Designing for Civil Society

How not to get a positive presence online

There's a wonderful, cautionary, example over on the ideal government blog about why you should be very wary of letting a PR person use your name informally online. It involves William Heath, who as chairman of Kable Ltd, is pretty well known in UK public sector technology; attendance at the recent UKGovwebBarcamp; and ICELE, funded by Government to promote eDemocracy, citizen empowerment and the like. ICELE are rather keen to promote a big conference in a couple of weeks time. William writes:

Do I know Fraser Henderson?

Someone called Susie Ruston from something called 21cConsultancy sends me a personal invitation to some citizen empowerment symposium

"My colleague Fraser Henderson mentioned he recently met you at a BarCamp event at Googles offices and that you were interested in receiving more information about the next International eParticipation and Local Democracy Symposium blah blah blah Citizen engagement is a key priority to the UK Government as demonstrated by the launch of the CLG ‘Action Plan for Community Empowerment’....Secretary of State, Rt Hon Hazel Blears....Governments position...Action Plan...Symposium....etc etc etc"

Well, it ain’t that personal. I’ve never heard of Fraser Henderson. He certainly didnt meet me at the Google offices because I wasn’t at BarCamp. And who in their right mind goes about expressing interest in eParticipation Symposia? Not me. So this is either a misunderstanding or a fib. I expect everyone who put their email address to the Barcamp thing is getting Susie’s PR sweet talk. What a drag. I wonder if this 21c outfit is Romanian?

There then follow several comments on the lines of |"I got one of those and wasn't at Barcamp either" concluding with another from William (or admin, which I presume is him)

Dear Susie

I don’t know you so I didnt open your attachment. Nor do I know Fraser Henderson so either he misled you or you’re taking his name in vain. Nor was I at Barcamp. And I never expressed any interest in e-participation symposia.

So what’s happened here? Where did you get my email address from, also those of my friends Jeremy and Sam?

Also, what is 21cconsultancy? The only record I can find is something in egovmonitor which says 21cConsultancy is a “professional firm”

Well, I was at Barcamp, and do know Fraser, centre manager for ICELE, who has always been perfectly charming, and who did say he hoped to see me at the symposium. But you won't find much Googling Fraser, which may explain William's puzzlement.
I can't make it to the symposium because I'll be at the Circuit Rider Conference running a workshop with Laura Whitehead and Nick Booth. I hope it will, anyway, be a bit more empowering than the symposium agenda, which looks heavy with plenaries and panels aimed at people in government. Quite the reverse of Barcamp.
Anyway, event preferences aside, it seems to me that the lesson here is, if you are in the online business, but choose not to have a profile online, it's a big mistake to delegate online presence to a PR person. Or maybe there was just some misunderstanding. Either way I think Fraser and Susie should hurry over to William's place and explain. Currently William's piece is the top Google hit for Fraser Henderson ... which isn't good PR. Let's all link there:-)

Update
Fraser and William have now connected via comments on William's blog, and look set for a friendly meetup. Second lesson: with a cheery wave, these things can turn out well. Hope I haven't been too humourless here ... but there is something important about being yourself online (even in emails) buried in this.

Technorati Tags: barcampukgovweb, edemocracy

Barcamping with Government

The UKGovwebBarcamp this weekend, at which civil servants who work on government web sites got together with consultants, contractors and freelances, could help start a round of creative small-scale collaborations to improve public online services.
The way the event came together sets the scene for how this may happen: it was a great example of how people can self-organise to create the topics they want to talk about, and then get together for a blend of presentations, round-tables and chats in the coffee area.
Jeremy Gould, who is head of Internet communications at the Ministry of Justice, put an enormous amount of work in to move things forward, starting last November. Anyone interested signed up to a wiki and a Google group for online discussion, and on Saturday morning turned up at Google HQ not knowing quite what would happen. That was deliberate, because the first task after a round of introductions (name, organisation and three tags/keywords) was to fill a whiteboard with sticky notes setting out the agenda in 20-30 minute slots. (photo below by Jason Cartright)
It worked on Saturday, partly because some of those attending knew it would, based on experience at other Barcamps. You just need some simple guidelines and confidence in people's ability to self-organise in the way they will at Open Space events.

I won't try and capture session discussions here, because others are doing that very well - particularly Dave Briggs. You can find other reports here because bloggers are tagging their posts UKGovwebBarcamp and Technorati indexes them all. You'll find a set of photos contributed by participants on Flickr. Relevant web sites are here, videos here on YouTube, and instant (Twitter) messages here.
You don't have to go to all these different places on the web because they are all pulled together in Pageflakes. If someone adds another blog post, photo, video about the event it is automatically fed in there through RSS feeds.
Just as people who, in many cases, hadn't met before were able to self-organise a terrific event on the day, so they we able during and afterwards to self-organise collaborative reporting. Well, with a bit of help from Dave Briggs who created the Pageflake.
The alternative approach to all of this would have been to hire an event organiser and designer, pay for the venue, commission a web site, print out programmes and signs, ask for Powerpoint presentations two weeks in advance, sit people down in rows .... you know the sort of thing. I don't go to them any more. Costly to organise, boring to attend.
Of course there are other ways to organise highly successful events with a mix of the planned and spontaneous. Preparation and structure is needed if you are looking for some specific outcomes. Open space events don't just happen: they require very skilled hosting. A well-designed and edited web site helps people find good stuff quickly.
As usual it is a matter of choosing the meetings and communications technology appropriate to your purpose.

Two things make me hopeful that further collaborations will follow:

First, the fact that people were able to put names to faces - as Jeremy Gould highlights in the video I shot near the end of the event. People who previously read a blog in their field with interest now feel they can call up and suggest meeting for a coffee. (That is, if they can access blogs. I gather many Government departments block civil servants from reading blog sites and other "frivolous" content. Good stuff coming out of UKGovwebBarcamp may help IT managers to relax the rules, at least for communications staff.)
Secondly, there were some specific proposals in one session for turning informal discussions into real problem-solving and development activities. One question asked from the government side was whether consultants would be prepared to go into government departments and join knowledge-sharing workshops without being paid, and without making a marketing pitch. Some of us nodded. If you are putting your ideas and experience into the public domain by blogging, it is a small step - and even more rewarding - to go and talk to someone who may be able to put it to use. You start a relationship, and learn more about the needs of that Government department. You can't by-pass the procurement processes on big jobs, of course, but you are better informed. You may get paid for the next workshop out of the training budget.
Jeremy has now emphasised the opportunities (and conditions) for collaboration on his blog:

We need to find ways to make partnership between those inside and those around government easier - and promote it as as an alternative method to trying to do everything ourselves. We don’t know all the answers individually, but as a collective we can get closer to the ideal solutions.
If we in government want to innovate more, we should also behave more like innovators. The format and style of the barcamp was great and encouraged collaboration and thinking differently. There are other types of gathering and ideas generation techniques that should consider trying - like mini-barcamps, open coffee meets, social media clubs, geek dinners etc. Anything that gets us all out of the day to day work environment is a good thing (probably).

He adds: "Question is, how do now we sustain the momentum generated on the day?"
No immediate answer, but my hunch is that a few people are working on it. Just keep checking in with the Pageflake.

