Reimagining Government in theDigital Age BY JAY NATH

Public sector organizations across the country arefacing declining revenues, an aging workforce, andcitizens who demand better and faster services. Atypical response to these challenges would be to re-duce government workforces and cut services, butthere are reasons to hope that the often-stated butrarely realized promise of “doing more with less”may soon become a reality for many governmentorganizations.

On January 21, 2011, President Obama issued amemo declaring transparency, collaboration, andparticipation as among his most important values.He asked agencies to pursue these goals with the useof “innovative tools, methods, and systems” andto “cooperate among themselves, across all levelsof government, and with nonprofit organizations,businesses, and individuals in the private sector.”Obama’s memo is part of a new movement for opengovernment or, as I refer to it, “Government 2.0.”Just as the Web 2.0 shifted the traditional paradigmof users as passive consumers of content to creators,Government 2.0 will allow citizens opportunities toparticipate and contribute value in a new architec-ture of openness and collaboration.

Transparency and Openness as a Foundation to aNew Civic Architecture

The traditional focus of open government advocateshas been on accountability. Very few would arguewith this principle, but the new open governmentmovement is likely to focus more on informationsharing that empowers citizens to be more activelyinvolved and creative. This shift from accountabil-ity to what I would call the generative power oftransparency reflects a new ethos. It recognizes thatthe traditional (and often cumbersome) mechanismsof public records requests can be improved on, sogovernment information is freely available for allto use.

The potential of government data can be seen insomething as ordinary as weather forecasts. The

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrationbegan releasing weather-related information as earlyas the 1970s, but now the data can be accessed in anumber of different ways, everything from the localnewspaper to the latest smart phone app. Global Po-sitioning System (GPS) data were originally reservedfor U.S. military use, but in 1983, President RonaldReagan ordered GPS data to be released to the Amer-ican public after 207 people were killed when aKorean Air flight mistakenly flew into prohibitedRussia airspace and was shot down. As a result ofthis directive, consumers now enjoy numerous ser-vices and products in their vehicles on smart phonesand elsewhere. It has also created a multibillion-dollar industry that employs tens of thousands ofpeople.

More recently, the federal government, led by WhiteHouse Chief Information Officer (CIO) Vivek Kun-dra, launched a central repository of freely availabledata called Data.gov. While this is the most visibleexample of open data, the real pioneer was the Dis-trict of Columbia. Under the leadership of Kundra,who was then the chief technology officer for thedistrict, D.C. established a very sophisticated datarepository. From that effort, dozens of applicationswere created to improve access to city services andinformation.

Soon after the launch of Data.gov, Chris Vein, for-mer San Francisco CIO, and I began planning a sim-ilar effort. We started by learning as much as wecould from Washington, D.C.

Our goal was to create as much value in the shortestamount of time with little or no capital costs. Wealso recognized that our open data efforts wouldevolve and that an iterative approach would serveus best. In less than three months, we launchedSan Francisco’s first data catalog, DataSF.org. Inthe spirit of leanness, open source software laid thefoundation. A feedback mechanism allowed the cityto improve the quality of the data released and alsoto prioritize what data sets should be shared. For

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Although standards may seem trivial, they are apowerful way to enable innovation.

example, the public was the first to inform San Fran-cisco when street-sweeping schedule data was in-complete in many areas of the city. DataSF now hasnearly 200 data sets and over 60 applications thathave been developed using San Francisco data. Theapplications have been produced at no cost to thecity’s government and are helping citizens under-stand when the next bus is arriving, analyze votingpatterns, and even report issues as they arise.

In the DataSF app showcase, public transportationapps are by far the largest category, representingnearly 20 percent of all apps. This is not surprising.Public transportation is a quality-of-life issue thataffects most people in the Bay Area. One iPhoneapp, Routesy, helps citizens navigate Bay Area trans-portation providers by using real-time prediction in-formation. By using a phone’s GPS location, theycan identify the nearest transit stops and determinewhen the next bus or train is arriving. By releasingthese data, transportation providers are greatly im-proving customer satisfaction, increasing ridership,and lowering costs. The app is rated very highly inthe Apple App Store; several customers have pro-vided comments, such as this one from “East BayMK”:

Thank god for Routesy!

It’s made my life so much easier. So much bet-ter than standing there at a bus stop wonderingwhen/if the bus is ever coming. And it worksway better than NextBus (which hardly worksat all). I feel like a public transit ninja!

Transit agencies are able to lower their costs by elim-inating the need for expensive electronic signage sys-tems and providing customers with alternative op-tions such as mobile apps, automated voice responsesystems, and text messaging. Additionally, call vol-umes can be reduced through this approach in citiessuch as San Francisco where 311 call center staffrespond to many calls for transit prediction.

