Gov 2.0: Highlights from “Government Services in the 21st Century”

Posted by: Meagen Ryan, Director of Strategy Apr 17, 2009 0 Comments

Last night I attended a talk given by Anthony D. Williams, author of Wikinomics, on “Government Services in the 21st Century: Harnessing Technology and the New Workforce to Improve Performance.” The event was part of the Georgetown Public Policy (GPPI) Dialogue series. During the event, I was microblogging on Twitter, mostly because I’d forgotten a pen for notetaking.

Given the limitation of 140 characters, some of my tweets are a little cryptic. Here, in full sentences, is what I thought was most interesting from the dialogue:

• Collaborative tool = the X that everyone can Y. Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that everyone can edit. Linux is the operating system that everyone can program. What’s the next “X that everyone can Y”?

• Gov 2.0 is already happening, and it doesn’t depend on the government. Williams gave a number of examples of online collaboration that is performing a traditional government function. For example, FixMyStreet.com allows Brits to flag their street for road repair.

• Mashups using public data offer an opportunity to optimize service delivery. Williams showed an example from British Columbia in which a service agency overlaid their childcare locations on a map detailing the density of mothers under 20 years old. With one look, the service agency could see which neighborhoods were underserved, and where to locate their next site.

• Web 2.0 and online collaboration are no longer the exclusive domain of the Net generation. According to Williams, the CEO of BBC no longer uses e-mail to message all staff. If he has something to communicate to the whole organization, he posts it to his blog.

• Collaborative tools and social networks are a great resource for gathering expertise and ideas from a previously untapped audience. Collaborative tools allow the government to break down silos and tap the talent of everyone within one agency, everyone in the federal government, or the entire public. Ranking tools, like Digg, could be used to let the public rank which new ideas the government should pursue.

• At the moment, crowdsourcing is great for idea generation, but not so great for decision-making. An audience member question raised this point: as the technology stands now, there is no way to know what sample size the ideas generated by online collaboration reflect. Williams agreed, and said he thought the technology would need to include some method of authentication before government leaders make real decisions based on crowd sourcing.

• Crowdsourcing can be used to solicit feedback on the unintended consequences of public policy. This idea also came from the audience, and seems a perfect fit for crowdsourcing.

Many of the social media and Gov 2.0 events I have attended recently are populated with people age 35 or younger. Last night’s event was notably different, with most of the audience consisting of Boomers. This may be a reflection on the venue, but possibly another indication that Gov 2.0 has reached its tipping point and is expanding beyond early adopters to mainstream government managers.

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Meagen Ryan

Director of Strategy

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