Technorati Tags: barcampukgovweb

Ross rounds up UK Government & Social Media initiatives

Ross Ferguson, until recently the Director of the Hansard Society's eDemocracy programme, has now returned to his native Scotland to work at Dog Digital, started a blog, and is able to offer us some useful insights from his new perspective away from the Westminster bustle.
I talked to Ross at the e-democracy 07 conference just before he left, when he reflected on the past few years in e-democracy. Steady progress made, he felt, but in order to achieve more a greater number of politicians need to engage with the possibilities offered by engagement online. At present developments were too often  driven by officials, companies and activists. Gaining more commitment would involve paying more attention to the way that online working can integrate with politicians'  day-to-day work - rather than focussing solely on their external communications.

Click To Play

Ross has now posted a piece to his blog - UK Government & Social Media… Ones to Watch - which gives us a round-up of initiatives that he sees as promising.

I was lucky enough to start work with the UK Government just as it began to take an interest in what we are now/currently calling social media. That was 2005 and there was hardly anything happening. Today, it's a different story.

With a host of initiatives on the go, I thought I'd pick out 10 that I think are particularly interesting:

1. Ministry of Justice - BarCampUKGovweb was an idea floating about waiting to happen, and Jeremy Gould got it off the ground. It's the first event of its kind for government.
2. National Health Service - The Our NHS, Our Future activity is putting a lot of weight on its online engagement components. The issue is meaty and its an intriguing opportunity for NHS stakeholders to direct its development. But will the people come? And how will the government tie up their online with the offline activity?
3. Foreign and Commonwealth Office - when David Miliband arrived, engagement shot up the agenda, particularly online. Not content with just the Secretary of State blogging, staff from across the FCO were invited to get in on the action and duly did.
4. Government Communications Network - the Social Media Review and associated activities, being led out of the GCN, is taking on the challenge of helping an area of government so used to controlling the message to adapt to a new communications environment.
5. Downing Street - it's use of ePetitions was the biggest UK eDemocracy story yet. But will it see out the winter? Well, yes, but with parliament planning its own online petitions system, will time be called on the government's biggest and most infamous social media experiment yet?
6. Communities and Local Government - the CLG rebuilt its corporate website using community software. The CLG was one of the first departments to make a conscious effort to utilise social media. The use of deliberative forums by a range of policy teams is worth watching alone, then you factor in the blogs and wikis and you start to realise the importance of this department's activity.
7. Defra - the software that runs the CO2 calculator, complete with the government data, has been made freely available under general public licence. Google has used it in its carbon footprint widget.
8. DirectGov - according to the ONS, 6 in 10 of the UK's web users have accessed government services via DirectGov. So, where to now? Is there room for a social media angle in the next phase of development?
9. Ministry of Justice - OK, I'm a bit bias but Digital Dialogues, which is in its final phase, has been putting data about government blogs, forums, webchats etc in the public domain since all this social media interest kicked off.
10. SS/SIS - a bit of a flippant inclusion. I've no idea what they're doing with social media but whatever it is, it's bound to be worth keeping an eye on.

Please flag up any others you know about. Maybe there's some similar stuff going on elsewhere in this big globe of ours.

You can see other videos from the e-democracy conference across on the Headstar e-government bulletin live blog.

Technorati Tags: democracy, e-democracy, e-democracy07, politics, e-government

Cisco champions the Connected Republic - and its citizens

Click to Play or go to blip.tv

Some of the strongest advocacy for the democratic power of online networks that I heard at the e-democracy conference 07 was embodied in the work of a private sector company - Cisco Systems.
As Professor Stephen Coleman says in his interview it is the people-to-people power of networking rather than the institution-to-people connection that is proving most powerful these days. Cisco agrees.
Cisco weren't making a great fuss about their proposals, but I was struck by the clarity of the White Paper The Connected Republic 2.0 that they produced recently, and the associated web site. It is a set of resources and a community space for "anyone interested in exploring how connectivity can help transform public services."
The White Paper sets out three imperatives:

• Use the network as a platform for collaboration and creativity
• Make the best use of all available expertise and and experience by "empowering the edge".
• Harness the "Power of Us" to create knowledge, solve problems, and deliver better services.

One of the authors of the paper, Paul Johnston, Head of Cisco's European Public Sector Team, was at the conference chairing a session, so I was able to asked him to elaborate.
He explained that Cisco aims to explain to the public sector - who are of course, major customers - just what the implications of the networked world are. In doing that, Cisco recognised they couldn't just talk it all up, they had to set up a networky site to engage with other people with similar interests. They see it as a voyage of discovery.
Paul is blogging on the site, demonstrating he is prepared to take a critical look the way things are going at present:

The final session had three UK politicians (Andrew Miller, Theresa May and Ed Davey) giving their thoughts on e-democracy. Not surprisingly, they were strongly focussed on the use of Web 2.0 by politicians, political parties and representative assemblies and all three of them made clear that they wanted to embrace these tools. None of them of them, however, seemed to have much sense of the real transformational possibility of Web 2.0. There was very little sense of the scope for opening up all sorts of decisions to public scrutiny and public involvement. It was much more a case of - how can some of these tools give a bit of a boost to our existing democratic processes? Not surprising but it does show there is still a huge amount of work to do in getting people to see the real possibilities of a connected world.
More generally, the conference was a lively event, but there seemed to be quite a lot of ambiguity about what e-democracy really was and could deliver. Professor Stephen Coleman made a typically challenging speech where he called for more e-democracy projects that involved real deliberation and generally more rigorous analysis of the impact different e-democracy projects had had. Interestingly, he wondered whether a key aspect of e-democracy was really citizen-citizen rather than citizen-government. In other words (if I understood him rightly!), projects should be aiming to get citizens interested and talking to each other rather than holding out the illusory possibility that they can interact with government on an individual basis. The most obvious UK examples of Web 2.0 in government are things like the No 10 petition site and David Millibands blog, but I tend to agree with Coleman and think they are a transitional phenomena. The real future are sites that - with or without government support - bring citizens together to discuss and take action on public issues. That, of course, and the much wider issue of moving to a public sector culture of openness and feedback the like of which has never been seen!

I wish we had heard more on the day. I think the Cisco view chimes with that of Matthew Ellis, chair of ICELE, but not necessarily - as Matthew said in his interview - with many of those in charge of our democratic institutions.

Tags: e-democracy, e-democracy07

Announcing UKGovweb barcamp - with an open invite

Whitehall Webby Jeremy Gould, whose day job is web manager at the Ministry of Justice, is making a very direct contribution to the promised new politics of Government-citizen collaboration: he's inviting us to help transform government by sharing expertise in the use of social media tools.
Jeremy's Ministry is responsible for the Governance of Britain initiative, which underpins Gordon Brown's enthusiasms for promoting engagement, as I outlined here.
Jeremy has just announced a get-together in January for anyone interested in innovation online as applied to government. Although it is billed as UKGovweb barcamp, and mainly aimed at people in or near to government,  the wiki page offers a pretty open invite to enthusiasts:

This event should be of interest to all who work in the UK government digital media community: permanent civil servants, contractors, consultants, agencies, advisers, supporters, observers, and critics.

