Tag Archives: opengov

The Geopolitics of the Open Government Partnership: the beginning of Open vs. Closed

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Aside from one or two notable exceptions, there hasn’t been a ton of press about the Open Government Partnership (OGP). This is hardly surprising. The press likes to talk about corruption and bad government, people getting together to talk about actually address these things in far less sexy.

But even where good coverage exists analysts and journalists are, I think, misunderstanding the nature of the partnership and its broader implications should it take hold. Presently it is generally seen as a do good project, one that will help fight corruption and hopefully lead to some better governance (both of which I hope will be true). However, the Open Government Partnership isn’t just about doing good, it has real strategic and geopolitical purposes.

In fact, the OGP is, in part, about a 21st century containment strategy.

For those unfamiliar with 20th century containment, a brief refresher. Containment refers to a strategy outlined by a US diplomat – George Kennan – who while posted in Moscow wrote the famous The Long Telegram in which he outlined the need for a more aggressive policy to deal with an expansionist post-WWII Soviet Union. He argued that such a policy would need to seek to isolate the USSR politically and strategically, in part by positioning the United States as a example in the world that other countries would want to work with. While discussions of “containment” often focus on its military aspects and the eventual arms race, it was equally influential in prompting the ideological battle between the USA and USSR as they sought to demonstrate whose “system” was superior.

So I repeat. The OGP is part of a 21st century containment policy. And I’d go further, it is a effort to forge a new axis around which America specifically, and a broader democratic camp more generally, may seek to organize allies and rally its camp. It abandons the now outdated free-market/democratic vs. state-controlled/communist axis in favour of a more subtle, but more appropriate, open vs. closed.

The former axis makes little sense in a world where authoritarian governments often embrace (quasi) free-market to reign, and even have some of the basic the trappings of a democracy. The Open Government Partnership is part of an effort to redefine and shift the goal posts around what makes for a free-market democracy. Elections and a market place clearly no longer suffice and the OGP essentially sets a new bar in which a state must (in theory) allow itself to be transparent enough to provide its citizens with information (and thus power), in short: it is a state can’t simple have some of the trappings of a democracy, it must be democratic and open.

But that also leaves the larger question. Who is being contained? To find out that answer take a look at the list of OGP participants. And then consider who isn’t, and likely never could be, invited to the party.

OGP members Notably Absent
Albania
Azerbaijan
Brazil
Bulgaria
Canada
Chile
Colombia
Croatia
Czech Republic
Dominican Republic
El Salvador
Estonia
Georgia
Ghana
Guatemala
Honduras
Indonesia
Israel
Italy
Jordon
Kenya
Korea
Latvia
Liberia
Lithuania
Macedonia
Malta
Mexico
Moldova
Mongolia
Montenegro
Netherlands
Norway
Peru
Philippines
Romania
Slovak Republic
South Africa
Spain
Sweden
Tanzania
Turkey
Ukraine
United Kingdom
United States
Uruguay		 ChinaIran

Russia

Saudi Arabia

(Indeed much of the middle East)

Pakistan

*India is not part of the OGP but was involved in much of initial work and while it has withdrawn (for domestic political reasons) I suspect it will stay involved tangentially.

So first, what you have here is a group of countries that are broadly democratic. Indeed, if you were going to have a democratic caucus in the United Nations, it might look something like this (there are some players in that list that are struggling, but for them the OGP is another opportunity to consolidate and reinforce the gains they’ve made as well as push for new ones).

In this regards, the OGP should be seen as an effort by the United States and some allies to find some common ground as well as a philosophical touch point that not only separates them from rivals, but that makes their camp more attractive to deal with. It’s no trivial coincidence that on the day of the OGP launch the President announced the United States first fulfilled commitment would be its decision to join the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). The EITI commits the American oil, gas and mining companies to disclose payments made to foreign governments, which would make corruption much more difficult.

This is America essentially signalling to African people and their leaders – do business with us, and we will help prevent corruption in your country. We will let you know if officials get paid off by our corporations. The obvious counter point to this is… the Chinese won’t.

It’s also why Brazil is a co-chair, and the idea was prompted during a meeting with India. This is an effort to bring the most important BRIC countries into the fold.

But even outside the BRICs, the second thing you’ll notice about the list is the number of Latin American, and in particular African countries included. Between the OGP, the fact that the UK is making government transparency a criteria for its foreign aid, and that World Bank is increasingly moving in the same direction, the forces for “open” are laying out one path for development and aid in Africa. One that rewards governance and – ideally – creates opportunities for African citizens. Again, the obvious counter point is… the Chinese won’t.

It may sounds hard to believe but the OGP is much more than a simple pact designed to make heads of state look good. I believe it has real geopolitical aims and may be the first overt, ideological salvo in the what I believe will be the geopolitical axis of Open versus Closed. This is about finding ways to compete for the hearts and minds of the world in a way that China, Russia, Iran and others simple cannot. And, while I agree we can debate the “openness” of the various the signing countries, I like the idea of world in which states compete to be more open. We could do worse.

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.

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.

Edmonton Heads for the Cloud

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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

The Curious Case of Media Opposing Government Transparency

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My gosh there is a lot going on. Republicans – REPUBLICANS(!) who were in charge of America’s prison system are warning Canada not to follow the Conservatives plan on prisons, the Prime Minister has renamed the government, after himself and my friends at Samara had in Toronto the Guardian’s Emily Bell to talk wikileaks and data journalism (wish I could have been there).

