Che Tibby’s great post this week about how government can/should interact with people via the Internet, Free on the Range, throws up some very interesting issues and, for me, some questions about what it is we mean when we talk about Govt 2.0 (government in the Web 2.0 age).
Given that Web 2.0 is a term that means so many different things to people, I thought it might be helpful to try and nail down some of the principles that might be critical to Govt 2.0. If nothing else, to serve as a common frame of reference as we start the discussion.
I think that there are (at least) five principles to Govt 2.0 (but I am open to suggestions), which while not direct correlates with O’Reilly’s seven principles, are significantly influenced by his thinking.
The five principles are:
- Data web
- Personalisation
- Open source government
- Search
- Authentication
Progress in each of these strands alone would significantly improve the .govt.nz namespace, deliver more value to both agencies and their publics and, importantly, align user experience in this space with best practice on the rest of the web.
Data web
As I have previously noted, the real issue for Govt 2.0 is around the data: who owns it and how is it managed? Microformats, semantic markup in general, and the approach that agency content is a resource to be shared are critical enablers to moving government web interactions beyond the current limited model.
Imagine you are building a new website for your agency. Do you view the content you are publishing (and/or aggregating) as being your agency’s IP, or do you see it as just a part of the wider mosaic, contributing to the whole namespace? If the latter, then you need to build in interoperability, web standards and some forward thinking about how the web might evolve so that the system benefits from your site.
Personalisation
Users across the web expect to be able to tailor their experience to their own requirements. Government is no different. The use of folksonomies, collabularies and the ability for users to create, for example, their own government homepage – to manage different agency accounts from the one place – would be a good indicator of a move towards Govt 2.0.
Ideally, users would also be able to save particular searches (see below), access records of their email, IMs or telephone calls with agency representatives and choose to release (or not) this information to other agencies. They would also be able to sign up for personalised RSS feeds that notified them when their rates/licenses/consultation documents are due. Essentially, enjoy a one-to-one relationship with government as a single entity.
Open source government
I don’t necessarily mean that government will be running on open source software (not a bad thing, in my view) but that individuals, communities and businesses are able to interact with government web applications in ways that are useful to them. So, we build web applications that allow the people who have funded to them to build, deploy and access their own APIs.
Sites like TheyWorkForYou, and MAPLight.org are managing to do this sort of thing almost in spite of the way most government sites are currently built. With a little more imagination, and a lot more structured data, most government content could be accessed in so many more ways: mashed up with maps to provide geographic context/information, syndicated to community built portals to capture information of specific interest to farmers or small business operators, etc. The potential to distill disparate sources down to content interesting and useful to an array of niche interests is just waiting to be tapped.
Where applicable, government could share the APIs with groups to assist them to develop their own. If you want to drive economic transformation, give people the tools to discover information both relevant and useful to them, and give them a way to use that information.
Search
This should really have been higher up in the list in terms of priority, but as part of the narrative it sort of sits beneath the other three. The information must be discoverable. And once it has been discovered, it has to be able to be repackaged according to user interests. So, if I search newzealand.govt.nz for, say, information on a driver license, I should not only see the top returns, but the most followed links, feedback from other users in which pages were the most useful, recommendations from LTNZ about which pages may be of help and perhaps some contextual links to related searches.
Once this is in place, it becomes quite easy to create portals based on vertical or horizontal search. Government won’t need to keep putting up taxpayer dollars for sector or issue related websites, it will all just run off search.govt.nz.
Authentication
All of this, of course, will be pointless unless we can move high-value transactions online. Being able to share my tax returns with a new accountant, or medical records with my GP, stuff that is dependent upon me establishing my identity with the agency and being sure that the party I am about to release my information to is who they claim to be.
We already have a government logon service where you can manage your usernames and passwords for government accounts (or credentials for higher level authentication, such as two-factor). This year will see the pilot of the Identity Verification Service, which will
provide government agencies with a high level of confidence regarding the identity of the online user, while placing people in control of the transaction and protecting their privacy. This is the online approximation of a person presenting a passport or other proof of identity document in-person to an agency.
In many ways authentication is both the culmination of this story and the starting point. If we really want to deliver transformed government to New Zealanders, then adding an identity layer to the Internet here is the first step.
Conclusion
Whether or not I am right about these five principles, what remains abundantly clear is the fact that for government to be responsive, to engage effectively and to deliver value to New Zealanders in the age of Web 2.0 will require a reinvention of the way we think and work.
And, to be clear, this is not about technology: it is about developing solutions for social and governance challenges. The fact that it is happening on the web is just a reflection of the way that our culture is changing. In ten years time, most Kiwis will regard the Internet with the same sense of awe that they regard the television. The question we need to ask is, do we have to wait that long to deliver Govt 2.0?
Photo: tsak_d
21 Comments
Ok, so what are the main factors hindering delivery of Govt 2.0? Why can’t NZ lead the world here?
Lead with the easy question, eh Mike?
For the record, I don’t think we are too far off the pace. We are doing some good stuff, particularly around search and authentication. I guess that the single biggest factor is a lack of a sense of urgency…
I am with you 100% here on a personal level Jason, but will raise the question of the digtial divide.
Will it be that government information and services are easily accessible so long as you have the know how and equipment to do so - otherwise, you are waiting in the queue with the rest?
I just think that it is about technology, because without it this great vision of open government, that we all share, is just not possible.
Thanks, Sam. The digital divide is certainly a factor. So is the availability of broadband, for that matter. What we can be sure of is that the closer we get to Govt2.0, the shorter the queues will get - both because people will be accessing stuff online (if they can) and because internal government systems will be more efficient/effective.