Here's the full post:

Announcing UKGovweb barcamp:

Those of you who read this blog regularly, or get cornered by me in the real world, will know there are two things in particular that I am particularly passionate about

* clarity around government online strategy, and
* how to innovate online, especially piloting the use of social media tools

I think these are important issues for government webbies (and by government, I don’t just mean Whitehall but right across the public sector). Talking to colleagues I know that these issues important to them too.

I’ve been talking for a while with colleagues in the transformational government team (they who are driving the website rationalisation / convergence, and other related, initiatives) about how we can harness the collective knowledge and intelligence of all those with an interest in improving how government does all this web stuff. Its becoming more important as we start to explore the possibilities and opportunities of government online beyond our corporate websites and intranets.

My proposal was to run a barcamp event, where those who want to participate in  developing ideas, sharing their expertise and swapping tips can come together as a community. For those not familiar with the barcamp concept, check out the wikipedia page. The key point is that you come if you have something to offer and you participate, rather than simply observe.

I’m delighted to report that they agree, so I’m pleased to seed the message here that we aim to have the event run across the last week of January 2008 (Saturday 26th/ Sunday 27th). I say ‘aim to have the event run’ because it will only work with the input, energy and enthusiasm of the participants. We have suggested a proposition and date, we’re hoping that enough people will want to be part of this to come along and also to help organise the event.

A page has been set up on the barcamp.org website. Please visit it, and sign up if you want to be part of this event.

If you know others who might be interested, let them know about it. In particular, if you blog then please point your readers to the page on the barcamp website.

I really do hope that together we can work together to get a common sense of purpose, and share some innovative ideas about government’s approach to all things online.

Maybe I'm wrong to make a direct link to the Governance of Britain/new politics initiative - and the barcamp is strictly apolitical - but I find it incredibly heartening when a civil servant goes that bit further to practice emerging policy, and notions of openness. At a weekend too.
Disclosure: I have done some consulting for MoJ, helping civil servants use this engagement design game. Maybe barcampers would like to play too.

Technorati Tags: socialmedia, socialtech, ukgovweb

UK Parliament now has online consultation

William Heath at  The Ideal Government Project welcomes news that Parliamentary consultation goes online:

Hooray. Parliament has got a consultation site, plugged into the Select Committee work. First up is Medical Care for the Armed Forces (Defence Committee) and Local Government and the Draft Climate Change Bill.  It’s taken a while, and it’s a slow start. Ross at Hansard Society points to the journey here, and the breakthrough when MPs themselves moderated this. Parliament is where consultation can make a huge difference (even if a number of MPs Don’t Get It). This should be an essential medium for NGOs. If it’s helpful and unofficious, it could go far.

Over at Whitehall Webby Civil Servant Jeremy Gould looks at the reality of the process, and the difficult of integrating it with offline processes:

Online consultation across government is patchy and this development should set a good example to the rest of us to up our game. But there are a number of problems with this:

• Select committees call witnesses and take evidence from experts in their investigations, online consultation extends this questioning to a wider potential audience.
• Government departments, on the other hand, have a specific process to follow when engaging in consultation exercises (note on the following - I’m not a consultation expert) - a detailed published document with a series of set questions, a three month period for replies to be sent in, later on a published collation of the responses to the consultation.
• This latter procedure is optimised for the printed word, its quite formal in its approach and doesn’t translate well to the online world. Some have tried, with varying degrees of success, but fundamentally it doesn’t make best use of the medium (for the record, we offer the consultation documents as .pdf files and the list of questions as a MS Word document that can be emailed back to the consultation team). I understand that there is a piece of work across government working to modernise the regulations on formal consultation. But I don’t know how digital communication is being considered as part of that work.
• Although there have been some initiatives to improve the use of online tools in government consultation (in particular, Hansard Society’s Digital Dialogue programme) they seem to my mind flawed. Piggybacking a formal offline process doesn’t bring out the best in online - the consultation period is too long, the requested responses are too structured, and the choices often too limited to encourage genuine debate and discussion.
• A perennial problem of government digital communications - lack of resource and expertise - sometimes hampers online consultation. In my experience, moderation causes difficulties for consultation teams who seriously underestimate the time and effort this will require.

Jeremy adds:

Maybe government consultation, in its current form, can’t be successfully replicated online. Instead, perhaps we should look to the stage that precedes formal consultation - development of options to be put to consultation - as the opportunity to make best use of the digital tools available to us. We could call it something like online deliberation and provide a space to encourage genuine debate.

As long a significant proportion of the population do not/cannot engage online, and a more formal offline consultation process is required, then the less likely that we will be able to crack online consultation.

I think it is enormously helpful to have views from inside as well as outside Government, although this can be risky, as  SoSaidThe.Organisation reflects in Three Types of Government Blogger.

Proved again: being open gathers supporters

One of the main principles for getting people engaged in a project, programme, online community - whatever - is that early involvement  creates a sense of ownership and commitment. So I shouldn't really be surprised that the New Media Awards nomination for the Open Innovation Exchange has attracted a string of supportive comments.
Of course, some of these are among the scores of people who collaborated to develop, in public, a £1.2 million bid to Cabinet Office. In this case support from friends and collaborators is exactly what it is about, since the project we are bidding for is an innovation exchange.
In particular, I think the support is a bit different from the self-nomination and promotion criticised by The Register in the modernising government section ... isn't it?
Since all comments are public, I've taken the slight liberty of copying below. As I've written here, I'm one of the judges, but not for this section. You can still comment here. Judges meet for the  awards July 2, but interviews for the tender are June 12 ... so we might know before judging whether or not we have the contract. End of promo ... over to the commenters:

The Open Innovation Exchange bid process was really interesting to be involved in - and for me has already sparked off many new ideas and actions... hopefully it will have the chance to be put in place and to spark many more for many more...
Submitted by Tim Davies, 18 May 2007

Even playing a small role and exchanging ideas with one or two other participants was an interesting and stimulating exercise which allowed new connections to be made and other ideas to be generated. This is an approach I will use elsewhere.
Submitted by Paul Nash, 19 May 2007

At last - the opportunity to create without bending to the preconceptions of fund holders
Submitted by Barrie Duke, 19 May 2007

It was a brave step to take, and pleasing to see that it actually arrived at a result, with an open-ness of process that was both astonishing, rapid, and productive!
Submitted by Roger Greenhalgh, 19 May 2007

It was really good to be able to just challenge ideas and feed into improving the bid, without the requirement to 'carve out a slice' for my institution.
I could dip in and engage in the ideas, without devoting 5 days full time to bid writing. Great experiment. Deserves support. And what is an innovation exchange for if it's not about SHARING ideas.
Submitted by Andy Dearden, 21 May 2007

Whether or not the team win the bid or not, they’ve done something genuinely new. It’s one of the neatest institutional hacks I’ve seen in a long time.
Submitted by Paul Miller, 22 May 2007

A completely refreshing and original approach to writing a bid. They totally deserve to win!!
Submitted by Matt Stevenson-Dodd, 22 May 2007

A very innovative approach that encouraged reflection on the drivers of innovation
Submitted by Kerry McCarthy, 22 May 2007

It will be very interesting to see what results from this revolutionary idea. It deserves to succeed if only to embarrass all past and present bidders for not seeing that this is a way forward.
Submitted by Keyham Books - Rural Enterprise, 22 May 2007

