MLK in the Valley - Government2.0 requires sacrifice

I consider Martin Luther King a personal hero of mine.  As a child I didn’t always have the guidance I thought I needed, but luckily had a public library available and the ability to read the words of incredible leaders to give me some guidance in the way I considered the world and the way I would ultimately arrange my life.  MLK was a huge part of that and I consider his orientation every time I consider a new movement, a new direction or a new project.

So, how would MLK think about Government2.0?  Would he be concerned about the expenditure on technology instead of directly on people.  Would he be concerned about building platforms as opposed to direct aid?  I dont think so.  I believe he would embrace it, in particular the application of the Social Enterprise to Government.  Because, at its core, this new technology enables the true connection of individual spirits and souls in concerted activity with the ability to unlock the latent aspirations inside those fighting to pull themselves up in society.

As we connect we see people in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Bahrain, Iran and Syria embracing technology to unlock their souls.  And I have seen, heard and tweeted about friends in those areas standing up to regimes empowered only by a mobile device, rough video footage or the daring nature of a singular tweet to take down the repression of regimes with weapons with more direct consequence.  It is this type of action that makes me believe that MLK would embrace the social technology revolution in governments throughout the world.  When his revolution was effective we saw regimes move to suppress such conversations in their own societies.  Our social technologies in a civic context are working to liberate those voices, through technology, one ward at a time.

And in the United States we are seeing the same.  The civic conversation is happening in the cloud.  Tweets organized Occupy Wall Street.  The Tea Party embraces new modes of communication.  Labor Union’s have long leveraged social media to organize.  Voices are rising and modern governments in the States will realize that this is a huge opportunity here, as opposed to a threat.  The engagement of our citizens is something we have long needed, long lacked and long fought for.  A giant inside the United States has been awakened.  Our technology enables that voice.  And our government now has the call to respond, or step aside.

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I have long believed in bridges. No, not just to get me across lake Washington, but to shoot the gaps.

A long time ago, in law school, I had the honor of being taught labor law by an incredible thinker, scholar and doer, Jim Jones at the UW Law School. In awe I asked him how he brought the country from not understanding discrimination to embracing the civil rights act. His response? Bridges.

My family and career is full of visionaries I said to him. They see what needs to be done and I want my life to be about making that change real. But I meet resistance. Often.

He taught me I need to think of the change as a series of connected islands with bridges connecting us from today to the world as it should be. Utilize tools to achieve the small changes that add up to the revolution.

I lived that this week. Discussing change with leaders in my new company and then taking those learnings to great customers in New York. I was thrilled as I met no resistance and in fact engaged deeply in a bridging conversation. Could our approach bridge one of the toughest divides in public sector IT?

Yes it can. And yes we will. And my promises to dr. Jones can be fulfilled. Thank you Salesforce.

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In my career I have known some amazing public sector CIOs. As I return to a leadership position in global public sector at Salesforce, I want to pay things forward and embrace the new set of public sector technology leaders.

If we were to embrace a few state and local governments to work with deeply, in particular on the benefits of enabling their entire jurisdiction as a social enterprise, who would you think would be best? I have worked with large countries, global cities, tiny villages, water districts and others. All I want is suggested leaders in locations with great promise.

Nominations?

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Matt's Awesome Daugthers on Hallowed Ground 2011

I had a really long post planned (and may still post a diatribe at some point), but when I thought more about it, this need not be long.

I had an interesting year.  An organization that I care a great deal about, have my entire life, did its best to do me harm.  They not only failed, but as a result of their efforts they gave me the greatest gift I could have ever received.

I met my girls again last year.  All of them, my wife Kathleen, my daughters Emma and Madison.  I learned deeply who they are, who they like, what they hate, how they like breakfast, what travel they will do, what their dreams are, what makes them cry, what makes them laugh.  I learned a bit how to be a much better husband and father.  I learned to not just say I put them first, but to actually do it.  I learned how hard my wife’s “job” is (both the one that earns her money and the one that causes her heartburn).  I learned to listen and be there, more than to give out advice to them.  I learned to love each of them, in their own way and with an undying devotion.  And I learned that unbridled speed simply makes you miss the beauty of your life (regardless of the great but silly titles you might have).

So, despite the intentions of the organization that created what looked like a huge challenge, I need to thank them for giving me the greatest gift ever.

And as reference, I got to check a bunch of these items off the list this year and will target the remainder each day I wake up.  The post will make Dad’s cry, so be prepared.    http://www.fromdatestodiapers.com/50-rules-for-dads-of-daughters

Thank you all!

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We will be bringing the blog back to life this year. I know many of you contacted me earlier to present your ideas on this platform and now really is the time.
 
Send me a note and I would be glad to have you post as often as you have great content.  Send me a note at mattmiszewski@gmail.com. Or leave a comment on the blog, send me a note on Facebook, LinkedIn or twitter. 
 

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The New Social Enterprise Requires a New Social Contract #socialenterprise

I am thrilled to be a part of a true revolution in technology.  Not just a promised revolution, or a politically motivated talking point, but a real shift in how we perform computational tasks.  It presents us with an opportunity to not only build great new loosely coupled systems to solve increasingly complex problems, but also an opportunity to build a whole new set of structures and partnerships designed to support the stability of this new set of systems for the next few decades.  In short, we have the desire to build an entirely new set of social interactions and personal empowerment for citizens, employees and partners.

I want to be clear that I have little interest in building individual systems that last (that is how we continue to have 30 year old legacy systems crippling business processes).  What I want to be a part of is embracing a global infrastructure that will allow for agile development (and the responsibility to kill systems quickly) of solutions that solve business problems.  This new infrastructure is more than the often overused idea of a superhighway for information.  What I am talking about is more like the transformation at the world’s ports when they stopped using manual labor to load and unload ships in transit.  To accomplish this switch there was an amazing amount of structural change that needed to happen.

But without a new paradigm, social contract or partnership, this change would never have successfully increased the flow of global commerce.  We needed a public commitment to the goal of global efficiency and a private sector commitment to embrace the new change.  We needed to make sure that each of the ports adopted an open standard so that the new machinery wasn’t different in each port requiring costly one-off adaptation or constant change.

NOTE:  Two major assumptions that the world seems to have accepted:  The cloud is how we will deploy infrastructure, software, databases and platforms.  I will leave it to legacy companies to continue to argue for our customers to build and operate their own datacenters so that these vendors can continue to extort their pound of flesh.  The conversation is over and these are merely death throws.  They may continue for another 5 or so years, but ultimately they are scheduled to die.  The second assumption is that our dominant paradigm will be social computing as the accepted UI.  Just as Xerox, Apple and Microsoft brought us the revolution of multitasking and windows as  a way to interact with computational power, now Facebook, Salesforce, Google, LinkedIn and Twitter have brought a new UI to us all.  The difference is that this paradigm has been brought to us as an open paradigm and not a proprietary one that will be used to concentrate power and profit but will rather unleash the power of computing on the masses.  Profit will, and should, drive the development of these technologies but we will not be locked into terrible technology due to propriety.  We will rather be engaged in an open standard conversation, occurring globally and in the open.  Progress will happen as a result of advancing the paradigm through providing value, not lock-in.

