Osimo Open Days CoR

David Osimo - Open Days 2008 - 1

Web 2.0 in government: irrelevant, important or game

changing?

David OsimoTech4i2 ltd.

Open Days - 7th October 2008

David Osimo - Open Days 2008 -

So far ICT has not fundamentally changed government

• 1990s: ICT expected to make government more transparent, efficient and user oriented

• 2005+: disillusion as ICT failed to drive real change in government

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The e-ruptive growth of web2.0

70 M blogs, doubling every 6 months

YouTube traffic: 100M views/day

Wikipedia: 2M articles

Source: Technorati, Alexa, Wikipedia, Cachelogic

Peer-to-peer largest source of IP traffic

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Is web2.0 relevant in government, and where?

Back office Front office

RegulationCross-agency collaboration

Knowledge managementInteroperability

Human resources mgmtPublic procurement

Service deliveryeParticipation

Law enforcementPublic sector information

Public communicationTransparency and accountability

source: http://ipts.jrc.ec.europa.eu/publications/pub.cfm?id=15654


Regulation : Peer-to-patent

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Service delivery: Patient Opinion

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Reminder: citizens and employees do it anyway

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Citizens’ monitoring government


Are these services used?

• in the back-office, yes

• in the front-office, not too much: few thousand users as an average

• still: this is much more than before!

• some (petty) specific causes have viral take-up (mobile phones fees, road tax charge schemes)

• very low costs of experimentation

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It’s not about “total citizens”

Source: IPTS estimation based on Eurostat, IPSOS-MORI, Forrester

4.Providing attention, taste data

3.Using user-generated content

2.Providing ratings, reviews

1.Producing content

100%3% 40% of Internet users (50% of EU population)10%

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Is there a visible impact?

Yes:

• in the back office: evidence used by US Patent Office, used to detect Iraqi insurgents

• in the front office, making government really accountable and helping other citizens

• it’s not about mass collaboration, is about the relevance of input

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Why?

Because it acts on leverages, drivers and incentives:

• building on unique and specific knowledge of users: the “cognitive surplus”

• the power of visualization

• reducing information and power asymmetries

• peer recognition rather than hierarchy

• reducing the cost of collective action

• changing the expectations of citizens12


A new flagship goal of eGovernment?

INPUT: IT investment

IMPACT: Better

government

high

high

low

low

eGov2.0 Transparency

eGov1.0 Online services

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Thanks

[email protected]

http://egov20.wordpress.com

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mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]


back up slides

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Why? /2

• Citizens (and employees) already use web 2.0: no action ≠ no risks

• Likely to stay as it is linked to underlying societal trends

- Today’s teenagers = future users and employees

- Empowered customers

- Creative knowledge workers

- From hierarchy to network-based organizations

- Non linear-innovation models

- Consumerization of ICT16


How to start: suggestions from web2.0 experts

• Start from back office: knowledge intensive, collaborative culture teams

• Evaluate existing usage by your employees

• Partner with civil society and existing initiatives

• Open your data, make them available for re-use

• Provide governance, but soft: policies and guidance

• Listen and follow-up on users’ feedback

• But no ready recipes: experiment!17


Common mistakes

• “Build it and they will come”: beta testing, trial and error necessary

• Doing everything on own website: reach out through existing websites/network

• Opening up without soft governance of key challenges:

- privacy

- individual vs institutional role

- destructive participation

• Adopting only the technology with traditional top-down attitude

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Web 2.0 is a set of values more than a set of technologies

ValuesUser as producer, collective intelligence,

openness “by default”, perpetual beta, ease of use

TechnologyBlogs, Podcast, Wiki, Social Networking, Peer-

to-peer, MPOGames, Mash-up Ajax, Microformats, RSS/XML

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