@Subbob: How possible is to have real meaty policy discussion within a gvmt internal wiki, given the possibility of leaks, which may lead to a scandal?

Short answer: Absolutely.
Longer answer: I actually think there are two different points you are raising - (a) can you have a substantive discussion in a wiki and (b) can you do (a) under the threat of a leak.
I think (a) on its own, is definitely doable. Indeed, it may be the best place to have a substantive discussion. It allows a diversity of actors (with the civil service - and possibly some invited from the outside?) to participate. The key is creating a culture where people explain the underlying logic of their arguments and avoid positional statements. Lots of stuff I can port in from the negotiation and collaboration theory space here. Take a look at my presentation "Community Management as the Core Competency of Open Source."

The threat of a leak increases the range of choices by which one leaks a document, but not the risk (in my opinion) stays the same. Did the installations of telephones in government employees offices increased the risk of leaks? I'd say it just lowered the transaction cost. But should we tear out the phones from government employees offices? Absolutely not. They need them to work. More importantly, as I shared on the conversation - I'm really disturbed by the unintended consequences of these decision to disallow tools cause of the risks of leaks: what does it say about the trust government has in its employees - and its ability to attract or retain top talent. (I talk about this point in more detail here, little bit about it again here.

Much like 3rd world leapfrogged 1st world in mobile, do you see the same thing happening with Gov2?

Super interesting question.

Short answer: Yes

Long answer... it is more complicated.

First, we are definitely straying on the edges of where I'm knowledgeable enough to talk about this, so take everything I say with grains of salt (of course you should approach everything I say, or anyone for that matter, with a healthy amount of skepticism). I think there is an opportunity to governments in developing countries to leap straight to Gov2. Indeed, some of the opportunities around fighting corruption (not have human tellers for many services, who sometimes demand to be bribed before helping) is driving this in places like India. Moreover, I think the cellphone network in Africa may drive some governments to build themselves around such networks, which could cause them to create themselves in networked as opposed to hierarchical manners.

I see two major obstacles. One structural, one cultural.

The structural challenge is the nature of how democratic systems do (and should work). The accountability model found in democracy often means that strong hierarchical lines of control extend out of the executive. This is even more the case in authoritarian regimes. My suspicion is that even though sometimes weak, emerging democracies or emerging markets have as much "unlearning" to do as we do in rethinking these models. Given they may be smaller this might be easier, but...

Never underestimate the culture challenges. For better or worse the Western World has held up its democracies and government institutions as "the model" against which others should measure themselves (and, we should collectively note, in many cases have tied our development funding to promoting that model). This means that rather than inventing something new, replicating what exists in the west has become the gold standard for democracy and governance. I suspect that in many cases replicating these models is actually the goal of many public services in emerging markets or developing democracies - so the barrier is that those on the ground and a goal that will likely steer them away from gov2.0.

Really tricky question that one... Would love to see what examples of gov2.0 exist on the ground in some emerging markets. What a wonderful opportunity.

What is state of knowledge capture in Canada crown agencies? Earliest SoMe projects in US included use of forums as pseudo-wikis for internal knowledge capture.

Great question and I confess I do not know (for those unfamiliar with the term a Crown Corporation is a company owned by the government but run independently - so, for example, Canada Post, would be a Crown Corp). If anyone knows of some projects in this space please comment or send me an email.

As some of you already know, one of today's talk is part of the online Gov 2.0 International Conference being hosted by O'Reilly Media. Last count I heard was that over 600 people had registered, so hopefully there will be a good turn out over the intertubes. It is free to attend so click on the link about to check it out.

As part of the lead up to the event I did the following interview on O'Reilly Radar, talking about where Canada is in terms of Open Government and Gov 2.0 as well as touching on some of the themes raised in my chapter "After the Collapse" that O'Reilly published in their recently released book: Open Government: Collaboration, Transparency, and Participation in Practice. Interviews like this are fun as they push my thinking - I hope you find it interesting.

On a related but separate note - C-FAX radio personality Murray Langdon interviewed me about my Globe and Mail GCPEDIA article. If you are in Victoria this morning you should be able to catch it.

