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Bringing the social web to Government

@thomkearney, Computer-Human Interaction in the Ottawa AreacapCHI March 16, 2010

Horizontal thinking in a vertical worldwiki-commons-Airshow.jpg

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Who am I?

Thom Kearney 3

My information overload

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Executive Gnome

Teacher

Armored Cow

Former Senior Director

www.strategyguy.com

Family Man

Odd Duck

Thom Kearney 5

Some other special people

Charles de Grasse, Technical Lead

Karl Ghiara, Project Director

Jeff Braybrook,Co-founder & Policy Lead

Ken CochraneFormer CIO

Marj & Peter Pathfinders from NRCan

Thom KearneyCo-founder &Executive Lead

Many helpful people

Chuck HenryFormer CTO

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The project

Open Collaboration for the Public Service

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October 2007

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A platform for:

Sharing

CollaboratingCommunicating

Collective Action

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Why?

Recognized need for: • New approaches• New thinking• New generation

New tools that help us:• Share good ideas• Find stuff to reuse• Connect with people• Work together better http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster

Try some new tools and see what works

Seeking: Sustainability & Efficiency

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Immediate action

October 2007, CIO, Ken Cochrane announces we are going to build a Collaborative Library

Environmental scan Brainstorm planning Learn by doing Low cost of failure

Early planning documents stuck on the wall. Initial pilot on TBS wiki

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A government-wide platform forinnovation and collaboration.

GCPEDIA GCCONNEX GCINNOVATION GCFORUMS GC…

GCPEDIA GCCONNEX GCINNOVATION GCFORUMS GC…

October 2008, CIO, Ken Cochrane announces GCPEDIA is now available.

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The official plan

“Enabling all public servants to connect, contribute and collaborate in support of service excellence.”

Supports

• Management agenda of efficiency, transparency and accountability

• Enables staff to implement the Public Service Renewal Action plan

gcpedia search: gcp

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The secret plan

Sow the seeds for the evolution of a complex adaptive system that will revolutionize the Public Service.

Lay the foundation for Government as a platform*

1. Open standards 2. Build a simple system, let it evolve 3. Design for participation 4. Learn from your users 5. Lower the barriers to experimentation

6. Build a culture of measurement7. Celebrate your developers

*http://www.slideshare.net/timoreilly/government-as-platform

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The approach

• How transparent can we be? • Share responsibility (and credit)

• Reach out always• Iterate, iterate, iterate• Inclusive and strategic• Top down and bottom up

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History

TBS WIKI Collaborative Library

GCPEDIAGCCONNEX Open Collaborative

Workplace

Architecture Library GCFORUMS GEDS+?

October 2007 October 2009 February 2010October 2008

Not to scale

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Evidence

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Validation

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Statistics

Oct 2008 Oct 2009

200

12,000

Feb 2010

8600

Users

As of February 2010

• 5,000 pages

• Millions of views

• 200+ Communities

• 50-100 new registrations per day

• 30,000 – 60,000 views per week

As of February 2010

• 5,000 pages

• Millions of views

• 200+ Communities

• 50-100 new registrations per day

• 30,000 – 60,000 views per week

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Emerging patterns

Communities of Practice 17%

Projects, Meetings & Events 12%

Help & Admin 10%

Other 11%

Requesting Feedback 18%

Sharing Information 32%

Purpose of page, from August 2009 GCPEDIA content review, based on 670 page random sample

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Reaction

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Hope

“Maybe this is not such a bad place to work…”

“I can contribute directly to solving really big problems…”

“ We can really improve how we do things.”

“ Finally, I can stop reinventing the wheel!”

“I can’t believe this is real!”

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Risk

Official LanguagesAccessibilitySecurityPrivacyProcurementCommon Look & Feel

Intellectual propertyLegalInformation ManagementValues and EthicsAccess to InformationCommunications

What about?

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The experiment continues

Content and usage patterns are data

Learn to see what works and keep doing it.

