Public Sector Tech

Yes... It has Been Done ... 54 Countries... One Government Cloud

2011-10-25T09:38:00.000-07:00

Today I am a very proud government technologist... today the Commonwealth Secretariat, in partnership with OpenText, has launched a 54 country cloud environment designed to help the Commonwealth and its members communicate in the democracy and development sectors, while enabling a grater sense of community around the world.

Welcome to the world Commonwealth Connects!

Check out a Commonwealth Connects video demonstration

This is no easy feat... 54 countries spread out around the world... various stages of economic and democractic development... on one single cloud!

This is a true representation of a citizen services centre, Commonwealth Connects will help you connect to other governments, businesses, youth, social groups,etc.; all is being made possible now via a mobile device enabled, cloud based e-government program called Commonwealth Connects.

Such is the magnitude of the event that our Executive Chairman and select executives have been invited to participate in the Heads of Government meetings to be held later on in the week, a true spirit of partnership is emerging and should be commended.

Never has this been done before, and I am proud to have been a part of it, working with a tremendous team of professionals at OpenText and the Commonwealth Secretariat!

Congratulations to all involved!

GaaS - Government as a Service

2011-10-13T13:15:00.000-07:00

Now ...I know that the die hard SaaS people will not like this title... but here it is nonetheless!

GaaS applies to every nation, regardless of economic status. If you are like the City of Edmonton and you wish to increase your online engagement presence, GaaS is there for you. Get you online presence up and ready in a matter of weeks, not months... even better, no need to invest millions in costly infrastructure, leverage the cloud as a municipality.

If you are a national level government wishing to increase online citizen service delivery but do not have the required staff knowledge or technological infrastructure to accomplish this, you can now deploy complete cloud based e-government platforms in the cloud, turn key solution style, get online and get to stakeholder service delivery in a matter of weeks... not years; immigration management, done; e-records compliance, done; online citizen forms management, done; etc. Regardless of where you find yourself, Jamaica, South Africa, Australia, etc., cloud government is here and GaaS is emerging, regardless of what nationality is on your passport.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5rBxN2kg1U

Not possible you say? Rules and national level reguliations won't allow this? Guess again. In a few weeks, the Commonwealth Secretariat will announce its new Commonwealth Connects portal, serving 54 countries around the world... all cloud enabling GaaS... Commonwealth Connects is a platform that was developed with Indian, Canadian, UK, Singapore, Australian and Jamaican influence. It is a global platform, developed by the world, in the cloud, administered by a handful of technical staff in London and Toronto. Now governments of Ghana, Barbados, Australia, Malaysia, etc.; all can leverage this cloud platform and learn how to deploy its GaaS architectures.

Yes GaaS is here... and there is quite a menu to chose from when you approach the counter so be careful of what you are trying to achieve. Some vendors, in fact many, will maintain the rights to your data, others cannot comply with your legislative requirements... establish your requirements carefuly and then do your research, not all GaaS offerings are created equal.

Introducing... Public Service Without Borders

2011-07-06T06:41:00.000-07:00

Today I am happy to introduce yet another global impacting partnership for OpenText. Over the past few months, we have been busy working with the Institute of Public Administration of Canada (IPAC) in order to develop Public Service Without Borders (PSWB).

This service was launched a few weeks ago and will enable public sector employees from around the world to connect to one another in a secure, mobile fashion. In leveraging the cloud, IPAC and its member associations have been able to deploy a similar system to the one used in the past two G20s; robust, secure and mobile device accessible, this solution will enable public sector employees to connect regardless of the country they serve.

Moving forward, ethics advisors in Tanzania, Canada, Australia, Singapore and all other countries can meet up on http://www.pswb-spsf.ca/ and share policies, lessons learned and even documents. At OpenText we feel that this new solution will help not only connect public sector employees around the world, but also help promote democratic development and institutional capacity in a way never before experienced in a government setting.

Information management specialists, auditors, privacy advisors, etc.; all professional affiliations within any government ecosystem can now leverage PSWB, free of charge! Therefore I encourage you, no I dare you, connect as many public servants as possible throughout the world and let secure and cloud enabled collaboration do the rest.

