Tag Archives: public service sector renewal

The Three Laws of Open Government Data

Yesterday, at the Right To Know Week panel discussion – Conference for Parliamentarians: Transparency in the Digital Era – organized by the Office of the Information Commissioner I shared three laws for Open Government Data that I’d devised on the flight from Vancouver.

The Three Laws of Open Government Data:

If it can’t be spidered or indexed, it doesn’t exist

If it isn’t available in open and machine readable format, it can’t engage

If a legal framework doesn’t allow it to be repurposed, it doesn’t empower

To explain, (1) basically means: Can I find it? If Google (and/or other search engines) can’t find it, it essentially doesn’t exist for most citizens. So you’d better ensure that you are optimized to be crawled by all sorts of search engine spiders.

After I’ve found it, (2) notes that, to be useful, I need to be able to play with the data. Consequently, I need to be able to pull or download it in a useful format (e.g. an API, subscription feed, or a documented file). Citizens need data in a form that lets them mash it up with Google Maps or other data sets, or analyze in Excel. This is essentially the difference between VanMaps (look, but don’t play) and the Vancouver Data Portal, (look, take and play!). Citizens who can’t play with information are citizens who are disengaged/marginalized from the discussion.

Finally, even if I can find it and play with it, (3) highlights that I need a legal framework that allows me to share what I’ve created, to mobilize other citizens, provide a new service or just point out an interesting fact. This is the difference between Canada’s House of Parliament’s information (which, due to crown copyright, you can take, play with, but don’t you dare share or re-publish) and say, Whitehouse.gov which “pursuant to federal law, government-produced materials appearing on this site are not copyright protected.”

Find, Play and Share. That’s want we want.

Of course, a brief scan of the internet has revealed that others have also been thinking about this as well. There is this excellent 8 Principle of Open Government Data that are more detailed, and admittedly better, especially for a CIO level and lower conversation. But for talking to politicians (or Deputy Ministers or CEOs), like those in attendance during yesterday’s panel or, later that afternoon, the Speaker of the House, I found the simplicity of three resonated more strongly; it is a simpler list they can remember and demand.

Today: "right to know" panel for parliamentarians

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Today from 10am-12am EST I’ll be a panelist for Conference for Parliamentarians: Transparency in the Digital Era a panel convened by the Office of the Information Commissioner as part of Right to Know Week. Apparently the Canadian School of Public Service will provide access to this conference as part of its Armchair Discussions (www.righttoknow.ca).

Mapping Government 2.0 against the Hype Curve

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Last week Andrea DiMaio wrote an interesting post on how Government 2.0 may be approaching the peak of the hype cycle. I’d never seen the hype cycle before and it looked fun, so I thought it might be interesting to try to map where I believe some current Canadian government 2.0 projects, a few older technologies, and a few web 2.0 technologies in general, are against this chart from a government perspective.

My suspicion is that we haven’t even begun to dip into the Trough of Disillusionment with most true Web 2.0 government projects (GCPEDIA & GCConnex). However, I think governments have overcome their paranoia about facebook, but are still very wary… that said I’ve noticed some government ministries have started to use facebook as a communication tool with the public. Blogs however (which are perfectly okay for public servants to create internally) are still viewed with suspicion – internally they are almost never used. But then, heck, given the cluttered nature of most government website (and the fact that finding info is hard), I think it is clear that we are still working our way up the “Slope of Enlightenment” on this web 1.0 technology.

Those who’ve seen me speak know I much I love Arthur Schopenhauer‘s three stages of truth:

“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”

So I’ve also included how I think the three stages map against this chart too.

So in sum… in my view there is good news for Government 2.0 projects – visibility is still increasing. Unfortunately there is also some bad news: prepare for increased violent opposition…

Misunderstanding and understanding the Open Data Hype

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On Wednesday Gartner’s Andrea Dimaio wrote an interesting blog post entitled Open Data and Application Contests: Government 2.0 at the Peak of Inflated Expectations which Peter Smith nicely linked to the Gartner’s Hype Cycle graph from Wikipedia. I want to break his post down into three components. Two – the bad and the good, I’m going to talk about today – the third, which I’ll tackle on Monday involves some mapping and fun.

