All Politics REMAINS Local: Winter Warning to #gov20 and #opengov Politicians

Seattle 2.0: Can Government Officials Survive Another Winter Storm?

Seattle 2.0: Can Government Officials Survive Another Winter Storm?

I am from a great state in the middle part of the United States, Wisconsin.  It is a cold place.  It snows a lot.  I mean, a lot.  The city services to clear roads is incredible.  And when it is slow, even a little bit, the political repercussions are immediate.  You have to keep the roads clear.

I moved to Seattle.  They are not so familiar with snow here :) .  Last year we had a good sized storm.  Paralyzed the city.  Shut down schools.  Affected public safety.  And, arguably, cost the mayor his job.

We just got hit with another good sized snow storm.  The coverage has been good.  And so far the services have held up.  But as the Times reports, this is a big one and is shutting down schools and services.  So, it is a good time to remind folks that all politics is local and if we cant deliver services that our citizens expect, we can expect to be thrown out of office.

We are kicking off a great GovCamp in Portugal today and fully expect that the incredible speakers and elected officials will covers incredible topics like the economy and the environment, but I challenge them all to keep a close eye on their streets as they pull their way out of this recession.

And in case folks don’t see the connection between snow and open government, see the multiple instances of local councils tweeting their snow plow locations and routes, SMS solutions for weather warnings like the one we stood up in Jamaica to warn of hurricanes and multiple 311 systems including the City of Miami and San Francisco that now allow citizens to track their complaints directly.  These just touch the surface, what else is out there?

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Canada: Public Sector Advisory Council Tackles Shared Services and #gov20 and #opengov

Quebec Host to Great Government 2.0 Conversation

Quebec Host to Great Government 2.0 Conversation

I had the honor to speak in Quebec today at the Public Sector Advisory Council put on by The Conference Board in Canada.  It was a great opportunity to hear from and speak to leaders in the Canadian public sector in a way that generated great conversations and a great open struggle with pushing forward toward public sector progress.

We had a briefing from the Ministry of Economic Affairs on their leading of the Free Trade Agreement talks with the EU.  It was enlightening to see how the current economic situation has opened up the possibility for all countries to reseat themselves at the global economic table.  And it is a playbook for provinces and municipalities interested in getting more directly involved with trade negotiations.

Those talks emboldened the PSAC to consider challenging issues much more deeply and the result is a direct consultation with Jerry Mechling of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government on how to breakthrough with new thoughts on service delivery.  I challenged all of them to think of Government as a Platform and Open Government as a precedent for these types of efforts.

These offsites and conversations need to receive our message much more directly.  It was an interesting conversations with leaders who can make it happen.  And they were receptive at the thoughts and engaged in a great conversation on the viability of the ideas.

Merci.

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The Why: eParticipation and #opengov Creates Clarity in Representative Democracy

Creating an Efficient and Politically Congruent Government 2.0 Movement

Creating an Efficient and Politically Congruent Government 2.0 Movement

Andrea DiMaio posts a great critique of the Open Government and eParticipation movement in Europe (and presumably worldwide) writing from PEP-NET.  He brings up some points that need resolution, so we can avoid being involved in a self-supporting set of fantasies and rather be involved in a movement with concrete goals.

The issues break down into two main areas:

1)  The potential disenfranchisement of political elites, and

2)  The costs involved.

These are crucial issues.  As we move beyond folks not opposing the strategic use of ICT in Government to create better and more sustainable governance we need to address the realpolitik issues that surround our efforts and these are two very important ones.

The issue of political disenfranchisementis interesting.  I will put a pin in the discussion over direct democracy and whether citizens can be trusted to engage in political discourse on their own for right now and just assume, for the sake of argument, that we are focusing on extending the current representative democracy.  Having worked within one of those democracies for years, I can shed some light on one of the major problems that will be solved through open government and eParticipation efforts worldwide.

Many representative democracies become captured by interest groups who have a significant amount of organizational impact.  Sometimes this power gets exerted in such a way to actually distort the real insight these impact groups have into what the mass of people inside the society actually believe.  If only 2 percent of an MPs district actually favor gun control, but have an organizational impact such that the electoral impact cannot be ignored, the policy affect is a distortion of what would be predicted in the tenets of representative democracy.  Now, if data is widely made available, participation is encouraged and energized, a new possibility comes to the defense of political leaders.  In response to the political demands of these interest groups, they will now have the comfort of real data, real participation and a higher fidelity model of the needs and desires of ALL of their constituents, not just those who belong to powerful organizations.  So, instead of simply bowing to the power of these groups, political leaders could now be free to pursue the issues and positions that drove them to political involvement in the first place.  So, far from disenfranchisement, the eParticipation and Open Government movement could actually encourage the brave political leaders now and in the future to continue to stand on the side of their electorate.

The costs involvedwith transformation are important as well.  But the real question is how effective is our current investment mix.  There is certainly a need for governments to provide services in many cases.  But we are also involved with many things that dont make much sense and would work far better, and at a lower cost structure, if we treated the need for service delivery as a platform engagement.  So if we were to help governments with a framework for analyzing their entire enterprise of investments, and help them to decide when a platform is to be invested in, when a service is to be provided directly but that delivery is to be commoditized and when political input dictates delivery regardless of efficiency, then we would get to a balanced set of investments.  That balanced set of investments would include the ability to handle the increase in demand for services coupled with the decrease in tax bases.  So if we view cost with a total enterprise view, it could actually be reduced in a new world.

Thoughts?

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DoD Business Transformation Agency Closed – The Positive Side

DoD Sunsets Business Agility Group

DoD Sunsets Business Agility Group

My friend, Bill Bott, comments rightly about the shuttering of the US Department of Defense Business Transformation Agency.

It certainly sounds like folks like me would oppose such a move, but as Bill calls out in the piece, it is the design of the solution tht was the problem.  We were fighting the last war.  We structured a solution that was top-down in a bottom-up world.  When we could have simply had a few folks driving hard with a mission to create Government as a Platform, we funded a 300+ Million dollar organization that became a bureaucracy itself.

What we need to do is enable.  Enable citizens.  Enable non-profits.  Enable developers.  Enable you.

At the Department of State they designed the right solution.  Ross and Cohen can have a huge impact.  With simple hand held devices, a committed executive and a mission.

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USA: Election Day, Harbinger for Good #gov20 and #opengov progress?

Today is the mid-term election day in the USA.  Anticipated changes in the House of representatives and potentially our Senate.  Unsure how reliable those polls are.  The map above will give you an accurate view of what is actually in play (at least until election day, not sure the code will be active after that).

The question is, will the potential changes lead to advancement or retreat of the efforts of the Government 2.0 Movement?  It could go in either direction.  If a new breed of politician comes in, they may be interested in open government data as a platform to allow for a more sustainable government moving forward.  Or they may view technology as an albatross around the neck of government and take the misstep of throttling ICT expenditures.

Whether there is a change in the makeup of Congress or not, the movement depends upon each of us to take the responsibility our elves to push this agenda forward.  To speak passionately about the issues to everyone who will listen and strategically address newcomers to the arena so they understand the arguments and can formulate a new direction. 

New Governors will need playbooks (as will their CIO’s).  Mayor’s will need to have a 60-day plan to push toward a platform.  Policy advisers will need to know how to leverage ICT to balance their budgets.  Transition teams need candidates for positions (and we should provide some of our soldiers to that effort).

In every movement any shift in dynamic is an opportunity to move forward.  This is such an opportunity in the US.  And every election on the planet is the same if we are organized and ready to take on the challenge.

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