With some applications, citizens actually can pro-vide information that helps local government, ei-ther by improving the quality of the data them-selves or by providing insight into areas that needservicing. This approach has proven quite success-ful when local government is managing a largenumber of assets spread across a sizable area,such as trees. For instance, the Urban Forest Map(www.urbanforestmap.org) is a Web site that allowscitizens to view San Francisco trees and how muchenvironmental value is being generated. The datapowering this site is from the City of San Franciscoand Friends of the Urban Forest, a local nonprofit.The Web site also gives citizens opportunities to addto or update existing information, which is then sentback to the city. In this way, citizens are crowdsourc-ing a better understanding of their city’s urban for-est. The Urban Forest Map team has open-sourcedthe code so other cities can benefit from its work.Another example of citizens being able to push databack to government is Open311 API. This interop-erable communication standard was launched withMayor Gavin Newsom and White House CIO Kun-dra in March 2010. It was heralded as a way forcities to standardize how they publish informationand consume 311 data. Standardizing allows devel-opers to create applications that work in any citythat adopts the standard. Although standards mayseem trivial, they are a powerful way to enable in-novation. One just has to look at the Internet orGPS as two powerful examples of standards cre-ating unforeseen value and innovation. As a resultof this collaborative effort among San Francisco,other cities, citizens, and Open Plans, a nationalnonprofit, Open311 is seeing tremendous growth inadoption and applications. Large enterprise players,such as the company Lagan, which sells the technol-ogy that powers many 311 call centers, have publiclyannounced their support and will enable their cus-tomers to easily adopt this standard. The effort hasalso led to the development of applications such asthe Open311, which allows Facebook users to sub-mit requests for city services where they find graffiti,potholes, or overflowing garbage cans. Since theserequests are processed without the need for 311 cus-tomer service agents and routed directly the appro-priate servicing agency, there is a huge potential forcities to save money and improve efficiency. Onecan imagine new applications using text messaging,Twitter, and even automated voice response systems

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We are now beginning to see a new culture of sharingand collaboration that will transform how govern-ment operates and ultimately provide better servicesat a lower cost to our citizens.

to allow citizens with numerous channels to inter-act with their city. “Government as a platform” is aterm used to describe this idea of creating an ecosys-tem of vendors, developers, and citizen hackers whoare solving many of the challenges in government.

The motivations for creating civic applications us-ing government data range from purely altruisticto profit making. In some cases, vendors developnew applications to sell to citizens or government.In others, they may use new applications as way ofmarketing their capabilities. Citizens themselves aresometimes interested in solving a problem and giv-ing the resulting product or service back to theircommunity. For instance, some artists are usingdata to explore and reinterpret urban spaces. Inthe end, the open data approach recognizes thatgovernment is simply a steward of public informa-tion with the responsibility to make this informationavailable freely. The potential benefits of increasedtransparency, accountability, and the provision ofnew government services are driving the adoption ofopen data by local, state, and federal governmentsacross the world.

New Model for Government Innovation:Collaboration

Many of us recognize the fact that government op-erations are more alike than not. Yet we continue tocreate solutions in silos and make little effort to seeif there are opportunities to collaborate with oth-ers or even borrow solutions already in place. Thistype of thinking may be overcome by recognizingthe simple fact that with the fiscal challenges facingmany organizations, we need to change how we dobusiness. Government leaders and taxpayers are de-manding that we work together to lower costs andimprove outcomes. We are now beginning to see anew culture of sharing and collaboration that willtransform how government operates and ultimatelyprovide better services at a lower cost to our citizens.

In many ways, the tools and approaches for connect-ing with people and data are much more advancedfor consumers than for government. In our personallives, we manage friends and family networks byFacebook; we use LinkedIn for professional rela-tionships, Wikis and Google Apps for collaborativework, and Twitter for sharing news and status. Yetin government, we still use tools and approachesfrom decades ago. We cling to top-down commu-nication and organizational structures; e-mail forcommunication; centralized Web masters for onlinecontent. The world is moving toward peer-to-peercommunications facilitated by Web 2.0 technologiesand is seeing the benefits every day. The technologyis available to government organizations, but usingit will require creating a culture of sharing, openness,and collaboration, which is even more challengingthan using new technology.

Govloop is an example of a large social networkfor government employees. It is the largest socialnetwork for government, with over 45,000 local,state and federal employees. There are many uses forGovloop, from building relationships, to answeringquestions, to best practices. Government workerscan find out who is working on a specific topic andpose questions and engage in dialogue. There arenearly 1,000 groups within Govloop, and they rangefrom the esoteric to the mainstream. For example,the National Institute of Standards and Technol-ogy (NIST) Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory(MEL) Robotics connects researchers. Communica-tion Best Practices is a place to share publicly re-leasable guidelines, templates, and policies. Whilemany may question the value of Facebook in theworkplace, Govloop provides clear benefits to thosewho use it for sharing and consuming knowledge.

In some cases, commercial self-interest can drive col-laboration among government organizations. Onesuch example is Google’s working with Portland’sTrimet Transit agency to standardize transit infor-mation. As a result, the public can now use GoogleMaps in hundreds of cities across the world to plantheir trip on public transportation. Before this col-laborative effort, public transit riders would have toconsult several maps and timetables, which discour-aged ridership. In 2005, Bibiana McHugh, an infor-mation technology manager at Portland’s TriMettransit agency, and Google released Google Transit

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Format Specification (now called General TransitFormat Specification, or GTFS). While adoption wasslow initially, the huge value that GTFS provides andthe Google brand name have helped push adoptionto hundreds of cities worldwide.