Share documents, develop your own wiki, even manage a government project in a personal/private workspace, these are all examples of the types of services you will find at your disposal on PSWB. If you and your organisation lack budget to deploy the latest technologies to achieve this type of work, once again I reiterate that IPAC and OpenText bring you this service free of charge.

Ok... sales job over :)

Once again, congratulations to IPAC and all its hard work, truly this is a great vision which we at OpenText have been proud to support, and will continue to do so as the network expands.

OpenText Continues Global Government Leadership

2011-07-04T06:59:00.000-07:00

Over the past year, OpenText has continued to increase its position as a national leader throughout Canada.

Not only has it enabled global young entrepreneurship through the G20 process, connected public sector employees througout the world via Public Service Without Borders, and helped connect Commonwealth countries throughout the world, but it has also consolidated its Ottawa presence into a state of the art new facility located on 10 Rideau.

This new facility houses members of the Canadian sales team, various marketing elements as well as a large number of R&D staff. By combining state of the art technology with a national heritage building, OpenText has showed how it can continue advancing the science and technology agenda in Canada, and the world, while also respecting Canadian roots and historical social fabric.

Personally, as an Ottawa resident, I was extremely proud to see OpenText clearly on display over this past weekend as Prince William and Kate Middleton marched by our new offices. Ottawa is blessed to often receive several dignitaries such as Heads of States, Premiers, Presidents, etc.; all of these dignitaries now pass in front of this wonderful new office location of ours, which promotes not only Canadain ingenuity, but also the power of partnership between industry and government.

Equipped with greater public visibility in Ottawa as well as a new state of the art building, I cannot wait to see what further government sector partnerships we develop over the course of the next year... stay tuned!

Enabling Young Entrepreneurs Around the Globe Through the Cloud

2011-05-12T00:51:00.000-07:00

Here goes another exciting announcements in a series of great projects being kicked off at OpenText. As many of you know we have been working extremely closely on supporting the global efforts in redressing the world's economy through the G20 process. Yesterday we announced a new partnership with the G20 Young Entrepreneurs Alliance in promoting economic growth through young entrepreneurship.

The G20 Young Entrepreneurs Alliance is a key component for any economic recovery plan. Fostering young entrepreneurship is key in today's knowledge economy and we are happy to be working with the G20YEA to help coordinate their efforts through secure social media means. The organisation has been equipped with our latest and best social media offering which will enable them to stay connected, engage via mobile devices while on the go, and tap into a global digital trade and policy network.

While outside our traditional engagement boundaries, I believe this new partnership will provide several new advantages to all parties :

- The G20YEA can now benefit from a global engagement and collaboration network without fear of security or privacy concerns and furthermore they can do so without heavy technology investments as the solution is run in the cloud

- OpenText can learn and benefit from engaging with some of the best young and bright minds from around the world

- Young entrepreneurs from around the world will be able to connect and network with one another, grow their businesses, make new contacts, let their voices and concerns be heard, etc.

- Governments from around the world can now engage with their future economic growth champions at a much younger age

Truly, I think this is a perfect match for several parties and I look forward to working with all the young entrepreneurs around the world in the months to come.

Congratulations G20YEA!

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/g20-young-entrepreneurs-alliance-teams-with-opentext-enable-global-entrepreneurial-activity-1512719.htm

Global Digital Government - Commonwealth and OpenText Join Forces

2011-05-05T08:27:00.000-07:00

Yesterday saw the announcement that OpenText and the Commonwealth were joining forces to develop a new online ecosystem throughout the Commonwealth through the Commonwealth Connect portal.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Commonwealth-and-OpenText-prnews-1551844664.html?x=0&.v=27

I am particularly proud of this one as it will be a world first : a global, cloud, public sector solution deployed for over 50 countries. Youth, business, aid workers and agencies, governments, etc.; all are going digital and the Commonwealth Secretariat is leading the way out of London with a very limited budget and staff. This truly shows the power of cloud application in the public sector space, how a small group of individuals can deploy and manage a large government portal with such limited resources is only achievable thanks to the cloud and the leveraging of existing technology infrastructure.