The Bad

As someone whose been thinking about and working on Open Data and Gov 2.0 for several years now three things struck me as problematic about Andrea’s post. Firstly, he misunderstands the point of open data. While many people – self-included- talk about how it can empower citizens, citizens will not be its primary beneficiary. The biggest user of open data portals is going to be government employees. Indeed, Tim Wilson reminded me the other day of our conversation with Jason Birch, the thought leader who made much of Nanaimo’s geo-data public, where he talked about how he wasn’t actually tasked with sharing data publicly – he was tasked with making the data available to other Nanaimo city employees. Sharing it with citizens was a (relatively) cost free addition. These projects aren’t about serving some techo-literati, it is about getting a city to first and foremost talk to itself – having it talk to its citizens is an important (and democracy expanding) benefit.

Second, was this unfortunate anecdote:

Yesterday I was discussing with a British client over lunch and he told me how the publication of data may lead to requests for more data (through the Freedom of Information Act), in a never-ending cycle of information gathering which is likely to cost a lot to both government and taxpayers. Another client observed (as I said in a previous post) that there is no way people will be able to tell to what extent a mash up on an application actually uses official, trusted government data.

Could government become swamped with data requests? Who knows, but in theory… it shouldn’t. Making data available should reduce the amount of time public servants spend responding to requests by diverting requests to open data portals. But let’s say Andrea’s concerns are valid and that, as a result of open data, citizens become more actively concerned and interested in how government works and thus Freedom of Information Act requests increase. The horror… citizens are interested in government! Citizens want to know how decisions are made! Remind me again… why is this a problem?

The real problem here isn’t access to data, it’s that the Freedom of Information Act process is itself broken. If open data creates a further demand for more transparent government and pushes us to foster better mechanisms for sharing government information, this is a good consequence. As for concerns that people might misrepresent public data, well a) people can already do this and we haven’t had a rash of bad applications, but even if they tried… people will stop using their service pretty quick.

Finally, another nice thing about public data is that it tends to get very clean, very quickly. My concern isn’t that government data will be misrepresented… I’m concerned that government data is already wrong and isn’t being verified. Knowing that someone might actually look at a data set is one of the most powerful incentives for organization to improve its collection. (Something Clay Shirky noted in a talk he made the other day at a Bioinformatics conference I’m at).

(There is of course, one group who may not see these a good consequences as it will change how they work: British public servant like Andrea’s client’s who raised the objections… but then they pay Gartner’s bills, not you.)

The Good

The end of Andrea Dimiao’s piece is where we find common ground. I agree that the Apps for Democracy competitions run the risk of limiting the definition of “the public” to citizen coders. We want broader participation – particularly once more complex data sets like budgets, procurement and crime data are released – from academics, citizens groups and NGOs. Here in Vancouver we’ve talked about focusing any Apps competition on the themes of homelessness, housing and the environment, since these have been the dominant concerns of citizens in recent years.

More importantly, I agree (and love) Dimiao’s concept of employee-centric government. Indeed, my chapter for Tim O’Reilly’s upcoming book on Open Government makes a parallel argument, that namely we should stop trying to teach an analogue government to talk to a digital public and instead focus on making government digital (ie. getting it “open,” networked and using web 2.0 internally) first.

And perhaps most importantly, I agree that government 2.0 risks being over-hyped. I still believe in the potential, but know that getting there is going to be a painful process (mind the gap!). Government 2.0 advocates should expect lots of resistance and adoption problems ahead – but then change is painful.

Articles I'm Digesting 10/09/2009

Here’s a few articles I’ve been reading that I’ve found particularly compelling.

Big Food vs. Big Insurance

by Michael Pollan (via David B.)

This great piece talks about the secondary impact of health care reform – namely that if US Health Insurance companies have to insure every American they will suddenly care a great deal more about what Americans eat, as this is a major driver of healthcare costs. Money quote (the one David B sent me that got me reading):

“But these rules may well be about to change — and, when it comes to reforming the American diet and food system, that step alone could be a game changer. Even under the weaker versions of health care reform now on offer, health insurers would be required to take everyone at the same rates, provide a standard level of coverage and keep people on their rolls regardless of their health. Terms like “pre-existing conditions” and “underwriting” would vanish from the health insurance rulebook — and, when they do, the relationship between the health insurance industry and the food industry will undergo a sea change… Suddenly, every can of soda or Happy Meal or chicken nugget on a school lunch menu will look like a threat to future profits.”

Here’s a great example of a leverage point, Pollan shows how healthcare reform will shift policy alliances, power and money in Washington and could allow for a long awaited (and needed) reform of food policy. It’s a fascinating analysis and it shows how strategically the Obama administration is thinking. They know that if they can win this battle – even with an imperfect bill – they will be gaining powerful allies for the next few battles. Brilliant.

