Transparency in government
2.0: why and how
eGovMon project meeting
David Osimo
Tech4i2 ltd.

Structure of the talk
• examples of gov2.0 transparency initiative
• why does it matter?
• a new vision taking shape?
• what should government do?
2

So far ICT has not fundamentally
changed government
• 1990s: ICT expected
to make government
more transparent,
efficient and user Supply Demand
oriented
• 2005+: disillusion as
burocracy not much
different from Max
Weber’s description
3

Many projects of web2.0 in public services,
but not by government
Source: own elaboration of IPTS PS20 project

Relevant for key government
activities
Back office Front office
Regulation Service delivery
Cross-agency collaboration eParticipation
Knowledge management Law enforcement
Interoperability Public sector information
Human resources mgmt Public communication
Public procurement Transparency and accountability
source: “Web 2.0 in Government: Why and How? www.jrc.es 5

Regulation : Peer-to-patent
6

Citizens building services using public
data

Private sector delivering public
services

Example: DC.gov
Jose Alonso, W3c

Jose Alonso, W3c

Not only spontaneous:
INCA awards
• Context in Flanders: very few government 2.0
project
• INCA prize: 1 month, 20K euros for new
applications “socially useful”
• results: 35 brand new applications on: family,
mobility, culture, environment
• double dividend: ICT innovation and social
impact
12

Obama administration
• memo on transparency as first act:
transparency by default
• recovery.gov as flagship for reusable data
• agreement with social networks
• appointment of best web2.0 people in
WhiteHouse staff
• data.gov catalogue
★what about Europe?
14

http://eups20.wordpress.com

Why?
• Citizens and CIVIL SERVANTS already use
web 2.0: no action ≠ no risks
• Likely to stay as it is linked to underlying
societal trends
- Today’s teenagers = future users and employees
- Empowered customers
- Creative knowledge workers
- From hierarchy to network-based organizations
- Non linear-innovation models
- Consumerization of ICT
16

Why?/2
Because it does not impose change (e-gov 1.0) but
acts on leverages, drivers and incentives:
• building on unique and specific knowledge of users: the
“cognitive surplus”
• the power of visualization
• reducing information and power asymmetries
• peer recognition rather than hierarchy
• reducing the cost of collective action
• changing the expectations of citizens
17

Different kinds of citizens’ involvement in web
2.0
1.Producing content
2.Providing ratings, reviews
3.Using user-generated content
4.Providing attention, taste data
3% 10% 40% 100% of Internet users (50% of EU population)
Source: IPTS estimation based on Eurostat, IPSOS-MORI, Forrester

“A problem shared
is a problem halved
...and a pressure group created”
Dr. Paul Hodgkin
director PatientOpinion.org

“it’s about pressure points, chinks
in the armour where
improvements might be possible,
whether with the consent of
government or not”
Tom Steinberg
director mySociety

Before
citizen
Government
21

After
citizen information,
trust, attention
Government friends
friends of friends
public
22

A new vision starting to take
shape
To sum up, transparency, which enhances accountability and choice, can be a powerful driver, a catalyst and
a flagship for “transformational government”, rather than for “eGovernment” only.
6 What is new? 23

“Public Sector
Information in free open
raw formats and ways that make it
accessible to all and allow
reuse”
more Jose Alonso, W3Cthe 8 principles
specific? see guidelinse
Thanks and Q&A
http://www.w3.org/2007/eGov/IG/

The road ahead
Semantic Web
XML
RDFa
API
RSS/Atom
HTML Scrapping
Jose Alonso, W3c

Web-oriented government architecture
!"# $%&
UK Cabinet, “Power of information task force report”
'()*+,--.*/0)-*1-231*)+456*3-7489-(*):0-;<*=>-?@30-ABBCD
Robinson et al.: “Government Data and the Invisible Hand “
Gartner: “The Real Future of E-Government: From Joined-Up to Mashed-Up”
26

What should
government do?

1 - DO NO HARM
• don’t hyper-protect public data from re-use
• don’t launch large scale “facade” web2.0
project
• don’t forbid web 2.0 in the workplace
• let bottom-up initiatives flourish as
barriers to entry are very low
28

2. ENABLE OTHERS TO DO
• publish reusable and machine readable data
(XML, RSS, RDFa) > see W3C work
• adopt web-oriented architecture
• create a public data catalogue > see
Washington DC
29

3. ACTIVELY PROMOTE
• ensure pervasive broadband
• create e-skills in and outside government: digital
literacy, media literacy, web2.0 literacy,
programming skills
• fund bottom-up initiatives through public
procurement, awards
• reach out trough key intermediaries trusted by
the community
• listen, experiment and learn-by-doing
30

Thank you
david.osimo@tech4i2.com
Further information:
Osimo, 2008. Web2.0 in government: why and how? www.jrc.es
Osimo, 2008. Benchmarking e-government in the web 2.0 era: what to
measure, and how. European Journal of ePractice, August 2008.
http://delicious.com/osimod/visualization
http://egov20.wordpress.com
31

Back-up slides
32

A new innovation model for
public services
• A new WAY to innovate public services
• Continuous and incremental,
• open and non hyerarchical
• not only by government: civil society, citizens, civil
servants
• A new effective DRIVER to address the challenges
of innovating public services
• citizens’ ratings and reviews: democratization of
voice where there is no exit possibility
• more openness and transparency expected
• wider availability of IT tools for innovation by
citizens, civil servants, civil society
33

Common mistakes
• “Build it and they will come”: beta testing, trial and
error necessary
• Launching “your own” large scale web 2.0 flagship
project
• Opening up without soft governance of key
challenges:
- privacy
- individual vs institutional role
- destructive participation
• Adopting only the technology with traditional top-
down attitude
34

Web 2.0 is about values, not technology:
and it’s the hacker’s values
User as producer, Collective intelligence,
Values
Long tail, Perpetual beta, Extreme ease of use
Blog, Wiki, Podcast, RSS, Tagging, Social
Applications
networks, Search engine, MPOGames
Ajax, XML, Open API, Microformats, REST,
Technologies
Flash/Flex, Peer-to-Peer
Source: Author’s elaboration based on Forrester
35

Are these services used?
• in the back-office, yes
• in the front-office, not too much: few
thousand users as an average
• still: this is much more than before!
• some (petty) specific causes have viral take-
up (mobile phones fees, road tax charge
schemes)
• very low costs of experimentation
36

Why? /2
• Citizens (and employees) already use web 2.0:
no action ≠ no risks
• Likely to stay as it is linked to underlying
societal trends
- Today’s teenagers = future users and employees
- Empowered customers
- Creative knowledge workers
- From hierarchy to network-based organizations
- Non linear-innovation models
- Consumerization of ICT
37

Is there a visible impact?
Yes, more than the usage:
• in the back office: evidence used by US Patent
Office, used to detect Iraqi insurgents
• in the front office, making government really
accountable and helping other citizens
• but there is risk of negative impact as well
38

Web 2.0 is a set of values more
than a set of technologies
User as producer, collective intelligence,
Values openness “by default”, perpetual beta, ease of
use
Blogs, Podcast, Wiki, Social Networking, Peer-
Technology to-peer, MPOGames, Mash-up
Ajax, Microformats, RSS/XML
39

Reminder: citizens and
employees do it anyway
40