Us Now - presentation notes

Disclaimer: These are just raw presentation notes, with some editorial comments inserted.  I apologise it may not be clear whether something is a quote, or to whom exactly it should be attributed.

I should also mention that Paul Miller in this context is PaulMiller.org Paul Miller, not CloudOfData.com Paul Miller.

*** begin raw notes

Us Now
Canada School of Public Service

Thursday March 5, 2009

masslbp.com

US NOW - playing

more people can say more things to more people than ever in history

can we all govern? - we become part of the government

reconstituting what is a government

* couchsurfing

low barrier - all you need is desire to engage

Eric Tomczak

social status and interaction plays out online in ways that it couldn't do in the broadcast world

* netmums

"about loss of the community ... we have to find some other way of doing it - moms net

Clay Shirky
- "is couchsurfing a small organisation (staff)... or a huge organisation (users)"

- "The old model of social trust and anointed experts is only one of many patterns"

CouchSurfing - "it's not as dangerous as you might think"

if you show trust... you reduce the incentive to game the system...

You can use a number of mechanisms for trust and reputation - Shirky

can you trust google more than a doctor... the good rises to the top
(ed comment: a lot of trust in google rank)

you get advice from 25-30 people in minutes...
moms - you trust other moms more than traditional authorities - motivation to network peer to peer

directionless.info - sources questions to local area people
connect to people with local knowledge

gift economy has always been there... social media is bringing gift economy out into the open

not generic do-gooding, it's highly specific to individual interests and abilities

Shirky - "what's happened in the 20th century was really an anomaly" - we're returning to old,
empowered, gift economy ways

public service built on model of passive consumers - the problems and needs model

(paraphrase) these hugely centralised approaches have got huge problems - people can now work together to ask deeper questions about the role of government

we now have tools that are competitive with large institutions in terms of organising people

Shirky - "everyone is available for group action" (now)

Ebbsfleet FC United - co-op football team

Paul Miller - turn institutions upside down using the net (a different Paul Miller than the Talis one)

semi-final of FA Trophy

MS vs. Linux - (ed comment: a bit of "self-organisational" magic worship - it's not as easy as that)

you can no longer instruct and tell - you have to persuade
from manager to leader... people who are comfortable letting go (of direct control)

William Heath - Ideal Government - would Gordon Brown listen to the people directly

Shirky - "more and more people take it for granted that they can get involved, ... and that there is significant value (in doing this)"

Don Tapscott - "because the web drops collaboration costs, consumers can now produce"

zopa (UK microlending)

Don Tapscott - customers can cocreate, coinnovate value for organisations

zopa guy - banks have got themselves into trouble by focusing on optimising rather than their clients

"I fought the Lloyd's and the Lloyd's lost"

Slice the Pie is a financing tool for the music industry - fan financing

Don Tapscott - "the power of transparency" - "(the net) is becoming a new mode of production"

change in the relationship between customers and corporations... mirrored in change of relationship between citizens and their governments

Don Tapscott - (traditional model of government) "is inappropriate in the 21st century"

... participatory budgeting

citizens deciding how to spend L20,000 in ?poulton?

TheyWorkForYou.com

Tom Steinberg... "much greater transparency makes (politicians) much more electable"

George Osborne (ed note: I think this is the right guy) - Shadow Chancellor - "it will shake up British politics"

Don Tapscott - "vested interests fight against change"

Paul Miller - "representative democracy was based on the idea that people are thick" (ed comment: I don't think Canadian audience got this idiom)

the point - London Birmingham Rail Link

Green Party Canada - policy wiki (ed comment: it was called the Living Platform, I don't know the details)

Don Tapscott - "I call it Government 2.0" (ed comment: yeah, you and everybody Don)

Don Tapscott - "governments could more create a platform where citizens could self-organise to create better value than already exists"

some other guy - "we should be careful about being too utopian"

Paul Miller - "a politics where you can say how you can help"

*** end movie

Panel:

* David Hume (err, not that one)
* Maryantonett Flumian, University of Ottawa
* Mike Kujawski, Marketing Professional
* Anthony Williams - coauthor of Wikipedia

(ed note: notes are even more raw at this point because I'm trying to transcribe as they're talking)

David Hume:
- what they're doing in British Columbia
- 1/3 to 1/2 workforce retiring/not available in next 10 years
- focus on human resources "being the best"
- building a culture of innovation and collaboration - Web 2-y "ideas factory"
- how to bring in citizens

- how do you address climate change - you can only go so far in legislation
- need to "facilitate action"

Maryantonett
- how does government stay relevant
- fear (of)... disintermediation... government being replaced by other actors in society
- participants are across the age spectrum (not just a youth phenomenon)
- all based on trust and confidence
- (ed comments: some backhanded complements for this technology)
1 how do we manage accountability? (without hierarchy)
2 privacy and security issues
3 leadership skills are going to have to change
- what are the costs of not collaborating

Mike
- what is the cost of not collaborating
- this isn't about technology
- it's about the people
key concepts
- trust - people are inherently good
- people are talking anyway (you can't control it)
- Most of the time (if your offering is good) negative comments will be neutralised by positive commenters
- don't hide from discussion
- the Era of Free
- why should (your presentation etc.) sit and collect dust - let others do something with it
- CrimeReports (ed comment: I don't think it's live as Mike says)
- it's not everybody, but it can be tremendously leveraged
- mention of appsfordemocracy.com
- government 2.0 best practices wiki

