Government 2.0: Opportunities and Challenges

Escuela de Organización Industrial

University of Madrid

12 February 2010

~

Jane Fountain | NCDG.org

Professor of Political Science and Public Policy

Director, National Center for Digital Government

University of Massachusetts AmherstWith acknowledgements to Jeffrey Rothschild, research assistant

The State of Play

• Web 2.0 and the Election

• Cross-agency Developments

• Open Government Initiative

• Opportunities and Challenges

The Emergence of the Internet in the 2008 Presidential Election

The Emergence of the Social Web in the2008 Presidential Election

The Campaign by the Numbers

• 52.5% of the popular vote

• 364 electoral votes

• Email – 13 million on list received 7,000 variations of more than one billion emails

• 5 million “friends” on > 15 social networking sites

• 2,818,410 supporters on Facebook) (6.95 million)

• 870,093 “friends” on MySpace (1.89 million)

• 126,225 followers on Twitter

• $600 million in contributions

• 3 million online donors contributed 6.5 million times

• 3 million personal phone calls placed during last four days of campaign

Sources: Jose Antonio Vargas, “Obama Raised Half a Billion Online,” Washington Post online, Nov 20, 2008. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2008/11/20/obama_raised_half_a_billion_on.html Mark Harris, “Barack to the future,” Institution of Engineering and Technology Magazine, 19 Nov 2008. http://kn.theiet.org/magazine/issues/0820/barack-future.cfm

MyBarackObama.com

• Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes developed MyBO.com

• 1.5 million accounts

• 8.5 million monthly visitors at peak

• 400,000 blog posts

• 35,000 volunteer groups• promoted > 150k events

• 70,000 fundraising hubs raised $30 million

• Processed three million private donations

• Now the “Organizing for America” website

Sources: Vargas, 2008; Harris 2008.

Reach out to Niche Communities

• MiGente (Latinos)

• FaithBase (Christians)

• Eons (Baby Boomers)

• AsianAve (Asian Americans)

• Glee (LGBT)

• BlackPlanet (African Americans)

Sources: Vargas, 2008; Monte Lutz, “The Social Pulpit: Barack Obama’s Social Media Toolkit,” Edelman, 2009.

Expansive Social Networking• LinkedIn - 500 connections (Harris)• 50,000 images of Obama and family on Flickr

photostream (Harris)• Second Life presence (Harris)• Strategic text messaging (Vargas 2007)• Counter-viral email messages• $8 million in online advertising; $3 million on Google

(Harris)• $293 million in television advertising (January ‘07 to

October ‘08) v $132 million by McCain

Sources: Harris, 2008; Vargas, 2007

The YouTube President

Free Advertising on YouTube• Almost 2,000 official YouTube videos• Official videos watched > 14.5 million hours • Videos watched > 80 million times• 6.7 million watched Obama speech on race

442,000 user-generated videos on YouTube• Videos more effective than television (Trippi)• Friends refer videos; citizen fact checking• 14.5 million hrs on television costs $47 million

Sources: Claire Cain Miller, “How Obama’s Internet Campaign Changed Politics,” New York Times, Nov 7, 2008. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/how-obamas-internet-campaign-changed-politics/

Use Online Tools to Activate and Manage Volunteers

• Use direct, personalized communication• Self-organizing networks - with clear direction• Ask visitors to MyBO to set fund raising goals,

chart progress, provide feedback• 2.9 million sign up for text messaging of VP

choice • iPhone app scans address books for contacts

in battleground states - ask friends to contact

Sources: Harper, “Uploading Hope,” Paper delivered at YouTube and the 2008 Election Cycle in the United States, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2009. http://youtubeandthe2008election.jitp2.net/keygues/mharper; Harris, 2008.

McCain: No comparison

• Obama website• Ten times the online

staff• Four times the

YouTube viewers• Five times the

Facebook friends• Double the website

traffic

Source: Lutz, 2009.

To Summarize

• Clear political and strategic goals and micro-level planning

• Strategic use of web 2.0 with personalized, detailed directions to volunteers

• Multiple points of entry, multiple opportunities for participation

• McCain - little user production allowed• Howard Dean (2001) - genuinely interactive

website, online fundraising, allow all to blog

State of Play in the U.S. Bureaucracy: 2008

Government to Citizen

Government to Government Internal Effectiveness and Efficiency

1. USA Service GSA 2. EZ Tax Filing Treas 3. Loans.gov Educ4. Rec’n One Stop Interior 5. GovBenefits.gov Labor

1. E-Vital 2. E-Grants3. Disaster Assistance and Crisis Response4. Geospatial Information One Stop 5. Wireless Networks (SAFECOM)

1. E-Training 2. Recruitment One Stop3. Enterprise HR Integration 4. E-Travel 5. Integrated Acquisition6. E-Records Management7. Payroll Processing