Gradually, one could easily envision how electoral monitoring will increase in its mobile and digital capacities, instantly increasing governance world wide. Education best practices will be shared across all Commonwealth countries. Government agencies will be able to leverage one anothers' policies and programs, increasing global citizen service delivery consistency. The applications are endless.

Congratulations to the Commonwealth Secretariat and all its hard work, and welcome to the global public sector cloud.

Why HR Practices are the Cause of Slow Cloud Adoption and Why Emerging States will be in the Cloud Faster than Developed Nations

2011-03-16T10:06:00.000-07:00

Ok, I know this subject is a mouthfull and that it will be a contentious subject, but over the past two weeks I am now more convinced of two key elements in cloud government development :

1. The Cloud will be difficult to adopt in public sector institutions moving forward because HR implications in today's developed government IT industry; and

2. As a result of this, emerging states in once overlooked economies (Latin America, Africa, the Caribbean, etc.), will be quicker to adopt the cloud than established economies.

On the topic of government HR practices getting in the way of cloud computing, let me explain. First let me start by saying that while I understand fully that it is not the only reason, it is one of the main roadblocks for government adoption of the cloud. Furthermore, this is not a jab at the public sector HR industry, just a reality we are now faced with and must address to move forward.

Most governments around the world have HR structures in place to manage the promotion of indviduals, manage personnel pay structures, organise teams and departments, etc. In the case of the public sector IT realm, this is no different. However technology teams in the government have historically been built around infrastructure programs, which means that with the emergence of the cloud, many of these traditional structures will come under attack. Imagine in the United States where they have passed a regulation stating 'Cloud First' in government procurement, meaning all IT purchases with cloud components will be favoured over non-cloud projects and procurement activities. What does that mean for government institutions that have large IT teams, sometimes ranging into the thousand employee range? How do these employees interact with private sector cloud computing offerings? That is one of the key questions which must be addressed in order for cloud computing to progress in the public sector.

Furthermore, what this means is that a change is required ... and a change will occur... but this change will occur in a two tiered system. The developed nations such as the US, Canada, Europe, etc., will be slower in adopting cloud computing because of legacy issues. IT practitioners, not all, but some, will throw security and privacy policies at the cloud computing opportunity stating that cloud is not right for the public sector because of these policies, which in some cases (although not many) may be correct. But the heart of the matter is cloud threatens traditional IT organisational structures, and this makes people very uneasy (understandably). But while developed nations struggle to adopt cloud computing, such will not be the case in emerging states.

On that note let us switch gears to statement #2 : emerging states in once overlooked economies will be quicker to adopt the cloud than established markets.

If developed nations have too much legacy and HR issues in the way to quickly adopt cloud computing, many emerging countries and emerging economies have no such barriers. Often policy frameworks in a Caribbean state are much more recent than policy frameworks in Canada. This is caused by the fact that many emerging states have recently created their policies having ICT in mind, while many developed country policies are simply outdated and in need of new approaches.

An additional example... African states are routinely faced with significant staff and capacity shortages required to launch large IT transformation projects, and therefore are much more inclined to adopt cloud approaches because it is quicker, more effective and cheaper than trying to go it alone.

So now let us put the two elements together... pay attention because there will be a quizz after this section :) If we know developed nations have many HR and legacy issues to tackle before jumping into the cloud, not to mention billions invested in purchased government technology infrastructure, and that emerging nations actually have much more incentive to jump into a cloud environment because they find themselves in the exact opposite situation than developed economies, where do the real cloud opportunities lie?

Let's ask an even more important question, in 5-10 years, once many more emerging nations have leveraged the cloud, and developed countries are still trying to do it themselves, how will their respective public sectors compare in a decade? Which will be more advanced?

Something to think about....

However I believe that the United Nations ranking of top e-government countries will be shifting dramatically in the next decade.

