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Government 2.0
From Community Participation to Co-creation
Mark Kuznicki, Remarkk! Consulting
Sean Howard, Lift Communications

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Toronto Transit Camp
“Not a complaints department,
a solutions playground”
Passion and fun meet practice
Diverse communities of interest and practice
Cultural change
Facilitating community formation
Modelling for replication
Harvard Business Review: “Breakthrough Ideas 2008”

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A Challenging Time for Leaders
Accelerating pace of change vs. industrial age planning time-scales
De-industrialization and economic transformation
Continued rising energy prices
Climate change
Unforeseen economic crises and external shocks
Demand for INGENUITY, CREATIVITY, INNOVATION, FORESIGHT, INSIGHT

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Open Innovation Systems
The best ideas do not come from within any one organization, recognized by
P&G, IBM and many others
Black Swan ideas always come from unexpected and unplanned places1
How do we design systems for innovation?
OPEN INNOVATION => RESILIENT & SUSTAINABLE PLACES?
1 “The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable”, Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2007)

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Case Study: The Metronauts
Context: Metrolinx (Greater Toronto Transportation Authority), agency
developing a Regional Transportation Plan for GTHA
Challenge: Recognition that the current public consultation process
(mandated) is broken (us and them). Desire an ability to engage the public and
generate insights and collaboration.
Approach: Apply the open sourced Transit Camp model to a real-world
planning and policy innovation opportunity
Audience: Find the most passionate 1% of citizens and engage them deeply
not just with the organization, but with each other
Design: Create “third spaces” -> unconference events and an online
community

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Richard Florida’s Creative Class
Arts
Architecture & Design
Entertainment & Media
Science & Engineering
paid to create
share a “creative ethos”
are attracted to “creative habitats”
driving future prosperity

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Cultural Creative Values
heterarchy: horizontal power & control
reject the materialist notion of success
self-actualizing, integrated and balanced life
believe in authenticity, emphasize relationships
prefer intimate, visceral & engaged learning
idealism, activism, globalism and ecology
believe that a little creative chaos is a good thing
Source: Ray & Anderson (2000), “The Cultural Creatives”

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Virtual community
meets physical place.

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City Repair Project, Portland
Text
How do we
create space
for play?

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Goals & Expectations
Key Success Criteria: Engagement & Insight
Citizens who are informed and creatively engaged in the Metrolinx RTP
process
Tangible artifacts to provide input and insight into the Metrolinx RTP
process
Extend and connect the passionate Transit Camp community to the
organization and to each other across the vast city-region

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Project Phases
July ‘08 Sep/Oct ‘08
Participatory Research &
Activation Phase Post Engagement
Engagement
Participatory Research & Engagement
Draft Regional Transportation Plan
Activation Phase
Broad community engagement focused on RTP
Post Engagement
Assessment of outcomes & opportunities for ongoing engagement

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Gathering Insights
Explicit: Specific ideas and solutions offered by informed and engaged citizens
Tacit: Insights derived from observing the interactions and conversations of
informed, engaged and enabled
Latent: Needs that are not known until they are seen for the first time
ETHNOGRAPHIC research opportunities

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Metronauts Unconferences

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Value Received to Date
Innovative and unexpected ideas that would never surface in any traditional public
consultation approach
People involved feed engaged together in the process
Successfully shifted dialogue to solutions frame, avoided railroading by pet issues
advocates or “the usual suspects”
Grew awareness of Metrolinx RTP process across the region
Metronauts Ground Crew - a volunteer guerilla marketing squad
Created a safe place for Metrolinx to learn and experiment with new tools and methods
Emerging themes:
Expected - transit planning (routes, rolling stock, headway) & engineering focus
Unexpected - traveller experience, interactions, human-centric design focus

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Lessons Learned to Date
Integrate community engagement with communications strategies and planning
processes
Building an online community is only one element of a multi-faceted online
engagement approach; need to engage where people are today
Community evangelist is a key competency that must be developed, enabled and
supported
Community is drawn to the legitimate centre of power and influence, which needs
to pay back with trust and transparency to enhance legitimacy

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Engagement Pyramid

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Contextual Touchpoints
Going where our audience is
Finding related communities of
interest
Creating experiences across
touchpoints
Enabling and repacking content so
that is both pertinent to platform and
a match with audience interests and
passions

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The Cynefin Model
Simple (cause and effect -> best
practices)
Sense, Categorize, Respond
Complicated (complex but
understandable r/ships)
Sense, Analyze, Respond
Complex (in retrospect)
Probe, Sense, Respond
Chaotic (discovery)
Act, Sense, Respond

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Community Evangelist Role
“Someone devoted to building a critical
mass of support for a service, technology
or community”
Providing value to the conversation
A Metrolinx staff member that is
transparent in their role as evangelist
Interacting daily with community
through a variety of technologies,
platforms and places
Shares a passion for the subject
matter with the community, depth of
understanding, solid relationships
within the organization, articulate and
empathy
Requires: Time, Authority, Legitimacy

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Signals of a Participatory Future
The Social Web (aka “Web 2.0”):
the web as a platform for participation
Rise of the Creative Class, Cultural Creative Values, Millennial Generation
pools of talent waiting to be engaged
The “Obama Moment”:
the first transformational political leader of the web age

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The “Obama Moment”
First Transformational Leader of the Web Age
Embraces social movements self-organizing on
the web, youth, crowd-sourcing, small donations
Enables participation of people who have felt
outside the political process - more than inspiring
speeches
E.g. “virtual call centers”, personal blogs, self
organizing street parties
User-generated content driven by participatory
values consistent with his message:
“We Are the Change We Are Waiting For”

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Government 2.0?
Traditional Planning Paradigm Emerging Participatory Paradigm
Professionalization Rise of the Pro-Ams
Industrial Age & Modernist Values Imagination Age & Creative Values
Public Consultation Public Engagement & Participation
Risk Aversion & Management Risk-Taking & Innovation
Control of Information Push Information to the Edges
Control of Complicated Systems Adaptation to Complexity
Planning-Centric Human-Centric
Efficiency of Service Delivery Perceived Value of Outcomes

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Mark Kuznicki
http://remarkk.com
mark@remarkk.com
Sean Howard
http://www.craphammer.ca/
sean@liftcommunications.ca