Cross-Agency Initiatives

Managing PartnerOPMOPMOPMGSAGSANARAOPM

Managing Partner

SSAHHSFEMA

DOI

FEMA

Government to Business1. Federal Asset Sales2. E-rulemaking 3. Simplified and Unified Tax and Wage Reporting4. Consolidated Health Informatics 5. Business Compliance One Stop6. International Trade Process Streamlining

ManagingPartner GSA

EPA

Treas

HHS

SBA

DOC

E-Authentication

An Enterprise Approach to Government

Projects / Departments DoC DoDDoE DoEdDoI DoJ DoL DoT EP FDICFEMAGSA HHSHUDNARANASA NRCNSF OP SBA SmithsonianSSAStatteTreasuryUSAIDUSDAVAConsolidated H'lth Informatics X X X XDisaster Management X X X X X X X X X X X X X

E-Authentication X X X X X X X X X X X X X X

Grants.gov X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X

E-Payroll X X X X XE-Training X X X X X X

E-Travel X X X X X XE-Vital X X X X X X X X X X

E-Records Management X X X X X X X XGovBenefits.gov X X X X X X X X X X

Expanding Electr. Tax Products X XIRS Free File X

Federal Asset Sales X X X X X X X XGeospatial One-Stop X X X X X X X X X X X X X

Integrated Acquisition Env. X X X X X X X X XEnterprise HR Integration X X X X X

E-Clearance X X X X X X X XInt'l Trade Proc. Streamlining X X X X X X X

Business Gateway X X X X X XE-Loans X X X X X X X

E-Rulemaking X X X X X X XRecreation One-Stop X X X X X X X X X

Recruitment One-Stop X X X X X X X X X XUSA Services X X X X X X X X

SAFECOM X X X X X X X X X

Institutional Developments Federal Chief Information Officer (CIO),

Associate Director for IT and eGovernment Ministry CIOs and CIO Council OMB Portfolio Management Office –

oversight of cross-agency projects; knowledge sharing

Managing Agencies for cross-agency projects – lead agency approach

Sources: J. E. Fountain, “Bureaucratic reform and e-government in the United States,” in Chadwick and Howard, eds, 2009; Fountain, “Challenges to Organizational Change,” in Lazer and Mayer-Schoenberger, 2007; “Central Issues in the Political Development of the Virtual State,” in Castells and Cardoso, 2006. http://people.umass.edu/jfountai/publ_articles.htm

Institutional Developments (1993-2009)

Legislation Oversight and central management at OMB Funding and budgeting networks Civil service mentality – government-wide

(enterprise) and networked Accountability in networked governance?

From the Campaign to the White House

Obama Administration• Open government directive on transparency,

participation and collaboration in government• Broadband internet access nationwide• Appointed first Federal Chief Technology Officer• Drive growth by deploying a 21st Century Information

Infrastructure• Invest in science and science education• Move toward unprecedented openness• Make critical government information available

See Beth Noveck, U.S. Deputy Chief Technology Officer, “Open Government,” NCDG lecture, October 30, 2009.http://youtubeandthe2008election.hosted.panopto.com/CourseCast/Viewer/Default.aspx?id=8ec56772-4ad9-47c4-b607-3b47993f8b07

White House Open Government Initiative

Open Government Initiative• January 21, 2009, Executive Memorandum

announces commitment to “unprecedented level of openness in Government.”

• Transparency - enable greater accountability, efficiency and economic opportunity through open data and operations

• Participation - early and effective opportunities for greater and more diverse expertise in decision making

• Collaboration -- generate new ideas to solve problems, foster cooperation across departments, levels and with the public

Data.gov

Apps.Gov

More Innovations

Observations

Antecedents of Successful Collaboration

Institutional Factors:

Accountability Political Leadership Legislative FrameworkBudgetary Process Organizational Culture

Operational/ Managerial Factors:

Structure of Collaborative Work (important task, clear goals, performance metrics) Resources Interoperability

Individual Factors:

BackgroundSkillsExperience Social Capital(networks and trust)

Successful Collaborative Initiative

Macro-Level Meso-Level Micro-Level

Source: Fountain 2007.

Web 2.0 and Civil Society

• The new hype?• Bush: “a thousand points of light”• Self-organization - the new marketization?• IT industry interests in web 2.0 and

governance• Task dimensions and complexity in

policymaking require expertise• Representativeness - who participates?• Aggregation v. integration

Source: Fountain, 2009

The Government of the FutureThe government of the future requires• The civil servants, partnerships and citizens

of the future• Civil servants as knowledge workers in an

information society• Using digital tools and networks• With a deep sense of public service• And strong understanding of their policy and

programmatic domains

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