Category Archives: public service sector renewal

The Canadian Government's New Web 2.0 Guidelines: the Good, the Bad & the Ugly

Yesterday, the government of Canada released its new Guidelines for external use of Web 2.0. For the 99.99% of you unfamiliar with what this is, it’s the guidelines (rules) that govern how, and when, public servants may use web 2.0 tools such as twitter and facebook.

You, of course, likely work in organization that survives without such documents. Congratulations. You work in a place where the general rule is “don’t be an idiot” and your bosses trust your sense of judgement. That said, you probably also don’t work somewhere where disgruntled former employees and the CBC are trolling the essentially personal online statements of your summer interns so they can turn it into a scandal. (Yes, summer student border guards have political opinions, don’t like guns and enjoy partying. Shocker). All this to say, there are good and rational reasons why the public service creates guidelines: to protect not just the government, but public servants.

So for those uninterested in reading the 31 page, 12,055 word guidelines document here’s a review:

The Good

Sending the right message

First off, the document, for all its faults, does get one overarching piece right. Almost right off the bat (top of section 3.2) is shares that Ministries should be using Web 2.0 tools:

Government of Canada departments are encouraged to use Web 2.0 tools and services as an efficient and effective additional channel to interact with the public. A large number of Canadians are now regularly using Web 2.0 tools and services to find information about, and interact with, individuals and organizations.

Given the paucity of Web 2.0 use in the Federal government internally or externally this clear message from Treasury Board, and from a government minister, is the type of encouragement needed to bring government communications into 2008 (the British Government, with its amazing Power of Information Taskforce, has been there for years).

Note: there is a very, very, ugly counterpart to this point. See below.

Good stuff for the little guy

Second, the rules for Professional Networking & Personal Use are fairly reasonable. There are some challenges (notes below), but if any public servant ever finds them or has the energy to read the document, they are completely workable.

The medium is the message

Finally, the document acknowledges that the web 2.0 world is constantly evolving and references a web 2.0 tool by which public servants can find ways to adapt. THIS IS EXACTLY THE RIGHT APPROACH. You don’t deal with fast evolving social media environment by handing out decrees in stone tablets, you manage it by offering people communities of practice where they can get the latest and best information. Hence this line:

Additional guidance on the use of Web 2.0 tools and services is in various stages of development by communities of expertise and Web 2.0 practitioners within the Government of Canada. Many of these resources are available to public servants on the Government of Canada’s internal wiki, GCpedia. While these resources are not official Government of Canada policies or guidelines, they are valuable sources of information in this rapidly evolving environment.

Represents a somewhat truly exciting development in the glacially paced evolution of government procedures. The use of social media (GCPEDIA) to manage social media.

Indeed, still more exciting for me is that this was the first time I’ve seen an official government document reference GCPEDIA as a canonical source of information. And it did it twice, once, above, pointing to a community of practice, the second was pointing to the GCPEDIA “Social media procurement process” page. Getting government to use social media internally is I think the biggest challenge at the moment, and this document does it.

The Bad

Too big to succeed

The biggest problem with the document is its structure. It is so long, and so filled with various forms of compliance, that only the most dedicated public servant (read, communications officer tasked with a social media task) will ever read this. Indeed for a document that is supposed to encourage public servants to use social media, I suspect it will do just the opposite. Its density and list of controls will cause many who were on the fence to stay there – if not retreat further. While the directions for departments are more clear, for the little guy… (See next piece)

Sledgehammers for nails

The documents main problem is that it tries to address all uses of social media. Helpfully, it acknowledges there are broadly two types of uses “Departmental Web 2.0 initiatives” (e.g. a facebook group for a employment insurance program) and “personnel/professional use” (e.g. a individual public servant’s use of twitter or linked in to do their job). Unhelpfully, it addresses both of them.

In my mind 95% of the document relates to departmental uses… this is about ensuring that someone claiming to represent the government in an official capacity does not screw up. The problem is, all those policies aren’t as relevant to Joe/Jane public servant in their cubicle trying to find an old colleague on LinkedIn (assuming they can access linkedin). It’s overkill. These should be separate documents, that way the personal use document could be smaller, more accessible and far less intimidating. Indeed, as the guidelines suggest, all it should really have to do is reference the Values and Ethics Code for the Public Service (essentially the “idiots guide to how not to be an idiot on the job” for public servants) and that would have been sufficient. Happily most public servants are already familiar with this document, so simply understanding that those guidelines apply online as much as offline, gets us 90% of the way there.

In summary, despite a worthy effort, it seem unlikely this document will encourage public servants to use Web 2.0 tools in their jobs. Indeed, for a (Canadian) comparison consider the BC Government’s guidelines document, the dryly named “Policy No. 33: Use of Social Media in the B.C. Public Service.” Indeed, despite engaging both use cases it manages covers all the bases, is straightforward, and encouraging, and treats the employee with an enormous amount of respect. All this in a nifty 2 pages and 1,394 words. Pretty much exactly what a public servant is looking for.

The Ugly

Sadly, there is some ugliness.

Suggestions, not change

In the good section I mentioned that the government is encouraging ministries to use social media… this is true. But it is not mandating it. Nor does these guidelines say anything to Ministerial IT staff, most of whom are blocking public servant’s access to sites like facebook, twitter, in many cases, my blog, etc… The sad fact is, there may now be guidelines that allow public servants to use these tools, but in most cases, they’d have to go home, or to a local coffee shop (many do) in order to actually make use of these guidelines. For most public servants, much of the internet remains beyond their reach, causing them to fall further and further behind in understanding how technology will effect their jobs and their department/program’s function in society.

