Again, as I noted on Monday, its simply shifts onto the shoulders of the interviewee. You must now genuinely engage the question as the question asker intended. If not, I suspect you come out looking worse.

Pick your interviewer carefully. Here in Canada, Google elected to use their CFO Patrick Pichette (and ex-expatriate Canadian). I’ve only met him once at a small lunch in Montreal but I have a lot of time for him. He immediately struck meas insightful, quick and deeply intelligent. I’m also not sure he was the right choice for interviewer. Throughout the interview he is heard making sounds of agreement with the Prime Minister (such as saying “that’s terrific” after an answer) as though affirming the answer. This felt outside his role and prevented the questions from being as pointed as I believe the authors wished they would have been. All in all, the feel was less of an interview than of a friendly conversation.

Strengths:

Ask the most voted questions: Sadly, the couldn’t find a way to see the questions or how many votes they had received (#fail on google’s part there – accountability denied), but I did recognize many of the questions asked and am doubly impressed that a question on marijuana. In short, if you make a contract with the audience – eg you are going to ask the questions with the most votes… you’d better do it. I also thought many of the questions asked were quite good. Focus on the budget, Afghanistan, Foreign Aid (two foreign policy questions! two more than the last election debate in this country!), pensions, the carbon emissions policy… a good mix. Wish I knew if they were actually the questions with the most votes though…

Broadly people ask good question/but could do with some advice: Many of the questions were reasonable tough and well put. Some were a little long, and others had too many caveats that allow the interviewee to latch on to and avoid the main thrust of the inquiry. Might be good to model a good question to viewers in terms of focus and length as well as provide some written advice. I actually enjoyed seeing people ask questions and think the process could be stronger still.

Video Questions are better than read questions: Lesson for the audience. Submit your question via video. Better still, if you live in a bilingual country, try to subtitle it (Wouldn’t that be a cool thing to be able to do). The video questions really allowed the medium to show itself off, far more interesting to see a young women asking a question from her kitchen than to have an interview read it…

(Advice) Share each answer as a small video: If you really want citizens talking about issues, Google should share the entire interview, but also each individual question and answer. That way there can be questions specific comments on the YouTube site, people can blog about a specific question that concerned them and show only that question in the post, or people can simply zero in on the issue they care about most. The whole point of the internet is that information can be moved around easily – so if you are doing an interview… make it easy for your audience to share the part they cared about by making it digestable.

Be Real: The Prime Minister shone best when he was at his most conversational and relaxed. Indeed, this in part came through during the Marijuana question – his response was emotionally fantastic, he seemed genuinely concerned and possibly even off his speaking points a bit (or maybe just smooth enough to fool me, but I suspect not). Even though I found he answer infuriating – he seemed to completely forget all the lessons of prohibition (and, in effect, label every beer brewer in the country a scumbag) – he was at least human. And that’s when social media works best, when we get to see people being human. Otherwise, you just look wooden and, frankly, uninteresting.

Interview on the State of Open Gov and Gov 2.0 on O'Reilly Radar

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At the moment I’m at the mid-point of an epic 8 city, two and a half week tour de force (Vancouver-Chicago-Ottawa-Edmonton-Toronto-New York City-Toronto-Austin-Indianapolis-Vancouver) with talks happening at most stops (I’ve three today).

As some of you already know, one of today’s talk is part of the online Gov 2.0 International Conference being hosted by O’Reilly Media. Last count I heard was that over 600 people had registered, so hopefully there will be a good turn out over the intertubes. It is free to attend so click on the link about to check it out.

As part of the lead up to the event I did the following interview on O’Reilly Radar, talking about where Canada is in terms of Open Government and Gov 2.0 as well as touching on some of the themes raised in my chapter “After the Collapse” that O’Reilly published in their recently released book: Open Government: Collaboration, Transparency, and Participation in Practice. Interviews like this are fun as they push my thinking – I hope you find it interesting.

On a related but separate note – C-FAX radio personality Murray Langdon interviewed me about my Globe and Mail GCPEDIA article. If you are in Victoria this morning you should be able to catch it.

Today in the Globe: A Click Heard Across the Public Service

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I had the following piece published in the Globe and Mail today. It’s actually better if you read it there since I could easily include the hyperlinks when blogging from my phone.

The piece can be found here:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/a-click-heard-across-the-public-service/article1493566/

A Click Heard Across the Public Service

Quietly, without fanfare, a small but powerful seismic shift took place in the public service last week. Against the roar of the budget, the rumblings around pension reform and the release of the Fourth Report of the Prime Minister’s Advisory Committee on the Public Service it went virtually unnoticed. But the long-term ramifications of this event could be more significant than the others.

So what happened?

The Clerk of the Privy Council Office – the most senior public servant in Canada – logged on to GCPEDIA, created a page and asked public servants to talk to him directly about renewing the bureaucracy. Although a simple act, it has deep significance. In an organization that has struggled with renewing itself for the 21st century, GCPEDIA represents this single most ambitious experiment for rethinking how the public service conducts its business. Like the now famous Wikipedia, GCPEDIA is a wiki: a collection of pages that any public servant can create or edit. But rather than serve as an encyclopedia, it serves as a creative space, a place where public servants can collaborate, share their work openly with others across government and gather a diversity of perspectives on the challenges and programs they work on.