Why Africa Needs the Cloud

2011-02-23T13:10:00.000-08:00

Let's keep this one short : Africa needs the cloud to continue its emergence.

Africa has historically been a continent of have nots; capital, resources, wealth, the right situations, etc. However, since the recession has hit, Sub-Saharan Africa has enjoyed a spike in its economic development and much of this is due to technological adoption.

On April 15, 2010, The Economist reported that innovations in emerging countries were changing the way in which these economies operate. “Emerging countries are shaking off the recession as developed countries continue to struggle” (...) and stated that “the emerging world was enjoying the most spectacular growth in history. (...) Emerging market consumers have been outspending the Americans since 2007” (Information Technology for Development, vol 16., No. 4, October 2010, p. 241, Commonwealth Secretariat)

This growth is due to several factors, but technology is at the forefront. The emergence of mobile devices and cloud computing means that people can not only connect in a social context to generate socio-political change (ex : Egypt, Lybia, Tunisia, etc.), but that individuals can now empower themselves economically as well. Governments, businesses and individuals can now benefit from a host of cloud options and increase transparency of operations, generate new revenue models, and connect in ways not possible even less than 5 years ago.

As cloud continues to gain greater understanding, the public sector may be where the most significant change opportunities lie. Government organisations can now deploy government and citizen oriented solutions more quickly without having to spend years in a multi-million dollar infrastructure investment phase; government entities can now leverage existing IT infrastructure and with certain key vendors, they can even ensure their national laws and policies are respected in the process. The cloud could represent one of the most significant African development opportunities available in decades.

Lastly, the emergence of the cloud combined with mobile device empowerement means that more and more citizens are now able to connect with themselves but also with their governments. This is both the biggest threat to traditional authoritarian governments, but also the biggest opportunity; governments can chose to engage using mobile device and cloud technology, or risk being replaced as we have seen in the Northern African events of the past few months. Mobility has changed the public sector engagement strategies for ever; the power has shifted into the hands of the stakeholders. This should be seen as a positive step as with local and individual empowerement, comes regional development. Youth engaging in creating new businesses and engaging with other young entrepreneurs from around the world, local businesses seeking government program funding more easily, etc.; yes cloud government is a good thing for regional development.

Can cloud government change the face of the African public sector, yes I do believe it could.

5 Reasons Why Content Management Can Save the Public Sector

2011-02-07T06:30:00.000-08:00

The public sector under constant criticism on a range of important issues: governments lack transparency, I wish I could engage with my government more easily, governments organisations need to be more efficient, etc.
Over the course of the next few months, we will focus on the five areas where managing organisational and global content more effectively can actually save the image of the public sector at large. This week’s post will focus on providing an overview of where content management can help governments achieve more in every facet of its work; while subsequent posts will further dive into each of these areas in more depth.

Drum roll please!

…

Managing Content More Effectively Reduces Government Carbon Footprints

Yes it is true.

A simple example : redundant information stores within a government department. Worker “A” creates a briefing document for his new Minister, it has pictures and diagrams and is a whopping 40 MB. What worker “A” didn’t realize is that worker “B” (who is on the same floor as worker “A”), had already created a similar report a few months ago for the old Minister; however the report which worker “B” produced was more robust and larger and was actually 75MB. The problem here is that during the creation of both documents, there were over 20 versions created and stored in various locations between the two employees. To make things even worst, during the creation of these two documents, both employees approached over a dozen groups and sector specialists within their department and those employees also stored a copy of the report on the network in various locations. Therefore within a matter of three months, there has been close to 100 versions of these two documents stored on the same network… And this is only two employees and one briefing document... now imagine this scenario with 5000 employees and thousands of documents?

What’s the answer? A single trusted repository for all organisational content. I know I know you are saying this isn’t news… but why hasn’t it been done already is the question we will examine in future blogs, certainly the return on investments from such a sustainability project would be worth the investments ... no?