It’s not about communication, it’s about control

In his speech at PSEngage yesterday the Treasury Board Minister talked about the need for collaboration on how technology can help the public service reinvent how it collaborates:

The Government encourages the use of new Web 2.0 tools and technologies such as blogs, wikis, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. These tools help create a more modern, open and collaborative workplace and lead to more “just-in-time” communications with the public.

This is great news. And I believe the Minister believes it too. He’s definitely a fan of technology in all the right ways. However, the guidelines are mostly about control. Consider this paragraph:

Departments should designate a senior official accountable and responsible for the coordination of all Web 2.0 activities as well as an appropriate governance structure. It is recommended that the Head of Communications be the designated official. This designate should collaborate with departmental personnel who have expertise in using and executing Web 2.0 initiatives, as well as with representatives from the following fields in their governance structure: information management, information technology, communications, official languages, the Federal Identity Program, legal services, access to information and privacy, security, values and ethics, programs and services, human resources, the user community, as well as the Senior Departmental Official as established by the Standard on Web Accessibility. A multidisciplinary team is particularly important so that policy interpretations are appropriately made and followed when managing information resources through Web 2.0 tools and services.

You get all that? That’s at least 11 variables that need to be managed. Or, put another way, 11 different manuals you need to have at your desk when using social media for departmental purposes. That makes for a pretty constricted hole for information to get out through, and I suspect it pretty much kills most of the spontaneity, rapid response time and personal voice that makes social media effective. Moreover, with one person accountable, and this area of communications still relatively new, I suspect that the person in charge, given all these requirements, is going to have a fairly low level of risk. Even I might conclude it is safer to just post an ad in the newspaper and let the phone operators at Service Canada deal with the public.

Conclusion

So it ain’t all bad. Indeed, there is much that is commendable and could be worked with. I think, in the end, 80% of the problems with the document could be resolved if the government simply created two versions, one for official departmental uses, the other for individual public servants. If it could then restrain the lawyers from repeating everything in the Values and Ethics code all over again, you’d have something that social media activists in the public service could seize upon.

My sense is that the Minister is genuinely interested in enabling public servants to use technology to do their jobs better – he knows from personal experience how helpful social media can be. This is great news for those who care about these issues, and it means that pressing for a better revised version might yield a positive outcome. Better to try now, with a true ally in the president’s office than with someone who probably won’t care.

As Canada Searches for its Open Government Partnership Commitments: A Proposal

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Just before its launch in New York on September 20th, the Canadian Government agreed to be a signatory of the Open Government Partnership (OGP). Composed of over 40 countries the OGP signatories are required to create a list of commitments they promise to implement. Because Canada signed on just before the deadline it has not – to date – submitted its commitments. As a result, there is a fantastic window for the government to do something interesting with this opportunity.

So what should we do? Here are the top 5 suggestions I propose for Canada’s OGP Commitments:

Brief Background on Criteria:

Before diving in, it is worth letting readers know that there are some criteria for making commitments. Specifically, any commitment must tackle at least one of the five “core” challenges: improve public services, increase public integrity, more effectively manage public resources, create safer communities, and increase corporate accountability.

In addition, each recommendation should reflect at least one of the core OGP principles, which are: transparency, citizen participation, accountability, and technology and innovation.

The Top Ten

Having reviewed several other countries commitments and being familiar with both what Canada has already done and what it could do, attached are 10 commitments I would like to see our government make to the OGP.

1. Be open about developing the commitments

Obviously there are a number of commitments the government is going to make since they are actions or programs that government was going to launch anyways. In addition, there will be some that will be new ideas that public servants or politicians have been looking for an opportunity to champion and now have an excuse. This is all fine and part of the traditional way government works.

But wouldn’t it be nice if – as part of the open government partnership – we asked citizens what they thought the commitments should be? That would make the process nicely consistent with the principles and goals of the OGP.

Thus the government should launch a two week crowd sourced idea generator, much like it did during the Digital Economy consultations. This is not suggestion that the ideas submitted must become part of the commitments, but they should inform the choices. This would be a wonderful opportunity to hear what Canadians have to say. In addition, the government could add some of its own proposal into the mix and see what type of response they get from Canadians.

2. Redefine Public as Digital: Pass an Online Information Act

At this year’s open government data camp in Warsaw, the always excellent Tom Steinberg noted that creating a transparent government and putting in place the information foundations of a digital economy will be impossible unless access to government data is not a gift from government (that can be taken away) but a right every citizen has. At the same time Andrew Rasiej of Tech President advocated that we must redefine public as digital. A paper print out in a small office in the middle of nowhere, does not make for “public disclosure” in the 21st century. It’s bad for democracy, it’s bad for transparency, and it is grossly inefficient for government.

Thus, the government should agree to pass a Online Information Act, perhaps modeled on that proposed in the US Senate, that

a) Any document it produces should be available digitally, in a machine readable format. The sham that the government can produce 3000-10,000 printed pages about Afghan detainees or the F-35 and claim it is publicly disclosing information must end.

b) Any data collected for legislative reasons must be made available – in machine readable formats – via a government open data portal.

c) Any information that is ATIPable must be made available in a digital format. And that any excess costs of generating that information can be born by the requester, up until a certain date (say 2015) at which point the excess costs will be born by the ministry responsible. There is no reason why, in a digital world, there should be any cost to extracting information – indeed, I fear a world where the government can’t cheaply locate and copy its own information for an ATIP request as it would suggest it can’t get that information for its own operations.

3. Sign the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative

As a leader in the field of resource extraction it is critical that Canada push for the highest standards in a sector that all too often sees money that should be destined for the public good get diverted into the hands of a few well connected individuals. Canada’s reputation internationally has suffered as our extractive resource sector is seen as engaging in a number of problematic practices such as bribing public officials – this runs counter to the Prime Minister’s efforts to promote democracy.

