December 8, 2010
Five Recommendations for Training Leaders in Technology and Government 2.0
In September I attended the Belfer Center’s Conference on Technology and Governance 2.0. The conference featured amazing attendees – Ellen Miller (Sunlight), Mike Klein (Sunlight), Karen Gordon Mills (US Small Business Administration), Mitch Kapor (Electronic Frontier Foundation), Paul Sagan (Akamai), Susan Crawford (Cardozo), Jonathan Zittrain (Harvard), Nicco Mele (Harvard/Echo Ditto), Archon Fung (Harvard), Tim Berners-Lee (W3C), Clay Shirky (NYU/Harvard), Zephyr Teachout (Fordham/Harvard), and a bunch of other amazing people in the field of technology and governance.
I was there as an attendee, but also had the privilege of participating on a panel with Aneesh Chopra (CTO of the U.S.A), Ian Freed (V.P Amazon kindle) and HKS students Seth Flaxman (he’s also the founder of TurboVote) and Philip Schroegel, moderated by Mary Jo Bane, Academic Dean and Thornton Bradshaw Professor of Public Policy and Management.
Our topic was what “Kennedy School Students Entering the Digital World: A Discussion with Aneesh Chopra & Ian Freed.”
In general, I think the Kennedy School is an excellent institution in most ways. Great professors are teaching in the field; there are several centers (Shorenstein Center for Press, Politics, and Public Policy, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation) that support efforts in this areas; students are demanding more courses in gov/tech (as evidenced by the enrollments in Nicco‘s and Clay‘s courses); there are great speakers series, there’s a vibrant gov20 student community; and a committed external community (including alums) interested in engaging with the school to push it forward in this field.
However, the Technology and Governance 2.0 conference convinced me even more that you need academic institutions in this debate.
December 8, 2010
Meet the Six Villains of Gov 2.0
I recently came across this funny (and too true) post by Todd Heim on social media villains that piqued both my long-time interest in super-heroes and super-villains and all things Government 2.0 too. While we pump up the Gov 2.0 Heroes (and even had an entire Day dedicated to them), and we hold conferences to highlight the work done by these heroes, I haven’t seen the opposite side get its due. Well, I’d like to dedicate this post to the people who make government innovation so difficult, the people who have stood in our way for years, the people who have been classified as hurdles, obstacles, and barriers – the Villains of Gov 2.0. Link to entire post on Steve Radick’s Social Media Strategery blog
December 8, 2010
Where Malcom Gladwell Left Off: Social Media & Next Generation Democracy
Last month Malcom Gladwell wrote an article in the New Yorker: “Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not be Tweeted.”
I’ve been thinking about this article ever since it came out, and people have asked me to respond on several occasions. When I read Next Generation Democracy and BYO started helping the author (and now friend) Jared Duval, I realized it was the perfect opportunity.
It’s not that Malcom Gladwell is wrong in his article. It’s just one sided.
He starts the article by describing a lunch counter sit in that took place in the Woolworths in Greensboro North Carolina in February of 1960, and that spurred a movement in which 70,000 students eventually took part.
These nonviolent actions were a core component of the civil rights movement, and although the protesters advocated peaceful solutions, their lives and limbs were often in danger.
December 6, 2010
The Long Tail of Internal Communications
I assume you are already familiar with the long tail; if so proceed directly to flipping through my slides below, if not it might be worth reading the Wikipedia article, the book by Chris Anderson, or watching this video by Clay Shirky, as the long tail forms the basis of my entire line of reasoning below.
The Tail
The bulk of communication within the organization – perhaps its very life blood – is informal. If you look at the examples I’ve charted you begin to understand how the long tail grows as new communication tools emerge.
December 5, 2010
Letting go for high performance leadership
© Chris Lamphear, iStockphoto
Two years ago, Angelina Munaretto took leadership of the Applying Leading Edge Technologies (ALET) working group within the Canadian government. This horizontal, mostly voluntary group was established to explore ideas around the use of social media and Web 2.0 tools for the government communications community.
At the outset, the group was structured in a traditional way and using government hierarchy: a Project Manager, two sub-working groups with co-chairs, and an advisory committee. Work began on defining the deliverables, finding members for the working groups and then working towards meeting the needs of this defined structure.
What nobody counted on, but in retrospect is not surprising, is the level of interest, passion and commitment exhibited by the entire government community in response to the global trend towards Web 2.0. All areas — not just communications, but programs, IM, IT and human resources — wanted to participate in some way. Those who were involved in applying the tools on a day-to-day basis started suggesting new projects that would help advance their programs, communications and use of Web 2.0 tools. The community grew into 150 people and 36 departments and agencies represented. Five departments seconded employees to work on deliverables for the community at no cost to the project.
December 3, 2010
Citizen networks – What can we learn from the science of epigenetics?
Not all that long ago, the scientific community was justifiably ecstatic about having achieved mapping of the human genome – The Human Genome project. The promise was that by understanding genetic mapping we could find cures for disease, disability, and perhaps enhance longevity.
But an interesting development has occurred. Scientists are now learning that understanding of human genetics goes far beyond mapping genes. Two people – for instance identical twins – can have identical DNA sequences– but can nonetheless experience very different health. Why?
This is where the science of epigenetics comes in. It seems that the environment, life conditions, our experiences, and perhaps the experiences of our ancestors can all affect how our genes express themselves. Epigenetics, a combination of proteins and markers affected by environmental conditions and life experience, can turn genes on and off. So even though two people have identical DNA they can still live very different lives.
