Summary of Interim Results

1. Summary of Interim Results 27 October 2011 David.Osimo@Tech4i2.com #collabservices

2. Structure of the presentation • WHAT is collaborative e-government? • WHY is it important? • HOW is it done? • SO WHAT should government do?

3. About the methodology • Large scale mapping of projects • Complete survey of countries • Survey of civic developers • Interviews with stakeholders • In depth case studies of 6 projects and 2 policies

4. Project team • Tech4i2 • Deloitte • Ton Zijlstra • External experts (Prof Ines Mergel – US , Craig Thomler - AUS)

5. Underlying questions • What is it? • Is it just a hype? • Is it just for a few geeks in UK and US? • Can I save money by crowdsourcing? • Can I trust co-produced services? • Does it create jobs or destroys them? • Is it a must-have or a nice-to-have? • Should government act or just wait and see?

6. Look back at 2007

7. WHAT Definition

8. WHAT The cases

9. WHAT Ideascale.com Showusabetterway.com Examples Co-design Crowdsourcing of ideas Type of collaboration Apps contests Openlylocal, ISTAT widget Beta services Open data mining/visualisation Service provision Public data applications Google Transit Collaborative complaint systems Crowdsourced public tasks Self-help groups Digitalkoot SeeClickFix Activmobs

10. WHAT Definition Open Government

11. WHAT What is new? The deep roots of collaborative e-government • What is new? • ICT as key enabler: • Reduction of costs to collaborate • Easier to upscale and reach thousands Self-help and mutuality Social contract Privatisation Philantropy

12. WHAT Where? Collaborative services are not mentioned in e-gov policy documents In UK it fits within the “Big Society” agenda But OPEN DATA a growing priority for transparency and innovation All countries have collaborative e-gov projects

13. WHAT On what services?

14. WHAT A barcamp for all seasons • Healthcamp • Transportcamp • Crisiscamp • Transparencycamp • Social Innovation camp • Privacycamp • Educamp • Regio camp

15. WHAT WHO? Cultivated young men • Civic developers: 90% are Men, with Univ degree, 25-44 yrs old • Driven by: 90% identifying a need not yet covered, 80% the desire to make a difference. Money plays a minor role. • Opposed by: 60% non-availability of public data. 35% mentions lack of interest by the public as a problem. Costs and business models instead are mentioned by a minority (18% and 29%).

16. WHAT WHO are the users? • Very unequal distribution of work in the cases: 1% do 30% of work (DigiKoot) • Segments of people who already use services, but individual people new to the service (MySociety) • Civil servant employees! (LineaAmica) • More equal distribution between men and women in the final users • Niche specialisation of different services

17. WHY WHY: a power law of usage There is no “average impact” of collaborative e-government There are individual success stories and many failures

18. WHY WHY: the impact

19. WHY WHY: better services? • There is plenty of evidence on the importance of peer-to-peer collaboration • Mutual support: demonstrated better capacity to deal with diseases; demonstrated impact of peer tutoring on kids learning • New services: basic services such as school and education were started as charities • Behavioural change:

20. WHY WHY: does it save govt’ money? • NO: collaboration does not substitute for paid work. It’s additive not substitutive • Collaboration is not outsourcing: it requires in-house advanced communication and content-related skills, continous tinkering and re-design (DigiKoot) • Collaborative e-gov enables radical innovation that can lead to new, better services and lower costs (OpenlyLocal, DigitKoot). Unaddressed needs is the key driver for 90% of respondents • It reduces the cost of failure (quite important in e-gov; e.g. Italian Tourism portal 43M Euros) 85% of innovation fail for lack of understanding of users’ needs (Von Hippel)

21. WHY WHY: can business make money out of collaborative e-government? • Little money in the software, more in the service (e.g. PatientOpinion) • Great for visibility and reputation (DigiKoot) • Service companies are emerging dedicated to collaborative gov: OmniCompete, simpl.co, Ideascale, Palandir • New value added services being launched on top of open data (MetroParis, ISTAT) • When existing, revenue based on monthly service fees not one-off installation fees

22. WHY WHY (not): the risk of exclusion • Most civic developers are young cultivated men: the risk of elite-driven services • Need for proactive outreach to empower different segments of the population with “co-creation skills”

23. WHY WHY (not): the risk of conflict • One potential risk is the increased conflict in the public space, and unacceptable behaviour by the co-producers who manipulate and spam • However, there is no evidence of a significant problem in any of the cases analyzed • Risks are overestimated

24. HOW HOW? Government as a platform • Key requirements: • Open data (e.g. OpenlyLocal) • Listening to external suggestion/input (e.g. DigiKoot, Google Transit, SeeClickFix) • High capacity to design process (DigitKoot) • Direct internal engagement (Kent Council, DigitKoot: crowdsourcing is not outsourcing) • Based on the survey: 50% say govt. has been “indifferent”, none “hostile” • No longer need for ex-ante authorization: collaboration without permission!