As a result, Canada should sign, with out delay, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, much like the United States did in September. This can help signal our desire for a transparent extractive industry, one in which we play a significant role.

4. Sign on to the International Aid Transparency Initiative

Canada has already taken significant steps to publishing its aid data online, in machine readable formats. This should be applauded. The next step is to do so in a way that conforms with international standards so that this data can be assessed against the work of other donors.

The International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) offers an opportunity to increase transparency in foreign aid, better enable the public to understand its aid budget, compare the country’s effectiveness against others and identify duplication (and thus poorly used resources) among donors. Canada should agree to implement IATI immediately. In addition, it should request that the organizations it funds also disclose their work in ways that are compliant with IATI.

5. Use Open Data to drive efficiency in Government Services: Require the provinces to share health data – particularly hospital performance – as part of its next funding agreement within the Canada Health Act.

Comparing hospitals to one another is always a difficult task, and open data is not a panacea. However, more data about hospitals is rarely harmful and there are a number of issues on which it would be downright beneficial. The most obvious of these would be deaths caused by infection. The number of deaths that occur due to infections in Canadian hospitals is a growing problem (sigh, if only open data could help ban the antibacterial wipes that are helping propagate them). Having open data that allows for league tables to show the scope and location of the problem will likely cause many hospitals to rethink processes and, I suspect, save lives.

Open data can supply some of the competitive pressure that is often lacking in a public healthcare system. It could also better educate Canadians about their options within that system, as well as make them more aware of its benefits.

6. Reduce Fraud: Find Fraud by Creating a Death List

In an era where online identity is a problem it is surprising to me that I’m unable to locate a database of expired social insurance numbers. Being able to querry a list of social security numbers that belong to dead people might be a simple way to prevent fraud. Interestingly, the United States has just such a list available for free online. (Side fact: Known as the Social Security Death Index this database is also beloved by genealogist who use it to trace ancestry).

7. Save lives by publishing a API of recall data

The only time the public finds out about a product recall is after someone has died. This is a terribly tragic, not to mention grossly inefficient, outcome. Indeed, the current approach is a classic example of using 21st century technology to deliver a service in a 19th century manner. If the government is interested in using the OGP to improve government services it should stop just issuing recall press releases and also create an open data feed of recalled products. I expand on this idea here.

If the government were doubly smart it would work with major retailers – particularly in the food industry – to ensure that they regularly tap into this data. In an ideal world any time Save-on-Foods, Walmart, Safeway, or any other retailers scans product in their inventory it would immediately check it against the recall database, allowing bad food to be pulled out of production before it hits the shelves. In addition, customers who use loyalty cards could be called or emailed to be informed that they had bought a product that had been recalled. This would likely be much more effective than hoping the media picks the story up.

8. Open Budget and Actual Spending Data

For almost a year the UK government has published all spending data, month by month, for each government ministry (down to the £500 in some, £25,000 in others). More over, as an increasing number of local governments are required to share their spending data it has lead to savings, as government begin to learn what other ministries and governments are paying for similar services.

Another bonus is that it becomes possible to talk about the budget in new and interesting ways. This BEAUTIFUL graphic was published in the Guardian, while still complicated it is much easier to understand than any government document about the budget I have ever seen.

9. Allow Government Scientists to speak directly to the media about their research.

It has become a reoccurring embarrassment. Scientists who work for Canada publish an internationally recognized ground break paper that provides some insight about the environment or geography of Canada and journalists must talk to government scientists from other countries in order to get the details. Why? Because the Canadian government blocks access. Canadians have a right to hear the perspectives of scientists their tax dollars paid for – and enjoy the opportunity to get as well informed as the government on these issues.

Thus, lift the ban that blocks government scientists from speaking with the media.

10. Create a steering group of leading Provincial and Municipal CIOs to create common schema for core data about the country.

While open data is good, open data organized the same way for different departments and provinces is even better. When data is organized the same way it makes it easier to citizens to compare one jurisdiction against another, and for software solutions and online services to emerge that use that data to enhance the lives of Canadians. The Federal Government should use its convening authority to bring together some of the countries leading government CIOs to establish common data schemas for things like crime, healthcare, procurement, and budget data. The list of what could be worked on is virtually endless, but those four areas all represent data sets that are frequently requested, so might make for a good starting point.

The State of Open Data 2011

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What is the state of the open data movement? Yesterday, during my opening keynote at the Open Government Data Camp (held this year in Warsaw, Poland) I sought to follow up on my talk from last year’s conference. Here’s my take of where we are today (I’ll post/link to a video of the talk as soon as the Open Knowledge Foundation makes it available).

Successes of the Past Year: Crossing the Chasm

1. More Open Data Portals

One of the things that has been amazing to witness in 2011 is the veritable explosion of Open Data portals around the world. Today there are well over 50 government data catalogs with more and more being added. The most notable of these was probably the Kenyan Open Data catalog which shows how far, and wide, the open data movement has grown.

2. Better Understanding and More Demand

The things about all these portals is that they are the result of a larger shift. Specifically, more and more government officials are curious about what open data is. This is not to say that understanding has radically shifted, but many people in government (and in politics) now know the term, believe there is something interesting going on in this space, and want to learn more. Consequently, in a growing number of places there is less and less headwind against us. Rather than screaming from the rooftops, we are increasingly being invited in the front door.

3. More Experimentation

Finally, what’s also exciting is the increased experimentation in the open data space. The number of companies and organizations trying to engage open data users is growing. ScraperWiki, the DataHub, BuzzData, Socrata, Visua.ly, are some of the products and resources that have emerged out of the open data space. And the types of research and projects that are emerging – the tracking of the Icelandic volcano eruptions, the emergence of hacks and hackers, micro projects (like my own Recollect.net) and the research showing that open data could be generating savings of £8.5 million a year to governments in the Greater Manchester area, is deeply encouraging.