Yesterday my friend John M. pointed me to hilarious this story, which describes how Lindsay Lohan is suing E*Trade for $100M (yes you read that right) because, her lawyers claim, the advertisement posted below:

violated Lohan's rights under New York state civil-rights law and used her "name and characterization" in business without paying her or getting her approval.

So first, yes the add is hilarious.

Second, I'm not really sure it has anything to do with Lohan.

But lastly and most oddly: why is it that Lindsay thinks the ad is modeled after her? Because of the term milkaholic (as in a baby version of "alcoholic"...)

I'm not sure that Lindsay and her lawyers want to make the case that every time someone uses her name in conjunction with a reference to a substance abuse problem this should be construed as a clear "characterization" of Lindsay Lohan. This is functionally conceding (in a case I can't imagine you'll win) that your personal brand is tied up with substance abuse.

It is a curious brand to want to stake out. And if she wins, a court will be acceding that Lindsay has joined the ranks of Madonna (associated with sex) or Oprah (associated with thoughtfulness) as Lindsay (associated with excessive alcohol consumption). Is that a brand battle you want to win?

But then maybe any publicity is better than no publicity...

Okay, back to our regularly scheduled programing tomorrow.

The piece can be found here:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/a-click-heard-across-the-public-service/article1493566/

A Click Heard Across the Public Service

Quietly, without fanfare, a small but powerful seismic shift took place in the public service last week. Against the roar of the budget, the rumblings around pension reform and the release of the Fourth Report of the Prime Minister’s Advisory Committee on the Public Service it went virtually unnoticed. But the long-term ramifications of this event could be more significant than the others.

So what happened?

The Clerk of the Privy Council Office – the most senior public servant in Canada – logged on to GCPEDIA, created a page and asked public servants to talk to him directly about renewing the bureaucracy. Although a simple act, it has deep significance. In an organization that has struggled with renewing itself for the 21st century, GCPEDIA represents this single most ambitious experiment for rethinking how the public service conducts its business. Like the now famous Wikipedia, GCPEDIA is a wiki: a collection of pages that any public servant can create or edit. But rather than serve as an encyclopedia, it serves as a creative space, a place where public servants can collaborate, share their work openly with others across government and gather a diversity of perspectives on the challenges and programs they work on.

In short, GCPEDIA and other similar platforms offer one of the government’s best opportunities to breakdown silos both within and across ministries.

And this is why it is so distrusted in some quarters. These technologies – increasingly commonplace in the private and non-profit sector for their capacity to improve efficiency and distribute information – challenge cultural norms and processes in hierarchical institutions. More subversive still, at least in a culture that sometimes identifies power with budget or headcount, GCPEDIA costs less than $1.5-million in staff time. It is hard to imagine a tool, service or technology made available to every public servant in Canada in the last decade that’s as affordable.

The arrival of these new social media tools is disruptive. Some public servants are keen users, others are confused and uncertain while still others – particularly managers – see the technology as a threat to their control over information. Consequently, while many – including many young public servants or ministries like Natural Resources – have embraced wikis and Wikipedia, others have directly forbidden their employees to share information or work on the platform.

The Clerk’s decision to use GCPEDIA is thus an important statement – one he intended to be heard across the public service. He is signaling to others, especially those in senior positions, to look closely at GCPEDIA and other new tools and encouraging them to experiment with how it might transform their work.

Like many public servants, the Clerk knows the status quo cannot continue. As William Eggers points out in his interview with Kathryn May, Canadians are increasingly disillusioned by the gap between what government promises and what it delivers. When asked to name major successful government projects over 90 per cent of public servants surveyed provided examples a decade old or more. Moreover, in a world where more and more activity takes place online an increasingly digital citizenry and workforce is not interested in engaging with, or being served by, an analogue government. If the public service is going to succeed in addressing large problems, or even just small ones that cross ministries, it needs to find new ways of working and collaborating internally. Indeed, it is hard to imagine that it will be able to retain good employees unless it gives them modern tools – tools they use for free at home – to do their job.

Battles over pensions, talk about the budget or reports about changing the public service will dominate the headlines, but a more profound debate is quietly taking place – one that will have far reaching consequences to both the future of our government and the country. The Clerk's mouse click does not end the debate, but it does signal that the leadership is increasingly interested in developing a 21st-century public service and one that is willing to engage in real experiments to achieve it.

