Growing up into adulthood:
Gov2.0 from anecdotes to policy
Politika 2.0, San Sebastian, 23rd June 2009
David Osimo - Tech4i2 ltd.

What I will try to answer today
• what is web 2.0?
1. some bottom-up examples
2. from anecdotes to analisis: why they matter
3. from spontaneous to structured: what could
government do
4. from structured to systemic: a new vision for
government?
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

Peer-to-patent: an inside look
• Eighty-nine (89) percent of participating patent examiners thought the presentation of prior art that the
received from the Peer-to-Patent community was clear and well formatted. Ninety-two (92) percent re
Usage and impact
ported that they would welcome examining another application with public participation.
•
• Self-regulated: need examiners want to see Peer-to-Patent implemented as reg
Seventy-three (73) percent ofcontrol
critical mass to participating
office “bad apples”
practice.
• 2000(21) percent of participating examiners stated that prior art submitted by the Peer-to-Pate
users
•
• 9/23 applications used
Twenty-one
community was “inaccessible” by the USPTO.
by USPTO
• • 73% of USPTO the
The USPTO received one third-party prior art submission for every 500 applications published in 2007. Pe
examiners endorse
Patent reviewers have provided an average of almost 5 prior art references for each application in the p
project
• pilot being extended
and adopted in Japan
“We’re very pleased with this initial outcome. Patents of questionable merit are of little value to
anyone. We much prefer that the best prior art be identified so that the resulting patent is truly
bulletproof. This is precisely why we eagerly agreed to sponsor this project and other patent
quality initiatives. We are proud of this result, which validates the concept of Peer-to-Patent,
and can only improve the quality of patents produced by the patent system.”
— Manny Schecter, Associate General Counsel for Intellectual Property, IBM 7

Service delivery: Patient Opinion
8

Citizens monitoring government:
farmsubsidy.org

UK, US: citizens providing detailed
insight into gov strategies

From anecdotes
to analysis
Why does this matter?

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
12

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
13

“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
16

After
citizen information,
trust, attention
Government friends
friends of friends
public
17

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”
18

From spontaneous to
structured: 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
20

2. ENABLE
• blogging and social networking guidelines
for civil servants
• publish reusable and machine readable data
(XML, RSS, RDFa) > see W3C work
• adopt web-oriented architecture
• create a public data catalogue > see
Washington DC
21

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
22

Promoting e-skills
• Old IT competences: ECDL
• New competences:
1. digital literacy: making sense of text and
audiovisual
2. media literacy: produce web content using free
tools (ning, facebook, youtube, wordpress...)
3. running a server: capacity to install free tools on
own server - you own the data
4. coding skills: you can create cool website for “stuff
that matters to you”
★ Do we need “computational thinking”?
23

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
24

25

From structured
to systemic : a new
approach to
e-government policy?

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?
27

http://eups20.wordpress.com

Let’s improve e-government
policy in Europe together!
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://egov20.wordpress.com
29

Back-up slides
30

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? 31

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

Las preguntas de hoy
1. que es la web 2.0?
2. es importante el web2.0 por las ejemplos
administraciones?
3. porque? análisis
4. que hay que hacer? recomandaciones
5. y una cosa mas ... ...
41

Admitimos: las TIC no han cambiado la
administración publica
• 1990s: nos
esperábamos que las
TIC iban a hacer la
administración mas Supply Demand
eficiente y orientada al
usuario
• 2005+: decepcion
porque la burocracia
sigue siendo la que
describio Weber
42

Llegan las iniciativas web2.0 en temas
publicos, pero desde fuera el gobierno
Source: own elaboration of IPTS PS20 project

El impacto afecta muchas areas
de la administracion
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 44

Regulacion : Peer-to-patent
45

Peer-to-patent: uso y impacto
• Eighty-nine (89) percent of participating patent examiners thought the presentation of prior art that the
received from the Peer-to-Patent community was clear and well formatted. Ninety-two (92) percent re
• Auto regulado:
ported that they would welcome examining another application with public participation.
necesita masa critica
• para evitar “manzanas
Seventy-three (73) percent of participating examiners want to see Peer-to-Patent implemented as reg
office malas”
practice.
• 2000 contributores
•
• 9/23 resultados
Twenty-one (21) percent of participating examiners stated that prior art submitted by the Peer-to-Pate
utilizados por el
community was “inaccessible” by the USPTO.
USPTO
•
•
The USPTO received one third-party prior art submission for every 500 applications published in 2007. Pe
73% de los
Patent reviewers have provided an average of almost 5 prior art references for each application in the p
examinadores USPTO
quieren que siga
• piloto es extendido
“We’re very pleased with this initial outcome. Patents of questionable merit are of little value to
anyone. We much prefer that the best prior art be identified so that the resulting patent is truly
bulletproof. This is precisely why we eagerly agreed to sponsor this project and other patent
quality initiatives. We are proud of this result, which validates the concept of Peer-to-Patent,
and can only improve the quality of patents produced by the patent system.”
— Manny Schecter, Associate General Counsel for Intellectual Property, IBM 46

Servicios publicos: Patient Opinion
47

Lo ciutadanos monitoran el gasto
publico: farmsubsidy.org

UK, US: los ciudadanos revisan las
estrategias del gobierno

Desde las anécdotas
“cool”, hacia la analisis:
Porque es importante?

Porque?/1
• Ciutadanos y funcionarios ya lo usan y no se
puede controlar (ni en Iran): no action ≠
no risks
• No es una tecnologia, es una “tormenta
perfecta”:
- nuevas generaciones = usuarios y funcionarios futuros
- consumidores empoderados
- “the rise of the creative class” (Florida) y los “knowledge
workers” (Drucker)
- mercados, hierarquias y redes (Williamson)
- Modelos de innovacion no lineares (Rosenberg,Von Hippel)
- “Consumerization” te las TIC
51

Porque?/2
La admin20 no presupone el cambio cultural (e-gov
1.0), lo crea a través de nuevos incentivos y palancas :
• reduce las asimetrías de información y poder
• la legitimación viene de la “peer recognition”, no de la
jerarquía
• reduces el coste de acción colectiva (Shirky)
• utiliza recursos nuevos de los usuarios: el “cognitive
surplus”
• desde “filter then publish” hacia “publish then filter”
• cambia las expectaciones de los ciudadanos
52

“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

Antes
citizen
Government
55

Despues
citizen information,
trust, attention
Government friends
friends of friends
public
56

Web-oriented 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”
57

Desde el análisis hasta
las recomendaciones:
que hacer?

1 - NO HACER DANOS
• liberar los datos publicos
• no lanzar grandes proyectos proprietarios
web2.0
• no prohibir el aceso a los funcionarios
• dejar que florezcan las iniciativas web 2.0
59

2. “ENABLE”
• publicar los datos publicos en formato
standard y reutisable (XML, RSS, RDFa) >
W3C iG group
• adoptar web-oriented architecture
• crear catalogos de datos publicos >
data.gov en EEUU
60

3. PROMOVER
• asegurar banda ancha pervasiva
• fomentar las e-skills de funcionarios y
ciutadanos: digital literacy, media literacy, web2.0
literacy, programming skills
• financiar iniciativas bottom-up con premios y
procurement
• escuchar y experimentar (publish then filter)
61

Desde las recomandaciones hacia una
vision estrategica
http://eups20.wordpress.com

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://egov20.wordpress.com
64

Back-up slides
65

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
66

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
67

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
68

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
69

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
70

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
71

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
72

Reminder: citizens and
employees do it anyway
73