Preserving a Nation’s Cultural Assets Through Sound Content Management Practices

With a bunch of statistics flying around these days on how most nation’s cultural heritage is not digitized and available online, and how most under 25s get their content from either Youtube or Facebook, one can easily see why many senior bureaucrats and public leaders are worried that tomorrow’s generation will not know its own history (although one could argue the history of a specific nation doesn’t matter anymore in the internet nation of tomorrow).

Another simple example : how many documents in your public sector organisation today, get captured digitally and transferred to your national archival institution in its native digital format? Most of us will chose not to answer that question. But it is a very important question, we are losing public sector decisions and thought leadership for all future generations at an alarming rate : senior political correspondence, documentation on hosting large multilateral events such as the Olympics, consultations around senior review boards, etc.; all this government content needs to be captured and managed digitally, and even more importantly, made available on the internet, so that all generations, especially tomorrow’s, can benefit from the work accomplished by our governments.

In our next blog, we will review a few examples where such work is being conducted as we speak; because there are indeed some lighthouses out there. These organisations however have understood one thing: they understand the problem statement has changed dramatically when preserving cultural assets, digital dissemination is everything.

Proper Content Strategies Can Help Governments Engage With All Stakeholders

On the topic of understanding the change in problem statements… successful senior public sector leaders have now understood that the end game of an engagement strategy has also been dramatically altered by the arrival of social media and mass collaboration technologies. Those leaders understand that capturing and managing their own institutional content is extremely important, not for their own internal reasons, but because it must get disseminated and proliferated through new online digital models much more rapidly.

A re-energised vision of a single digital and mobile device accessible government services portal must now be a part of government program delivery discussions, not simply IT water cooler chats; mobile is everything now. Furthermore, how social media strategies are defined are as important as mobile strategies, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.; all these sites should now be staples of how a government department engages in its public relations efforts.

Once again, in future blogs, we will review how luckily, in this space as well, there are public sector leaders who are willing to engage; such as for example, Canada’s Honourable Tony Clement, the Canadian Minister of Industry, an elected official, who Tweets regularly.

Proper Content Management Helps to Make Government Information More Accessible

Now on this one I want to be careful with. Because proper management of content can make public sector information more accessible and therefore increase government transparency. However, technology is not the only required solution for this problem. Elements such as Wikileaks will continue to be present until the mentality of our public sector institutions change dramatically. The solution to this paradigm conflict between managing stakeholder privacy as well as national security versus creating an environment of transparent government, is a greater understanding of the information assets held within government by its senior policy makers. For example, by combining the capacity to generate a single stakeholder information database, where all privacy regulations are administered for government, with new and modern policies around proactively disclosing digital government interactions to citizens, can result in simultaneously increasing government transparency while increasing the protection of private information government holds within its walls.

This is not an easy feat, and it is a topic which cuts across many key social issues: geography, gender, age, political beliefs, etc.; certainly more to come on this topic in further discussions, however there are clear steps that could be taken to begin addressing some of these required changes, these steps will be the topic of another top 5 list in the near future!

Managing Government Content: the Single Greatest Game Changer in Increasing Public Sector Efficiency

“Pick your government sector... any sector... and see how proper enterprise content management strategies can help!” I know it sounds corny, but that is the reality. Automating and digitizing government processes and programs is the single best way of generating efficiency in the government today: automate the process around hiring new staff; digitize vendor invoice management procedures; automate travel approval and leverage the power of your mobile device in doing so; etc., all are examples of how digitizing and automating can generate tens of millions of dollars of savings in efficiency gains throughout any public sector organisation... Now this does not mean we will replace humans! What this does mean however is government staff can now be assigned to more value based work, such as engaging with stakeholders, continuing to modernize how the public sector operates, etc.

You guessed it... some of the next blogs will show you how other organizations have done all of this... so stay tuned!

Well... there you have it!

5 areas where content management can save the public sector remodel itself and move respective transformation agendas forward.

Tablets ... More Than Just a Toy

2010-12-16T13:13:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone
I wanted to share my experiment with you on my usage of tablet computing (brand will remain nameless :)); also to discuss how this experiment of mine starts to make its way into the public sector setting, because I realized something important through my 6 year old son these past few weeks : innovation through ICT is no longer paramount, but a basic necessity of life these days.
First off the experiment : my 6 year old's hockey team.

