Andrea Di MaioMost conversations about Government 2.0 assume that:
- Government provides data to citizens to provide openness and transparency
- Citizens engage with government to improve policy-making and service delivery
This approach implies that data flows from government to citizens and engagement flows from citizen to government. This is what I call the asymmetry of Government 2.0, since flows appear to be somewhat mono-directional, or very biased in a single direction. But these capture only one part of the story.
What about case managers who access to external communities rating government as well as non government care facilities to make a decision about where to place a case subject depending on a combination of financial constraints and customer ratings? What about a procurement officer looking at communities discussing prospective suppliers’ performances? Or HR professionals looking for information about candidates LinkedIn or Facebook? What about citizens tagging pictures put by museums and cultural heritage organizations on Flickr, so that they help the museum describe and organize their collections?
There are plenty of examples where data goes the other way around, from citizens to government, and government can use it in combination with data it owns (such as financial, HR, case-related ones, as well as taxonomies) in order to improve the way it deliver services or to initiate policy changes. A prediction we are about to publish says that by 2012 up to one in five government processes will be based on crowdsourced (i.e. external) data.
The assumption that citizens are mostly on the receiving end of open data and mashups needs to be changed. While the idea of citizens as application developers and data mashers is great, those who are most likely to benefit from all this are governments themselves, once they empower their employees to access, assess and use data outside their own perimeter.
Government 2.0 implies a bidirectional flow of information and services. It will require business intelligence suites that integrate data analytics with social networking analysis to help identify patterns revealing future behaviors; case management tools that give case managers the ability to alter case processing on the basis of data from external communities; online citizen services that can be integrated with third party portals; and indeed open data repositories that allow citizens to develop value added mashups and new applications.
Category: web 2.0 in government Tags: government 2.0
14 responses so far ↓
1 Tweets that mention Fighting the Asymmetry of Government 2.0 -- Topsy.com November 11, 2009 at 12:23 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Poul J. Hebsgaard and Andrea DiMaio, Patrick Genoud. Patrick Genoud said: RT @AndreaDiMaio Fighting the Asymmetry of Government 2.0 http://bit.ly/3TRpRA #gov20 [...]
2 uberVU - social comments November 11, 2009 at 1:01 pm
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3 PaulGeraghty November 11, 2009 at 4:22 pm
“A prediction we are about to publish says that by 2012 up to one in five government processes will be based on crowdsourced (i.e. external) data.”
Does that statement imply that 20% of external data will be crowdsourced? If so – I agree that it has that potential.
I think it doubly true of local administrations.
In fact crowdsourced information coming into gov could be the driver for new processes, or at least processes which move down the administrative tree and end up being managed by those closer (or closest) to the public e.g. into local government.
I am not saying that local government is any more capable than central government, god forbid – neither will be able carry it off, IMO.
I am also starting to get the feeling that movements such as hyperlocal websites, and other social web “input devices” (lets call them) could become the natural place for the harvesting of such incoming data.
The pivot points will likely include :
Officials being capable of identifying anomalies amongst incoming data steams and not seeing them as problems, but opportunities.
Administrators being bold enough to stick their necks out and join up with the likes of the social web to act as their proxies.
4 Jed November 11, 2009 at 5:38 pm
I often perceive a belief among public servants that the government’s authoritative status grants it automatic authority and trustworthiness. It’s a feeble assumption and likely to become more feeble as emergent technologies continue to reveal the wisdom of crowds.
This idea that government agencies are “inherently” authoritative may be what blocks the flow of data from citizens to the government.
5 Chris Parente November 12, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Andrea — good piece. No question the flow has to be two way. First step was for government to get much better at making the right information very easy for citizens to find/access. Call that Gov’t 1.5. Next step is engaged citizens impacting their government. It will become apparent quicker i think at local/municipal level.
Segue — cool announcement today by GovLoop — taking a 2.0 twist to charitable giving: http://bit.ly/4dWF2z
6 Government 2.0: Lost in EU Declaration November 19, 2009 at 9:40 am
[...] (through reuse of public information) while engagement flows from citizens to government. However, as indicated in a previous post, the reverse flows are equally if not more important. Information must flows from existing [...]
7 Filling the glass to half empty | Public Strategist November 19, 2009 at 6:51 pm
[...] this is a good point to bring in another of Andrea’s recent blog posts, on the asymmetry of government 2.0: Government 2.0 implies a bidirectional flow of information and services. It will require business [...]
8 Government 2.0 and the Expiry Date of Social Networks November 24, 2009 at 8:54 pm
[...] previous posts I talked about the asymmetry of government 2.0 and the need for governments to reach out to communities to be able to assess and possibly use [...]
9 Government 2.0; Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t December 4, 2009 at 4:27 am
[...] have been writing about the so-called “asymmetry of government 2.0”, i.e. the fact that governments take a one-way approach only to government 2.0 (data from [...]
10 US Open Government Directive is Disappointing December 8, 2009 at 1:32 pm
[...] the sections on to participation and collaboration confirm what I have called several times the “asymmetry of government 2.0”, i.e. the fact that governments take a one-way approach only to government 2.0 (data from [...]
11 Why Do Governments Separate Open Data and Social Media Strategies? February 19, 2010 at 9:40 am
[...] government initiatives. For those who have been following this blog, I often mention the so-called asymmetry of government 2.0 as one of the obstacles to effective citizen engagement. In other words, governments provide public [...]
12 You Cannot Run an Open Data Project Like an Open Source Project, Unless… March 10, 2010 at 2:13 pm
[...] this vision, governments need to overcome the asymmetry that I’ve highlighted several times (see here and here) and give the same dignity to citizen-collected data as to government-sanctioned data. [...]
13 What If Government Can’t Accept Help From Citizens? March 17, 2010 at 8:46 am
[...] do its job. This is the other side of government 2.0, which I stress when talking about the asymmetry of many programs and directives that focus on how government can provide data to people but not on [...]
14 US: Open Govt. Directive Released « Decentralised Library March 21, 2010 at 12:35 pm
[...] skewed toward transparency giving participation and collaboration short shrift. She points to an asymmetry of Gov 2.0 where the government shares proposals for citizen feedback but not vice versa. She makes a good [...]