Structures

There are several things that need to happen in terms of structural improvements.  Network Ubiquity and Openness is required.  Much as we demanded universal delivery of things like the postal service and telephone service in many countries, we need to ensure that there is universal availability of broadband.  The dominance of broadband in cities is great, but we need to empower economic growth everywhere.  The existence of that pipe will bring economic development.  It will spur the advancement of the Social UI.  Without it, we will be dependent on the thinking and innovation in cities, which may not be bad, but we may be missing out on incredible thinking and productivity that lies dormant in other areas.  We can build better.  Their is unlocked growth potential in the more difficult to cover regions of the world, unlocked simply because no pipe yet reaches them.  The success of a child in rural India should not depend on their distance from Mumbai, it should only be limited by their aspiration, ability and drive.

Open Sourced Hardware.  As we look at a device driven society, we need to enable innovation through massively available hardware platforms as we did with software.  The Internet of Things will be driven by masses of people innovating sensors, displays, robotics, cameras and more.  Arduino is a great start, and Raspberry Pi promises to be incredible,  but we need to have more organizations embracing the idea of open hardware platforms.  As IBM helped to validate Open Source we need large corporate entities realizing the value that will come from embracing hardware as a new frontier in future computing.

Inexpensive, Open, Public Touch Interfaces.  Massive investment, both public and private, in the development and quick deployment of public touch interfaces (and non-touch gesture interfaces) will drive the new computing world.  They must be public so that the market created for them is massive and drives adoption.  If it remains open from the beginning we will have much more innovation and will avoid the proprietary tax that had developed in the past and locked down the true productivity promised.  By enabling this, we will embrace fully, in a public way, the cloud as the answer to true ubiquitous computing.  As we provide public interfaces in ways that folks have embraced (touch) we will drive rapid and massive adoption, which in turn will drive the costs of such initiatives down while continuing to provide the needed margins to the private sector companies that will arise to build them.

Partnerships

The new thinking that would go along with a shift to a new paradigm gives us the opportunity to create new and stronger bonds in society.  A few things are needed to form those bonds.  A Vibrant Public Sector is a necessary precedent for success.  The debate about the existence of a public sector and its validity needs to end.  Inside public sector organizations they have been understanding their criticisms deeply.  They believe transparency in operations will be the most effective way to accomplish the needed changes.  With a transparent and efficient public sector (with a deep understanding of the term efficient in a public sector context) the focus can be on what citizens want most from their government.  It will result in a refocusing of resources on growth oriented ideas. First, government should effort to create platforms for service delivery as opposed to direct delivery whenever possible.  When that is not possible, direct delivery of services should be accomplished with as low a cost structure as possible to accomplish the public good.  This balancing act will require wide spread and crowdsourced engagement to be successful.  This refocusing of resources will allow for the development of needed technological infrastructure whenever needed to accomplish the public good.  So, resources for ubiquitous broadband deployment can be achieved at a mill rate that is accessible to the average taxpayer.  Public touch screens would allow for efficient public transportation increasing regional productivity in the same fashion while allowing the private sector to deliver the actual applications that enable it.  Government as a platform will allow us to achieve greater and more rapid growth and will allow us to repair our public sector trust issues.

The refocusing of resources in the public sector will allow for a more efficient capital structure for private sector firms.  An Efficient and Growing Private Sector is also a necessary precondition of success.  Removing infrastructure barriers that can now be funded in the public sphere, the private sector will have a platform to deploy on, which is open, allowing for growth in both domestic product as well as in public goods.  A virtuous cycle is created allowing public investment to drive instead of frustrate private sector growth and that private sector growth will similarly drive the unity and progress of the public sphere.  The growth in the private sector will also result in extensible product lines that benefit from public investment but no longer require it to flourish.  The development of efficient public transportation routing, for instance, can easily be adapted to private logistic company needs generating a multiplier effect in the market.

Global and Local Crowdsourced Governance will allow the public to stay engaged in growth initiatives.  Decisions will need to be made regarding what items are platform related or intended for direct service delivery.  Local decisions can be driven locally and the open processes will allow the input to be gathered and shared globally.  The aggregation of multitudes of local decisions and systems will allow for an elimination of duplication waste in multiple governments while the ongoing agile development cycles will renew opportunities for the private sector, freeing them from making profits reselling existing solutions and instead put their capital to work on new and never ending issues to place into the public platforms or private initiatives.

New Social Contract (Public/Private Agreement) – An end to the war between the public and private sectors is the only way for us to have renewed and sustainable economic and social growth.  We must sit down and discuss and decide on a New Social Contract.  Citizens must control and drive the discussions.  The best part:  we now have all the tools needed to make this happen.  We have strong representatives on the side of the public sector and the private sector.  We have tools that enable broad based and open and transparent collaboration by public crowds.  This may drive wide ranging changes, from entitlements to tax shelters, from the nature of local government to different taxation structures.  It may preserve an awful lot of what we have.  But the one thing that will be certain is that we will all engage in a conversation about what we want, what we need and the future we want to build.  By driving this discussion to surround economic and social growth at the same time, we will be building a future we have consensus around and which will build a world our children can be proud to inherit.

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Join the Cloud Revolution at Salesforce.com #gov20 #opengov

As many of you know, I now work for an incredible company, Salesforce.com.  One of the best parts about being a part of their revolution is that during this continued economic downtown, we are growing and continue to hire incredibly talented people.  So, for any of you that may have reached out to me during 2011 about coming aboard, I apologize for not being able to respond to you.  That time is now over and I am happy to discuss all of the incredible opportunities at SFDC.  Go to salesforce.com/careers or just shoot me a note. We are growing in every department so regardless of how you are connected to me, take a look and lets get you on the right team.

Imagine working for a company that is intent on changing the world.  We have already changed the technology landscape and now are fully embracing the social enterprise revolution.  Imagine being a part of the fight to bring social technology to the public square.   Those limits you feel, in your legacy company, with infighting all around, stock prices going nowhere, benefits being cut can all be removed.  Come, join our revolution.

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T20 Ministers Meeting Incredible Success for Government 2.0

I was heartened to hear during my keynote (goto Login Tourism Speakers) and after at the T20 Meeting in Buyeo, Korea, that nations are taking technology adoption to a new level and will continue to drive it from within their national and local tourism bodies.

The Korean organization was particularly aggressive in pursuing new technology adoption to accomplish a number of tasks:

1)  They have decided specifically to drive Government as a Platform and understand that without it the level of investment will be insufficient to support the tourism industry.  They leverage public-private partnerships in ways I have only dreamed of.  Charm Lee, in leading the tourism organizations for the nation is doing an amazing job.

