david osimo, clara centeno institute for prospective...

Closing plenary session, 26 October 2007 eChallenges e-2007 Copyright 2007 European Commission

The elephant and the mice: will web 2.0 change public services?

David Osimo, Clara CentenoInstitute for Prospective Technological StudiesEuropean 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


The approach scenario building

• Building on today’s weak signals• not to predict the future, but • to structure the thinking and • to develop robust policy options

Bright and dark scenarios


Positive scenario: opportunities for eGovernment

(from IPTS tutorial at EU e-gov ministerial conference, www.egov2007.gov.pt)

• Web 2.0 can help reaching long-awaited objectives of government reform– wiki for cross agency collaboration (Intellipedia)– user generated content and collaborative rating/filtering for better and

faster decision-making (peer to patent)– recommendation systems and collaborative filtering for sharing

informal/tacit knowledge (allen and overy)– citizen ratings/feedback for user-oriented services (Patientopinion)– open petitions systems for participation (ePetitions)

• Necessary to engage, experiment, learn-by-doing

• BUT: what can go wrong?-> Developing no impact or negative impact scenarios

http://www.egov2007.gov.pt/


No impact scenario


It’s just another hype

• Web 2.0 business model is not solid, too reliant on advertising

• Online advertising is highly sensitive to GDP growth: bubble 2.0 in waiting

• Startups failing to deliver profits: Skype, Vonage

Variation of US GDP and US online advertising expenditure

-20

-10

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

1997-I 1998-I 1999-I 2000-I 2001-I 2002-I 2003-I 2004-I 2005-I 2006-I

q/q

varia

tion

US GDP US online spending

Source: IPTS elaboration of U.S Census, IAB


Few users are proactive – and we are reaching the peak

• Only 3% of citizens blogs, and growth of blogs and wikis is slowing down

• In public services, citizens are even less interested in participating/ discussing

Source:Robert A. Rohde, wikipedia administrator


It’s doesn’t matter

What matters is competence and high-quality services, rather than “conversations”

• In business, commercial success does not need openness (e.g. Zune developers blog while I-Pod developers are secretive)

• In politics, success in the blogosphere does not translate in success in elections (e.g. Howard Dean, Barak Obama),

• In public services provision, spontaneous cooperation (as “barcamp”) only rarely delivers after the initial enthusiasm (e.g. Italian Tourism Portal).

• Bloggers approach is not always constructive: “the philosophers have only interpreted the world. The point is to complain about it”


Negative impact


Creating inefficiencies

• Civil servants time diverted to non-core activities

• Web2.0 applications are cheap, but are human-resource-intensive: against the government trend to “do less, buy more”

• Excessive social control leading to increased risk aversion and immobilisation in the public sector


Undermining institutional credibility

• Opening confrontations, rather than dialogue and increasing distrust between government and citizens

• Government held accountable for bad/offensive user-generated content on the website

• Blogging is not for government (e.g. minister discussing the pension reform)


Damaging societal value

• Risk of populistic outcome, focus on short-term issues (against recharge fee for mobiles, road tax charge)

• Citizens organize anti social behaviour, and government react through increased control

• Excessive social control, no privacy

• Fragmentation of society in communities of interest

• Increased exclusion: services 2.0 only for the elite


Conclusions


Summing up the potential negatives

• No impact long term reform goals because it doesn’t matter

• Negative impact on long term reform goals because it creates inefficiencies and undermines government credibility

• Further negative impact on overall societal values such as cohesion, privacy, trust


Summing up the potential negatives

• No impact long term reform goals because it doesn’t matter

• Negative impact on long term reform goals because it creates inefficiencies and undermines government credibility

• Further negative impact on overall societal values such as cohesion, privacy, trust

futility?

perversity?

jeopardy?


Conclusions

• Web 2.0 offers risks as well as opportunities for eGovernment

• The risks are not new, but the same than for any important social innovation

• Public trust is the key determinant of success or failure• Government has limited influence on whether the impact of

web 2.0 is positive, negative or indifferent• Engaging, experimenting, learning by doing (starting from

back-office) is the safest option across the scenarios


Open questions for further work

• Assessing the impact of real-life case studies• Monitoring emerging trends• Giving weight to the risks and opportunities• Learning from experiences how to grasp opportunities and

avoid risks

[email protected]


Background slides


Policy options

Positive impact scenario: web 2 will improve public services• Engage, experiment to enhance positive impact

No impact scenario: web 2 will be irrelevant for public services• Do nothing or• Engage, experiment to obtain positive impact (difficult to sell, not linked

to your presentation, looks a bit artificial) May be you can draw only one negative scenario with the same content. The conclusion to engage appears more evident. Also, the negative scenario appears more credible with the examples you provide

Negative impact scenario: web 2 will damage public services• Engage, experiment to avoid negative impact

Engaging and experimenting is the safest/wisest option!


Identified areas of application (a rolling list)

Front officeBack office

Service delivery

eParticipation

Law enforcement

Public sector information

Public communication

Transparency and accountability

Inclusion

Regulation

Cross-agency collaboration

Knowledge management

Interoperability

Human resources mgmt

Public procurement

InnovationNetworked Employees Networked Citizens


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


Candide: “emancipation of civil society”

• Networked citizens perform public tasks and control government and fellow citizens• Citizens are actively engaged in political discussion, but always maintain a positive,

constructive, NPOV attitude. Citizens are more informed through internet based intelligence services, e.g. wider usage of GIS

• Networked users act as bridge to excluded segments to ensure inclusion of all• Public sector information/content is widely available and accessible, to enable private

usage and value added services• Public services online are easy to access, standardised, clearly explained, usable,

and leverage users experience (including users feedback)• Problems and failures in public service delivery are dealt with in a open and

constructive way between users and public sector• When services are provided by private sector, networked users ensure transparency

and no information asimmetry (reputation management systems)• Public workers ethics is reinforced by a more open attitude, strong internal cohesion

and higher external respect. • Public sector is knowledge –intensive and innovative by enhancing cooperation and

exchange with users and private sector• Public workers engage in consultations with stakeholders and access niche expertise

while taking complex decision


Long development cycle

Large scale IT projects and budget

On hard matters

Institutional, top-down

Permanent beta, fast iterative development

Largely based on open source / free software

On soft matters? contacts, networks, knowledge management

Spontaneous, bottom-up

eGovernment Web 2.0

david osimo, clara centeno institute for prospective...

Documents