Twitter: “pointless babble” or peripheral awareness + social grooming?

by Danah Boyd

A few weeks ago the Globe continued its war on social media by publishing this piece about how 40.55% of tweets are babble. It’s the kind of analysis that is so poorly constructed one doesn’t even know where to start in rebutting it. I’d been thinking for a while to write some coherent rebuttal, but fortunately Danah Boyd has already written it.

Open Government Data Principles

This is one of the best and simplest distillations of guiding principles around how governments should treat data that I have seen to date. Simple, concise, short yet comprehensive, these principles should hang on the CIO’s office wall in every government department or ministry around the world. As per their request I’m trying to think of ways to improve it, if I come upon any, I’ll blog about it.

Brand new old idea: The GoC Public Servant as Knowledge Worker

By Douglas Bastien

I remember when I had a contract with the Privy Council Office looking at young people in the Public Service and how they might network together, I took out a book that talked about managing knowledge workers in government and thinking how curious it was that few people in government saw themselves as Knowledge Workers. And yet, how government sees and manages its employees doesn’t always align with how knowledge workers would expect to be managed.

Doublas Bastien piece is bang on in its description of the problem. It is also a deeply depressing read. Depressing because one is forced to confront that so many of the challenges the knowledge economy, technology and social change would pose to government were identified a decades ago. Our government can predict and HR challenges, but when it comes to managing one… that’s a different story. But we shouldn’t be surprised, we don’t promote managers in government, we promote policy wonks, and so we don’t manage the problems, we issue policies to deal with it. Definitely read Douglas’ piece, and if you like it, consider going back into my archives and reading one of the post on Public Service Sector Renewal I’m most proud of.

Creating the Open Data Bargain in Cities

Embedded below is the talk I’ve given to both community hackers (at Open Web Vancouver) as well as City of Vancouver Staff regarding the opportunities and challenges around open data and the open motion. (Here’s an update on where Vancouver is at courtesy of some amazing work by city staff).

For those willing to brave through the presentation (or simply fast forward to the end) one piece I felt is most important is the talk’s last section which outlines what I term “The Bargain” in a reference to the informal contract Clay Shirky says exists between every Web 2.0 site and their users.

The bargain comes last, because it matters only if there is a promise (open and shared data) and a set of tools (applications languages) that are already working together. The bargain is also the most complex aspect of a functioning group, in part because it is the least explicit aspect and in part because it is the one the users have the biggest hand in creating, which means it can’t be completely determined in advance… A bargain helps clarify what you can expect of others and what they can expect of you.

– Clay Shirky in Here Comes Everybody (my italics, page 270)

I believe that in an open city, a similar bargain exists between a government and its citizens. To make open data a success and to engage the community a city must listen, engage, ask for help, and of course, fulfil its promise to open data as quickly as possible. But this bargain runs both ways. The city must to its part, but so, on the flip side, must the local tech community. They must participate, be patient (cities move slower than tech companies), offer help and, most importantly, make the data come alive for each other, policy makers and citizens through applications and shared analysis.

Creating a City That Thinks like the Web (Vancouver Remix)

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Articles I'm digesting 24/7/2009

Been a while since I’ve done one of these and I’ve got a lot of great pieces I’ve been reading. So let’s get to it.

Designs on Policy by Allison Arieff (via David B.) and TED Talk: Are we in Control of our own Decisions? by Dan Ariely

I keep hearing about the interaction between policy and design (most flatteringly an architecture professor said I had a designer’s mind” the other day) and so over the past few years I try (with some success) to read as much as I can about design. David B sent me the Arieff piece which, of course, weds my passion for public policy with design. One thing I like is the way the piece doesn’t try to boil the ocean – it doesn’t claim (like in other places) that good design will solve every problem – just that it will help mitigate against it. Most intriguing for me is this line:

“It feels weird to have to defend design’s importance, yet also completely necessary. The United Kingdom has had a policy in place since 1949; Japan since 1956. In countries like Finland, Sweden, South Korea and the Netherlands, design is a no-brainer, reflected by the impeccable elegance, usability and readability of everything in those countries from currency to airport signage.”

A design policy? How civilized. That’s something I could get behind – especially after listening to Dan Ariely’s TED talk which is downright frightening at moments given how susceptible our decisions are (and most disconcerting the decisions of our doctors, dates and who knows whose) to the layout/perception of the choice.