The Current State: An Inflection Point

The exciting thing about open data is that increasingly we are helping people – public servants, politicians, business owners and citizens imagine a different future, one that is more open, efficient and engaging. Our impact is still limited, but the journey is still in its early days. More importantly, thanks to success (number 2 above) our role is changing. So what does this mean for the movement right now?

Externally to the movement, the work we are doing is only getting more relevant. We are in an era of institution failure. From the Tea Party to Occupy Wall St. there is a recognition that our institutions no longer sufficiently serve us. Open data can’t solve this problem, but it is part of the solution. The challenge of the old order and the institutions it fostered is that its organizing principle is built around the management (control) of processes, it’s been about the application of the industrial production model to government services. This means it can only move so fast, and because of its strong control orientation, can only allow for so much creativity (and adaption). Open data is about putting the free flow of information at the heart of government – both internally and externally – with the goal of increasing government’s metabolism and decentralizing societies’ capacity to respond to problems. Our role is not obvious to the people in those movements, and we should make it clearer.

Internally to the movement, we have another big challenge. We are at a critical inflection point. For years we have been on the outside, yelling that open data matters. But now we are being invited inside. Some of us want to rush in, keen to make advances, others want to hold back, worried about being co-opted. To succeed, it is essential we must become more skilled at walking this difficult line: engaging with governments and helping them make the right decisions, while not being co-opted or sacrificing our principles. Choosing to not engage would, in my opinion, be to abscond from our responsibility as citizens and open data activists. This is a difficult transition, but it will be made easier if we at least acknowledge it, and support one another in it.

Our Core Challenges: What’s next

Looking across the open data space, my own feeling is that there are three core challenges that are facing the open data movement that threaten to compromise all the successes we’ve currently enjoyed.

1. The Compliance Trap

One key risk for open data is that all our work ends up being framed as a transparency initiative and thus making data available is reduced to being a compliance issue for government departments. If this is how our universe is framed I suspect in 5-10 years governments, eager to save money and cut some services, will choose to cut open data portals as a cost saving initiative.

Our goal is not to become a compliance issue. Our goal is to make governments understand that they are data management organizations and that they need to manage their data assets with the same rigour with which they manage physical assets like roads and bridges. We are as much about data governance as we are open data. This means we need to have a vision for government, one where data becomes a layer of the government architecture. Our goal is to make data platform one that not only citizens outside of government can build on, but one that government reconstructs its policy apparatus as well as its IT systems at top of. Achieving this will ensure that open data gets hardwired right into government and so cannot be easily shut down.

2. Data Schemas

This year, in the lead up to the Open Data Camp, the Open Knowledge Foundation created a map of open data portals from around the world. This was fun to look at, and I think should be the last time we do it.

We are getting to a point where the number of data portals is becoming less and less relevant. Getting more portals isn’t going to enable open data to scale more. What is going to allow us to scale is establishing common schemas for data sets that enable them to work across jurisdictions. The single most widely used open government data set is transit data, which because it has been standardized by the GTFS is available across hundreds of jurisdictions. This standardization has not only put the data into google maps (generating millions of uses everyday) but has also led to an explosion of transit apps around the world. Common standards will let us scale. We cannot forget this.

So let’s stop mapping open data portals, and start mapping datasets that adhere to common schemas. Given that open data is increasingly looked upon favourably by governments, creating these schemas is, I believe, now the central challenge to the open data movement.

3. Broadening the Movement

I’m impressed by the hundreds and hundreds of people here at the Open Data Camp in Warsaw. It is fun to be able to recognize so many of the faces here, the problem is that I can recognize too many of them. We need to grow this movement. There is a risk that we will become complacent, that we’ll enjoy the movement we’ve created and, more importantly, our roles within it. If that happens we are in trouble. Despite our successes we are far from reaching critical mass.

The simple question I have for us is: Where is the United Way, Google, Microsoft, the Salvation Army, Oxfam, and Greenpeace? We’ll know were are making progress when companies – large and small – as well as non-profits – start understanding how open government data can change their world for the better and so want to help us advance the cause.

Each of us needs to go out and start engaging these types of organizations and helping them see this new world and the potential it creates for them to make money or advance their own issues. The more we can embed ourselves into other’s networks, the more allies we will recruit and the stronger we will be.

Canada Joins the Open Government Partnership

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I’m in New York today for the launch of the Open Government Partnership and it looks as the Canada is now a signatory (or at least has signed a letter of intent).

No commitments are outlined, but I will link to them when they are posted.

The Open Government Partnership was launched by the White House and the State Department earlier this year with 8 founding countries. The goal is to get a coalition of governments around the world to commit to implementing a series of initiatives to improve government transparency, effectiveness and accountability. You can read more here.

For those interested, the launch of the event will be livestreamed here. If you’re at the event, I’ll be hosting the lunch on “How to identify and prioritize core classes of information for public disclosure.”

Updated: here’s a video…

Open Data and New Public Management

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This morning I got an email thread pointing to an article by Justin Longo on #Opendata: Digital-Era Governance Thoroughbred or New Public Management Trojan Horse? I’m still digesting it all but wanted to share some initial thoughts.

The article begins with discussion about the benefits of open data but its real goal is to argue how open data is a pawn in a game to revive the New Public Management Reform Agenda:

My hypothesis, based on a small but growing number of examples highlighting political support for open data, is that some advocates—particularly politicians, but not exclusively—are motivated by beliefs (both explicit and unconscious) forged in the New Public Management (NPM) reform agenda.