For French Translation, please click on the “Play button” Below: Pour la traduction en français, cliquez sur le bouton “Play” ci-dessous

Called OpenGovWest will be taking place on March 26th and 27th. A number of interesting people will be in speaking and in attendance include Andrew Hoppin (New York State Senate’s CIO), Sabra Schneider (Webmaster, King County), Bill Schrier(CIO of Seattle) and David Hume, Executive Director, (Citizen Engagement).

There is also, at the moment, an early bird registration that last until March 10th with the discount code of 7gh9.

The conference will be taking place at Seattle City Hall (and will be the first time City Hall chambers will be used to host a conference - it is a beautiful room, which is a bonus...

Some other info for open data and open gov geeks like me...

• You can follow the conference on Twitter @opengovwest
• The conference hashtag is #ogw
• Sponsors who are interested can find out more about sponsoring here.
• Again, you can register here.

It is great to see a conference of this nature coming to the west coast. Big kudos to Sarah Schacht, the Director of Knowledge As Power, who has made this conference happen.

The conference will be running from noon-2:15 EST with an agenda I've copy and pasted from their website (might as well admit it!). The conference is free (hard to beat) but you'll still need to register, which you can do here.

Agenda

Beyond Borders: Improving Global Diplomacy and Citizen Empowerment with Gov 2.0 Speaker: Joel Whitaker, U.S. Institute of Peace

Joel Whitaker is Senior Advisor to the new Center of Innovation for Science, Technology and Peacebuilding at the US Institute of Peace in Washington, DC. Current projects include peace-gaming and simulations, climate change and conflict, mapping the Middle East blogosphere, science diplomacy in Iraq and Afghanistan, online media in Iraq, and mobile communication tools for conflict-zone NGOs.

Open Government in Canada Speaker: David Eaves, Centre for the Study of Democracy

In this overview of the state of open government in Canada, David will outline where there have been successes and where there have been challenges. He'll explain why this is the case and what it could mean for other jurisdictions.

Israel Gov 2.0: from Awareness to Implementation Speaker: Yaron Gamburg, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Gov 2.0 in Israel is still in its initial stage. There are many initiatives in different agencies, primarily in the central government. However, these initiatives are bottom-up developments, and we need strong sponsors at the senior level of the government to make a significant change.

U.K. Innovations in Gov 2.0 Speaker: Dominic Campbell, FutureGov

This talk will look at Britain's contribution to the Gov20 agenda, where it started from, who led it and why it took the election of Barack Obama 3000 miles away to spur the government into action.

Program subject to refinement. All talks are 30 minutes, with a 15 minute break at US-PST: 10:00am (US-EST: 1:00pm).

The entire conference will be recorded and made available to attendees free of charge afterwards.

The Bad:

On the rough side, I have a single high-level comment: These reports are likely to be as close as we are going to get in Canada to Australia's Government 2.0 Taskforce (on which I served as part of the international reference group) or Britain's Cabinet Office Power of Information Taskforce Report (which would have been tremendous to have been involved in).

To be clear, this is not the fault of the committee. Its terms of reference appear to be much broader. This has to predictable consequences. First, relatively little time is dedicated to the general reorganizing of society being prompted by the now 40 year old internet revolution is only carving out a small role. The committee is thus not able to dive into any detail on how the changing role of information in society, on open data, on the power of self-organization, or the rising power and influence of social media could and should re-shape the public service.

Second, much more time is dedicated to thinking about problems around HR and pay. These are important issues. However, since the vision of the public service remains broadly unchanged, my sense is the reforms, while sometimes large, are ultimately tweaks designed to ensure the continuation of the current model - not prompting a rethink (or the laying of groundwork) for a 21st century public service which will ultimately have to look different to stay relevant.

The best example of the implications of this limited scope can be found under the section "Staying Relevant and Connected." Here the report has two recommendations, including:

The Public Service must take full advantage of collaborative technologies to facilitate interaction with citizens, partners and stakeholders.

The Public Service should adopt a structured approach to tapping into broad-based external expertise. This includes collaboration and exchanges with universities, social policy organizations, think tanks, other levels of government and jurisdictions, private sector organizations and citizens.