If anyone wants to understand capacity building in it's real sense look no further.
The service development model that's been developed here turns current thinking on it's head. At last an opportunity for the sector to learn from itself through doing and developing new services. Much better than being trained to do by others.
Submitted by Simon Marshall - What's Your Point ?, 23 May 2007

An example of what can be done by people who are not afraid to try something different. Open Source in action and a worthy winner of the category.
Submitted by alex stobart, 23 May 2007

A model which, if widely adopted, has the potential to produce real change and save the time wasted in writing "failed bids"
Submitted by Peter Gray, 24 May 2007

Technorati Tags: innovation, openinex

Now I know what I am - an institutional hacker

After I moved from journalism into the fuzzier fields of consultancy, facilitation and process design years back my mother used to say: "I understood your job when you were a reporter .... now I can't explain what you do to my friends". I still haven't got a good one-liner, but Paul Miller from Demos and The School of Everything may have cracked it for me.
He's picked up on our Open Innovation Exchange and the nomination for the New Media Awards:

Nick Booth (of the mighty Podnosh) has written more on David Wilcox's open source bid to the Office of the Third Sector. He's also nominated them for an award, which I think would be thoroughly well deserved.
Whether or not David and the collective win the bid or not, they've done something genuinely new. It's one of the neatest institutional hacks I've seen in a long time.

I now have the line ... used to be an old media hack, done a bit of new media hacking, now an institutional hacker. Thanks Paul!  Could you just repeat that over on the nominations site, please? Nick likes the term - need to check what Simon Berry, who did a lot of the real work, and the rest of the team think on the exchange site.

Technorati Tags: innovation, openinex

Modernising government - from outside as well as in

The Open Innovation Exchange, which is promoting a new collaborative model for improving public services, has been nominated in the modernising government section of the New Statesman New Media Awards. I'm one of the judges, but won't be looking at that section, so I think it's OK for me to urge you to go to the nomination here and add your comment. Click the rating link and you can decide if we are worth any stars.
Just to be totally open about this (of course) the nomination arose because I met up with ace podcaster Nick Booth at the recent NS debate, told him all about the exchange and ended up being interviewed for Nick's blog. I guess I must have convinced him of the value of the project - so thanks Nick.
As Nick explains, and you can read here too, the original idea for the OIE was to develop collaboratively, in public, an "open source bid" for a £1.2 million tender put out by the Cabinet Office. The job is to create an exchange for third sector organisations to share knowledge and experience, so they can deliver better public services. We think that process has been a terrific success and we are in with a great chance of winning against 20 other bids. If we do, we'll invite the losers to join us; if we don't we'll have made a lot of friends and learned a lot.
In his post, Nick considers whether this is New Madness or New Model

New Madness?:
Clearly competitors know what you’re proposing and can nick the best ideas and neutralise or undermine others. The collaborators though placed copyright restrictions. Anything lifted from the bid had to be credited. If it was then developed and evolved competitors were asked to put that back onto the site. Naive? Perhaps, we’ll know eventually.
Who does the government deal with? A shifting collaborative process has many stakeholders, but ultimately the people handing out the money will want to know who’s head is on the block – who is resonsible for delivering. hat may give and internally generated single organisation a stornger hand.
After that though I’m struggling with the problem of madess because for me it is a really a ...

New Model:
Closed doors, closed minds. Cards to the chest bidding can lead to bidders being blind to the best ideas. The open source tender had at least 500 minds involved.
Planning and delivery are different.… Often the people who will have to deliver are not involved in the bid. Someone comes along to them afterwards and says we thought you could do this for this much money. The open process could solve many of those problems earlier.
It raises everyones’ game. With an open source bid in the frame all the competitors have find ways of beating that bid in terms of ideas and value for money. that can be good news for the public.
It builds flexibility into delivery. By collaborating openly at all stages it should be much easier to innovate along the life of the contract. It also creates transparency in delivering, which should make it easier for full feedback whilst the contract is delivered.
The winner can still involve the losers. As David says, if their bid wins one of the first things they’ll do is talk to the losers. likewise if another bid wins it may make sense for them to approach the consorium for input.
You never know where the ideas will come from. Online collaboration improves the chances of bright new notions coming form unexpected places.
It challenges old ways of working - which with government can often be a great thing.
Losing is a good thing – well not really, but if an open source bid fails a much wider range of people have learnt from the process and learnt from the failure.

As we developed our bid, it became clear that a lot of people were interested in what we were doing precisely because it could be a new model extending beyond the Third Sector Innovation Exchange. If we really want to modernise government it can't be done just from within, or through specifications and contracts tightly drawn up by those inside government.
We need new ideas on how to invent, as well as how to deliver.
If you would like to join in that discussion you can do below, at the Open Innovation Exchange, or maybe even better on the New Media Awards site, because that might help us win. Hope that's not too partisan. If we do win we will, of course, invite the losers to join in our further development.

Technorati Tags: innovation, nptechuk, openinex

Open innovation meets wikinomics

I'm with Paul Caplan in being really excited to see the guys who produced so much buzz with Wikinomics are now taking their gospel of innovation through open collaboration into the public sector. It's great encouragement for our team in the final hours of putting together an  "open source bid" to Government for a £1.2 million Innovation Exchange.
It seemed a bit crazy, when we started a few weeks back, to produce a competitive tender document in public promoting open collaboration as the means to improve third sector delivery of public services ... but as you can see from our Open Innovation Exchange website it's attracted a lot of support and great ideas.
The team, led by Simon and Jane Berry, are working on the final version today and Simon will be delivering it to the Cabinet Office tomorrow.
Anyway, back to Wikinomics. Government 2.0 is starting a global investigation around these initial themes:

Renovate the tired rules that inhibit innovation with new models of Web-enabled collaboration that cut across departmental silos to improve policy outcomes, reduce costs, and increase public value
Achieve breakthroughs in public service delivery and organizational effectiveness by deploying emerging Web 2.0 technologies
Understand what today's global youth really expect of government and how they will behave as citizens and consumers of public services
Differentiate employee recruitment programs to appeal to the incoming wave of Net Generation workers
Reinvigorate democratic processes with technology-enabled approaches to policy-making, problem solving, citizen engagement and stakeholder consultation
Solve enduring policy challenges with collaborative approaches to issues such as climate change, education, health care, and national security

Paul Caplan offers his own take which certainly resonates with me:

It’s all good. I’ve argued a number of times (here and here for instance) that Government needs to go through the sort of shifts that the corporate and media worlds are working through. I’ve also hopefully made clear that the sort of revolution we are talking about is not just a communications and marketing (let alone a ‘presentation’, thanks Gordon, issue) no it is about open sourcing policy too.
So the Wikinomics project is all right by me… in fact I’ll go as far as to say Mr Tapscott, Mr Williams and Mr Brown, “can we do it in New Britain?”
Mr Brown is already promising “national debates”, “consultations” and all the rest of the ‘top-down-made-to-look-like-bottom-up’ rhetoric. I’ve worked in Government long enough to know that its only when those developing, and crucially delivering, policy have a real stake in the process that change will happen.
Sure we citizens need to be involved in the thinking but there are a lot of citizens in government and they’re not all “Sir Humphrys” many are bright, articulate, imaginative and passionate people. But often they do not have the systems in place to make a real contribution (create the Network/Wiki effect).
There is real potential in Government. If some of the people I have met in Government and in the satellite Third Sector, could be given the space to build (policy and delivery) solutions riding the ‘Wisdom of Crowds’ et al, politicians would have some real material to work with.