It’s all very interesting… and there is a media story here in British Columbia that’s been brewing where a number of journalists have become upset about a government that has become “too” transparent.

It’s an important case as it highlights some of the tensions that will be emerging in different places as governments rethink how they share information.

The case involves BC Ferries, a crown corporation that runs ferries along critical routes around the province. For many years the company was not subject to the province’s Freedom of Information legislation. However, a few months ago the government stated the crown corporation would need to comply with the act. This has not pleased the corporation’s president.

To comply with the act BC Ferries has created an FOI tracker website on which it posts the text of FOI requests received. Once the records are processed they are posted online and some relevant listservs. As a result they can be read by an audience (that cares).

Broadly, journalists, are up in arms for two reasons. One bad, the other even worse.

The terrible reasons was raised by Chad Skelton (who’s a great reporter for whom I have a lot of respect and whose column should be read regularly).

Skelton argues that BC Ferries deserves part of the blame for stories with errors as the process lead news agencies to rush (carelessly) in order to beat each other in releasing the story. This is a disappointing position. It’s the news media’s job to get the facts right. (It’s also worth noting here that Skelton’s own media organizations did not make the mistakes in question). Claiming that BC Ferries is even partly responsible seems beyond problematic since they are in no way involved in the fact and error checking processes. We trust the media (and assess it) to get facts right in fast moving situations… why should this be different?

More interesting is the critique that this model of transparency undermines the ability of journalists to get a scoup and thus undermines the business model of traditional media.

What makes this so interesting is that is neither true nor, more importantly, relevant.

First, it’s not the job of government to support the business model of the media. The goal of government should be to be as transparent as possible about its operations. This can, and should, include its FOI requests. Indeed, one thing I like about this process is that an FOI request that is made but isn’t addressed starts to linger on the site – and that the organization can be held to account, publicly, for the delay. More importantly, however, I’m confident that the media will find new ways to exploit the process and that, while painful, new business models will emerge.

Second, the media is not the only user of FOI. It strikes me as problematic to expect that the FOI system should somehow be tailored to meet needs alone. Individuals, non-profits, businesses, opposition politicians and others all use the FOI process. Indeed, the policy strengthens many of these use cases since, as mentioned above,  delays in processing will be visible and open the organization up to greater pressure and scrutiny. Why are all the use cases of these other institutions somehow secondary to those of journalists and the media? Indeed, the most important use case – that of the citizen – is better served. Isn’t that the most important outcome?

Third, this form of transparency could make for better media. One of my favourite quotes (which I got via Tim O’Reilly) comes from Clayton Christensen in a 2005 Harvard Business Review article:

“When attractive profits disappear at one stage in the value chain because a product becomes modular and commoditized, the opportunity to earn attractive profits with proprietary products will usually emerge at an adjacent stage.”

So BC Ferries has effectively commoditized FOI requests. That simply means that value will shift elsewhere. One place it could shift to is analysis. And wouldn’t that be a good thing to have the media compete on? Rather than simply who got the fact fastest (a somewhat silly model in the age of the internet) readers instead started to reward the organization with the best insights? Indeed, it makes me think that on superficial issues, like say, the salary of an employee, it may be hard for one individual or organization to scoop another. But most often the value of these stories is also pretty low. On a more significant story, one that requires research and digging and a knowledge of the issue, it’s unclear that transparency around FOI requests will allow others to compete. More interestingly, some media organizations, now that they have access to all FOI requests, might start analyzing them for deeper more significant patterns or trends that might reveal more significant problems that the current scattered approach to FOI might never reveal.

What’s also been interesting is the reaction stories by journalists complaining about this issue have been received. It fits nicely in with the piece I wrote a while ago (and now published as part of a journalism textbook) about Journalism in an Open Era. The fact is, the public trust of opaque institutions is in decline – and the media is itself a pretty opaque institution. Consider these three separate comments people wrote after the stories I’ve linked to above:

“I wonder over the years how many nuggets of information reporters got through FOI but the public never heard about because they didn’t deem it “newsworthy”. Or worse, that it was newsworthy but didn’t follow their storyline.” (found here)

“And the media whining about losing scoops — well, tough beans. If they post it all online and give it to everyone, they are serving the public –the media isn’t the public, and never has been.” (found here)

“The media’s track record, in general, for owning up to its blunders continues to be abysmal. Front page screw-ups are fixed several days (or weeks) later with a little “setting it straight” box buried at the bottom of P. 2 — and you think that’s good enough. If the media were more open and honest about fixing its mistakes, I might cut you a little slack over the BC Ferries’ policy of making your life difficult. But whining about it is going to be counterproductive, as you can see from most of the comments so far.” (found here)

While some comments were supportive of the articles, the majority have not been. Suggesting that at the minimum that the public does not share the media’s view that this new policy is a “controversial.”

This is not, of course, to say that BC Ferries implemented its policy because it sought to do the right thing. I’m sure it’s president would love for their to be fewer requests and impede the efforts of journalists. I just happen to think he will fail. Dismally. More concerning is the fact that FOI requests are not archived on the site and are removed after a few months. This is what should get the media, the public and yes, the Information and Privacy Commissioner, up in arms.