So what does epigenetics have to do with citizen networks? Assume that two governmental agencies have similar networks – a similar number of members, compelling content, and exchange between citizens and agency. Assume also that we support the networks with similar component technologies. Why would we experience different results – different levels of citizen participation?
December 3, 2010
Eat or Be Eaten
Earlier this year I happened upon a blog post from Geordie Adams via a tweet from Tim O’Reilly. In it Geordie explains what he thinks is the major issue facing social media enthusiasts in the public sector:
“Cultural change [is] the biggest impediment to a higher adoption rate of social media in the public sector… [it] gets mentioned, everyone agrees, and then conversation turns to a technical or implementation discussion. To not [dig into culture change] is robbing important momentum from public sector social media evolution.” – Geordie Adams, Publivate (full article)
Geordie’s right, I can’t even recall the amount of times I have heard variations of the phrase “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”. Essentially, even the most well thought out strategic approaches are vulnerable to the workplace culture. It would seem that when social media meets the public sector it is culture, not content, that is king. Culture is eating breakfast in plenaries, in tweets and in blog posts on a daily basis all over the world. Initially I thought it was a great line, its retweetable, to the point, and when I hear it I implicitly understand the connotation.
Over my dead body
As catchy as it is, I would hate to see it on my tombstone. If we don’t do a better job tackling the problem we might as well give up, call the undertaker and order our tombstones with that very inscription. I can see mine already:
Here lies Nick
He went quick
always circled by a vulture
its name was culture
While Geordie’s list of cultural problems (failure, engagement, and transparency) is a good place to start , I prefer to start with what I think underlies all of them: complacency. It would seem that over the years many of us have earned the fat cat stereotype; even those who haven’t earned it directly are now guilty by association.
December 2, 2010
The How and Why of Leveraging Internal Social Networks
How do you feel about influence? Do you actively try to map it in your organization? Over the last few months, I’ve begun to hear this theme come up more and more in the workplace. To me, this is like the puzzle piece we’ve been missing. I became more personally interested in it when I met Josh Letourneau of Knight & Bishop earlier this year. Today I’m at the Conference Board’s Senior HR Executive Conference and it appears to be a theme they are picking up on as well.
Eric Mosley, Chief Executive Officer of Globoforce presented one of the finest sessions I’ve seen all year. I’d like to share some of the items he covered regarding the internal social networks in organizations and the impact of tracking the relationships.
Analysis by J. Letourneau of knightbishop.com
The discussion began around how the word “social” means different things to different companies. It’s one of those words that is everywhere lately, much like innovation. So, the first step has to be defining what the word social means in your organizational culture. For purposes of his discussion, social did not just mean social network platforms. It mainly meant the internal network that we each have in our organization in order to share information. Link to full post on Trish McFarlane’s HR Ringleader blog
December 2, 2010
Hamish Nicklin on Thinking Digital First
Recently Hamish Nicklin of Google presented at the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London. The presentation was requested in order to explain these tools and more importantly how they could be useful in the world of Foreign Affairs and Service.
One of his main themes is rather than creating something and then figuring out how do we make this digital, instead think digital first and you may come up with an entirely different process and approach. Extending this thought further, because of the growing ubiquity of phones and now smartphones we should begin by thinking mobile digital first!
It’s a rather long video but I think quite useful in getting the point home that because of the combination of digital, social and mobile, the digital genie is now fully out of the bottle and being integrated today as just one more part of our everyday environment and society. And by thinking first of mobile and digital when developing processes and projects we will be much more likely to deliver better solutions and services to those we serve.
Please share this post with your colleagues and do comment below and even share your own ideas on other valuable uses across all aspects of public service.
Jeff Ashcroft
December 2, 2010
Demonstrating Leadership with Web 2.0
Since the advent of Web 2.0 we have witnessed the increased speed and ease with which we can use the Internet and our IT networks to connect with people and manage information. Now with the onset of utilizing these tools in a two-way interactive manner, the concepts of collaboration, transparency and knowledge transfer have taken up centre stage within most organizations and not surprisingly now inside the public sector as well.
However, a somewhat dubious chicken and egg scenario has seemingly developed around the use of these new technologies and concepts. On one hand collaboration, transparency and knowledge sharing are not new and have been factors in organizational efficiency and success for a long time. On the other hand, that the Internet has evolved to better serve and enable these approaches is really no surprise; after all, technology has always innovated in response to our needs (and certainly our business needs). Organisations seem to be spending a lot of time figuring out what should come first, adopting the technology or adopting the behaviours, when really the two must go hand in hand.
Having said that, the apparent reticence of organisational leaders to themselves adopt these low cost, low barrier technology enablers and embrace them as accepted organisational success factors is surprising.
The role of leadership in emphasizing behaviours that the organisation wants to see adopted has been stated, underlined and re-stated over the years (who can forget the much used “walk the talk” from the nineties business lexicon). If organisations do indeed want to see collaboration, transparency and knowledge exchange happen within their ranks, they need to also make it happen at the leadership level and for obvious reasons:
- Senior-level collaboration breaks silos, increases policy relevance and compliance, reduces duplication and ensures more cohesive approaches to organisation-wide objectives
- Senior-level transparency increases trust within the organisation and without; increases engagement and buy-in and contributes to the overall health of the organisation
- Senior-level knowledge transfer increases organisational learning and efficiency; and safeguards knowledge capital. It also contributes to greater understanding throughout the organisation of the strategic thinking behind approaches, goals and objectives as well as a better understanding of the risks and challenges.
“Be the change you want to see”, we’ve heard it before and it’s all the more true in the Web 2.0 enabled workplace. Only now, it’s easier to do and what’s more it only takes true leadership for it to be demonstrated.
Suesan Danesh