Paul argues for a public space where officials would join in development of ideas and practices for innovation:

This cross Government Wikispace does not take the place of the broader Government-Public Wikispace the guys have set up. It runs alongside it. I would argue though that a parallel one is necessary:

It would stitch Government into the process. They would be inside not outside
It would have to have Government support in terms of resources. If they’re paying civil servants to  think, they’ll have to listen.
It would have real backing. Government would be able to create a space where its staff could speak freely and openly (even if it is only on the GSI intra/extranet)
It would be able to bring together technical as well as creative thinking
It would not fall victim (or look like it could fall victim) to vested interests

Creating a cross-Government wikispace, a safe and secure, embedded, resourced and supported space (on the GSI or not) would be to harness the very expensive, extensive and experienced power across the public sector.

Wow - that's even more ambitious than our Open Innovation Exchange. Certainly makes us feel we are on the right track.
Do come across to our site. If you have a comment we might just squeeze it into our document - but in any case we'll keep the site open and look out for more examples of collaboration to develop better public services, government and democracy.

Technorati Tags: collaboration, open source, openinex, wikinomics

PM (and District Councils) take to YouTube

As Simon Dickson reports - with useful commentary - 10 Downing Street have started their own channel on YouTube, with a video from Tony Blair congratulating the new French president , in English (100,206 views), and French (196,497 views). The channel includes non-PM items too, including a film from a competition run by Blue Peter and Downing Street to produce a view of 21st century life in the UK (440 views).
Now via ICELE Online I see local authorities are starting to use social media and online campaigning tools ... at least when their current status is threatened.

District Council leaders in Somerset have joined together to launch a petition to support a campaign against Somerset County Council's proposals to create a single-tier council across Someset.  The District Council's have launched a petition on the Number 10 website which to date has received over 900 signatures. View the petition online. A 'hard copy' is also being made available in shops, offices and other buildings all over Somerset.  The District Councils have also launched a short film on YouTube to support their petition. View the Video online.

I'm sure we'll see far more use a social media by government in future, guided by the review that civil servants and Tom Steinberg are carrying out. Tom is currently looking for examples of civil servants or other officials engaging online in other people's user-created sites. I can't think of anything immediately, but I would join Simon in congratulating one civil servant on creating his own online presence:

A warm welcome to Jeremy Gould, the Department for Constitutional Affairs’s internet development manager, who has just started his first ‘work blog’. Jeremy’s got a hectic couple of days ahead, as DCA transforms itself into the new Ministry of Justice (which still sounds really odd). The new site goes live on Wednesday, and Jeremy promises ‘a vast improvement on the current incarnation, both in visual look, quality of editorial and technical build’.  He’s actually doing some remarkably brave stuff for a civil servant… indeed, I can’t immediately think of any civil servants who put their name to a blog about their work. Hope he doesn’t get told off for it… disclaimer or no disclaimer.

I think these examples are important in their own right, and also in providing some examples of what's possible to the overwhelming majority in government, local and central, who haven't yet picked up on the potential of social media. Jeremy has comments open too: I hope he gets some encouragement.

Voter apathy? Try TheirSpaces

A traditional voters' complaint about politicians is they never turn up until there's an election, then they are all over your streets and doorsteps, expecting you to turn out for them. It's a bit unfair, since traditional communication methods don't enable even the most diligent to be in lots of places at once, except perhaps on special occasions with much dashing about.
That's now changing, at least for MPs and other representatives prepared to embrace new media ... and tonight the Hansard Society gave a number of speakers the chance to explore the implications of the Internet for political awareness, participation and trust.
Professors John Curtice and Rachel Gibson offered analyses that were heavy on research but a bit light on significant shifts. Is it that the politically interested are more likely to use the Net ... or the Net helps people become more interested? Not yet clear.
Derek Wyatt MP tried showing this Blair-Cameron video comparison, Hilary Clinton's online conversations, and the French Presidential elections, but was rather defeated by lack of bandwidth in the Thatcher Room, Portcullis House. Maybe the lady doesn't really approve of YouTube politics ... but Derek's enthusiasm was enough to make me explore more here later.
However, the most interest remarks, for me, came from another professor who is also an MP - Liberal Democrat Steve Webb.
He has dealt with being everywhere at once by first setting up an opt-in e-mail list for constituents to receive non-partisan news from him. One in eight households - 5000 people - now hear regularly from Steve, and e-mail him with queries and problems. He says they come up to him in supermarkets with a nudge, a wink, and "I sent you that e-mail ... I really like hearing back from you." He says it is not about sending out political propaganda, it's about building relationships.
Even more significant, I think, is his strategy of setting up profiles in MySpace and Facebook. As he explained to me, it's all about going to where people are, rather than expecting them to come to you. (Click thumbnail for Quicktime, or here for Google video) Since younger people are failing to turn out at elections in large numbers, go to their places and engage. Earlier in the meeting I asked whether the new £10,000 communications allowance for MPs was such a great idea, since e-mail and social networking was relatively inexpensive - except in MPs' time. Would less Net-savvy MPs just spend the money on yet more boring newsletters and brochures? Steve smiled, spelled out his approach, but declined to score a point. Does the Internet help create nicer MPs, or do nicer MPs use the Net? There's one for the academics.
Previously:
Government explores going where people are ... online at least

Open Source politics - fine make sure you join in

Technorati Tags: e-democracy, politics, socialnetworking

What a difference a reply makes

I wrote the other day about new plans  for 6000 UK online centres, and what seemed a pretty top-down consultation approach that didn't involve those using the centres. I emailed the organisation developing the plans - since I rather doubted they monitored this blog - and didn't expect to get any response. It looked that sort of organisation. But I got a friendly email, giving me new information directly related to my piece, which I'll come to later. It changed the way I felt about the organisation - and made me reflect what a difference it would make if others were also prepared to do the same.
The context is that government is pushing local centres - which may be in libraries, colleges or other community facilities - to focus on what used to be called e-government, and is now (transformational) t-government. It is, in official language, a major  programme to modernise and transform the way government interacts with the public and delivers its services. In practice it is, in part, about trying to get people to use the Internet instead of ringing up or going to the counter. Local and central government has met its targets of moving services online - but people aren't using them enough ... and that is costing.

The UK online centres are important because they serve a lot of people who use public services - but don't use the Net. Their original aim was to provide access and learning opportunities - whether informal or formal - and so address the digital divide. As the consultation document says:

There are no signs that the divide will close naturally over time as once predicted in fact internet use has stalled at around 60% over recent years, which means that 40% of people are still not accessing potentially vital services.
In many ways, the need for UK online centres has never been so great.
This is why we feel the time has come for a new vision and mission for UK online centres which recognises the significant work you are already doing and outlines how the network can be better aligned to support the needs of both citizens and government.

My main point in writing about the plan was that no one seemed to ask the centre users what they wanted, so I wrote:

While there are many pros and cons for this approach, I was struck by another question. Is anyone asking the users of the centres what they would like? I suppose they could go into their local centre, download the pdf, digest the proposals, then fill out the response form, but looking at the form I don't that's the idea. Questions are about Do you agree with the mission, Do you support the vision, Do you feel the strategic aims are the right ones ... so it is clearly for  managers rather than users. The plan says there have been focus groups at centres, but no details are given of what was said, or whether centre users were involved.