2)  They applications are forward thinking and full of rich media interactions.  In this app, Korea is far ahead of the rest of the world in brand exploitation, sticky web app penetration and thought leadership.  Create your own personalize itinerary based upon your feedback during an interactive movie?  Brilliant.

And the audience attracted by this event was impressive.  from members of the European Commission, to tourism leaders from nearly every major country on the planet, to the UN, the T20 meeting was an incredible success.

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Silence can be a message, what if #ows embraced the 4thPlinth ideal?

The #soc5 this week is really #soc1.  I want to highlight some incredible public art that embraces the Social Enterprise ethic.  The One & Other Project by Anthony Gormley in 2009 in the UK really exemplifies the magic that can happen when the Social Enterprise is unveiled.  While it was a 2009 effort, the residue remains online today in significant ways and the current “Occupy” efforts could learn a great deal about how to organize a global resistance movement in a way that embraces their powerful message without the dilution of violence or active challenging resistance.

The project was incredible.  It was a public art project held on the 4th plinth of Trafalgar Square.  Citizens could apply to spend an hour on top of the plinth and they would rotate continually for 100 days in 2009.  They did so in wind, rain and worse and the output was watched by the world.  The interest was immense.  They received over 35,000 applications and over 2400 people took part for their hour of fame.  Flickr and YouTube were active during the event and remain active today.  A community built up over the hashtag #fourthplinth and the experience became a great example of spontaneous organization which creates its own momentum and generates its own organization.

This project highlights the possibilities and the challenges in the social enterprise.  It certainly entails a small amount of risk to the creator or sponsor.  They need to give up the current illusion of control of information in any real sense and enable a democratized version of control.  But the benefits are there too.  By eliminating control techniques, the unseen value beforehand is uncovered.  Much of the presentation was unanticipated.  While some was surely frivolous, some of it was unexpectedly impactful.  And that is the value.  The benefits of the social enterprise are sometimes unseen going in but indisputable coming out.  By accepting the small risk it becomes asymmetrical and the payoff becomes obvious.

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Social Enterprise Revolution #soc5

I see incredible examples of social enterprises every day.  Both at my job and on the run, the corporate world has not only caught on, but are actively working the social opportunities out there.  Some are good, some are great, a few don’t even come close, but nearly all of them are trying.  I hope to be able to keep the #soc5 coming as often as possible but no less than once per week.  A quick look will show you what is going on out there.  Take what applies to your own enterprise and make your social world shine!

As background recall that the Social Enterprise is an organization that has figured out how to leverage social media to accomplish its strategic goals.  These can be any type of goals be they public, private, non-profit, local, etc.  I will focus on some of the more innovative ones out there, but they need not be new, but should simply push forward your goals.

Submitting them.  You can submit me any ideas you have.  Email me your thoughts, let me know what the organization is, what their goals are and how they leveraged the Social Enterprise.  Its that simple.  The criteria.  Dunno.  Basically, this is my analysis of the effectiveness and innovation in the ideas.  How well they are deployed may be taken into account as well.  Not sure yet

So, bring them on.  For now, I will give an example.

Burberry

Angela Ahrends, Burberry CEO, clearly gets the social enterprise.  Not just in theory (although she clearly understands that) but in practice.  She has stated that she does not understand what any company’s business model is in 5 years if it does not embrace social.  It is vital for a company’s chief executive to get it like she does.  But, she doesnt just get it in principle.  Check out burberry.com and get the Burberry image streaming through your devices.  Her leverage of sound, video, imagery to support her brand is magical.  Check out the artofthetrench tab and you will hear it and see it.  Note the tight integration with Facebook and ability to “Upload your trench” directly.  She leveraged Twitter to pre-launch her Runway Collection prior to the show.  Burberry gets that this isnt about simply being on social media it is about deep engagement.  Best example I can think of a Social Enterprise today.

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As most of you know I am now SVP of Global and Strategic Accounts for Salesforce. I absolutely love the position as it puts our company at the forefront of radical and sometimes wrenching business process changes for our commercial customers. The dynamic involved is very familiar as I have been preaching about change for decades now and this gives me an incredible platform for which to continue those conversations.

The only slight change is that my focus is the board room and not an electeds office. It is a slight change only because the nature of the shift is the same. As they found out at Netflix and Bank of America, if you don’t listen to the constituents you will lose. Similar lessons in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and soon Syria. The parallels between the public sector and the commercial sector couldn’t be more obvious today. I am proud to be part of an organization preaching about the ability of all of us to embrace that change. To make it happen. To better the bottom line, to grow our economy and to bring our business much close to our customer.

I will be posting now from my own blog, FixingPotholes, without changing the name. The idea remains the same. Pay attention to stakeholder demands. Fix the small issues as they can quickly become large issues. And leverage the cloud as e best possible tool to make the social revolution one in which your customers benefit directly from your involvement.

Thank you all for sticking with me this year and for sticking with me through a much larger revolution in front of us all. As we bring our global economy out of the spiral it finds itself in. As we work as one globe to grow local and national economies. As we bring our customs intimately closer to our business. And we do so at the speed of light.

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Bank of America Protest

The influence of customers has always been impactful, but never before has it held such immediate returns or distractions in the corporate world.  While companies have long paid lip service to the idea that their corporate world, and strategies, revolved around customers, today the immediacy of social media has called their bluffs in very real ways.

Netflix found out the hard way that customer’s buying preferences and their need to be a part of corporate pricing and offering decisions were far more important than in the past.  In years past, major industrial shifts would be heralded by pricing or offering changes that reflected the latest technologies or industrial approaches.  And while the move to streaming was clearly demonstrated, the pricing changes that were summarily handed out were simply not addressed the way modern media requires.  And a deeper understanding of their customers would have saved the company much public relations troubles and ultimate customer attrition.

Bank of America also stepped into a new world of customer hurt this year when they announced new bank fees for services that customers have long considered a free service and that they considered sufficiently divorced from the company’s costs that a charge was unsupportable.  When they made the move online protest sprung up immediately and ultimately they reversed the policy change.  One customer in particular, Molly, spurred much of the change.

Neither of these moves were large divergences from the way the business world had always worked.  A change in the external environment pushed corporate executives to consider alternative structures for their business and they announced the changes.  The problem wasnt the change itself.  The problem was how it was arrived at and how involved the customers were in the discussion, decision and implementation.  The idea that enterprises have no real way to truly understand their customers is a fallacy.  And the tools that make the analysis possible are also the weapon that shot Netflix and BofA.

If there is one thing that the new Social Enterprise thinking has brought to bear it is that a solid understanding of your customer is no longer an item that is simply “nice to have”.  Rather, it is a necessity in the new world of work.  Imagine a different scenario:

Either of these companies would have had deep Customer and Employee Social Networks in existence so that they could get instant feedback through their entirely democratized corporate structure.  This would have allowed them to receive instant feedback from thousands of users of the service that have a direct stake in the company’s success.  This feedback would have considered the internally understood industrial changes that the companies found themselves in the midst of.  They could have tested waters early in the safety of their corporate firewall.

