1) This is a major not minor shift. It is kaikaiku (Japanese management’s radical shift prior to Kaizen continuous improvement). It is fundamental as in a new way of doing government, completely. Even though it is a major shift, fear should not dominate any longer. Why not? Because in many local and regional governments, and central governments especially in Western Europe, we have seen the alternative which is a wholesale loss in support.

2) The MODEL is the key. Sustainable business models leveraging the new thoughts on infrastructure will make this live. I am not interested in pushing an idea that simply gets adopted and then cast aside. I am interested in building entirely new roads. Scrap that, entirely new ways to move. When we hit the right business model, even if it is incredibly simple, we will have won. Look at Google. Advertising. Period. Drive all of their efforts to that model. Same will apply here and when we uncover it and embrace it, imagine what good can come of it (not to mention what growth).

After years of denial and in many cases active opposition from within departments and agencies, Governments are slowly waking up to the possibilities that new service models provide. I use the term ‘service models’ not delivery models intentionally, because this is not a transition of the old model onto new infrastructure, but a fundamentally new way of operating. Think about it as, AOL through dial-up vs. Facebook on an iPhone. The change is THIS significant.

Many of the companies pushing hardest for this change though are making one fundamental mistake. They are waiting for permission before putting their visions into action. What they need to do is show what is possible, start it, and ask to continue. In the best traditions of game-changers: do it, prove it, show it – not the other way around. Do NOT ask to do it. Too many companies have talked about what is possible, but not brought this to life. Build the services, keep them simple, show what is possible and engage people in using services. In the age of austerity, the challenge will also be to develop business models which require government making no capital outlays. The most successful company will not be the one that solves the technical, nor process challenges, but develops a workable and sustainable business model. Don’t focus the smart people on the APIs, focus them on how to make money whilst charging government as little as possible. That will always get an audience.

I also carry my thorns with blood and pride.

M

The way I approached the problematic: what’s the link? what’s common ground? what’s salient in all cases?
I wish I could say “and then it came to me” but it took *blush* decades. After years of banging around (MIL-SPEC tech_docs for avionics R&D helped some, in one area. And studying cog-psych helped too, in another area.) a whole flurry of factors came together.

We made decisions. That’s not a simple process, but it’s a finite set of factors.

“If it doesn’t really matter, then it’s /just/ news.”

@bentrem

I love uncaffeinated posts, they are usually the most brutally honest.

I have made the argument before that for any of this to work we must become post-political, or omni-political. I believe that #gov20 will serve best the party in opposition regardless of political affiliation. If Labor is in power, the conservatives should embrace. The same goes the other way around. The movement is about change of the status quo, not specific policy related outcomes. So the left can embrace it to clean up the environment. The right can embrace it to grow their economy. (not to oversimplify the political dialogue there, all of my business friends on the left can stand down now ).

This should not be a movement about ends but rather about efficient means. Waste on poorly thought our digital plans stops both left wing radicals and right wing fundamentalists equally. We need to approach gov20 as a way for duly elected and appointed leaders to fulfill their promises, not necessarily to advocated for specific policy outcomes.

It’s like they say about Christianity: the biggest problem with #Gov20 is its followers. Rarely have I seen such enormous opportunity so fraught with danger. With seven out of every three #Gov20 evangelists being to the left of Trotsky and sincerely believing that leaking any and all government information is cool, one can hardly blame politicians for not embracing such a humongous heatscore. Speaking of revolution and paraphrasing Lenin, the #Gov20 masses will not, in my opinion, rise above an immature rebellion for rebellion’s sake consciousness if left to their own devices; I propose that a cadre of professional adults infiltrate and overthrow the movement’s leadership, acting as a vanguard (not unlike the Bolshevik one) to lead the movement and save it from itself. I’m speaking mostly tongue in cheek and insufficiently caffeinated, but there you have it.

I think that it is indeed profitable for the private sector. It requires creativity and alternative business models, which we are seeing develop today.

Empowering citizens, as consumers, as a driving force in a private sector account, then the business folows. Windows entered the enterprise this way. Users told ICT managers to bring it in. The same will happen with Gov2.0.