Lost in the Cloud by John Zittrain

A few months ago I was in Ottawa and – surprisingly and unplanned – ended up at a pub with Richard Stallman. I asked him what he thought of Cloud Computing (a term he believes is too vague to be helpful) but was nonetheless viscerally opposed to it. Many of the reasons he cites are covered by Zittrain in this thoughtful piece. The fact is, Cloud Computing (or whatever term you may wish to use) is very convenient and it carries with it huge privacy, security and access challenges. This is potentially the next big challenge for those of us who support and Open Internet – the possibility of the internet being segmented into a series of walled gardens controlled by those who run the cloud servers is real and must be thought through. If you care about public policy and/or are a geek, read this.

Is it Time to Get Rid of the Foreign Service Designation?

Am I reading my own articles? No. I am, however, absorbed by the fascinating and constructive conversation taking place – mostly involving public servants – in the comments section underneath. Here are just some snippets:

“For 8 years I worked at DFAIT, observing and participating in the culture within the walls of a building named after a diplomat that Wikipedia states “is generally considered among the most influential Canadians of the 20th century.” Sadly, the elitism (whether earned or not) is only the cause of a bigger problem; lack of desire to collaborate, and almost no desire to change in an era where the only constant is change.”

“…as I left the issue of the FS classification was quietly but passionately part of the watercooler discussion. From my perspective, in spite of a nasty AG report on the dismal state of affairs of HR at DFAIT, the department has more pressing problems, such as credibility with central agencies, a coherent sense of mission and talent attraction and retention.”

“I am also a bit puzzled by people who saw your piece as an attack on DFAIT – you’re advocating for human resource reform to improve the department, after all. I’m still not sure why you think DFAIT is required though, or why Canadian foreign policy suffers when departments forumulate it without involving DFAIT.”

“It’s good to see that even Craig Weichel, President of PAFSO, is open to your suggestion that it might be good to have more foreign service officers circulate through other government departments…”

Putting the Cart Before the Horse by Peter Cowan

A great blog post about the lessons from implementing social media in a government agency. Peter Cowan – an Open Everything alum – is part of the team at Natural Resources Canada team that has been doing amazing work (NRCan is one of the most forward looking ministries in the world in this regard). Peter’s piece focuses on misunderstanding the “business case” for social media and how it often trips up large government bureaucracies. This abbreviated but extended quote on why traditional IT business cases don’t work or aren’t necessary is filled with great thoughts and comments:

“They (Social Media tools) are simple and viral and they cost very little to implement so the traditional requirements for upfront business needs definition to control risk and guide investment are not as important. In fact it would take more time to write a proposal and business case than to just put something out there and see what happens.

More importantly though social media are fundamentally new technologies and the best way to understand their business value is to get them into the hands of the users and have them tell you. To a large degree this is what has happened with the NRCan Wiki. Most of the innovative uses of the wiki came from the employees experimenting. They have not come from a clearly articulated business needs analysis or business case done in advance.

In fact, determining business needs in advance of having a tool in hand may actually lead to status quo approaches and tools. There is the famous Henry Ford… quote goes something like “if I had asked people what they wanted in a car they would have said faster horses”. We social media folks usually deploy this quote to highlight the weakness of focusing too much on responding to people’s perceptions of their existing business needs as a determinant of technology solution since people invariably define their needs in terms of improving the way they are already doing things, not how things could be done in a fundamentally new way.

Genius.

Google’s Microsoft Moment by Anil Dash

A fantastic piece about how Google’s self-perception is causing it to make strategically unsound choices at the same time as its public perception may be radically shifting (from cute fuzzy Gizmo in to mean nasty Stripe). A thoughtful critique and a great read on how the growth and maturation of a company’s culture needs to match its economic growth. I’ve added Anil Dash to by must read blogs – he’s got lots of great content.

Open Cities – the Counter Reaction

The Washington Monthly has an interesting piece about how some bureaucracies are having a reactionary (but albeit unsurprising) reaction to open data initiatives. The article focuses on how the data used by one application, Stumble Safely “helps you find the best bars and a safe path to stumble home on” by mashing together DC Crime Data, DC Road Polygons, DC Liquor Licenses, DC Water, DC Parks, and DC Metro Stations.

However, arming citizens with precise knowledge doesn’t appear to make one group of people happy: The Washington, D.C. police department. As the article notes:

But a funny thing has happened since Eric Gundersen launched his application: Stumble Safely has become less useful, rather than more so. When you click on the gray and red crime-indicating dots that have appeared on the map in the past few months, you don’t get much information about what exactly happened—all you get is a terse, one-word description of the category of the incident (”assault,” or “theft”) and a time, with no details of whether it was a shootout or just a couple of kids punching each other in an alley.