Here's what I received in reply, from Anne Faulkner, Head of Policy

Many thanks for sight of your blog and for taking part in the debate - I think your assessment is fair and balanced.
You're right to ask the question about what centre users think and we've done quite a bit of research in this area, most recently with a major e-government project in the South West - (link)
We're particularly interested in those who can't access online services via their home or office because they're digitally excluded - and often digital exclusion goes hand in hand with social exclusion. Unless these people have support through intermediaries such as UK online centres, we fear that they will be even more excluded as government's face-to-face channels reduce.
Helen wrote an article about this recently which you might find of interest (link):
On the question of the consultation process itself, asking people to fill in the consultation form is only one part of the process and provides a structure for analysis. We also want to encourage centres to talk to their Regional Managers and feed in that way and Helen's planning to post something on her blog to generate debate. I do take your point that we could have broadened the scope further and we'll consider this for future consultations.
Thanks again for taking the time to comment and for your positive view of the work the centres do. I've also sent your blog link to Helen, who will post a reply directly.

Helen is Helen Milner, managing director of UK online centres, who blogs here. In her article for The Times she writes:

As more public services move from face-to-face to online channels, we need to ensure that they’re reaching socially disadvantaged people. At UK online centres we’ve just completed research which suggests that to create the elusive e-citizen, we need t-government coaches. The research analyses a pilot in the South West that teamed UK online centres with selected local and central government websites to support people in using them. Those most in need of a helping hand had a social need to contact government: housing; pension or benefit inquiries; job or course search information. Ninety seven per cent were reassured just by having UK online centre staff around to support their first online transactions. Six months later, a follow-up found that 45 per cent had continued to find useful t-government information, 18 per cent had enrolled on a course and 9 per cent had got a new job.
The benefits of offering this support — to the individual, to government, to society and to the economy — should not be underrated. Our research estimates that 6.6 million people are both digitally and socially excluded, and it’s time the credits rolled on the digital divide and we closed the gap for good.

I've gone on about this this a bit because I think there are a few lessons that may be useful both to organisations and humble bloggers.
I found the way the consultation report was presented rather off-putting. I had to download a pdf and then do a tedious copy and paste job to get some text. The content was pretty formal too. Both the style and the consultation approach - fill in a response form - jarred against the title of 'Creating Confident Citizens'. It put me into critical mode.
However, Anne's friendly response gave me a different feel for the organisation. They were prepared to engage in a one-to-one conversation about their plans.
It seems to me that the challenge for an organisation like UFI, that runs the centres, is to bring a bit more of its conversational style into the front line. Make documents more accessible and blogable. Put Anne, Helen and others up front. Tell some stories from centres - or, much better, help centres and their users tell stories for themselves. There's a start a Centres News section, but the logos are rather overwhelming, and the style is a bit press release.
Ooops, there I go, slipping in a snide aside. Rephrase ... the Centres News section offers a fascinating window into what's happening in the centres. More please. Why not put it on a multi-user blog?
The lesson for me is to try and get to the people behind the official documents. They may be prepared to talk.

Local online centres told to deliver e-government

There are now 6000 UK online centres providing access, training and support in pursuit of the government's policies for digital inclusion - and the body in charge is consulting on how they should develop over the next three years:

Since UK online centres were created six years ago, the needs of both centre users and government have shifted significantly. Back in 2000, some believed that UK online centres were a short-term initiative to plug the gap for a few years until everyone had access to ICT at home or at work. However, the trends we are seeing in the 'digital divide' show a very different picture. There are no signs that the divide will close naturally over time as once predicted in fact internet use has stalled at around 60% over recent years, which means that 40% of people are still not accessing potentially vital services.

In many ways, the need for UK online centres has never been so great.

This is why we feel the time has come for a new vision and mission for UK online centres which recognises the significant work you are already doing and outlines how the network can be better aligned to support the needs of both citizens and government. We're holding a consultation around the draft Network Development Plan, and would like you to tell us what you think about how we're planning to move forward.

You can download the development plan, called 'Creating Confident Citizens' where managing director Helen Milner says in the Foreword:

The time has come to reposition the network, building on its strong foundations of community learning and social inclusion and developing its role to support  transformational government (‘t-government’, formerly known as e-government), a major  programme to modernise and transform the way government interacts with the public and delivers its services.

There's always been some tension between those who feel the centres should be relatively informal and flexible in providing opportunities for users to learn about the online world in ways that suit their individual needs - and those who favour a more top-down approach meeting government agendas.

This tension is acknowledged in the foreword:

In my discussions with centre staff, some have queried whether t-government is the right direction for UK online centres - is it just the latest political whim? My answer is that t-government is a natural extension of what UK online centres do best - merging the delivery of ICT skills, employability, and social and digital inclusion in a way which is seamless to the citizen. At a time when government has invested an estimated £7.4 billion over the last four years in creating online public services, two thirds of the population still do not use them. This rises to more than seven out of ten for people who are not working and eight out of ten for people over 652. Internet use is also closely linked to social class – two thirds of people in social classes C2, D and E have never been online. We also know that most online services do not yet reach people in socially excluded groups or with complex needs – the very individuals who make most use of  public services.

A few people saw this coming a few years back, raising the question: Would you walk to get e-government? - making the point that online services work when you have them in your home or office, not a bus ride away.

Although comments are invited on the development plan, it sounds as if the direction things are going is pretty clear.

This development plan sets out how we intend to widen the role of UK online centres and increase their capacity as a national delivery channel through which government  can connect with even the hardest to reach citizens.

While there are many pros and cons for this approach, I was struck by another question. Is anyone asking the users of the centres what they would like? I suppose they could go into their local centre, download the pdf, digest the proposals, then fill out the response form, but looking at the form I don't that's the idea. Questions are about Do you agree with the mission, Do you support the vision, Do you feel the strategic aims are the right ones ... so it is clearly for  managers rather than users. The plan says there have been focus groups at centres, but no details are given of what was said, or whether centre users were involved.

I think the centres do a terrific job - and should declare I've done some work with those based in community centres in the past. But I do twitch a bit at a consultation report entitled "Creating confident citizens", which doesn't appear to ask citizens what they want,  doesn't offer much scope for consultation with managers either ... and reduces that to "fill in a form". 

Thanks to ruralnet|uk for their xPRESS Digest item

 

Digital Challenge programme seen as £14.5bn testbed

The UK government is certainly talking up the Digital Challenge initiative as a testbed for the way funds will be spent in future on tech-supported public services. In a press release carried by egov monitor - Corporate giants join Government to help bridge digital divide - the story last week was:

Some of the UK’s biggest companies are today meeting 10 local councils to compete for a role in pilot projects aimed at delivering council services through digital technology. The success of the schemes will ultimately determine the way in which £14.5bn of government ICT money is spent over the next few years.