When they found acceptable and sharable alternatives they could have then extended their efforts by involving their customers and partners directly in the conversations about change.  They could have activated customer groups with an interest in their current services.  They could have included partners in their pricing conversations.  They could have received feedback directly from these stakeholder groups PRIOR to announcing anything.  They could have reconsidered hot topics and included augmented strategies so that they strengthened the partner ecosystem and customer communities rather than destroying them.

The tools to accomplish this already exist.  It would have been calculated risk taking and would have paid off in droves either in avoided costs, increased revenue or both.  The thought that customer intimacy is simply a “nice to have” is absolutely over.  These corporate examples herald a new era.  Welcome the Social Enterprise or die in its wake.

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Government 2.0 as Rebellion or Revolution?

I am re-reading, again, Albert Camus’ “The Rebel“.  I’m packing it with me during the next month or so of travel to many corners of the world.  Strangely, I find solace and hope in a man’s thoughts who are sometimes seen as critical of meaning in life, and I concur with others who say he is deeply hopeful and celebratory of happiness and joy.

At the same time I am reading “The Art of Community” by Jono Bacon.  The connections are interesting and as many of you know, I do find compelling meaning in connections from different authors across multiple time periods.  This is one such case for Camus, Bacon and our Government 2.0 Community.

Camus makes an interesting point about rebellion and revolution in the book.  I am not sure I completely agree with his conclusions, but his analysis is interesting when you think about the current debates about Government 2.0.  His point, at least one of them, is that rebellion is an act that does not necessarily have an end goal in mind but is rather an act of passion built up after living in an unacceptable condition for a long period of time.  He points to slavery and ultimate rebellion as an example.  At the point of initial rebellion the activity is a reaction to unjust activity that had been tolerated for too long and as such is absolute and filled with emotion.  While ultimately this becomes an absolute position, it starts with a spark of highly emotional retort.  Which is where I find our Government 2.0 movement today.

He juxtaposes rebellion with revolution.  He places calculated planning and goal orientation squarely on the revolutionary and notably absent from the rebel.  His point about revolution always leading to tyranny is connected to the times in which he wrote.  I am not certain I subscribe to his conclusions but they are worth consideration as we start to deal with the concerns that our movement has no concrete goals, KPIs, measurement or end state.  While the rebellion cannot have a connection to its end state, revolutions do.  Revolutions are meant to replace dominant paradigms, not simply rebel against them.  We certainly need to protect against the potential of tyranny as part of our goal set, but the mood of the community right now seems to be turning toward a need for more ultimate structure, so that we know when we have won (we will see the artifacts we desire – Government as a Platform).

So, what is the connection between Camus and Bacon?  Good question…

In “The Art of Community”, Bacon pens a great point, “There is an important connection here in which imagination and opportunity are close friends.  Imagination offers the mind a vision of how things could be.  If there is a viable path toward this future, we build a sense of opportunity.  If there is no viable path, we enter the world of fantasy.”  I see our current endeavors dominated by imagination.  Folks creating the new world in their heads and talking about it.  Painting incredible pictures of what we could accomplish.  The opportunity side of things is starting to spring up now too, which is great.  As part of that cycle some will succeed, some will fail, at exploiting that opportunity.  We need to be accepting of that cycle and continue to be accepting of both our imagineers and our opportunity seekers as both are necessary to create a true open government revolution instead of simple rebellion.  As some of us paint the picture of the future, others must *show* that there is  viable path.

This is the resolution of the “too much talk, not enough doing” challenge we have been discussing.  We need to have both.  Don’t get me wrong, I do favor the doing side myself (a la Cypherpunks Write Code).  But I deeply understand, respect, and, when I give speeches, channel the imagination side of things.  If we embrace both, we will succeed in building the foundations of a great and global society.  If we fail, it may only be fantasy.

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Rebellion abounds today, how can Government's capture the passion and sustain the movements?

I wrote this piece earlier this Summer for the Lower House of Congress in Mexico in anticipation of my publishing deal for my upcoming book, “Rebel Technology”.  I wanted to publish it again given the events in Libya and what will potentially be ongoing events in Syria, Myanmar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere as the Arab Spring becomes a Global Renewal.  This is given away as a free chapter of the upcoming book.

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Navy iPad?

Apparently the Navy will allow iPhone, iPad and Android devices to be utilized on their unclassified networks.

Not all that unusual in a normal private sector CIO’s world, but when it starts to hit parts of DoD, then folks have to call it a solid trend line.  The consumerization of the ICT landscape has been developing for years, but now the opening in the most secure agencies in the world could allow for much further development and deployment of government oriented mobile technology.  Of particular interest is the mention of a potential Navy App Store.

Go Navy!

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African eGovernment including Libya

The fine folks at FutureGov (not Dom’s FutureGov) wrote today about Korea’s plans to help out the East African Community (EAC) in their search for better government service through leveraging technology.  It is good to see this kind of international cooperation and reuniting of the global eGovernment nation.

As an executive obsessed at times with global cooperation and technology issues I have seen the benefit of these kinds of arrangements.  When countries take advice from other countries they admire, the outcomes can be incredible.  I have connected Singapore and NATO in the past, China and Russia as well as odd combinations including the EU and Indonesia.  Each time the outcomes were incredible and the benefits to the citizens of both countries significant.

I believe that the issues governments have in common far outweigh our differences.  We have accepted and acceptable solutions that have been deployed across the globe and when we are each able to take advice from different places as well as offering it in places we wouldnt often think to, we see great things happen.

In particular, as Libya nd the rest of the Middle East/North Africa continue to rise, the opportunity may be enormous.  I would ask that each of you think to adopt an area of a newly formed or reformed country to adopt and offer assistance.  Whether it is National/Central government or municipal services, each of us has some expertise that we can share. And what I have seen shows me we learn far more than we teach.  Keep that in mind.

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Government Technology the Solution to the Troubles #gov20

The fine folks at GovTech have covered the change advocates in the Obama Administration’s IT function.  It is a telling story, but one that I have heard before.  Only this time the environment has changed, and radically so.  There remain the advocates, the detractors, the followers and the trapped.  But the world around the issues have been fundamentally altered.

Can the change happen this time?  Yes.

Change requires motivation and ability

The motivation surrounds us.  This time it goes well beyond the rhetoric of waste elimination.  Often this rhetoric was coupled with a far off threat of public sector job losses.  In state’s with strong unions or civil services this was often empty and worked against the motivation of staff to change.  But events in Wisconsin, Ohio and other states have shown an inability to defend the civil service protections that sheltered this motivation.  And the Federal Government is not immune either as politicians have threatened federal employee jobs including an initial silence when the FAA civil servants were put out of work.  This lack of protection certainly helps to motivate the embrace of change inside government.