In short, GCPEDIA and other similar platforms offer one of the government’s best opportunities to breakdown silos both within and across ministries.

And this is why it is so distrusted in some quarters. These technologies – increasingly commonplace in the private and non-profit sector for their capacity to improve efficiency and distribute information – challenge cultural norms and processes in hierarchical institutions. More subversive still, at least in a culture that sometimes identifies power with budget or headcount, GCPEDIA costs less than $1.5-million in staff time. It is hard to imagine a tool, service or technology made available to every public servant in Canada in the last decade that’s as affordable.

The arrival of these new social media tools is disruptive. Some public servants are keen users, others are confused and uncertain while still others – particularly managers – see the technology as a threat to their control over information. Consequently, while many – including many young public servants or ministries like Natural Resources – have embraced wikis and Wikipedia, others have directly forbidden their employees to share information or work on the platform.

The Clerk’s decision to use GCPEDIA is thus an important statement – one he intended to be heard across the public service. He is signaling to others, especially those in senior positions, to look closely at GCPEDIA and other new tools and encouraging them to experiment with how it might transform their work.

Like many public servants, the Clerk knows the status quo cannot continue. As William Eggers points out in his interview with Kathryn May, Canadians are increasingly disillusioned by the gap between what government promises and what it delivers. When asked to name major successful government projects over 90 per cent of public servants surveyed provided examples a decade old or more. Moreover, in a world where more and more activity takes place online an increasingly digital citizenry and workforce is not interested in engaging with, or being served by, an analogue government. If the public service is going to succeed in addressing large problems, or even just small ones that cross ministries, it needs to find new ways of working and collaborating internally. Indeed, it is hard to imagine that it will be able to retain good employees unless it gives them modern tools – tools they use for free at home – to do their job.

Battles over pensions, talk about the budget or reports about changing the public service will dominate the headlines, but a more profound debate is quietly taking place – one that will have far reaching consequences to both the future of our government and the country. The Clerk’s mouse click does not end the debate, but it does signal that the leadership is increasingly interested in developing a 21st-century public service and one that is willing to engage in real experiments to achieve it.

Open Gov West – Seattle March 26 & 27

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For westcoasters interested in and thinking about open government and open data there will be a conference in the pacific northwest bringing together key actors in the area.

Called OpenGovWest will be taking place on March 26th and 27th. A number of interesting people will be in speaking and in attendance include Andrew Hoppin (New York State Senate’s CIO), Sabra Schneider (Webmaster, King County), Bill Schrier(CIO of Seattle) and David Hume, Executive Director, (Citizen Engagement).

There is also, at the moment, an early bird registration that last until March 10th with the discount code of 7gh9.

The conference will be taking place at Seattle City Hall (and will be the first time City Hall chambers will be used to host a conference – it is a beautiful room, which is a bonus…

Some other info for open data and open gov geeks like me…

You can follow the conference on Twitter @opengovwest
The conference hashtag is #ogw
Sponsors who are interested can find out more about sponsoring here.
Again, you can register here.

It is great to see a conference of this nature coming to the west coast. Big kudos to Sarah Schacht, the Director of Knowledge As Power, who has made this conference happen.

Gov 2.0 International: Global Innovation Meeting Local Challenges

Agenda

Beyond Borders: Improving Global Diplomacy and Citizen Empowerment with Gov 2.0 Speaker: Joel Whitaker, U.S. Institute of Peace

Joel Whitaker is Senior Advisor to the new Center of Innovation for Science, Technology and Peacebuilding at the US Institute of Peace in Washington, DC. Current projects include peace-gaming and simulations, climate change and conflict, mapping the Middle East blogosphere, science diplomacy in Iraq and Afghanistan, online media in Iraq, and mobile communication tools for conflict-zone NGOs.

Open Government in Canada Speaker: David Eaves, Centre for the Study of Democracy

In this overview of the state of open government in Canada, David will outline where there have been successes and where there have been challenges. He’ll explain why this is the case and what it could mean for other jurisdictions.

Israel Gov 2.0: from Awareness to Implementation Speaker: Yaron Gamburg, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Gov 2.0 in Israel is still in its initial stage. There are many initiatives in different agencies, primarily in the central government. However, these initiatives are bottom-up developments, and we need strong sponsors at the senior level of the government to make a significant change.

U.K. Innovations in Gov 2.0 Speaker: Dominic Campbell, FutureGov

This talk will look at Britain’s contribution to the Gov20 agenda, where it started from, who led it and why it took the election of Barack Obama 3000 miles away to spur the government into action.

Program subject to refinement. All talks are 30 minutes, with a 15 minute break at US-PST: 10:00am (US-EST: 1:00pm).

The entire conference will be recorded and made available to attendees free of charge afterwards.

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