Government 2.0: no change without culture shift

Australian Government 2.0 Taskforce member Martin Stewart-Weeks has put up a really good posting on the culture shift necessary to thrive in the Web 2.0 world. Martin’s posting revealed a deep knowledge of the societal issues involved in online engagement, issues that are far more challenging than designing or selecting Web 2.0 tools.

The challenges and opportunities outlined in Martin’s posting are challenges and opportunities for citizens and lobbyists as well as for public servants and policy makers. Here is a taste of what he had to say:

“As governments and the public sector start to do the same [get value from Web 2.0], they will encounter the same challenge as others have, which is that these new tools don’t just change structures and processes, they change behaviour as well. In order to thrive in this kind of world – connected, contingent, collaborative – you have to adopt a certain set of behaviours that are similarly open, interactive and engaged. The obvious conclusion is simple, but demanding – no change without culture shift.

This is the big challenge underlying the ability for governments to make the most of this new way of working and these new tools for democratic conversation. If they want to use them to improve the design of public services, to empower citizens to use information to create new services themselves or to harness more powerful combinations of knowledge and expertise for better policy, then they have to embrace the consequent shift of culture and behaviour too.

As it turns out, this is much harder than it sounds in the public sector, although it’s true that it’s turned out to be much harder in the corporate sector too (even though they might not always admit it). As the Issues Paper points out, we’ve spent quite some time defining what it is that constitutes the requisite behaviour from a public servant, including things like impartiality, balance, fairness and the absence of partisan political advocacy.

The problem, though, is that these definitions were shaped in a world fundamentally different to the one which ‘government 2.0’ is ushering in, including especially the speed with which issues emerge and change, the level of transparency about government thinking and activity and the complexity of the ideas and inputs now clamouring not just to be heard but to be influential.

Somehow we have to find a way for public servants to be able to engage with this world on terms that are both satisfying and safe. Assuming that the twin extremes of prohibition and unfettered licence are unlikely to work, we have to set about finding some new territory somewhere along that spectrum that is fit for purpose.

I have no idea where that point on the spectrum is. My inclination is to be more permissive than not. But perhaps more useful than any single attempt to pick the new sweet spot is to encourage a process of active and energetic experimentation that will get us closer to that outcome, and more quickly, than simply sitting around talking about it.”

Martin went on to say that “For the public sector too, the rising demand for innovation in policy development, program design and delivery and organisational practice is enabled, and sometimes accelerated, by the new tools themselves. In that sense, the rapid spread of use and influence by social networking technologies, and the habits of mind and culture that they reflect and reinforce, is becoming an inescapable feature of public innovation in its own right.”

I found Martin’s description of Web 2.0 to be a good supplement the Issues Paper released by the Taskforce earlier this month. Although the paper provided a good overview of the aim and benefits of Government 2.0, there was one sticking point for me. To say that “The central theme of Web 2.0 is moving away from point to point communications and towards many to many communication and collaboration” just does not sit right with me. For a start the term ‘point to point’ is a technical one and not explained in the paper. Point to point communication is defined by some as direct communication between two end points not using the internet (such as a two-way telephone call). And by others it is used in a broadcasting sense, say like radio communication between two fixed stations. As for me, the central theme of Web 2.0 is participation & interaction. Pure and simple.

Social media in government and enterprise

It’s been just over three weeks since my last blog post. What with being on vacation, visits from friends and deadlines at work, I’ve spent much of my time recently offline. I did spend some of that time reflecting on my increasing online activity level and on ways to get more leverage from it. And I’ve chilled out a little…I am just not worried about having 1000+ Google Reader items to action. More on that soon.

This posting covers some recent material on the actual and potential use of Web 2.0 applications such as social media tools by government (hence the ‘Government 2.0′ label) and business, and some insights into the Australian Government’s consideration of IT to enable continuous regulatory reform.

Social Media

In his speech to the e-Government Forum in May 2008, Lindsay Tanner (Minister for Finance and Deregulation) said that “the growth in recent times of collaborative platforms with potential application for government has been staggering…Web 2.0 platforms will have a dramatic impact on policymaking processes and the institutions of government”. Reference is made to an upcoming trial government consultation blog to “give the online citizen a chance to interact with the bureaucracy and make contributions to an area of government policy review”.