So I would argue that the benefits are worth the investment. I also think that we need to build web services that are usable by anyone, irrespective of their technical ability. Most people manage to work out how to use cable TV, why should govt web services be any different?
The real issue for Govt2.0 will be around the data: who owns it and how is it managed, when government pays for services that are delivered by third parties.
What are the two biggest areas where government is involved with you, over your lifetime? I’d guess Education and Health, both typically provided by third parties (schools, doctors, dentists).
How easy is it for you to obtain an electronic copy of your transaction and manage your affairs, as you wish, over time?
This thinking could extend to any service; for example, your pet, your car.
Perhaps not so much Govt2.0, as Customer2.0.
I agree Mike. The problem is that Customer2.0 is here, waiting to be served…
Jason - so how do we get a sense of urgency? Allied to that, I would imagine, would be a lot of education about possibilities, potential and pitfalls around these issues. One would also imagine that knowledge of these things is not evenly distributed
Mike - agree with your point about owning and managing the data. I suspect a lot of people/organisations/companies/agencies would be very nervous about “letting go”.
Mike B - I think your comments to me and Mike are related: urgency is a function of understanding, as is the willingness to ‘let go’ and accept that new models of thinking and working are required.
Education is part of the answer, as is thrashing this stuff out in fora like this. A shared understanding is the first step, no?
that’s one of the things i was hinting at in free on the range. what needs to be defined is exactly where the interface between “completely free” and “governed” information is.
once the public is aware that not all information will be up for grabs, as is the case right now, then agencies will be more comfortable. the trick, imho, is getting the pseudo-public space of govt2.0 open enough to be welcoming to ‘the people’, but clearly defined as government space.
I have run up against the distinction that Che Tibby speaks of recently here. I approached a .govt.nz website looking for access to information which is my right to have as a citizen (and is available on the web). Of course I wanted it marked up semantically so I could automate the process of acquiring and managing it and I wanted it because I am going to use it for commercial gain.
Am I right to argue for the information to be marked up semantically if my motivation for that is to repackage it, (add value) and resell it?
tricky one, because you’re asking for a public agency to spend their own limited resources so that you can make money.
hell, i’m no expert in this area, but i’d suggest that if you were just taking the info and using it then you’re in the clear. but because you’re ‘requiring’ them to do something that might appear to them to only benefit you, then things get a bit iffy.
if you could demonstrate that marking the information semantically is in the public interest, then you might have a case.
otherwise, a great example of how we need to establish what the purpose of govt2.0 is.
It clearly is in the public interest in that semantically marked-up information is demonstrably more accessible. Plus the web guidelines and standards require it. Plus it’s no harder to do if you do it from the start.
If we assume (big assumption I know!), that all govt data will be well marked-up from now, how is allowing people to use that for commercial gain, or other legal uses, different from allowing people to use publicly-funded infrastructure (roads etc) for the same purposes?
Would the potential benefits (and who knows what they would be often until they happen) of allowing this outweigh downsides?
i think the problem might have been the perception that sam wanted something “only for him”.
if semantically marked-up information is both a web standard, and in the public interest, then put that in a letter/conversation with the persons not meeting the standards.
or talk to the right people about getting the public agency you’re writing to to conform. not sure who that is though - the SSC?
as for using it for commercial gain… you’d think agencies should accept that private use will achieve things they can’t, or don’t have the writ to do.
There is a document that provides guidance for agencies.
This LINZ case study highlights some of the issues involved in pricing electronic government information.
The web guidelines were originally consulted on in 2001. The message that appropriately marked up HTML pages, designed for people first and machines second, makes information more accessible, is starting to get through.
Web 2.0 has arrived. We now need a second message, that Government web pages are not just brochure ware, they must be well-assembled data structures for information exchange.
Mike B:
Short answer, Mike. It’s not. It is exactly the same. Taxpayer dollars paid for the collation, analysis and publication of the data: taxpayers should be allowed, no encouraged to reuse that data for financial gain, aka economic benefit. That is a big part of the knowledge economy.
Mike: absolutely. Govt2.0 will be built on the data web - and as Mike B notes, it isn’t difficult if it is built in from the start. And with websites ageing the way dogs do (ie., 1 chronological year = 5 years on the web) there is a constant stream of opportunities for govt agencies to implement this stuff.
I am getting a 404 on the LINZ study - and am interested in reading it, Mike. Can someone help me?
Hi Jason - I would change personalisation to customisation. Personalisation assumes we serve things to the user, customization assumes the user creates their own nirvana.
Different point same post: government standards need to catch up to the idea of the data web - although there is tons of organic dicussion around the importance of thinking about your site as machine readable, and the web standards go along way in terms of ensuring your site is optimised for search (although not all the way) — Content sydication, microformats (community based standards) are all new areas. These standards are maturing as we speak. I totally agree government needs to step up the pace here (as large web2.0 players have already adopted these formats).
Thanks Elyssa. Good point about customisation.
And, yes, the data web is central to Govt2.0. I see microformats, for example, as the first – relatively simple – step down that path.
LINZ case study:
http://www.govis.org.nz/confer.....-walsh.doc
This is way cool, Jason. I don’t suppose you managed to make it to my keynote on Friday, where I actually took the 8 principles that O’Reilly outlined and talked directly how Government Services (in particular, but we are working with an organization similar to ‘theyworkforyou.co.nz’ in the US called The Sunlight Foundation on elected gov’t officials as well) can take those principles and shift their thinking to be more ‘citizen centric’. The presentation is here:
http://slideshare.net/missrogu.....tion-47993
Thanks Tara: I did make it to your keynote (and picked up a couple of the points you made it in my talk later that day on Govt 2.0) and really enjoyed it.
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