The event was a get-together between the ten competing-collaborating finalists and technology companies so they could try and broker partnerships for proposals that must be submitted in January. I was there because Drew Mackie and I are developing a game to help with the planning and bidding process. More about that here, where you can now see some of the prototype materials we have developed. I didn't know it at the time, but somewhere Angela Smith MP, Minister for e-government, said:

“This summit proves that it’s no longer just ICT companies keen to partner with local authorities and widen access to digital services. Increasingly businesses in sectors like construction and retail are looking to help us tackle digital exclusion, and make services open and available to everyone, regardless of location, mobility or language. We are also seeking to encourage innovation amongst smaller businesses to ensure that the entire range of industry is engaged in this project to maintain democratically healthy, inclusive communities.

“The schemes being piloted in the Digital Challenge competition will have a transformational effect on local government and ensure that in future, across England, council services are built around the needs of the citizen – allowing them to choose how, when and where they use these services.”

I held off blogging the event because I understood it was private, but one of the good things about the Digital Challenge is that a couple of finalists are running their own blogs and offering informal observations about the process. Stephen Hilton from Bristol starts off:

It was a globally warmed and unnaturally sunny morning when we arrived at Paddington Station last Thursday. I had forgotten my sunglasses so couldn’t see a thing, nothing-new there.

... before giving us the essence of the presentation he made with Tim Anderson from Norfolk:

In a nutshell, our message was - authorities need to recognise content generation is as significant an opportunity as content consumption. We need to work to ensure that all communities have the skills to produce and share their own high quality content. At the same time, we need to transform the way we organise and deliver services in order to fully harness this opportunity. As for the business model – I cheekily suggested that you only need type essay for sale into Google to recognise that where there is a timely and compelling need for content – the business model will follow!

Adding:

The key message I took from the day is that there has to be a strong underlying business model for industry investment to be made. No one is going to give us anything entirely for free! At the same time, the industry people we spoke with displayed a massive appetite for finding new ways to engage with authorities and citizens. If nothing else,industry will help bring a ‘sense of urgency’ to our programme – which is no bad thing.

Dave Carter at One-Manchester is also keeping us up to date with developments from his perspective.

There's no great disclosures about the programme in either blog, but it does seem to me enormously encouraging that local government officers feel they can give some windows into these processes for their local constituency, and anyone else interested. It means that they are prepared to chat as well as Powerpoint and Press Release.

The Digital Challenge team has just appointed new advisers, Mantra-PR, who I'm sure will be looking for good stories from the finalists as well as the Minister. The aim of the Digital Challenge is to tackle digital exclusion - as well as improve general public service delivery. As Bristol and others are emphasising, that means helping local people tell their own stories - so I'm hoping we will see more encouragement for the type of content development Stephen is talking about, locally-authored then featured on the expanding Digital Challenge and Inclusion Network site, so ably developed by my friends at Clicks and Links.

An outrageous thought occurs to me. Couldn't Angela Smith, as Minister for e-government, try blogging too? The site has that facility. Even if the blog were in part drafted by the PR advisers, or officials, it would demonstrate a willingness to have a go. As the Minister said in announcing the current ten finalists, when talking about access to services, life chances and opportunities:

As we move forward into a new digital age it is clear that some people will find this far more difficult to cope with. However we cannot allow them to become excluded. Instead we must enable them to take advantage of what new technologies can offer.

Quite right. I see that David Miliband's ministerial blog features in the Hansard Society's Digital Dialogues programme to "support central government’s communication and consultation activity". I think the e-government Minister should be digitally included too.

UK community tech celebrated 10 years on

A London conference last week gave me a particularly rich crop of contacts and insights including London's new ICT champion, Microsoft's head of public sector innovation talking about why small is important, and reflections on what's changed in community-level tech over the past 10 years.
I wasn't surprised at how worthwhile Bright Ideas was, because the organisers were the London Borough of Newham, long a leading light in the application of technology for public benefit and in a few years the main local hosts for the 2012 Olympics.
One reason Newham has done well is the Mayor, Sir Robin Wales, has worked in the industry - and in his introduction he emphasised that it is only now that council procedures and services are being rethought and reorganised that tech benefits are being fully felt. Just adding new technology to existing ways of doing things isn't enough.

The keynote speaker was Dr Chris Yapp, who has been in the industry for 26 years, and is one of the few people who really knows what it takes to make things work in the public, private and nonprofit sectors. Chris is head of public sector innovation at Microsoft, and he spoke about the importance of tackling digital inclusion, and doing so bottom up. That may be socially desirable - but why, I asked, is it important for Microsoft?

Chris's answer was that Microsoft's customers worldwide include governments - and those governments have to be able to deliver to all citizens. Full benefits of technologies only come when everyone can use them. Smaller countries, or states within countries, are able to develop faster and more flexibly than big bureaucracies - perhaps because the change processes needed can be faster.
I asked Chris whether small was also important for innovation when applied to companies. Yes indeed, he said, the Microsoft model was to work with many partners ... at which point the next presentation kicked in to the sound track. However, I think I did catch that Microsoft only employs 60,000 employees worldwide and has 800,000 partners.

The voluntary and community sector hasn't generally been in the lead in demonstrating the social benefits of new technologies: too busy with day-to-day challenges, too little funding, and maybe just a bit cautious about losing touch with people. That could change with the appointment of the ICT champion for London's nonprofits.

Miles Maier explained that he has the task of promoting projects to funders, particularly through an event in spring 2007 that will feature four or five good examples. Miles will also be promoting collaboration, and making sure a wider range of projects get noticed and share experience. He's started blogging, and hopes to encourage others in the sector to get beyond the basics and try Web 2.0 tools. Talking to Miles set me wondering whether small organisations might benefit from using more of the web-based applications spilling out of Google, Yahoo and others ... and listed here by category as an Office 2.0 setup. Maybe one of the project Miles could work on a nonprofit testbed of Web 2.0 and Office 2.0 applications, if he can find some London nonprofits prepared to have a go.
Dan Jellinek keeps us all up to date through the e-government bulletin, is organising the UK's premier e-democracy conference, and also finds time back home in Brighton to help with the local issues forum and the local community internet project, SCIP. I had a part in helping set up SCIP when I lived in Brighton, so I'm particulary glad that it survived and developed when so many other early projects have faded.
I asked Dan if - and how - he felt that the forum made a difference. Since councillors join in, there is potentially a direct link between concerns raised in the forum and possible policy development and action by the councils.

It was also a delight to get together with Richard Stubbs and Michael Mulquin, who I first met more than 10 years ago after I came back from the US fired up by the Ties that Bind conference about community networking. We started up Partnerships for Tomorrow, and ran a Communities Online conference in 1995 ... so it was inevitable that I should ask them what's changed ... or rather nudged Dan into asking the questions as I wielded the camera.

Both Richard and Michael emphasised how important it is to focus on people rather than just on the technology. It is people who keep projects going - as they clearly have in Brighton and Newham - and it is people and their very different needs we have to keep in mind as we develop tools and projects for their benefit. It's also people like those I met last week who make it worth sticking with it.