From this perspective, support for more open data aims at building coalitions of citizen consumers who are encouraged to use open data to expose public service decisions, highlight perceived performance issues, increase competition within the public sector, and strengthen the hand of the citizen as customer.

What I found disappointing is the article’s one dimensional approach to the problem: open data may support a theory/approach to public management disliked by the author, consequently (inferring from the article’s title and tone) it must be bad. This is akin to saying any technology that could be used to advance an approach I don’t support, must be opposed.

In addition, I’d say that the idea of exposing public service decisions, highlighting perceived performance issues, increasing competition within the public sector, and strengthening the hand of the citizen as customer are goals I don’t necessarily oppose, certainly not categorically. Moreover, I would hope such goals are not exclusively the domain of NPM. Do we want a society where government’s performance issues are not highlighted? Or where public service decisions are kept secret?

These are not binary choices. You can support the outcomes highlighted above and simultaneously believe in other approaches to public sector management and/or be agnostic about the size of government. Could open data be used to advance NPM? Possibly (although I’m doubtful). But it definitely can also be used to accomplish a lot of other good and potentially advance other approaches as well. Let’s not conflate a small subset of ways open data can be used or a small subset of its supporters with the entire project and then to lump them all into a single school of thought around public service management.

Moreover, I’ve always argued that the biggest users and benefactors of open data would be government – and in particular the public service. While open data could be used to build “coalitions of citizen consumers who are encouraged to use open data to expose public service decisions” it will also be used by public servants to better understand citizens needs, be more responsive and allocate resources more effectively. Moreover, those “citizen consumers” will probably be effective in helping them achieve this task. The alternative is to have better shared data internally (which will eventually happen), an outcome that might allow the government to achieve these efficiencies but will also radically increase the asymmetry in the relationship between the government and its citizens and worse, between the elites that do have privileged access to this data, and the citizenry (See Taggart below).

So ignoring tangible benefits because of a potential fear feels very problematic. It all takes me back to Kevin Kelly and What Technology Wants… this is an attempt to prevent an incredibly powerful technology because of a threat it poses to how the public sector works. Of course, it presumes that a) you can prevent the technology and b) that not acting will allow the status quo or some other preferred approach to prevail. Again, there are outcomes much, much worse the NPM that are possible (again, I don’t believe that open data leads directly to NPM) and I would argue, indeed likely, given evolving public expectations, demographics, and fiscal constraints.

In this regard, the article sets of up a false choice. Open data is going to reshape all theories of public management. To claim it supports or biases in favour of one outcome is, I think beyond premature. But more importantly, it is to miss the trees for the forest and the much bigger fish we need to fry. The always thoughtful Chris Taggart summed much of this up beautifully in an email thread:

I think the title — making it out to be a choice between a thoroughbred or Trojan Horse — says it all. It’s a false dichotomy, as neither of those are what the open data advocates are suggesting it is, nor do most of us believe that open data is solution to all our problems (far from it — see some of my presentations[1]).

It also seems to offer a choice between New Public Management (which I think Emer Coleman does a fairly good job of illuminating in her paper[2]) and the brave new world of Digital Era Governance, which is also to misunderstand the changes being brought about in society, with or without open government data.

The point is not that open data is the answer to our problem but society’s chance to stay in the game (and even then, the odds are arguably against it). We already have ever increasing numbers of huge closed databases, many made up of largely government data, available to small number of people and companies.

This leads to an asymmetry of power and friction that completely undermines democracy; open data is not a sufficiency to counteract that, but I think it is a requirement.

1] http://www.slideshare.net/countculture

[2] http://davepress.net/2011/05/18/from-new-public-management-to-open-governance-the-back-story/

It’s possible I’ve misunderstood Longo’s article and he is just across the straights at the University of Victoria, so hopefully we can grab a beer and talk it through. But my sense is this article is much more about a political battle between New Public Management and Digital Era Governance in which open data is being used as a pawn. As an advocate, I’m not wholly comfortable with that, as I think it risks misrepresenting it.

Design Matters: Looking at a Re-themed Bugzilla

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I’ll be honest. There was a time when I thought design didn’t matter. To my credit, it was a long time ago… but I used to think, if the tool was good enough, the design won’t matter, people will use it cause it is helpful. (This may or may not have influenced some fashion choices earlier in life as well – I’d like to think things have improved – but not everyone may agree it has improved sufficiently).

Being useful may be sufficient (although take a look at the government website at the bottom of this post – it’s a very useful website). But it’s no excuse for not making things easier to use. Especially when you are running an open source community and want to encourage participation and ease people up the learning curve faster.

Hence why I enjoyed recently discovering ActiveState’s implementation of Bugzilla (re-themed by Tara Gibbs). Bugzilla is the software many open source projects use to identify, track and resolve bugs.

Here we have two identical pieces of software (so the “usefulness” is the same) but what makes ActiveState’s version of Bugzilla so nice are a few simple things they’ve done to make it more user friendly (doubly pleased to see them implement some ideas I’d blogged earlier as well – great minds think alike!).

So let’s start with the Mozilla instance of Bugzilla – as this was the one I was used to.

I’ve circled a couple of the key features to zero in on. Let me go through them as I want you to be thinking about them when you look at the ActiveState version:

Red circle: Notice that this has a lot of key items in it, but it is lost next to the “search” button, which pulls your attention away
Dark orange arrow: the search button! most often you won’t find a search box located here in an application.
Green circle: Tons of useful stuff down here, but arranged in one long horizontal list, that makes it hard to find what you’re look for (and another search box!)
Light orange arrow: another log out option… didn’t I see that somewhere else as well?

