A Life in Beta

It never (ever) ceases to amaze me that Field of Dreams was nominated for three Oscars.  Three. Oscars. Still there is no accounting for taste.  Lucky for Kevin K. Although I was a secret fan of Waterworld for years (good to get that out there).

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about making operational change stick in Government and related to that the rise (and rise) of Social Media/Social Technology in Government or what is currently oft referred to as ‘Government 2.0‘.  I intend to dedicate my next few posts to that but for the purposes of a late night preamble it goes something like this…

Reading some of the coverage on the application (or potential application) of Social Media/Technology one could easily come to the conclusion that this might be a panacea for the evils and short comings of modern Governance.  And while there is no doubt that new ’social technologies’ offer some exciting opportunities for Government including:

•  Improved communication and cooperation (within and between governments and citizens)
• Improved collaboration for service/solution co-production and participation with citizens (from participatory citizen voting, harnessing collective intelligence on matters of policy to the creation of new “Citizen centric” services built by the public using Government API data)
• More efficient and effective options for service delivery/monitoring
• Improved transparency and accountability (of decision making, accounting, voting, interests etc).

But it is vital to remember that just “adopting” the tools and language of social media/technology in Government will simply not be enough because as Clay Shirky and may others have pointed out: 

•  These technologies to do not in the main create new motivations, they are simply a means to enable existing motivations to be exercised more immediately and efficiently
• This must ultimately be about a change in behaviour (not simply technology); a change in the way “we do things around here” (aka culture) and that sort of change is hard won and even harder sustained.

Many public bodies and officials will need to change behaviors in a way that will be more significant and anathema than learning the difference between Facebook, Wordpress, Twitter and (as a starter for ten:) API.  How they communicate, legislate, consult, lead their staff and are held accountable will all be subject to significant change in a Government 2.0 operational landscape.

More importantly however, if this is to mark a meaningful new era in governance we, as citizens, will need to change our behaviours dramatically. We are seeing record levels of political apathy reflected in (for example) falling political party membership and poor voter turn out. Yet inherent in the argument that social technologies can truly transform Government (stand up Government 2.0) today is the assumption that we have a public who are ready, willing and able to communicate and participate never mind collaborate and create!   Certainly there are many – I included – who can now more easily engage in ‘new ways of working’ with my Government or Local Council – see the wonderful “Us. Now” for more examples. There is a growing body of IT developers who are trying to use Government data to build and develop new services to improve the connection between Government and citizen e.g. MySociety

But there are many – the majority most definitely – who either do not have the knowledge, means or inclination to do so…..”because these new technologies do not (in the main) create new motivations they simply enable existing motivations to be exercise more immediately and efficiently”.  We can design and put in place what I call “the enabling context” but will they come and will they be representative and responsible when they get there? Most pertinent in the context of citizen communication, participation and transactional service delivery is Martha Lane Fox’s observation at the NESTA “Reboot Britain” Event in July that 80% of government interactions are with the poorest 25% of people who are much less likely to be online. 

If the promise of social media in Government is to be realised then we must still ask the question: how do we engage “the people” again in the design and delivery of Public Services and keep them engaged when we do get them there?  If we don’t then at best we’ll have an extremely unrepresentative channel of Gov 2.0 constituents and at worst we’ll have an increasingly disengaged and disenfranchised wider populace.  Some proponents state that the mere adoption of social media technologies in Government will drive that change in citizen engagement – particularly among younger voters – but I am not so sure it will do so en mass on its own…and some recent surveys (more here) bear out the fact that we have a ways to go both in engaging citizens in the process and machinery of Governance as well as demonstrating that Social Media has a role to play therein.

Build it and they will come? Maybe (but I doubt it). Then again, apparently if I believe the impossible, the incredible can come true….

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