These are good! They are also pretty vague and tame. This isn't so much renewal as it is a baseline for a functioning 20th century public service. More importantly, given some of the other pieces in the report these appear to be recommendations about how the government can engage in pretty traditional manners (exchanges). Moreover, they are externally focused. The main problem with the public service is that its members aren't even allowed to use collaborative technologies to interact among themselves so how can they possible be ask to collaborate externally? As I say in my OCAD lecture and my chapter in Open Government: Collaboration, Transparency, and Participation in Practice - a digital citizenry isn't interested in talking to an analogue government. The change required is first and foremost internal. But advocating for such a change is a major effort - one that will require significant culture and process change - which I haven't found so far in the report and which is probably beyond its scope.

The Good:

That said, when the report does talk about technology and/or collaboration - it broadly says the right things. For example, in the section Creating A Modern, Enabled Workplace the report says:

creating a workplace that will attract, retain and empower public servants to innovate, collaborate and be responsive to the public. Among other things, this must include the adoption of collaborative technologies that are increasingly widespread in other sectors.

And, perhaps more importantly, under the section Strengthening Policy Capacity: A Relevant and Connected Public Service the report states:

A public service operating in isolation runs the risk of becoming irrelevant. We believe that the quality of policy thinking must be enhanced by additional perspectives from citizens, stakeholders and experts from other jurisdictions and other sectors (e.g. business, academia, non-governmental organizations). We believe sound government policy should be shaped by a full range of perspectives, and policy makers must consistently reach beyond the National Capital Region for input and advice.

Furthermore, the Public Service now has an opportunity to engage Canadians, especially younger ones, through the use of Web 2.0 collaborative technologies such as wikis, blogs and social networking. These offer an excellent way for the Public Service to reach out and connect.

Again, great stuff. Although, my concerns from above should also be reiterated. A networked public service is one that will need new norms as it will function very differently. The task force has little to say about this (again because of their expansive purview and not through their own fault). But this issue must be addressed in full. I frequently argue that one reason public servants are so stressed is that they live double lives. They already live in a networked workplace and play by network rules in order to get their job done, however, they are perpetually told they live in a hierarchy and have to pretend they abide by that more traditional rule set. Double lives are always stressful...

The Hope:

As the committee moves forward it says it will:

...consider and advise on new business models for the Public Service with a view to creating an innovative and productive workforce that continues to deliver increasing value for money by taking advantage of new tools and technology;

I hope that open data, open systems and some of the ideas around a network government I've been advocating and talking about along with numerous others, get in front of the committee - these all represent building blocks for a significantly more flexible, innovative and product public service.

My sense is that, despite the grumblings of the UK press (which has some pretty good reasons to set the bar low), these Olympics will get good marks. Athletes got to venues on time, the infrastructure was able to handle the crowds and people had fun. For Canadians there were the added benefits of owning the podium working and, of course, a gold medal in hockey. Things did go wrong, but they were in largely beyond the control of the organizers (it would be great if we could make it snow or stop an El Nino but happily, we can't) or - in the case of the Olympic Cauldron - they were dealt with.

I had a number of wonderful experiences. I was able to be at the Canada-Russia game. I met a few athletes, even saw a few medalists - and was (very generously) given 5th row tickets to the men's hockey bronze medal games by Bryce Davidson. I held an Olympics torch, saw the Stanley Cup and got to see the fireworks display at LiveCity in Yaletown. Moreover, I get to ride the Canada Line - the subway to Richmond and the Airport that was built for the Olympics - almost everyday.

All this to say - I had a great time.

But having witnessed two weeks of Olympics I can help but feel there is an underlying challenge for the Olympics - one that emerges from the security concerns of a post-September 11th world and the Olympic Committees obsession with ensuring that only its sponsors are able to advertise, broadcast or even talk about the Olympics.