I want to be clear, the Bugzilla team at Mozilla is awesome. Recently hired they are trying to do a ton of stuff and this is not where I’d expect them to start (and they’ve been super responsive to everything I’ve blogged about so I’m a huge fan), I want to flag this because everyone, from software engineers to government officials need to recognize that we rely on good design to make our lives easier, to help with decision fatigue and streamline our work, every day.

Now check out the ActiveState version of the exact same software, but re-designed.

So, my cartoonish circles and arrows are mucking up the design and ascetics of both theses sites, so please forgive that. (I suggest opening them in adjacent tabs – Mozilla here, ActiveState here – so you can see them uninterrupted).

So, a few things:

Red circle: Now everything to do with the administration of your account is in the top, top right hand corner. This is where Google, Facebook and most websites put this info now, that’s why you’re expecting to find it there!
Dark orange arrow: now the search button is in the top right hand corner. Pretty much the same location it appears in Firefox (and safari, IE, chrome, OS X, etc…) and so where users have come to expect it.
Green circle: This part really is genius. Did you know there were saved searches in the above version? There are, but the feature didn’t stand out. This theme sorts the users options and displays them vertically within a menu: much, much easier to digest quickly.
Light orange arrow: Features appear only once! For example, the sign out and search feature do not appear at the top and bottom. This helps reduce clutter and allows the user to find things more quickly

My point is that a few minor changes can dramatically improve the usability of a website or tool. Is Mozilla’s bugzilla radically worse than ActiveState’s? No, but I definitely prefer ActiveState’s design. Moreover, when you are relying on volunteer contributors and attracting new contributors is something that matters to you, this is an important gateway and so you want it to be as seamless as possible.

What’s interesting is that often it is in the non-profit and government sector that design gets neglected because it is deemed a luxury, or the “substantive” people don’t think design matters and so ignore it.

The results can be disastrous.

I mean, especially if you are in government, then you’ve really got to be advocating for better design. Consider the website below. Remember, this may be the most important citizen facing website in the Canadian government – the one stop shop to find every service you need. It is better than most government website, and yet, you’ve got a site that is still maddeningly difficult to navigate. Where am I supposed to look??? Eyes… being… pulled… in… so… many… directions…

Personally, I think you could solve 80% of the problem with this page just by getting rid of the left hand column and put a search button in the top right hand corner. But I’m supremely confident that would violate some arcane website design rule the government has and so will remain a post for another day…

Edmonton Heads for the Cloud

6 Replies

I’m confident that somewhere in Canada, some resource strapped innovative small town has abandoned desktop software and uses a cloud based service but so far no city of any real size has even publicly said they were considering the possibility.

That is, until today.

Looks like Edmonton’s IT group – which is not just one of the most forward looking in the country continues to make the rubber hit the road – is moving its email and office suite to the cloud. (I’ve posted the entire doc below since it isn’t easy to link to)

They aren’t the first city in the world to do this: Washington D.C., Orlando and Los Angeles have all moved to Google apps (in each case displacing Microsoft Office) but they are the first in Canada – a country not known for its risk taking IT departments.

I can imagine that a lot government IT people will be watching closely. And that’s too bad. There is far too much watching in Canada when there could be a lot of innovating and saving. While some will site LA’s bumpy transition, Orlando’s and DC’s were relatively smooth and are still cities that are far larger than most of their Canadian counterparts. LA is more akin to transitioning a province (or Toronto). Nobody else get’s that pass.

Two things:

1) I’ve highlighted what I think is some of the interesting points in the document being presented to council.

2) A lot of IT staff in other cities will claim that it is “too early” to know if this is going to work.

People. Wake up. It is really hard to imagine you won’t be moving to the cloud at some point in the VERY near future. I frankly don’t care which cloud solution you choose (Google vs. Microsoft) that choice is less important than actually making the move. Is Edmonton taking some risks? Yes. But it is also going to be the first city to learn the lessons, change its job descriptions, work flows, processes and the zillion other things that will come out of this. This means they’ll have a cost and productivity advantage over other cities as they play catch up. And I suspect, that there will never be a catch up, as Edmonton will already be doing the next obvious thing.

If your a IT person in a city, the question is no longer, do you lead or follow. It is merely, how far behind are you going to be comfortable being?

6. 13

Workspace Edmonton

Sole Source Agreement

Recommendation:

That, subject to the necessary funding being made available, Administration enter into a sole source agreement, in an amount not exceeding $5 million, and a period not exceeding five years, with Google Inc., for the provision of computing productivity tools, and that the contract be in form and content acceptable to the City Manager.

Report Summary

The IT Branch undertook a technical assessment of seven options for the delivery of desktop productivity tools. Software as a Service (‘cloud computing’) was identified as the preferred direction as it allows the corporation to work from anytime, place or device. Google Mail and Google Apps were determined to provide the best solution. The change will ensure ongoing sustainability of the services, provides opportunities for service and productivity gains, and align IT services with key principles in The Way We Green, The Way We Live and The Way We Move.

Report

The City Administration Bylaw 12005 requires approval from Executive Committee for Single Source Contracts (contracts to be awarded without tendering) in excess of $500,000, and those contracts that may exceed ten years in duration.

The Workspace Edmonton Program consists of two initiatives, which will allow the delivery of information technology software and services to employees, contractors and third party partners anytime and place, and on any device. In order to accomplish this the administration is proposing moving away from a model where software is installed on every computer to a solution where the software is housed on the internet (‘cloud computing’).

Administration is recommending the implementation of Google Apps Premier Edition as the primary computing productivity tool, with targeted use of Microsoft Office and SharePoint. The recommended direction will allow the City to move to Google Mail as the corporate messaging tool and Google Apps as the primary office productivity tools. It will also allow the corporation access to other applications offered by Google Inc. and partners to Google Inc. Microsoft Office and SharePoint will remain as the secondary office productivity tools for business areas that require these applications for specific business needs. Use of the Microsoft tools will require completion of the appropriate use case and approval by the Chief Information Officer.

