ALGIM 2009: Gov 2.0

Gov 2.0 RoundupNat TorkingtonALGIM 2009

talk about me: decade in US, emerging technology, open source, telephony, bioinformatics, GPS. now returned to NZ and up to elbows in getting people in technology to think beyond their immediate problemsKiwi Foo Camp, Open New Zealand

The Brief

Learn how Governments around the world are using the Internet to better reach citizens and partners to lower costs, collaborate, and create better outcomes for citizens and government.  Nat will cover social networking, collaborative Web 2.0 tools, open data, APIs, and citizen journalism, and won't try to sell you anything.

big picture

Gov 2.0

• e-government

• digital democracy

• government 2.0

many names, same damn thing

Gov 2.0

Using modern Web/Internet tools and thinking to do things better.

Web 2.0systems that get better the more you use them

The Web ...

• ... brings people together despite distance and time,

• ... to collaborate, learn, and contribute,

• ... in their own way and (often) in their own time.

what the web does well

Government as a platform

Tim O'Reilly's phrase

“shared services”

data.gov

728 “raw” data sets

catalog, not a warehouse

353 web tools

provided by agencies, not by externalsthis is where web mapping crap goes

110k geodata layers

zips and tarssome directories

State Data Sites

local govts following suit

DC early leader here (the DC IT dir => white house)

data.govt.nz

Now we have our ownDIAOpen New Zealand

Successful Data Sharing

• Machine-readable

• Open standards where possible

• Legally reusable

• Documented

• Pre-approved

"Pre-approved" = no manual intervention to get access to the data

Do it once and reuse!

no need to reinvent licenses, standards, tar vs zip, etc. each time. Well-oiled machine!

Why Share Data?

• Ecosystem

• “Not all the smart people work here”

• “Not all the passionate people work here”

• Cheaper in the long run

• Sunlight

• Create more value than you capture

• Fact-based policy and commentary

web map site vs web map data

sunlight = can't sweep your crappy data under the rug, so you're doing it rightcreate value = don't charge for it

these are true for every piece of gov 2.0

Technology isn’t the answer

Open up, reach beyond the org, involve others, think broader to be betterTech is means, not end

Audience

• Partners

• Local businesses

• Constituents

• Globals

globals = people who arenʼt in your area, but can consume your data/APIs and deliver servicesgoogle prime exampleadrian holovatyʼs

“grow the pie”

in business we talk about growing the pie -- making the market bigger so everyone wins, including us.

apps.gov

this is where the 3rd parties get PRgive them some love, tooexample of growing the pie of love

enable self-service

government is a platform for collective actionbut not every collective action should require the time of a paid government employeeopen systems are important here: low barriers

The Pillars

• Government-to-Government

• Citizen-to-Government

• Government-to-Citizen

• Citizen-to-Citizen

Food Safety

FoodSafetyNew South Wales3rd party app built using public-released data

zillowvaluation infozoodle.co.nz trying to do this too

everyblockbuilding permits in Chicago

“citizen journalism”Adrian Holovaty

Wellibus appbundled database, so works offline and with iPod TouchTMRO kiwi-made

dataTO.org

Bi-directional

so far itʼs govt-to-citizenhow do we get the other flow?build a web site with a form? yes ... and no

Every web site is a compliance cost.

Rod Drury

Government should make web services, not

web sites.Rod Drury

Cons

• Dependence

• Bigger build

• Ongoing operations

• More complex than data tarball

Pros

• Bidirectional

• Live

• Integrate into your workflow

• “Automatic bizdev” aka magic integration

• Integrated means automated

Amazon franchises their entire operation through APIsproduct catalogpurchasinglisting productsinfrastructurehealthy ecosystem with Amazon in the center>1M affiliates, 180k API developers, total > 200M in revenue[next = ebay]

listingthen selling after they maxed out listers>60% of items listed through API[next = google maps mobile]

Google Maps Mobileusing local Wellington mobile technology!uses the API to access the serversThe difference between Google and eBay is that eBay made money, Google lost itbut Google plans to use the maps and eyeballs for local advertising

Ideas

• FixMyStreet.com

• Transportation

• Permits

transportation = paymentstoll road mumble grumblepermits = beyond form, tracking process through system, updating. reducing workflow to state machine

Push and Pull

• Apps already exist

• You want apps to exist

Community

this word already has meaning for you

Community

• Must be nurtured

• Who is good at this?

• Code doesn’t make it happen

you'd think local government would know how to make and run communities, but not necessarily a core strength -- your community always exists and is well defined.developers, you have to woocommunity manager role

Community Manager

• CRM

• bizdev

• tech support

• Camp Mother

can learn from open source projectsdata.gov and others realising this

Social Media

Secrets to Success

• Conversation

• Real person

• Augment, not Create

• Public resolution

don't just blurt out PR headlines into people's earstake the opportunity to put a professional yet human face on the organisation. doesn't have to be wackypiggyback on existing tech support or whatever. work with, not against.be seen to be engaging and doing good, get the thanks and love

The Golden Rule:Be Useful

PR comes from doing good online, not from saying you're good

ManagedEngagement

What would happen if council staff engaged in the Facebook group discussions about their communities?

Customer Service

• Telecom New Zealand

• Vodafone New Zealand

• Comcast (US)

Collaboration

A different style of citizen-to-government

it.usaspending.govcan drill down into individual projectsframed as “tell us where weʼre wasting money”

Sharedbookannotations to billsdiscussionsanother way to get feedback from citizens

gather the knowledge from your partners, suppliers, customers, employees

“Experience is a hard teacher, but a fool will

have no other.”

Going to crib from Tim OʼReilly and point out some things that have worked before.

Build open, extensible systems

IBM PC took off because everyone could build compatible hardwareWeb took off because anyone could use code and build their own website, and they interoperated

Build simple systems, and let them evolve

Twitterʼs original design doc was 1/2 a page of paper, and there are now 11,000 applications built on top of it (written by third parties).The hourglass model: run on many systems, support many applications, but connected by a common protocol.“Complex systems built from scratch never work. You need to build a simple system and let it grow… Complex problems paradoxically require simple answers.”

Design for cooperation

Small systems loosely joinedDNS is federated, not centralised

Learn from your users

Google maps(used by 45% of all online mashups)hired the first guy to make a mashup

fedspending.org used to be run by OMBwatch

Lower the barriers to experimentation

Failure should be an option.Edison: “I didnʼt fail ten thousand times. I successfully eliminated, ten thousand times, materials and combinations that did not work.”

Much innovation comes from a single engineer within an entity like the New York Times, putting archives up on an inexpensive, rented server from Amazon. The low cost of failure made it easier to experiment.

Build a culture of measurement

Amazon driven by numbersNeed good metrics!

You are what you measure.theyworkforyou

Build a community

You want this to succeed.You also want to get credit.(“Why do we need NOAA when we have weather.com?”)

Thank YouNathan Torkington

nathan@torkington.com