This isn’t Gundersen’s fault—it’s the cops’. Because while Kundra and the open-data community were fans of opening up the city’s books, it turned out that the Metropolitan Police Department was not. Earlier this year, as apps like Stumble Safely grew in number and quality, the police stopped releasing the detailed incident reports—investigating officers’ write-ups of what happened—into the city’s data feed. The official reason for the change is concern over victims’ and suspects’ privacy. But considering that before the clampdown the reports were already being released with names and addresses redacted, it’s hard to believe that’s the real one. More likely, the idea of information traveling more or less unedited from cops’ keyboards to citizens’ computer screens made the brass skittish, and the department reacted the way bureaucracies usually do: it made public information harder to get. The imperatives of Government 2.0 were thwarted by the instincts of Government 1.0.

This is just one in a long list of ways that old-style government (1.0) is reacting against technology. The end result sadly however is that the action taken by the police doesn’t reduce crime, it just reduces the public’s confidence in the police force. This is just a small example of the next big debate that will take place at all levels of government: Will your government try to control information and services or will it develop trust by being both accountable and open to others building on its work? You can’t have it both ways and I suspect citizens – particularly creatives – are going to strongly prefer the latter.

This is a crosspost from my Open Cities Blog at CreativeClass.com

The Rat Pack of Public Service Sector Renewal

As many of you know I spend a lot of time thinking about public service sector renewal – that’s a wonkish term for renewing the public service. I do it because I think the public service is one of the most important institutions in the country since it affects everything we do, pretty much every day.

Over the past few years I’ve met more and more people who are equally passionate about this issue. Some I’ve met in person, others I’ve just chatted with by email. But, over the last 4 years I’ve watched a small group of bloggers – a rat pack of public service sector renewal – emerge. We’re scattered across the country and have come to from different angles but we all care about how our government is, how it should be, and how we can get to from the first place to the latter.

This is no easy task. I’m outside of government so it’s easier for me to speak truth to power. That’s why I’m so impressed with the other rat packers, in pursuit of making government better some have put their jobs on the line from time to time. I’d encourage you to go check our their blogs and give them a read.

The CPSR rat pack:

Me: as my readers know, my own thinking on public service sector renewal tends to focus on public policy development, and how it is going to be impacted by demographic change, technology, social media, networks and emergent systems.

Nick Charney’s blog CPSRenewal is one of the best blogs on public service sector renewal out there. Nick often does a weekly roundup of CPSR articles and blog posts, interviews with public servants and generally shares his thoughts.

Etienne Laliberte is one of the bravest public servants I know. A couple of years ago he wrote “An Inconvenient Renewal” in which shared his thoughts on renewal. Most important, his is probably the only document I’ve seen that treats renewal as a management problem, not a policy problem (something I’ve discussed in the past and intend to talk about again shortly). You can catch him at his blog as well.

A couple of other people I think of as being part of the Rat Pack include Peter Cowan – an OpenEverything alumnus – whose part of a team doing very interesting work with social media tools at Natural Resources Canada.

Thomas Kearney, who doesn’t blog, but is amazing nonetheless, has been a big part of the work behind GCPEDIA.

There’s Laura Wesley’s who’s got a great blog over at Results for Canadians: Measuring Success in Government. Nice to have someone concerned with how we measure success!

And finally there is the outspoken Douglas Bastien at Government of Canada 2.0, ready to tell it as it is and take no prisoners.

I know there are more people than just those I’ve mentioned, but these are the group I know and who’ve always been kind about letting an semi-outsider like me in. If you care about Canadian public service sector renewal (twitter hashtag #cpsr) then I hop you’ll add their RSS feeds to your reader.

PublicVoice Interview on "Open," Government and Citizen Engagement

A couple of weeks ago I was interviewed by Maclean’s columnist Scott Feschuk for PublicVoice.tv on what the rise of “open” systems and the continuing evolution of information technology will mean for the future of both government and citizen engagement.

Cleverly, they’ve kept these videos nice and short – it’s all designed to be short and punchy. There will be five 1-3 minute videos in a all and so far the first two have been posted. You can see them here and here.

Sadly, the lighting isn’t all that flattering… consider yourself warned.

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Tag Archives: public service sector renewal

The Three Laws of Open Government Data

Today: "right to know" panel for parliamentarians

Misunderstanding and understanding the Open Data Hype

Articles I'm Digesting 10/09/2009

Big Food vs. Big Insurance

Twitter: “pointless babble” or peripheral awareness + social grooming?

Open Government Data Principles

Brand new old idea: The GoC Public Servant as Knowledge Worker

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Creating the Open Data Bargain in Cities

Open Cities – the Counter Reaction

PublicVoice Interview on "Open," Government and Citizen Engagement