Administration is requesting approval to proceed to negotiation of a contract with Google Inc. The sole source agreement is required at this time to allow the program to be developed in 2011. This is foundational work that will allow the program to proceed to implementation in 2012. The contract is also required in order to complete the Privacy Impact Assessment and develop implementation plans.

Benefits

Workspace Edmonton creates the opportunity for the City of Edmonton to significantly change the way we work. Administration will have increased options for delivering services to citizens, including enhanced mobile field services and new opportunities for community consultation and collaboration. The consumer version of Google is free to private citizens and not-for-profit groups and would allow additional options for collaboration with organizations such as community leagues with no net cost to the corporation or organization.

The move to G-Mail will allow the corporation to extend email access to all city employees, improving access to information and communications. It will also allow for implementation of a number of services without additional licensing costs, including:

audio and video chat

group sites to allow improved collaboration with external
partners and community groups

internal Youtube for training and information sharing

increased collaboration through document sharing and simultaneous authoring capabilities

The program presents the opportunity for the City to better address the expectations of the next generation of workers by providing options to bring your device and to work with software many already use. Both Edmonton Public Schools and the University of Alberta have implemented Google Apps.

In addition, the implementation of Google Apps will include an e-records
solution for documents stored in Google Apps. This will be implemented in partnership with the Office of the City Clerk. The benefit of this being alignment with legislated and corporate requirements for records retention, retrieval, and disposal.

Moving to the Software as a Service Model (‘cloud computing’) through the internet will avoid additional hardware and support costs associated with increased service demands due to growth. This solution provides a more sustainable business model, reducing demands on resources for regular product upgrades and services support. Finally, the relocation of software and data to multiple secure data centres facilitates continuation of services during emergencies such as natural disasters and pandemics. City employees will be able to access email and documents through the internet from any office or home computer.

Solution Assessments

The IT Branch undertook a technical assessment of seven office productivity software and service delivery options. A financial assessment of the top three options was subsequently completed and the recommended direction to move to Google Inc. as the service provider was based on these assessments. Following this, the IT Branch undertook a security assessment to ensure the option chosen met security requirements and industry standards. A Privacy Impact Assessment has been initiated and will be completed upon negotiation of an agreement. Precedent in Alberta has been set with both the Edmonton Public School Board and the University of Alberta entering into agreements with Google Inc.

Strategic Direction

The Workspace Edmonton Program supports Council’s strategic direction for innovation and a well managed city, as well as key principles in The Way We Green, The Way We Move, and the Way We Live.

Budget/Financial Implications

Google Messaging and Apps will replace the existing Microsoft Exchange and majority of Office licenses. The funding currently in place for Microsoft license maintenance will be sufficient to fund the annual Google services.

2011 funding for the implementation of overall Workspace Edmonton Program is within the current IT budgets and will be the source of funding. Funding for 2012 will be included in the 2012 budget request. A business case for this initiative was completed and is available for review.

The Workspace Edmonton model aligns with and complements the corporate initiative of Transforming Edmonton. The administration will look for opportunities to integrate the programs and utilize a portion of the funding for Transforming Edmonton to fund Workspace Edmonton change and transition requirements.

Risks

If the recommendation is not supported, Workspace Edmonton will stop and the corporation will be required to either go to Request For Proposal or remain on the existing platform. Remaining on the existing platform will require additional funding in future years to support continued maintenance costs and future growth. (Extending email only to city staff who do not currently have email accounts would cost the corporation approximately $900,000 per year with the existing solution.) Delaying the implementation to 2012 would result in delays to return on investment and achievement of the benefits.

Justification of Recommendation
Technical, financial and security assessments have been completed. The recommended solution meets business requirements, provides opportunities to increase and improve service delivery and is projected to garner a return on investment within 18 to 24 months of implementation. Approval of this recommendation will allow Administration to proceed to negotiation of a contract.

Others Reviewing this Report
• L. Rosen, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

WRITTEN BY – D. Kronewitt-Martin | August 24, 2011 – Corporate Services 2011COT006

Why Social Media behind the Government Firewall Matters

Shared IT Services across the Canadian Government – three opportunities

15 Replies

Earlier this week the Canadian Federal Government announced it will be creating Shared Services Canada which will absorb the resources and functions associated with the delivery of email, data centres and network services from 44 departments.

These types of shared services projects are always fraught with danger. While they sometimes are successful, they are often disasters. Highly disruptive with little to show for results (and eventually get unwound). However, I suspect there is a significant amount of savings that can be made and I remain optimistic. With luck the analogy here is the work outgoing US CIO Vivek Kundra accomplished as he has sought to close down and consolidate 800 data centres across the US which is yielding some serious savings.

So here’s what I’m hoping Shared Services Canada will mean:

1) A bigger opportunity for Open Source

What I’m still more hopeful about – although not overly optimistic – is the role that open source solutions could play in the solutions Shared Services Canada will implement. Over on the Drupal site, one contributor claims government officials have been told to hold off buying web content management systems as the government prepares to buy a single solution for across all departments.

If the government is serious about lowering its costs it absolutely must rethink its procurement models so that open source solutions can at least be made a viable option. If not this whole exercise will mean the government may save money, but it will be the we move from 5 expensive solutions to one expensive solution variety.

On the upside some of that work has clearly taken place. Already there are several federal government websites running on Drupal such as this Ministry of Public Works website, the NRCAN and DND intranet. Moreover, there are real efforts in the open source community to accommodate government. In the United States OpenPublic has fostered a version of Drupal designed for government’s needs.