On top of that, motivation is obviously increased due to the large scale warfare happening with regard to our Federal Budget and spending issues surrounding it.  When a threat to the debt ceiling is made real, we have a very real reason to take change very seriously.  It is not simply a headcount at risk here or there, or the delay in a project, it is now a real risk to the entire global economy.

So, motivation is very well present like never before.

The second must have for change to happen is ability.  It is important in the public sector context that this not be theoretical.  It can’t be the promise of ability.  It needs to be proven.  It needs to be doable.  It needs to be tested.  The challenge has always been in the past that the new solutions simply weren’t proven.  SOA was an idea.  Radical Shared Services were something new.  Agile development was as well.  But this time around, the proof surrounds us.  Cloud computing isn’t a weird promise coming out of San Francisco.  It has been adopted globally.  It has been proven to work.  It has driven down costs empirically.  Similarly, Government as a Platform has been proven in Governments throughout the world.  As has Open Government (proven out in lesser developed as well as developed countries including UK, US and Australia).  Alternatives to the desktop abound as consumers adopt a far more social, mobile and open stance ont he ways in which they operate.  The possibilities of real alternatives to existing and expensive legacy systems has never been more promising (and proven).

So Push, Now, on Social, Mobile and Open

The agenda can be simplified well.  Social, Mobile and Open.

Social computing is a way to increase engagement and decrease costs of government ICT systems.  Opening up our 100′s of Billions of dollars worth of call centers to cloud technology integrated directly with social media streams will help to manage our programs better, with less resources and toward better outcomes.

Embracing mobile technology will free our civil service to maximize citizen facing time, make flexible their work schedules and increase our labor pool through radical versions of tele work and job sharing through the leverage of mobile technology.  And Near field communication could radically decrease wait times and expenditures on physical structures, decreasing, radically, the costs of providing needed services.

And committing to open platforms and standards puts the power into our CIO’s hands again.  We should ensure that vendors compete upon providing incredible customer service and stop competing in patent court or by forcing software licenses and proprietary standards down our government’s throats.

Cloud, Politics and Economics

The tested availability of the cloud, the economic troubles of the country and the divisive political environment have created the perfect storm for change to happen.  The technology is there and has been proven to work.  The politics requires a solution that can be placed above politically charged issues (technology is politically agnostic).  And the dangers of the world economy make it obvious that we MUST act now.

So, our time is now, to act.  Lets get to it.

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Suu Kyi, leader of Myanmar's democratic opposition, smiles to supporters before leaving Shwemawdaw Pagoda at Bago

As the air of change surrounds me, I am hopeful that there indeed are signs of change in Burma as well.

It appears that Aung San Suu Kyi is being allowed to travel the country freely to discuss real democracy and organize political opposition.  I was in Asia both when she had her house arrest continued as well as when she was released and all of Asia was captivated by the story.  Here is to hoping that this change becomes real.

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Can we change the way we *do* Government?

Bill Eggers and Devon Halley write for Governing on What Geeks can Teach Government.  Great article and continues the great work from Eggers, Halley and Deloitte.

The idea for “Beta Government” has been kicked around before and I would love to see the idea flushed out a bit.  We need to do more than just tell civil servants and politicl leadership to be more open to experiment or to try and fail more often.  We need to provide them with models and frameworks to do this within.  Again, it is not that government lacks the will to change, they simply lack the ability.  We cant assume that the long hard fight for charter schools would be just as long with regard to other social issues today.  Lets push for “Beta Government” across the board but lets also provide our civil servants with some outlines of what, specifically, they should be experimenting on.  It is a nuance but that is where we are at in this debate, nuance is the difference between success and potential devastating failure.

It is *vital* though that this idea of Beta be coupled with their last point, the ability to uninstall.  If we Beta as we have in the past, pilots will become programs.  We will destroy some silos only to build stronger ones, and more of them.  We need to teach our governments to test out new ideas but also to kill and eradicate failed programs when the need arises.  When I was CIO for the State of Wisconsin we had a system that was in place for decades and the ‘P’ in the acronym stood for Pilot (nobody remembered that as they referred to the need to replace what they now called a legacy system).

So, Plug and Play, Uninstall and Beta may be a good framework for public sector reform (and hey, not a bad acronym (PUB)).  Lets work to flesh out the details and start to implement.

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New commitment to European Unity could spell opportunity for #gov20?

French President Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel came out in at least a verbal commitment to increased unity in the Eurozone today.  While the also downplayed the possibility of a EuroBond they also pointed toward a desired harmonization on taxation (hint, hint to Ireland).  This post is not a debate as to whether or not any of these is a good idea (I, of course, have opinions on that) but rather a discussion about whether it could bring to the fore a new European opportunity for advanced thinking on Open Government and Government as a Platform on the continent.

Is this a possibility for Open311 style cooperation?  Could Europe serve citizens like customers in a common way?  Could they embrace the cloud in a common way?  I recall a meeting I had with the Irish Ambassador a few months back discussing the cloud and needs for harmonization.  Could this push us all in that direction?

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Are Mobile Phones Subject to the Second Amendment Protections #gov20

David Gewirtz @ ZD writes an interesting column on whether the 2nd Amendment of the US constitution (or equivalent protections globally) would have protected cell phone use if they had been around at the time.  Despite the commenters digging a bit to deep into the constitutional theory, the question is a good one.  Is your mobile a new weapon of choice, a means of defense, against a potentially overly strong centralized government?   Not merely a protected means of communication rights, a la the first amendment, but one that is protected as a means of civil defense.

There is zero question that it has been used in recent times to bring down governments and to protest conditions as well as to organize radical dissent and rebellion.  The picture I have posted above is the nature of the current debate, the protestor in the recent London Riots does not hold a gun or a bat or any other traditional weapon, they hold in their hand a cell phone, with a camera.

Do states, as in the current UK discussion, have the right to turn off our access to mobile technology?  Or to social media?  This is more complex than mere 1st amendment protection of speech as governments now have the ability to eliminate, fairly easily, the *means* of communication.

This brings to mind several other questions.  We had universal obligations put upon telecommunications providers in the US when we built out the network.  Does that obligation now extend to social media networks, mobile operators?  If not, why not?

Thoughts?

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Irrationality can result, even from "Self-evident" truths

As most of you know, I am a Democrat (worked for a Democratic Congressman, Governor and a bunch of other great electeds and candidates throughout the years).  So, don’t take my headline as any indication of a change in my spots.  But I get concerned when parts of my home country continue to turn against pragmatic, progressive (even if not liberal) candidates who tell the truth and, as a result, suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous political insight.

Tim Pawlenty appears to be another such victim.  And at the same time, Governor Rick Perry has indicated his entrance into the race.  I don’t oppose Governor Perry’s entrance, I just would love to understand what it is our citizens are demanding?  Do we wish to take a hard turn to the right?  Do we wish to take a hard turn to the left (note the two State Senate recall victories in Wisconsin last week)?  Or, do we want a return to Statesmanship as indicated by continued reference to Ronald Reagan and Tipp O’Neil?

