user-driven innovation models in public services

New patterns of innovation in public eServices David Osimo, Clara Centeno, Jean Claude Burgelman Institute for Prospective Technological Studies European Commission - Joint Research Centre The views expressed in the presentation are those of the authors and do not represent the official position of the EC

Outline

The context: innovation in public services, and innovation patterns in web 2.0

How do these patterns work in public services? Analysis of selected cases

Conclusions

The context: innovation in public services

The public sector is an innovation actor

as a service provider (to all citizens and business)

as a buyer (16% EU GDP)

as an employer (of 50M Europeans)

Civil society traditionally seen as “extension ladder”

Need to innovate public services likely to grow in the future (due to budget restrictions, increased citizens expectations, multiculturality, ageing, etc.)

But barriers exist:

hierarchical organisations

risk aversion

lack of user orientation

less pressure for innovation: monopoly, no “exit” possibility for citizens (Hirschmann)

The e-ruptive growth of user-driven applications 70 M blogs, doubling every 6 months YouTube traffic: 100M views/day Wikipedia: 2M articles Source: Technorati, Alexa, Wikipedia , Cachelogic Peer-to-peer largest source of IP traffic

Innovation patterns of web 2.0

New actors emerging

Better informed users demanding innovative products and services

Users driving innovation: market-led, incremental innovation

Perpetual beta: iterative and continuous innovation

Bottom-up, emergent innovation rather than hierarchically planned/imposed

Open, shared innovation

Codifying and exploiting tacit knowledge

2. How do such innovation patterns apply to public services? Analysis of selected cases

Private business innovating public services: GoogleTransit

New actor: business

perpetual beta,

continuous innovation,

open API

Civil society: MySociety.org

Founded: September ‘03

TheyWorkForYou.com launched June ‘04

WriteToThem.com February ‘05

NotApathetic.com April ‘05

PledgeBank.com June ‘05

HearFromYourMP.com November ‘05

Petitions.pm.gov.uk November ‘06

FixMyStreet.com March ‘07

And other sites launched by the “developers network”:

planningalerts.com

directionlessgov.com

journa-list.com

thepublicwhip.org.uk

commentonthis.com

New actor: civil society

perpetual beta

continuous innovation,

Incremental innovation (usability, agility)

open innovation (source, API)

networks, not hyerarchy

Based on public data

Citizen-created services: ChicagoCrime:org

New actor: citizens

User driven innovation

reuse of public data

Gapminder: making public data meaningful

New actor: citizens

User driven innovation

reuse of public data

UK: a doctor innovating the NHS

New actor: individual civil servants

Reuse of public data

Better informed customers

Incremental innovation

Codifying tacit needs and knowledge

Govt. as funder

eGov barcamp New Zealand

open innovation, informal collaboration and sharing

Codifying tacit knowledge

Conclusions

What is new for public eServices?

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

BUT:

The project: 3D online model of London to make urban planning more democratic

Launched by University College of London, funded by city government, delivered through GoogleEarth

Impossible to make available online because of copyright regulation on public data

Same happened with flooding maps

Need to re-define institutional arrangements, e.g. on reuse of public data:

Other challenges:

Accountability

Quality of services and universal service

Privacy

A new techno-economic paradigm?

Historical features of a new techno-economic paradigms:

Institutional change

New actors emerging

Widespread adoption of technologies

Incremental innovation, market-led

take-up time Source: Perez

Innovation 2.0 in public-services

Useful and already applied

Addressing key challenges to innovation

Very difficult to control or to stop, part of a wider socio-economic change

Open questions

What is the real weight and impact?

Which new forms of governance are needed?

Thanks

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Background slides

Innovation in public services

Govt is an innovation actor

But challenges remain

Cultural resistance

Risk aversion

Not understanding user needs

Less pressure for innovation (monopoly, no “exit” possible)

New relations with MPs

A new way to transparency

Regulating market distorsions

www.aboliamoli.eu

Italian citizen fighting against operators fee for recharging mobiles

Protested via consumers association and authorities > no effect

Collected signature via web and blogs (april 2006), sent them to EC which started procedure

Finally Italian government abolishing these fees (Jan 2007)

The UTAH national parks

On UTAH official website

On blog of UTAH IT manager

New relations with MPs

UK www.directionlessgov.com “ Directionlessgov.com is the result of a small effort by members of the Democracy.org.uk Collective. We got so fed up with the general uselessness of the multi-million pound shambles otherwise known as the Direct.gov.uk portal, that we decided to build something better in under an hour. Sadly, we ran catastrophically behind schedule, but we still finished before lunch.”