Open source solutions have the added bonus of allowing you the option of using more local talent, which, if stimulus is part of the goal, would be wise. Also, any open source solutions fostered by the federal government could be picked up by the provinces, creating further savings to tax payers. As a bonus, you can also fire incompetent implementors, something that needs to happen a little more often in government IT.

2) More accountability

Ministers Ambrose and Clement are laser focused on finding savings – pretty much every ministry needs to find 5 or 10% savings across the board. I also know both speak passionately about managing tax payers dollars: “Canadians work hard for their money and expect our Government to manage taxpayers dollars responsibly, Shared Services Canada will have a mandate to streamline IT, save money, and end waste and duplication.”

Great. I agree. So one of Shared Service Canada’s first act should be to follow in the footsteps of another Vivek Kundra initiative and recreate his incredibly successful IT Dashboard. Indeed it was by using the dashboard Vivek was able to “cut the time in half to deliver meaningful [IT system] functionality and critical services, and reduced total budgeted [Federal government IT] costs by over $3 billion.” Now that some serious savings. It’s a great example of how transparency can drive effective organizational change.

And here’s the kicker. The White House open sourced the IT Dashboard (the code can be downloaded here). So while it will require some work adapting it, the software is there and a lot of the heavy work has been done. Again, if we are serious about this, the path forward is straightforward.

3) More open data

Speaking of transparency… one place shared services could really come in handy is creating some data warehouses for hosting critical government data sets (ideally in the cloud). I suspect there are a number of important datasets that are used by public servants across ministries, and so getting them on a robust platform that is accessible would make a lot of sense. This of course, would also be an ideal opportunity to engage in a massive open data project. It might be easier to create policy for making the data managed by Shared Service Canada “open.” Indeed, this blog post covers some of the reasons why now is the time to think about that issue.

So congratulations on the big move everyone and I hope these suggestions are helpful. Certainly we’ll be watching with interest – we can’t have a 21st century government unless we have 21st century infrastructure, and you’re now the group responsible for it.

It's the icing, not the cake: key lesson on open data for governments

13 Replies

At the 2010 GTEC conference I did a panel with David Strigel, the Program Manager of the Citywide Data Warehouse (CityDW) at the District of Columbia Government. During the introductory remarks David recounted the history of Washington DC’s journey to open data.

Interestingly, that journey began not with open data, but with an internal problem. Back around 2003 the city had a hypothesis that towing away abandoned cars would reduce crime rates in the immediate vicinity, thereby saving more money in the long term than the cost of towing. In order to access the program’s effectiveness city staff needed to “mash-up” longitudinal crime data against service request data – specifically, requests to remove abandoned cars. Alas, the data sets were managed by different departments, so this was tricky task. As a result the city’s IT department negotiated bilateral agreements with both departments to host their datasets in a single location. Thus the DC Data Warehouse was born.

Happily, the data demonstrated the program was cost effective. Building on this success the IT department began negotiating more bilateral agreements with different departments to host their data centrally. In return for giving up stewardship of the data the departments retained governance rights but reduced their costs and the IT group provided them with additional, more advanced, analytics. Over time the city’s data warehouse became vast. As a result, when DC decided to open up its data it was, relatively speaking, easy to do. The data was centrally located, was already being shared and used as a platform internally. Extending this platform externally (while not trivial) was a natural step.

In short, the deep problem that needed to solved wasn’t open data. Its was an information management. Getting the information management and governance policies right was essential for DC to move quickly. Moreover, this problem strikes at the heart of what it means to be government. Knowing what data you have, where it is, and under a governance structure that allows it to be shared internally (as well as externally) is a problem every government is going to face if it wants to be efficient, relevant and innovative in the 21st century. In other words, information management is the cake. Open data – which I believe is essential – is however the sweet icing you smother on top of that dense cake you’ve put in place.

Okay, with that said two points that flow from this.

First: Sometime, governments that “do” open data start off by focusing on the icing. The emphasis in on getting data out there, and then after the fact, figuring out governance model that will make sense. This is a viable strategy, but it does have real risks. When sharing data isn’t at the core function but rather a feature tacked on at the end, the policy and technical infrastructure may be pretty creaky. In addition, developers may not want to innovate on top of your data platform because they may (rightly) question the level of commitment. One reason DC’s data catalog works is because it has internal users. This gives the data stability and a sense of permanence. On the upside, the icing is politically sexier, so it may help marshal resources to help drive a broader rethink of data governance. Either way, at some point, you’ve got to tackle the cake, otherwise, things are going to get messy. Remember it took DC 7 years to develop its cake before it put icing on it. But that was making it from scratch. Today thanks to new services (armies of consultants on this), tools (eg. Socrata) and models (e.g. like Washington, DC) you can make that cake following a recipe and even use cake mix. As David Strigel pointed out, today, he could do it in a fraction of the time.

Second: More darkly, one lesson to draw from DC is that the capacity of a government to do open data may be a pretty good proxy for their ability to share information and coordinate across different departments. If your government can’t do open data in a relatively quick time period, it may mean they simply don’t have the infrastructure in place to share data internally all that effectively either. In a world where government productivity needs to rise in order to deal with budget deficits, that could be worrying.

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Category Archives: public service sector renewal

As Canada Searches for its Open Government Partnership Commitments: A Proposal

The State of Open Data 2011

Canada Joins the Open Government Partnership

Open Data and New Public Management

Design Matters: Looking at a Re-themed Bugzilla

Edmonton Heads for the Cloud

Workspace Edmonton

Sole Source Agreement

Recommendation:

Report Summary

Report

Benefits

Solution Assessments

Strategic Direction

Budget/Financial Implications

Risks

Shared IT Services across the Canadian Government – three opportunities

It's the icing, not the cake: key lesson on open data for governments