Anthony
- we have an unprecedented fabric of connectivity now in society
- reach outside of traditional silos - tap into pockets of expertise that exist in society
issues:
- regulation (example: lack of financial transparency, corporate social responsibility - conflict diamonds)
- service delivery (netmoms, patientslikeme)

Q: There was a question about how to handle "information overload" - I was at the mike so I don't have it transcribed, but I blogged my thoughts about it - connecting with information and finding your community

Q (me): how to create positive engagement?  negative engagement
issue - YouTube comments, 90% lurkers

(ed comment: I don't have full notes on their answers since I was standing at the mike)

David
- engage your community - not about the size, it's about the impact

Mike -
* Understand your audience
* Remember you're human
* Be respectful
* A small number can be extremely meaningful

Maryantonett
Be careful how you engage - shouldn't just be playing with a tool, have a purpose

Q from the regions - what weight should online participation be given
A: - use it as appropriate for important topics
- the ultimate decisionmaking has to remain with the representatives
- use it to generate ideas
- design the consultations to include everyone you want to reach (online and offline)

David - remember that you're serving your minister by gathering MORE information
- realise that not everyone is connected - takes a broad practice of consultation - use both online and offline

Q: conflict between open consultation and people who won't even circulate drafts without approval - the risk averse
A: Maryantonett - change how we work - get the best value and decisionmaking - if you can't demonstrate value people won't adopt it
This is not just an add-on, this is a new way of doing business - this is not about a process, it's about an OUTCOME.
The nature of how we use information has CHANGED.

Q: ?Bruce Foresster? - Department of Defence - Question of Trust
Need to know vs. need to share...
Practical applications to gain, hold, spread trust
are their differences generationally?

A: David - be open and honest, do what you say you're going to do - continue to be open
By sharing (in New Zealand wiki consultation) - able to move fast - put responsibility onto the entire community

A: Maryantonett - 9/11 was a breakdown in sharing information
intellipedia
We can't assume that the smartest person in the organisation sits at the top.

A: Mike - find relevancy at a personal level (use these tools so you understand how they work)
usedottawa site
It works because if you put in a little bit, you're going to get tenfold in return.

Q from region: collaboration between different agencies - turf wars - how do you see collaborative technologies helping?

A: Anthony - look at the vision of what we could create together
e.g. if states could work together they could share common software

A: David - ircan.gc.ca (for Government of Canada)

A: Maryantonett - 1000 wikis is no better than 1000 siloed programs
Create panels of client groups and ask them what they expect and let that be a guide in what your collaboration does -
let's not just talk to each other, let's really engage citizens.

Q: Jan from Treasury Board - biggest challenge is culture of government
Sometimes the organisation doesn't care about outcomes.
How to create cultural change?
Her comment: It's important to separate the culture of collaboration from the technology - you can collaborate without using any technology at all.

A: Maryantonett - the biggest thing we need to do is culture change -
put the citizen first (Service Canada)

Spend way more time opening up to what people actually need and want from our organisation
- ask in a forum that you can partially control.
Constantly bring the outside in.

Understand: everyone has a vested interest in the current structure.

SERVE THE PUBLIC

Technology can be powerful if you find the right things to do at the beginning.

A: David - change starts with you

Q (comment): Came in with expectations of government use of social media... discovered there's not much yet.
A: We are the drivers of this culture change.
Get people internally to work together.
Cost of contributing is far less than the benefit that you get back.
Find the community of people who get it internally.  Find the people who help you.

Q: one of the challenges is the language barrier - discussions in realtime -
how to establish a discussion across the official languages (in government)

A: Anthony Williams thinks machine translation will fix this issue in 3 years (ed comment: I've heard that one before)

Questions I would have asked if there was more time:

Q: how to connect online to offline (not about technology)

That is, how to you connect between the online interactions and having meaningful discussions and making real change happen offline?

Q: sustainability of these tools

That is, what happens if we move the whole government to Twitter, and Twitter goes bust or everyone moves to using Twitter 2.0?  Also we're only a few years into Web 2.0, do we even know what we're talking about?

Q: spread of unauthoritative info (vaccination)

That is, it's all great for the netmums to be supporting one another, but what happens when they start reinforcing bad information, such as the ongoing scare about vaccination that is leading people to NOT vaccinate their children, based on unscientific information?

SIDEBAR: When I arrived and asked what the CSPS Wifi password was, I got a startled gaze that indicated to me that probably no one taking this kind of training had ever asked this question before.  Then seeing the rows of people in the audience dutifully writing down information about the the transformational power of the web and great URLs to check out... on paper, I was reminded of Internet Librarian 2004 where I snapped open my laptop and looked around to find myself alone in using technology in the audience.  While this doesn't bode well for technotransformation in the short term, there is a positive example in that many library conferences are now very tech-enabled, but I don't know if I have the patience to wait for an entire new culture (the government) to spend the next three years discovering the amazing 1999 world of blogs.  (For a discussion of the Web 2.0 timeline, see my presentation Web 2.0 history + lifestreaming.)

Comments

[Mike Kujawski]

Great debrief! In terms of the City of Ottawa Crime reports mash-up, go here: http://www.ottawapolice.ca/en/resources/crime_analysis_statistics/crimereports_pop.cfm

[Peter Smith]

Nice write up Richard.

I was at the first screening, and we had almost no time for QS and As. It looks like that was handled better this time round.

Re: sidebar - mostly everyone in the room (including me) was scribbling notes on paper when I went too. My excuse? I know better than to try asking my IT department for a laptop... ;+)

BTW one of the people I was sitting with also brought a laptop only to discover no Wifi. They managed to get hooked up by network cable, very amusing.