Learn to see what does not work and stop doing it.

Learn to stay flexible and policy compliant.

Learn how to provide collective leadership.

Integrate tools and improve user experience.

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Culture & Change

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People and Beliefs

Types of peopleEvangelistsConverts Questioning massesFundamentalists

BeliefsOSS is goodOSS is a way of lifeCOTS is what we should buyOSS is crappy for real people

We MUST manage everything. We Can’t manage anything.

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Customs and Norms

• Default to private

• “Flip me the deck!”

• Tools that I know

• We always do it this way

• Process before product

Transparency is a little scary

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Policy Implications

Can we trust people to be responsible?

Will transparency increase policy compliance?

Can we make better policy together?

Turning a light on in a dark room:

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Symptoms of change

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It is about people

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Learning from each other

To make things better!

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7. Principles of Change

1. Ask permission and beg forgiveness2. One conversation at a time3. Assume good faith4. Don’t take a no from someone that can’t

give you a yes. Michele Weslander, Intellipedia 5. Patience6. Respect many points of view7. Communicate openly

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Conclusion

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Major challenges

• Existing procurement and development approaches are not optimized for Web 2.0

• Understanding varies widely So does trust

• Leading amongst equals Ego can get in the way of

the collective good

Where there is a will, there is a way!

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Next ?

RSS

Community Management Collective Leadership

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Discussion

www.strategyguy.com

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Bonus Slides

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An architecture of participation

Report this

Compliance tags

Documented protocols and procedures

Automated systems

Easy to use

Correct what is wrong

Article notices give context Community Management

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Information Architecture

Polices

Knowledge

People/CoP

Projects

DesignsStrategies

Tools

Guidelines

FrameworksDirectives

Library Workspace

NavigationCharter

etc

TemplatesAbout the

Library

BTEP

GSRM

About EA

Principles

Lexiconapidea

GC Collaborative Library Information ViewVersion 11 February 2008

IM Portal

TechPortal

EA@GCPortal

Secuirty Portal

Access Portal

Etc Portal

Document Registry & Repository

Program Models

Service Models

Process Maps

Other

Other

EA Library Portal

Speech from Throne Clerk’s

OtherHorizontal

Plans

Person 1

Person 1Person 1

Community Portals Tex

t

Policy Instruments

Standards

Official Repositories

Initiatives

Task Groups

Committees?

Other

TeriumGC Usage

….

EA Practice

ArticlesCollaborationsProject PagesArtifact Pages

How to organize when everything is miscellaneous?

Early conceptual model A map of the first home page on GCEPDIA

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GCCONNEX A platform for community building

Defining requirements and learning the valued applications

Increase professional networking

Engage and empower employees

Proof of concept Professional

networking Low cost groups Expert location Bookmarks Blogs

Proof of concept Professional

networking Low cost groups Expert location Bookmarks Blogs

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GCPEDIA - A place to work together

General purpose enterprise wiki Easy way to collaborate and share Crosses organizational boundaries Poses governance challenges

Pathfinder on its way to production

Community built

Scalable Mediawiki platform

Pathfinder on its way to production

Community built

Scalable Mediawiki platform

0

200000

400000

600000

800000

1000000

1200000

1400000

1 5 9 13 17 21 25 29 33 37Oct

2008September

2009

20-50,000 views per week20-50,000 views per week

50-100 new users per day

50-100 new users per day

Steady AdoptionSteady Adoption

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GCINNOVATION

Tapping into the collective wisdom

Four week “idea campaign” on how to improve GC IT services

First time done in the GC

PubliVate tools and processes, community solutions

Many possible applications

Four week “idea campaign” on how to improve GC IT services

First time done in the GC

PubliVate tools and processes, community solutions

Many possible applications

Almost 1,200 Ideas Over 2,000 Participants 68 Departments

8007 Votes 48,362 Views

Average Comments, Votes, and Views per idea posted

2.41

42.72

7.241

Comments

Votes

Views