25. HOW HOW: drivers and barriers • Voluntary work has always been fundamental : think of AA and NGOs • Its limit is that it often remains micro and marginal, with limited capacity to upscale • The democratisation of ICT • Reduces the costs of collaboration, thereby allowing for easier self-organisation • Allows for large scale outreach (think Ushahidi, DigiKoot) • This large outreach provides a positive feedback loop on the motivation to collaborate

26. HOW HOW: the role of civil servants • Civil servants 2.0, wikicrats, intrapreneurs? • Most cases show positive evolution • Links to long-term trend towards increased autonomy and outcome-related management • Unpaid volunteers substituting civil servants? (DigiKoot) • Unique opportunity for internal innovators (e.g. ISTAT) > Self-organisation of intrapreneurs? (Big Society in UK) • New skills needed: communication, passion, networking capacity “Some of the problems that they experienced were mainly about the ability to let people do things for themselves rather than manage people, control everything and make sure health and safety is working.”

27. HOW HOW: unique assets of citizens • In depth knowledge of specific topic (e.g. OpenlyLocal, DigitKoot) • Unique experience from using services and dealing with issues (mumsnet, LineaAmica) • High trust from their networks (ActiveMobs) • They are many more than internal staff! (DigiKoot, SeeClickFix, LineaAmica) "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow"

28. HOW HOW: the costs • 82% of civic developersdo it voluntarily, without financial rewards or funding. Only one receives government funding. • However this is possible because their costs are in 80% of the cases below 1K Euros per year and in 99% below 100K. • Technology set up costs are minor. What costs is maintenance and human curation over time

29. HOW HOW: a cultural clash

30. SO WHAT Back to the original questions • What is it? • Is it just a hype? • Is it just for a few geeks in UK and US? • Can I save money by crowdsourcing? • Can I trust co-produced services? • Does it create jobs or destroys them? • Is it a must have or a nice to have? • Should government act or just wait and see? That’s for later!

31. SO WHAT Collaborative e-government: another case of MacroMyopia “in the short term we overestimate, in the long term we underestimate.” Paul Saffo

32. SO WHAT Initial recommendations

33. SO WHAT SO WHAT: how to stimulate collaborative e-gov • Remove the barriers • Create enabling conditions • Change funding mechanisms (smaller funding, multistage approach…) • Ensure knowledgeable people are in charge

34. SO WHAT SO WHAT: different funding mechanisms Features • Simple application • multi - stage • Always open • Transparent • Time- predictable • Flexible • Reputation- based • Small funding • Short project time • Peer evaluation • Open, • Non- prescriptive • Outcome-oriented • User- driven • Accepts Failure Examples • European Research Council • Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) • FET-Open • IBTT - iStart / iVenture • UK Grants For the Arts • Principi Attivi • MIT GlobalChallenge • Maryland TEDCO Joint Technology Transfer Initiative • Ontario Emerging Technologies Fund • Spring Singapore Innovation Voucher Scheme • 4IP • Inducement Prizes (Challenge.gov)

35. SO WHAT Policy recommendations • From civic hackers: • "there should be Freedom of Information right at EU level” • "UK stance should become minimum standard for all EU countries” • "Take just a bit of money from bureaucrats and give it to developers” • "simple things like encouraging all organisations who publish news to have an RSS feed would make such a difference” • “Standards should be pushed to the member state governments in terms of how public data should be delivered and structured.” • “Get INSPIRE guys involved in open data!”

36. SO WHAT How do we benchmark this? • Measurement frameworks, and especially “averages”, do not fit well with the unpredictable and power law nature of collaborative e-gov

37. SO WHAT Measuring co-production • 4 stages (again) • Choose most successful service Avoid technical hiccups: number of complaints; degree of innovation (from mature to world first implementation) Ensure takeup: number of users, number of contributions, number of contributors No spam: number of spam comments Ensure high quality content: % of contributions judged as useful; % of new contributors (previously not engaged) Source: egov20.wordpress.com