Adding o- instead e-

Adding e- to democracy, government, participation and other elements of civil society has brought some benefits, but also helped develop a new sort of digital divide . The new divide is not so much between connected and unconnected, but between the sceptical, puzzled and frankly confused and a perhaps slightly smug band of professionals offering what Clifford Stoll called Silicon Snakeoil 10 years back. I know, I've been guilty of "what you really need to try is..." and enjoying that slight sense of power that comes from brandishing a new set of tools and esoteric terms.
The problem is compounded when e-people say to not-very-e-people "of course, it isn't about the technology ... " but then have difficulty completing the sentence. It suggests there's a magic ingredient we can't tell you about, but if you take the medicine technology it will do you good. You may not like it much, but change is always difficult, isn't it?
At the same time, the new e- tools are important, because as I was arguing earlier , they can help us work collaboratively, can be used to challenge power-holding institutions, and do allow us to work in both groups and networks. That helps develop a culture of openness, do good stuff together, and begin to realise the potential of collective intelligence.
Which led me to the question, what would democracy, government, participation look and feel like if we added o- for open instead of e- for electronic? Pretty good, I believe, but then - would it sell conference seats and kit?
Thanks to Steve, Paul, and Nick for yesterday's conversation that helped gell these ideas.
Update: Graham Lally has picked up the issue in a comment here, and also over at Sphereless 

Tackling exclusion deserves an engaging approach

The UK Government's recent report Inclusion through Innovation has been generally well received, not least because it contains interesting examples of the social uses of technology, is the result of extensive research, and makes some bold claims. It deserves widespread discussion as well as recognition, but unfortunately the authors aren't offering us the chance to engage with them. I think that's particularly important in such a complex area.

Government Minister Jim Fitzpatrick says in his foreword that the report sets out to show "how ICT can be an enormously powerful tool for transforming not just the lives of the mainstream, but also of those who are on the margins of society." It's a claim we've heard a few times over the past decade, and hopefully we have learned from what actually happens that transformation isn't a technical fix.
While the report itself does say that "personal development and active inclusion in employment, social groups, and community participation can all be helped by technology" the action plan is mainly about ways in which local councils can extend e-government. It's generally about how government can get wider take-up of online services rather than how technology may, as it claims, transform people's lives. What it says about e-government services may be excellent - but it is only half the story. I think there's insufficient recognition that technology alone won't deliver transformation unless systems are designed with closer regard for those we aim to benefit, and the organisational changes necessary to bring changes into effect. It's pretty difficult to get that mix right through the research, consultation, analysis and presentation exercise indicated in the diagram, however well done. It needs working through with those trying to get it right on the ground. It needs continuing conversations as well as targets and tick boxes.
A few years back a report like this would have been discussed online by practitioners in forums like conet, once run by Communities Online. That forum has now disappeared - perhaps because one-time evangelists for community technology are now working within charities or as circuit riders grappling with the day-to-day problems of making the technology work. A good thing that is too.
In their place has arisen Citizens Online, which has been very successful in working with the technology industry and government in producing reports, running awards programmes, and developing projects like EverybodyOnline. I really admire what they are doing and their aim "to explore the social and cultural impact of the Internet on society". However in this case they appear to take the Government's rather narrow focus, and simply offer a ringing endorsement. John Fisher, chief executive, is quoted in the press release:

We very much welcome the Inclusion through Innovation report. It is an incisive document and there has been novel research, along with a useful capturing of in-depth issues and effective projects. We are pleased to see that Government has recognised the importance of the digital inclusion agenda. It must now grasp the opportunities presented in this report to ensure that the crucial joined-up work happens to make this a reality.

Both the report and the way it is being promoted feel a bit top-down and rather at odds with the subject matter. There's clearly room for debate here. I may have missed some crucial nuances in the report, misinterpreted the action plan - and misunderstood the whole thing. John may well be saying "good report - but we'll be watching to see if you can really deliver the social benefits". Unfortunately neither the SEU nor Citizens Online run a blog or forum where we - or any online citizens - can engage with them. It's presented as a done deal - now let's move on.
There is a proposal in the report for a new independent digital inclusion organisation "providing and stimulating leadership on delivery of good practice, and stimulating communities of users and leaders to promote discussion and understanding." Why not start that discussion now?
Disclosure: I was involved in starting Communities Online a decade or so back, so could be suffering from a touch of the 'good old days'. I'm about to start some work with Government departments on how civil servants can better engage with the public, so feeling more than usually evangelical on that front. I hope I can continue writing about public engagement while working with public servants, and encourage them to do the same. If Robert Scoble can blog across the boundary in Microsoft, it should be possible in the Whitehall village.
Comments welcome below, of course.

e-Government prospers, but do the users know?

The UK government is sounding confident about progress in local councils to deliver services online - but do local people know that?

Local authorities in England are now on the home straight to meet the target to be 100% e-enabled by the end of this year, Local e-Government Minister Jim Fitzpatrick has announced. He said: 'The results from July's Implementing Electronic Government returns mark the turn into the home straight for the local e-government programme.

... from e-Government: councils reach the home straight at xPRESS Digest, with a link to the original release.

The programme has overseen a sea change in the electronic enablement of council services from just 26% in March 2002 to 77% in March 2005, with e-government already making an essential contribution towards the Government's efficiency targets.' In nearly 200 councils, citizens can now go online to submit planning applications or calculate their benefits entitlement. Near universal online coverage is now offered by councils in England for renewing library books, accessing public transport information and viewing council reports and committee minutes. Mr Fitzpatrick added: 'To provide further background, I am today releasing for publication a status report which offers a detailed analysis and regional breakdown of IEG progress. The report underlines that the December 2005 target is well within the reach of local authorities, and reaffirms the huge potential for efficiency gains. The report also points to further areas of work up to the end of the local e- government programme in March 2006. This includes additional support for councils to help them improve the take-up of e-enabled services and realise the full benefits of their investments.'

That last point is clearly significant. Egov Monitor reports that while a study of council websites shows that they are increasingly important as sources of public information and efficiency gains in service delivery, they are not being promoted sufficiently:

According to Martin Greenwood, Programme Manager for Socitm Insight, information emerging from the website take-up service suggests that councils should be doing more to promote take-up: "We know from the e-citizen national project that there is a whole population out there ready to use council websites, and that getting them to do so will bring tangible benefits in terms of efficiency gains and increased satisfaction with the council. However, it seems that councils have to date invested little in promotion, concentrating perhaps on getting the website right as a facility to offer. Now is the time to change priorities."

Brainstorm blogging e-government

Louise Ferguson reminds us of the Ideal Government discussion being run by William Heath of Kable as a blog brainstorm with multiple authors. William posed the question: "You're a web user. What do you think ideal e-enabled public services should look like?"
The discussion is nearing the end of its four-week programme, and there's now lots of good stuff on the site. Louise reports a public meeting last week where:

Some discussion revolved around user v citizen v 'consumer', and we made plain to all that user research is not all about focus groups. A major discussion issue was Ian Whatmore's remit and powers.

... which sounds interesting if a little tantalising. No matter, because William will be posting the presentation on the site as well as highlights from the blog discussion. The site - by the Big Blog Company - has clear categories, author archives, links to other resources, and of course RSS feeds and seems to me a better e-discussion space than most email lists or classic web forums. A relatively simple model for one aspect of public e-enablement, and a good one to show to Mr Whatmore - head of the UK e-Government Unit when they meet. I'll be looking out for other successful blog-based discussions like this, and the one on Delivering race equality managed last year by Headshift. I'm sure we'll see further follow through from the burgeoning IPPR Manifesto for Digital Britain, who feel they may have inspired the Ideal Government discussion. Next month they are holding a joint event with the TUC: Organising Online: where Next for Unions and the Internet?