As technology improves the capacity of the Olympics to prevent people from broadcasting live from the Olympics is going to become increasingly challenging. The Olympics is maybe one of the best examples of an entire jurisdiction being controled so that - to paraphrase Lawrence Lessig - a legal structure, as opposed to technology, becomes the limit free speech and expression. Increasingly, truly free societies may begin to balk at the restrictions the IOC wishes to place not just on corporations but on citizens who are hosting the games. This is also true of the security required to host theses events. The Winter Olympics are relatively small and - security he was very present but not overwhelming. But only by post-September 11th standards. The fact is that, unlike in Calgary, today the venues are fenced off and secured - leaving the Olympics at times feeling a little more like a G20 event than a celebration. Or perhaps, to be more fair, there are really two Olympics - that going on behind the fence, and the rest taking place in the city.

In short, I begin to wonder how many communities - especially those within liberal democracies where individual rights are well established - are going to want to bid on the Olympics. Perhaps the biggest risk is that the IOC, in a bid to sustain its business model, will find itself increasingly having to partner with cities in countries with perhaps not the strongest human rights or democratic standards precisely because it is only those places that can enforce the rules (both in terms of safety and licensing) that that IOC will demand.

I think Vancouver avoided the security excesses people feared about but it isn't hard to see - looking at Vancouver - the dangerous direction the Olympics could be headed in. And that would be tragedy. Whatever people may say, the Olympics remain a powerful symbol for peace and global brotherhood. Moreover, if done right they can leave host cities with important legacy infrastructure projects (again - the Canada Line stands out). But if the business model of the Olympics mean that it must lock down the cities that host it the costs may simply become too high for most communities.

My sense is that a re-imagining of the Olympics business model is probably in order - one that will allow it to respond to the realities of a networked 21st century world and that re-balance safety concerns with the need to create an environment that is fun and open. Moreover, such a re-imagining would be a fantastic project - something that might revitalize the Olympics in other powerful ways - making it more open, accessible and inspiring, in short, an Olympics that is relevant and ready for the 21st century.

For those not familiar with OpenMRS (which I assume to be most of you) it is open-source, enterprise electronic medical record system platform specifically designed to respond to those actively building and managing health systems in the developing world. It's a project I'm endlessly excited about not only because of its potential to improve healthcare in developing and emerging markets, but also because of its longer-term potential to serve as a disruptive innovator in developed markets.

Having spent a few days at Regenstrief hanging out with the OpenMRS team, here are some take aways I have regarding where they are, and where - in my mind - they should consider heading and what are some of the key places they could focus on to get there.

Current State: Exiting Stealth Mode

Paul Biondich and Andrew Arenson point me to this article about Community Source vs. Open Source which has an interesting piece on open source projects that operate in "Stealth Mode"

It is possible to find models similar to community source within the open source environment. For example, some projects opt to launch in a so called 'stealth mode', that is, they operate as a truly open source development from inception, but restrict marketing information about the project during the early stages. This has the effect of permitting access to anyone who cares enough to discover the project, whilst at the same time allowing the initiating members to maintain a focus on early strategic objectives, rather than community development.

OpenMRS has grown in leaps and bounds and - I would argue - has managed to stay in stealth mode (even with the help of their friends at Google summer of code). But for OpenMRS to succeed it must exit stealth mode (a transition that has already been steadily gathering steam). By being more public it can attract more resources, access a broader development community and role out more implementations for patients around the world. But to succeed I suspect that a few things need to be in place.

Core Opportunities/Challenges:

1. Develop OpenMRS as a platform to push people towards cooperating (as opposed requiring collaboration) whenever possible.

One of the smartest things Firefox did was create add-ons. The innovation of add-ons accomplished two benefits. First, it allowed those working on the trunk of the Firefox code to continue to do their work without being distracted by as many feature requests from developers who had an idea they wanted to try out. Second, it increased the number of people who could take interest in Firefox, since now you could code up your own add-on cooperatively but independently, of the rest of the project.

With OpenMRS my sense is that then entire UI is a platform that others should be able to develop or build add-on's for. Indeed, the longer term business model that makes significant sense to me is to treat OpenMRS like Wordpress or Drupal. The underlying code is managed by a core open source community but installation, customization, skinning, widgets, etc... is done by a mix of actors from amateurs, to independent hackers and freelancers to larger design/dev organizations. The local business opportunities to support OpenMRS and, in short, create an IT industry in the developing world, are enormous.