Kinde regards.

sorry about the delay in getting this post approved (been fighting a spam attack and the travel right now made the delays worse).

your post is dead on. much of the future is unfolding now and will start to organize itself. and we have a huge opportunity now to make sure that political leadership understands the issues. we need to make it politically agnostic and i think we have a real chance to push that right now. Cameron is embracing some of our ideals, Obama obviously does, we have support from multiple parties around the world. we need to galvenzie that strength and, as you say, publicize the heck out of the early wins to get the fly wheel going.

I focus on building advocacy campaigns in my day job and, from that perspective, I actually think the gov 2.0 movement is great shape. The realities of our current economy, the advancement of technology and social networking tools, and political leadership at the federal level have combined to give the movement its start. Evangelists have clearly engaged.

The fact that data has been made available in usable formats and for free has allowed the initial opportunity to develop for the movement to begin inching to a tipping point–and I do believe it’s really just begun (as exciting as all of the progress has been). The more tools and shiny apps that are developed cost-effectively and that can improve people’s everyday lives the more quickly gov 2.0 will move beyond the evangelist stage and into the mainstream. To that extent, I think there should be some coordinated focus on areas that are likely to have a bigger impact on people, i.e. community health data.

I do worry about there being enough political leadership/courage at the state/local levels to push this process forward. Having politicians run on opengov platforms, publicize the progress, and speed the implementation once elected is huge–to me its the single largest need the movement has at present. Cuomo and Chafee’s victories are certainly a step in the right direction.

To me more politicians driving adoption leads to more citizens exposed to new applications of data in a way that doesn’t require large, initial public sector engagement. To me, what really catalyzes the movement long term is when we can translate the new apps, the more efficient government, and the new ideas that are generated into new investments in bread-and-butter policy issues. Opengov needs to one day equal more jobs, more roads, more school funding, etc. When that happens, the worry about larger investments in data infrastructure become moot. (Yes, we may need those investments just to reach this point of efficiency–certainly a fair counter-argument.)

And, FWIW, I don’t worry all that much about the citizen engagement issues. Engagement on opengov will likely be the same as it is for most policy/political issues: a smaller number of really engaged citizens will lead the effort supported by folks who are interested and willing to help around the edges. Technology will continue to make it easier for the slacktivist level folks to engage. I guess I don’t necessarily see why this model is detrimental to the ability of open gov to continue to flourish in the future.

Thanks for the thought provoking material!

Yes, the hype may die down. The catch words may fall from favour. But the activity will plug along. Because the essential drivers remain.

Society isn’t backing away from these tools. Whatever the privacy concerns may be around Facebook, it’s not shedding users. People aren’t leaving their online news sources and rushing to subscribe once again to paper newspapers. Govenments can’t ignore this and deliver on their missions, and they don’t really have any long-term incentives to do so. Demographic patterns will make the necessity of governments adapting to an increasingly online public ever more urgent. As the shift from “broadcast” to “online” increasingly gets people used to being more “participants in conversations” (as online broadcasting is accompanied by comment conversations – at the very least – as well as more value added tagging and other forms of participation) and less “passive viewers” (sitting in front of the TV and absorbing) we can expect this to be reflected in how people approach government. Similarly, as people continue to see the benefits of broad actual (or potential) participation in open platforms, be they Wikipedia or Google Maps, they are going to want to see those benefits from government, too.

On the government side, more and more governments are starting to levergage these tools internally, to improve collaboration and more effectively deliver on the demands they face. As the demographics change through retirement (there’s a big wave coming) and replacement, pressure to enable these tools for employees will increase. On the open data “government as a platform” side, fiscal pressures on government aren’t going to disappear any time soon. Governments are going to be looking to displace costs wherever they can and leveraging a society that increasingly wants to participate and contribute is going to look more and more attractive.

We don’t need leaders to plot and plan for this to happen. It’ll happen with or without them. That’s the way the wind is blowing. What we need is people ready to bend with the wind. To help point the vessel in the direction the wind wants to push it.

Or so it seems to me. Your mileage may vary.