More recently, the Minister participated in an online forum ‘Better Regulation ‘ hosted by openforum.com.au (an independent & collaborative think tank hosted and moderated by Global Access Partners). I think it’s great that the Minister participated in such an open and informative way about the challenges of continuous regulatory reform and his interest in using Web 2.0 tools to experiment with crowd-sourcing (such as the use of wikis to aid the policy/regulation development process, including participation by government officials). Crowdsourcing – in the form of outsourcing – seems to be on a growth path in the SME sector as well.

Now on to the use of social media tools by business. Recent research in the UK (see Network Citizens by Peter Bradwell & Richard Reeves, Demos & Orange) into the relationship between social networking and organisational structures found that “the dynamics of the workplace are being reshaped [and that] the turbo charging of networks by certain forms of technological advance – in particular the rise of online ’social networking’ – is also clear”. In a more damning critique of institutional organisation (and partly in response to the global economic meltdown) Harvard University academic Umair Haque points to a deeper malaise – one of institutional decay. Haque claims that “the centuries-old institutions of orthodox capitalism cannot support the transition to a hyperconnected global economy” and consequently “are increasingly unable to allocate capital efficiently”. Haque goes on to proclaim that next-generation businesses are build on new DNA, or “new ways to organise and manage economic activities”. Social media tools provide the platforms for global hyperconnectivity…and apparently, a part of the new DNA of economic activity.

The Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) is hosting a half day seminar in December 2008 on Web 2.0 & Government. AGIMO intends to further disseminate information about the use of Web 2.0 applications and best practice in government at the seminar.

Less is more. Simplicity is the key

Great posting by Stan Schroeder in Mashable a couple of days ago – Why less is more and how to unlock the Web.Stan uses Twitter, FriendFeed, Google and WordPress as examples.

I’ll cover the last bit first. I agree with Stan: unlock the power of the Web and be influential in as many important networks as possible. I am new to Twitter (@conem) but so far, I’m really impressed with the scope and reach. To me, Twitter is more than a ‘one-to-many short message broadcast’. It’s a conversation. It’s about knowledge creation and knowledge sharing. It’s about sharing your life with others…which is a very powerful basic social need. It crosses organisational, geographic and cultural boundaries. Twitter’s track-record in emergencies is outstanding (Katrina, Sichuan).

The power of the Web lies also in it’s open, distributed and global connectivity, over multiple platforms and terminals. Opening up applications to the full distributive power of the Web is a no brainer.

Now for the ‘less is more’ bit. Enough has been said…by many, many people…about Google’s home page. There is a magic in simplicity.

Twitter is also really easy to use. I determine the level of my engagement with others. I am connecting with people that I may not have (or not very likely to have) otherwise. I can put up with the technical issues because the benefits outweigh the irritations. Remember, people used to put-up with brick-sized mobile phones, poor coverage and low battery-life.

And Twitter links to FriendFeed. I’ve just started with FriendFeed, but his looks to be very promising too. Easy to set up. FriendFeed may be the social networking/lifestream aggregator I’ve been waiting for…the inter-connections are amazing.

For application developers, Stan’s message is clear: create a service that meets a basic need in the simplest way possible, and open it up.

Consuming, producing, sharing through the cognitive surplus

Thanks to Tony at ABC Digital Futures, I’ve seen Clay Shirky’s talk at Web2.0 Explore. You can view the presentation at Calacanis.com.

Using his words, Clay’s insight was to understand that “when people are offered the opportunity to produce and share, they will do it”. The ‘Participative Web’ is that opportunity. Clay describes the migration of people from the TV set to the Web as being of comparable social and economic significance as the industrial revolution.

Some fascinating statistics come out in Clay’s presentation, such as Americans spending 200 billion hours each year watching TV. Imagine the social and economic possibilities if even one half of that time was spent producing and sharing via the Web – using the ‘cognitive surplus’ that has been untapped for many years.

Clay’s view about the inherent attraction to producing and sharing squares with my research on the participative web: that social needs (status, self-esteem, self expression, affiliation, and reciprocity) are increasing being met online.

Finally, Clay’s observation that “media targeted at you but that does not include you” – i.e traditional broadcasting – is on the outer.