Gabriel is 6 years old and he plays a pretty good level of hockey for his age in my home town. I have the pleasure of waking up on Saturday and Sunday mornings at ridiculous times to coach about 30 6 year olds as part of our IP6 Flames hockey team, no different than many mothers or fathers in Canada really. Now these kids are a part of the digital native generation. They are born into a world with video games, Facebook, social and rich media, etc. I hand my children my new tablet and they know how to use it better than me within minutes. These are the type of 'athletes' I am coaching on weekends, the digital kind, the digital athlete.

Every Saturday is a practice and every Sunday we split the teams up and let them play. Now when I used to coach more senior levels of hockey ten years ago (already!?), you would use a board and marker to show the players where you wanted them located on the ice during games. Guess what, that doesn't work so well with 6 year olds anymore... even if you colour code the sketches on the board and draw a perfect replication of the Mona Lisa... it ain't working!

So two weeks ago I was surfing for apps on my tablet, and I find a hockey coaching whiteboard application, one where I can colour code two teams, with dots (or actual players) for the teams, positions, animation, sketching capacity, etc., the whole nine yards. Nice little gadget I thought. So I download.

Then I take my tablet PC that following weekend to Gabriel's game, not quite sure on whether I would use it or not at that point... being a more conservative/traditional coach after all. For that particular game, the coaching staff and I were going to start the daunting process of trying to teach 6 year olds about offsides, icings, and spreading out so they can pass the puck to one another, not easy. Why can't they understand multi-tenancy hosting, cloud computing, mobile architectures, etc., would be so much easier! Instead I find myself using analogies : "you cannot enter the door (cross the blue line) without the key (the puck)"... very sobering exercise that early Sunday morning.

Then I try it... I pull out my tablet and start using my coaching application, using it with the players on the bench before they go out on the ice for their shift... and it clicks! "Here is the puck, here is where you were Steve" I start explaining... "and Michael was here, now if you spread out you can pass the puck to each other and everyone will win and you will all score more goals!"... I continue pressing "Oh and by the way, here is what an offside actually looks like"... The results... instantaneous! Passing started occurring where once there was only a blob of 6 year old hockey players, rules were starting to emerge, hockey patterns, actual real ones... the thought out kind of hockey patterns... like magic!

After the game everyone was wondering what they had seen, literally... "I couldn't believe that little Johny stopped before the blue line to wait for Michael's pass". Everyone was wondering what had happened. Well what had happened was that :

1. Youth are visual, they no longer read the same, consume content the same, interact the same as you or I do. They need colours, visuals and to touch things. I let them actually show me themselves on my tablet where they thought they were located on the ice during the game and they enjoyed talking 'hockey strategy' because it was immersive.

2. Children understand new technologies better as digital natives than existing generations ever will, so instead of fighting this, I thought I would use it to my advantage, turns out I was right.

3. Mobility in this case was paramount, I never could have done this even a year ago, I simply did not have the mobile devices at my disposal.

Today, I probably have the group of 6 year old hockey players who understand the game the best in the Ottawa region, only because I was able to bring the game to them in a media that works for them.

Now let's shift gears to the public sector dilemma keeping in mind my experiment on 6 year olds...

Mobility is barely being leveraged within the public sector of today. Security concerns often trump the full unlocking of the mobile device potential in any public jurisdiction. To that I say "if Barack Obama can have a Blackberry, why can't most every employee of the government ?" Mobility must be unlocked in public sector organisations if the true power of a creative workforce is to be unleashed. We should not hide behind policies and regulations which are outdated in many cases, we should continuously innovate and adapt... as was the case by using tablet PCs for coaching sports...

How most public sector organisations create and manage content is about to change as well. Video is overtaking text, people consume and generate more information than ever before, adopting new immersive approaches and technologies such as coaching with a tablet PC is the only way for any government entity to stay relevant in today's information age... I was mocked and chuckled at by some members of the coaching staff for pulling out my tablet during the game... but quickly the results spoke for themselves; the children needed this type of media to communicate and understand better... text is dead.