Dannielle Blumenthal,  over at Government in the Lab, has analyzed a similar sentiment.  Have we talked past each other to the point that we can now only see the far ends of each spectrum with no way to move forward as a united country?  The exit of rationality in many of the debates is disturbing.  Global warming, national debt, financial meltdowns, national obesity, diabetes epidemic, infrastructure degradation, education rankings plummeting, healthcare system insanity, global industrial competitiveness issues all have carried warnings from one side or the other.  And we have, as a nation, ignored them.  Is it because the predictions in ’1984′ have come true?  Have all words in our national debates become double-speak?

I am currently reading Influencer: The Power to Change Anything by Kerry Patterson.  Great book that spells out a few points.  The main one is that motivation by itself is not good enough to engender real change.   That is why most of us fail at dieting, we are motivated as heck.  We understand the adverse health outcomes.  We get the positive benefits of looking great and feeling better and living longer.  Motivation is NOT the issue.  The missing piece in most of these debates is, ability.  We simply lack the real world tools to make the change.  We have not acquired the skills needed (the right ones not the mythical ones).  Our inability to sift through the double-speak means we often exercise the wrong toolsets (fad diets, ab machines, etc).  We need to understand this dual nature (motivation/ability) to be able to unlock personal, professional and political change.

In our national debates (and our global ones) I believe we all have the right motivation.  We get that in many cases we are on the brink.  And, in many cases we are not.  We understand that to move us forward we need to change the game a bit.  Even the most recalcitrant among our civil servants get that the world has changed around us (note the shots across the bow in Wisconsin) and that the pragmatists that were preaching for change over the past ten years were right.  But motivation alone will not accomplish the change we need.  We must acquire and exercise the correct abilities.

And thats where Government 2.0 comes back in.  Not just as technical adoption, or paving the cow paths as we call it back home.  But true transformational Government 2.0 that remakes our government, our society and our civics in a way that makes it more affordable, sustainable and healthy.  When we focus on transformational outcomes we can understand the rightful place of regulation in a market economy (and its necessary limits).  We can understand the need for fiscal sanity in public sector spending as well as the rightful role of public spending in times of recession.  We can unleash the best parts of current systems and destroy those parts that no longer work (remember that the postal network is an incredible social animal that has some unfortunate inefficiencies in it, what if we could truly leverage that network into one that shares resources, efficiently distributes services and revitalizes the center of our country).  What if we opened up all of the data streams in our governments to allow massive and crowdsourced innovation on some of our more difficult challenges (look at what happened when we opened up the human genome).  If we treated Government as a Platform, could we not only solve many of our challenging issues, but could we also vitalize a whole new set of private sector opportunities that are clearly exportable to municipalities, regional governments and national governments worldwide?  We have some of the largest data stores on the planet with regard to healthcare and issues related to it.  And we have some of the biggest companies in the world focusing on “big data”.  What if we combined these, solved enormous problems, and made this world an incredible place?

If we embrace these tools, these abilities, with the motivations that we all already have, real change is within our reach.  Dare we grab it?

A return to rationality requires us to embrace the concept of compromise.  We must concede that inside our deeply held self-truth beliefs (see the image above) is the possibility for error and need for balance.  This position is not a weakness, it is the greatest strength we have.  Our founding fathers understood this.  They didn’t simply draft our fundamental documents based upon a single set of thoughts but a grouping of those thoughts, debated long and hard, focusing on a common goal or motivation.  What resulted was not perfect but was decided to be pointed at becoming “more perfect” over time.

Now is the time for all of us to demand “more perfect”.  Not just from our elected leaders, but rather, from ourselves.  This is our democracy.  This is our nation.  This is our civility.  Blame for its problems lies squarely on us.  And the resolution of its challenges are ours to attain.

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Pothole in the Middle East

I have had my blog in stasis for a few months now due to some circumstances beyond my control.  That will be ending very soon.  Thanks to all of you for your well wishes and undying support.  You are all incredible.

I will be setting some of my old functions back up on the blog, which will surely cause some automated posts to twitter and such, please feel free to ignore them.  It is amazing how many plugins become inactive over a few short months.

Anyone wishing to guest blog on FixingPotholes.com is welcome as always.  Feel free to email me at mattmiszewski@gmail.com.

I look forward to being active again very soon.

Matt

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Understanding the nature of resistance itself is helpful in understanding what is going on when we resist.  In electrical engineering the idea of resistance is crucially important.  Resistors make entire systems work the way the engineer intended them to.  (Interesting aside, the power rating of the resistor must exceed the anticipated power going through the circuit (dissipation) or the system will not work.  Argument well made for equal power being mandatory).  I think that makes a point that is worth highlighting:  Resistance is a necessary component of many systems in the world.  And in our overarching system, our society, without resistance, society itself, fails.

The examples of resistance are numerous.  From electrical (Ohm’s Law) to mechanical (friction) to biological (frost resistant plants) to investing (resistance levels on the price of a stock), each of them exposes the nature of resistance.  I think this is vital to understand when resistance is being applied in an unnatural way, as it is in politics today in some circles.  Resistance in these examples is not a resistance TO change but rather is a resistance to the existing nature of things (the dominant paradigm).  Car brakes stop the forward movement of the vehicle (friction), frost resistance allows plants to live through the dominant existing season (winter) and resistance levels in stock pricing pushes against either irrational exuberance or overheated short selling in a market for a security.  The resistor is necessary to put a check on the dominant paradigm to reinstitute balance in the system.

All of that is important as we, as resistors in one way or another, struggle with the pain that results from our activities sometimes.  It is difficult to explain the need for resistance when you land in jail as they did in Michigan this past week, or when you have to tell your kids why you are sleeping outside in the damn cold reaches of Madison Wisconsin, or when brave citizens in Egypt risk their lives … simply to ask for a voice.  It is important to remember that we need to do these things not because of some respect for theory, or to live a philosophically pure life, but rather, in order to restore the balance that all systems need to become and remain stable.  Resistance stabilizes the world.

But resistance has its price.  Electric resistors burn up.  Protesters wear out.  People get sued.  It is not fun.  It is not easy. And, as my extended family in Wisconsin always taught me…nothing worth having ever is.  It is the nature of our role, as resistors.  To make the system stable.  To stand in the breach.  To point out the wrongs.  To stand and to fight.  To not cede your ground. To resist.

Because the world I see reflected in my daughters eyes is worth every ounce of blood, sweat and tears.

Fight on, world.  Resist.

Forward.

Related posts:

The Road Less Travelled is Worth It!

With my wife, I am constantly trying to raise two daughters to be prepared for life in a sometimes turbulent world.  The daily conversations are primarily mundane (Spongebob or Disney), but from time to time, more often lately, the topics turn to deeper philosophy and how to best orient them to be able to not just survive, but thrive.