2. Structural Change(s)

One consequence of treating OpenMRS as a platform is that the project needs to be very clear about what is "core" versus what is platform. My sense is that members of the Mozilla team does not spend a lot of time hacking on add-ons (unless they have proven so instrumental they are brought into the trunk). Looking at Wordpress the standard install theme is about as basic as one could expect. It would seem no one at Wordpress is wasting cycles developing nice themes to roll out with the software. There is a separate (thriving) community that can do that.

As a result, my sense is that OpenMRS should ensure that its front-end developers slowly begin to operate as a separate entity. One reason for this is that if they are too close to the trunk developers they may inadvertently prevent prevent the emergence of a community that would specialize in the installing and customizing of OpenMRS. More importantly, those working on the platform and those working on the trunk may have different interests, and so allowing that tension to emerge and learning how to manage it in the open will be healthy for the long term viability of the project as more and more people do front end work and share their concerns with trunk developers.

3. Stay Flexible by Engaging in Community Management/Engagement

One of the challenges that quickly emerges when one turns a software product into an innovation platform is that the interests of those working on the product and those developing on the platform can quickly divide. One often here's rumblings from the Drupal community about how drupal core developers often appear more interested in writing interesting/beautiful code than in making Drupal easier to use for businesses (core vs. platform!). Likewise, Firefox and Thunderbird also hear similar rumblings from add-on developers who worry about how new platforms (jetpack) might make old platforms (add-ons) obsolete. In a sense, people who build on platforms are inherently conservative. Change, even (or sometimes especially!) change that lowers barriers to entry means more work for them. They have to ensure that whatever they've built on top of the platform doesn't break when the platform changes. Conversely trunk developers can become enamored with change for change's sake - including features that offer marginal benefits but that disrupt huge ecosystems.

In my mind, managing these types of tension is essential for an open source project - particularly one involving medical records. Trunk developers will need to have A-level facilitation and engagement skills, capable of listening to platform developers and others, not be reactive or defensive, understand interests and work hard to mediate disputes - even disputes they are involved in. These inter-personal skills will be the grease that ensure the OpenMRS machine can keep innovating while understanding and serving the developer community that is building on top of it. The OpenMRS leadership will also have to take a strong lead in this area - setting expectations around how, and how quickly OpenMRS will evolve so that the developer ecosystem can plan accordingly. Clear expectations will do wonders for reducing tensions between disparate stakeholders.

4) Set the Culture in Place now

Given that OpenMRS is still emerging from Stealth mode, now is the time to imprint the culture with the DNA it will need to survive the coming growth. A clear social contract for participation, a code of community conduct and clearer mission statement that can be referenced during decisions will all be essential. I'm of course also interested in the tools we can role out that will help manage the community. Porting over to Trac the next generation of Diederik's bug-fix predicter, along with his flame monitor, are ways to give community the influence to have a check on poor behaviour and nudge people towards making better choices in resolving disputes.

5) Create and Share Data to Foster Markets

Finally, I think there is enormous opportunity for a IT industry - primarily located in the developing world - to emerge and support OpenMRS. My sense is that OpenMRS should do everything it can to encourage and foster such an industry.

Some ideas for doing this have been inspired by my work around open data. I think it is critical that OpenMRS start asking implementations to ping them once complete - and again whenever an upgrade is complete. This type of market data - anatomized - could help the demonstrate demand for services that already exists, as well as its rate of growth. Developers in underserved counties might realize there are market niches to be filled. In addition, I suspect that all of the OpenMRS implementations that have been completed that we don't know about represent a huge wealth of information. These are people who managed to install OpenMRS with no support and possibly - on the cheap. Understanding how they did and who was involved could yield important best practices as well as introduce us to prospective community members with a "can do" spirit and serious skills. I won't dive into too much detail here, but needless to say, I think anonymized but aggregated data provided for free by OpenMRS could spur further innovation and market growth.

Postscript

I'm sure there is lots to debate in the above text - I may have made some faulty assumptions along the way - so this should not be read as final or authoritative, mostly a contribution to what is an ongoing discussion at OpenMRS. Mostly I'm excited about where things are and where they are going, and the tremendous potential of OpenMRS.