The interesting situation here is that more and more youth are entering the workforce and they come with a new understanding of how to use technology. Hopefully we, and by this I mean the collective we, let these new approaches into the work place much more easily than we let the internet enter the work force (remember when people thought the internet would hinder performance a decade ago?). If not, the way we deliver public sector services will never be truly modern, but instead will always be playing catch up... how regretful of us, as a human society, to let our 6 year old hockey teams be more technologically inclined than our government service engagement strategies.

Korea's G20

2010-11-18T05:17:00.000-08:00

I have had the opportunity to attend two G20s this past year. The Canadian summit was one mired in great controversy : costs, security, public opinion, etc., however the Toronto summit clearly set the stage for national showcasing for future G20 summits. Picking up from the Canadian lead, the Korean G20 was one draped in national pride, showcase upon showcase, and national unity. Social commentary aside, there were many interesting aspects which emerged from this summit, particularly its distinct focus on ICT as a tool for global economic recovery.

First, Korea is technology. I know we talk about Japan and Singapore as being technologically savvy societies, however I was amazed by the quiet advancement of Korean technology. Simply put, it is everywhere : 59 television channels on someone's smart phone for 9$ a month (that's cheaper than our television service providers in Canada!), GPS devices with 3D and smart capacities, credit card machines everywhere (yes I was in heaven as I personally hate carrying cash), etc. This level of technological advancement permeated throughout the G20. For example Korea held the first G20 ICT Policy Network, composed of global ICT leaders from around the world realizing that ICT is one of the main levers to reactivate global economic capacity (www.g20ict.org). Hopefully this initiative is continued into France and Mexico's respective G20s as it is a key component in the continued introduction of key technologies into global economic recovery efforts.

Also of interest, the global young entrepreneurs network met and discussed how to leverage social media for its hundreds of thousands of members. I had the privilege of engaging this group on strategies for deployment and the development of potential new business models through the activation of social media networks. Extremely happy to see the world's youth connecting in such a way that will benefit all young entrepreneurs globally. They too are a large part of the future economy, and there finally is an understanding that businesses can now be started in high school through the use of ICT advancements, making the youth within business concept an extremely important one.

Yes the Korean summit was a hit. They had an extremely short amount of time to put it together yet managed to come through with flying colors. For me personally, it was a clear demonstration of quiet confidence which at first I did not understand, but having lived it first hand, Korea has much to be proud of. The pace of its economic recovery since the Korean war is nothing short of staggering, and much of this recovery was accomplished through ICT developments, something the world should be paying attention to more closely.

On the Verge of Something Big

2010-11-16T05:45:00.000-08:00

The last time mankind was faced with something as impacting and meaningful as the progression towards today’s knowledge society and economy, would have been the industrial revolution. China, for all intents and purposes missed the industrial revolution, and it took centuries for the country to get back to the global economic level playing field we are seeing today. As impacting as the industrial revolution was, it is in the best interest of all involved to not miss this particular revolution. But this revolution is different: it does not have to be missed by any nation as it no longer requires hard infrastructure investments as the industrial revolution did. It is also different in the sense that the two major entities involved, government and industry, have mutual interests in seeing this succeed and are therefore investing in the one thing that could have prevented this revolution from taking on global momentum, connectivity.

Assuming that connectivity infrastructure as a road block to development is gradually being taken care of by both government and industry, to a point where millions of extremely poor individuals in developing nations have cellular phones yet no homes, what could prevent developing nations from leveraging the information age?

Technology infrastructure? I think not. Most major technology vendors now days can provide cloud capacities to anyone, anytime, anywhere. The cloud is the single biggest key to providing developing nations with a chance to reach prosperity levels never before experienced in the history of mankind. Why? Because Cameroon, Bangladesh, Malawi, Mozambique, etc., all can leverage existing investments by Northern countries in IT infrastructure and jump on the cloud for their services. Security measures, policy compliance, localization of software, etc., all can be accomplished through the cloud. Don’t believe me? Well the Toronto G20 was run in the cloud, a secure government cloud, with 20 countries, 20 sets of policies, 20 sets of laws, etc., all respected and managed while delivering the first global government application hosted in the cloud. If that can happen with the G20, it can happen in countries eager to get connected.