This weekend, they piled in our car and arrived at a public protest in support of our friends and family in Wisconsin who fight for their right to collectively bargain.  It is understatement to say that this is a difficult concept to communicate to a five year old, but she got it.  And in doing so, she made me realize some very important things about myself and why I fight so hard for things like revolutionizing the use of technology in government and protecting the rights of workers.

You see, I have put my daughters on a road, and they have accepted the manifest journey, less travelled.  It always sounded romantic to me as a youth and going through University.  The road less travelled apparently casts you as the hero, clearly with all the fanfare and glory associated with it, at least when we talk about it at the age of 18.  But at 40, the reality of that road less travelled is obvious.  Less travelled mean filled with thorns and distractions, the first cuts may make you feel brave, but the hundreds that pile up after 20+ years of travel make you wonder about your sanity.  The scars make you wonder if you were selfish in forcing your family down this route, the pain you see as your friends travel along side you make you concerned for their well being as well.

And when you look into the eyes of your 11 and 5 year old daughters, you wonder aloud whether it is your job now to protect them from the pain of a contemplative life or is it your duty to challenge them to always question common wisdom, constantly question authority and never stop asking “why not”.

A bit of background.  While I am most recently a corporate executive (most recently at Microsoft and Salesforce.com) and a trained lawyer (educated at the University of Wisconsin Law School), that was most certainly not the road laid out before me as a child.  I was born in the great city of Milwaukee and had solidly working class parents.  My father was first a construction worker (Sheet Metal) and eventually worked his way up through the Sheet Metal Workers International Association to work for the Union full time.  My mother was a registered nurse for years in West Allis, Wisconsin, where she worked the night shift from 3PM to 11PM every day, to ensure my brother and I could have food, housing and healthcare.  It was expected in my neighborhood that you would be raised and grow up to work hard for a living in plants, mills and factories.  It was not heard of to go to college, much less law school.  My mother and father taught me, there was nothing I couldn’t do, if I worked hard and stayed committed to my principles.  I believed them.

I worked my way through Marquette University (three jobs @ IBM, Congressman Jerry Kleczka’s office and running student government) and found a way to get into and pay for Law School @ the University of Wisconsin.  My father and I had heated discussion about this road less travelled as it would be hard to explain to his union friends why I couldn’t get a real job.  The negotiated settlement was that I would become a Labor Lawyer which I did.  I became a named partner quickly in Milwaukee, representing AFSCME and SEIU.  Eventually I became the political director for SEIU and eventually branched off to another road less travelled, I started my own business.  I challenged the recording industry to embrace digital music in the days of Napster and the RIAA.  It was an incredible fight and one I cherish.  This experience, coupled with my political work led to a call from the Governor of Wisconsin (the old one not the current one) to become his Chief Information Officer (eventually I also took on the Presidency of the National Association of State CIOs).  Those years were some of the most memorable in my life, filled with pitched battles and conflict and resulting in stronger employees, leaders and support staff.

I was honored to be invited to work as an executive at Microsoft after that, talking with global political and civil servant leaders throughout the world.  Travelling to China, Singapore, Australia, London, Barcelona, Dublin, Belfast, Berlin, Mexico and more to preach about the power of technology in government.  My work at Salesforce is still being settled but I am certain that it will be exhilarating and enlightening and will continue to blaze down the road less travelled.

Revolution, challenge and less travelled roads are not just part of me, it is, in fact, who I am.

But it is no longer the romantic version, it is the very real version.  I not only have scars to prove the battles, but open wounds.  My wife and I have had conversations about whether it ever gets easier.  The travel has been difficult and at times downright terrifying.  The battles have sometimes been respectful and at times have certainly and patently been unfair.  The wounds have been deep and the tears have taken tolls.  To say it has been hard would be an understatement.

And when my daughters looked up at me this weekend, to see why we fight, after much reflection, I let them know they should proudly stand and fight.  I know it will be difficult and put them on a more challenging footing.  I know they will cry more than I would like and feel like they are sometimes very alone.  But, when I look back on a life of challenge, from a position of current trepidation, and I ask myself if I would live that life again…I can only say, yes.  And I pray that my children accept the challenge openly and embrace the road less travelled as one filled with true honor.  I pray the same for citizens throughout the world, yearning for their own better world.

You see, my friends in Wisconsin proved the effort is worth it.  My friends in Bahrain and Egypt have proved the effort worth it.  MLK, Gandhi, Mandela all proved incredible sacrifice worthwhile.  My friends at Apple who successfully changed the face of music proved it worthwhile.  My friends at RedHat who have helped power an Internet that has helped to fuel active dissent and freedom in dark places throughout the world have proved it.  The champions of true cloud computing are on the cusp of proving it each and every day.  Amazon took on publishing, Apple took on music, Egypt took on power, Vivek Kundra took on the status quo in the USA, John Suffolk took on data-centers in the UK, Jeremy Godfrey took on paper based government in China, Chris Vein took on proprietary software in San Francisco, Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom took on Government 1.0 and pushed us to 2.0 in California. George Meany took on Industry, Ceaser Chavez took on migrant workers travails, Andy Stern challenged the dominant paradigm.  Marc Benioff took on everyone.

All of them have the scars of a road less travelled.  All of them have spent nights wondering.  As will all of you reading this.  And I hope this small bit of writing will help convince you, and my beautiful girls, to travel the unmarked road, to fight through the resistance to change, to shoulder the challenge of impossible missions and to fight on through the pain because regular people, somewhere in the world, depend upon you doing so.

Fight.  It matters.

Related posts:

Did the Greek Monks Destroy the Country or was it Lack of Government Transparency?

Reviewing some of the older pieces on the true greek tragedy (in economic terms) and finally read through the whole of the great Vanity Fair article by Michael Lewis (“Beware of Greek s Bearing Bonds“).  The detail in the article is great and Lewis, as always, is an incredible writer.

But the important insight is how this could be fixed.  How we could move from rebel to revolutionary, and start to solve the problem?  Open Government, writ large, is the answer.

The article is about the details that led to the fall of the previous government in Greece and the challenges that resulted when the new government dug into the reasons behind it.  While the immediate cause was certainly the incredibly odd deal that the Greek Monks made to overvalue and trade on the “value” of their land.  The real answer is, as Lewis details, the degradation of civil society in Greece.

Lewis details the challenge:

It’s simply assumed, for instance, that anyone who is working for the government is meant to be bribed. People who go to public health clinics assume they will need to bribe doctors to actually take care of them. Government ministers who have spent their lives in public service emerge from office able to afford multi-million-dollar mansions and two or three country homes.

Apparently tax payments are also an optional exercise in Greece.  There simply is no enforcement mechanism and bribery of tax officials has run rampant allegedly.  The challenge is what to do about it.

Transparency, like sunlight, disinfects the distasteful debris.  Open Government, deployed broadly and enabled through structures that tie the open data to enforcement mechanisms create some interesting outputs.  Stability and Fairness.  Stability that economic growth can be built upon and Fairness that allows for the once vibrant civil discourse to take up arms again.  These two outcomes are worth the pain of enabling transparency in Greece and everywhere else in the world where I have heard story about bribery, corruption and skimming off the top of the government.