A great example of cities and counties working to-gether to develop a solution to common needs isthe Bay Area Recycling Database. The demand forinformation on recycling hazardous and less com-mon materials is quite high, with over 3,000 peo-ple visiting San Francisco’s Ecofinder Web site andover 5,000 downloads of its iPhone application.Other Bay Area projects like StopWaste.org inAlameda County have witnessed similar demand.In an effort to reduce costs and standardize how re-cycling information and services are delivered, SanFrancisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, and San Josecounties decided to work together to share the costs($100,000), design the solution, and develop an op-erational and sustainable plan for joint efforts. Sev-eral challenges are being worked through, includingdetermining how to structure governance, procure-ment, and ongoing management.

With such compelling drivers of lower costs andbetter outcomes, why is collaboration the excep-tion rather than the rule? Cultural attitudes are of-ten at the heart of the problem, but there is alsoa greater cost to collaboration in terms of commu-nications, gaining consensus, and increased trans-parency and accountability. As mentioned before,practical questions about procurement, governance,and ongoing management arise when working in acollective. Clearly, government needs a frameworkand methodology for collaborative efforts. One suchmodel that has been closely examined is based on theKuali Foundation’s work in higher education. Forthe past several years, the foundation has helped uni-versities collaborate on large-scale technology needs,such as financial systems, with tremendous success.In the government space, organizations such as CivicCommons are becoming repositories of best prac-tices and actively exploring a model similar to thatof the Kuali Foundation.

While the costs of collaboration can be a barrier,organizations that have pursued collaboration of-ten are rewarded with lower costs and better out-comes. In many instances, participating members

share costs equitably, saving substantial capital in-vestments. Technology can help lower these barriers,but it is up to organizational leaders to encouragetheir staffs to seek partnerships that will help driveculture change.

Some of the best ideas often come from outside thewalls of government. This is an often-heard refrainin the government 2.0 space. With Web 2.0 tools, thepublic sector now has the ability to quickly and costeffectively reach out to constituents for ideas, feed-back, and even policy making. “Ideation platforms”that help people share and develop new ideas, suchas Ideascale and Google Moderator, are being usedby all levels of government. These tools have a sim-ilar construct that allows the public to submit ideasand vote or comment on existing ideas.

In Manor, Texas, an experiment is being conductedby which people can submit solutions on an openinnovation platform. Dustin Haisler, a former cityCIO, in partnership with Stanford University andSpigit, an innovation management platform, de-signed a strategic process using gaming theory tosolicit and manage ideas. Each idea first enters theincubation stage, where it is posted for the publicto comment and vote on. As the idea gains tractionthrough page views, comments, and votes, it maymove on to the next stage: validation. In this stage,a department head reviews the solution in termsof sustainability and cost to determine if the ideashould advance to the next stage, emergence. In thisstage, the city discusses the idea and how it mightbe implemented. If the idea is deemed feasible, thecity will reward the initial submitter with a prize andimplement the idea. If the city does not advance theidea, it responds publicly and gives its reasons fornot doing so.

In San Francisco, crowdsourcing is taking a differ-ent approach. The best ideas, as selected by the pub-lic, will be given seed funding through micrograntsand crowd funding. The Improve SF project, set tolaunch in fall 2011, is a large-scale, high-profile, in-centivized experiment to empower the San Franciscocommunity by helping it generate and implement itsown solutions to its problems. In phase 1, commu-nity organizations will select three challenges fac-ing the city. In phase 2, the public will be askedto submit innovative ideas that help address these

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issues. In phase 3, the best ideas, as determined bythe public, will be seed funded through micrograntsand crowd funding. Self-identified solution support-ers will be matched with nonprofit organizations toprovide guidance and mentorship and to help mea-sure effectiveness. Phase 4 will consist of measuringthe effectiveness of the overall campaign, includingoutcomes. While this effort is yet to begin, the ideaindicates the evolution and continuous experimen-tation taking place at many levels of government.

Conclusion

The examples discussed in this article represent onlya fraction of the tremendously innovative work thatis being done today in government organizations.This flowering of innovation is being driven by sev-eral factors, including fiscal constraints, a new gener-ation of tech-savvy staff, Web 2.0, and an emerging

culture of sharing. Looking at innovation as a wayto lower costs is a strong argument for organizationsthat have a more conservative culture. Many of theexamples described here have been conducted at nocost and often generate tremendous value, quantita-tively and qualitatively, for the public.

When President Obama declared his commitmentto the values of transparency, collaboration, andparticipation, he understood their transformativepower and the promise they hold of reimagininggovernment in our digital age. Each of us, whetherwe work within the public sector or not, has the abil-ity to help advance these values through our supportand participation.

Jay Nath is director of innovation for the city and county ofSan Francisco.

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