I was asked by a friend in one of India’s largest Pradesh what the largest expenditure was in the economic development efforts throughout India.  The answer wasnt land development, infrastructure, education or public health.  Without flinching he told me “corruption”.  That easily 80% of the economic development funds in India never reached individual areas in need of help.  Most of the public money targeted at poverty reduction was the same.

From the monks in Greece to the poor in India, the world deserves more focus on Open Government as a way to build more Stable and Growing nations.  Lets work to make that happen.  What are the SPECIFIC deployments we could push to the governments of the world to free up precious resources and stabilize the world?

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Wisconsin Public sector Workers Fight for their collective bargaining rights

I have been through some very interesting times as of late, the kind of things that make you think about who you are, what you fight for and your position in the order of things.  I have absolutely incredible friends and family that help me look at these things and have created a calm in me that is unparalleled.  I thank all of you for your kind words.  But while these things were spinning around, the proof was all around me that this fight is worth it, and it has nothing to do with me.  In fact, my challenges right now amount to nothing compared to the fights erupting throughout the world.

Over the past few weeks the world has exploded in terms of activism and citizens demanding something new.  Something different.  From Egypt to Bahrain, to Libya, from Tunisia as a spark, citizens have stood up.  Not just in court in Seattle, where things are very safe, but in public squares, looking at guns, staring at tanks, fleeing from helicopters.  In my teapot of troubles, these brave souls have made it very clear that there are far more important things going on in the world and a focus on helping the world emerge as a more peaceful, just and progressive globe is far more vital for our joint efforts.

At the very same time my friends and family in Wisconsin, where I was born, bred, raised and educated, became ground zero for the public sector employees battle throughout the United States.  I don’t equate the level of danger to that faced by citizens in the middle east, but the shots fired at them are intended to end significant rights that were won many years ago through very risky endeavors (the beginning of the labor movement in the United States was often violent and bloody).  The challenge is fundamental and either way the nature of what civil servants do will change (either because Governors will cut their ranks through layoff or the budget crisis will demand change in other ways).

Both of these challenges have thrust technology both to the front of these battles, but at the same time, as a silent possibility that has not been driven forward….yet.

The challenge relates to my thoughts on rebels versus revolutionaries a few months back.  The basics are that rebels burst through the dominant paradigm thru aggressive and public challenges.  The challenge is that they are not particularly well suited to run the paradigm that results.  That requires revolutionaries who can take the new paradigm and build new structures, new systems and a new dominant paradigm for us all to embrace for the next paradigm period.  The rebels have done their part.  Now the revolutionaries need to stand up and bring government 2.0 to the fore as one of the ways to build this brave new world.

Alex has been writing about what has already happened to support, but the answers are far deeper than simple ideation (dont get me wrong, great site and great way to help, the world simply needs more).

I have done some significant work in the middle east and know that in places like Egypt and Bahrain, civil servants are ready to think outside the box to help build a new world.  I would ask that the folks who care about these things worldwide begin an initiative to accomplish some basic goals.  Enable transparency in fledgling democracies.  Enable Government as a Platform.  Drive cloud computing.

And to my friends in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania and everywhere else that State’s in the US face significant budget pressures, threats to civil service or massive protests, lets similarly focus on leveraging those same goals.  Government as a Platform would revolutionize how civil servants enable government service delivery in such a way that the cost of government would be controlled and services protected.  Cloud computing itself would radically reduce the cost of computing in government.  Even if you started in small workloads you would bridge the deficits you face today in significant ways.

Many of you have asked how you can help me right now.  The answer is to fight for these principles.  Wherever you are, in whatever role, demand that your government leverage the technologies available today to build a more open, more free, more effective and more affordable government for the next century.

Thank you.

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Doctor King

I will be a bit quiet for a bit.

But, an incredible woman sent these quotes to me, and I thought their words were much more fitting than anything I could say right now.

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they’re supposed to help you discover who you are.
Bernice Johnson Reagon

One must be aware that one is continually being tested in what one wishes most in order to make clear whether one’s heart is on earth or in heaven.
Pir Vilayat Khan

The New Frontier I speak of is not a set of promises — it is a set of challenges. It sums up not what I intend to offer the American people, but what I intent to ask of them.
John F. Kennedy

Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Thank you Kathleen.  You are my north star.

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Simplicity is not the Hallmark of Government, Yet...

The fine folks over at the Telegraph continue to have great mashups based upon the UK Gov’s open data work.  This image made me laugh a bit.  It shows the overly complex nature of HMG and one is left to wonder why.

I am not as cynical as Gerry McGovern over at Giraffe Forum, but his post on bureaucracy and complexity does give some insight into, at least, the historical reasons such complexity existed.  In many parts of the world the overt corruption that used to drive such complexity has gone (although I am fully aware that such detrimental practices continue to exist in many parts of the world).  But the lack of the overt corruption has resulted in an even more difficult set of challenges in many cases.

When corruption was actively present, it was obvious to those involved why the complexity existed.  As it was eradicated, and as civil servants took over who had no need for it, the positioning became difficult to move.  You see, these civil servants aren’t corrupt, are driven by mission and therefore, defend their organizations as protectors of that mission.  They see attacks on it as thwarting objectively good outcomes and fight against the threat.  And when folks mention that corruption may result, or indeed may have been the cause of the complexity, they resist with righteous indignation, because, in fact, they are not engaged in it.  Therefore they defend the complexity as part of the mission, since they cannot buy into the argument that the structure inculcates bad things, in their mind, it does not.

So, we need to be careful what arguments we use to advocate for governmental reform.  Instead of labeling civil servants as corrupt protectors of a corrupt system, which is not true, we need to take a different tack.

This is where Gerry has it right on.  And it is incredibly prescient given the industrial shift right now to the cloud.  He argues eloquently that:

Bad complexity creates dependence. Good complexity creates independence. One of the things the Web reflects is a movement away from the production of products to the delivery of services. In a world of production the thing itself often dominates, but in a world of service the satisfaction of the customer dominates. In other words, in a service-driven world, the measure of success is not what you have produced, but rather how satisfied your customer is.

As I engage with customers in Government around cloud topics this statement rings very true.  Not just for us as managers of online services, but to them as managers of government services.  Instead of creating a dependent culture that protects a franchise, we need to make sure that we enable our governments to create unbelievably happy and satisfied customers (a.k.a. citizens).  The shift is vital.  And as some centralized ICT bodies look to provide cloud services for their own Ministries, they need to make the shift as well.  Their customers (internal) must be unbelievably happy with the solutions they are providing.  They must shift from holding a monopoly to holding a franchise based upon the satisfaction of their customers.

As we each, industry and government, make the mind shift to the cloud, the strategic imperative is obvious.  Change your organization structure to reflect the simplicity that your customers demand to be satsified.

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