What does this mean, it means that developing countries can literally skip multi-million dollar technology infrastructure investments, leverage existing hosting infrastructures, jump in the cloud, and begin addressing real development issues as opposed to technology issues. What about computers you say? Well, the last 100 years of history at the BBC has been digitized for cell phone usage, note digitized for smart phone consumption, and not normal web usage. Why? Because laptops are dying a slow death, smart phones and tablet computing is taking over. Don’t believe me? India, Africa, etc., are some of the fastest growing smart phone markets in the world. With millions of cellular devices already in African hands, the continent may even be able to skip the computer phase all together by leveraging smart phones and the cloud.

Imagine...

A farmer in Kenya who does possess a cellular phone, was able to leverage government weather data and NASA geospatial coverage as well as Google Maps in order to plot his crop seeding, increasing his yield significantly the following year as a result. Cell phone and the cloud, is all that was required. Far fetched ? Well telecommunications companies are investing millions daily in connectivity capacity in developing nations… why? Because it is a future market for them and they realize an investment is needed. Government entities for their part are fostering this investment… why? Because it wants to leverage the benefits from a connected society. This scenario is becoming a reality in many nations. We are still a long way away from making this a complete picture, I understand. But we are on the right track.

So where does that leave us? Well many nations are doing their part. IBM is investing heavily in African strategies, Microsoft has a Corporate Social Responsibility program second to none, Open Text is investing heavily in modernizing the multilateral system, government entities are slowly realizing that ICT is a key enabler to development, although some Northern countries’ development organizations have completely removed ICT from their funding programs over the last year - such irresponsible behavior is quickly being changed as the impact of the knowledge economy is being felt more and more. Everyone is playing their part now, and we are all starting to row in the same direction.

Furthermore, developing nations are quickly realizing the impacts of new social media technologies and the significance they can have in their development efforts. In Southern Africa, universities are quickly studying the impact that video could have in its surveys and census’ of provincial under-developed areas, where things as simple as a pen in the hands of surveyors is a precious commodity, a commodity which is often stolen before even a single survey can be completed. Hidden cameras could record the interview and relay the information back to government centers for immediate analysis. Completely changing, almost overnight, the reliability of urban planning data, of health data, etc.

These examples are close to reality in many countries and should be identified, encouraged and replicated by industry and government in order to truly bring all nations to the table as one world. I know this is quite the motherhood statement, but a truly connected globe means that we are one step closer to addressing major issues such as climate change, breaking down cultural divides, providing education to all girls throughout the world, etc. None of this will be possible without continued ICT investments.

I leave you with one final thought, my daughter, who will be 11 this year, recently has created an MSN account … and before you go accusing me of irresponsibility, please keep in mind she only goes on MSN when we are around, I control the password, and the computer she uses is a laptop which is situated in the living room … so she has an MSN account. What does she do with it? She has connected to over two dozen children from around the world… from where you ask? Well, not the United-States, France, the UK or other developed countries… no no no.. she is connected to youth from Mexico City, Jamaica and even Kenya and Côte d’Ivoire. Not part of a typical ‘have’ club in the multilateral world. What do they do? Swap stories, talk about school, what they learned, how they live, snow versus sand, their siblings, etc. It is refreshing to witness this exercise in global connectivity.

Indeed, both increased hope and change are on the horizon … I hope to stay fit to live long enough to see my daughter and her children, change the world through ICT and truly develop a connected world where help is but a click away.

Are Today's Schools Ready for a Digital World?

2010-11-08T03:51:00.000-08:00

This is a pretty vague topic, so let me start by zeroing in on the scope up front so you may either chose to read on or stop at your convenience. I will be discussing how schools see the use of social media within the education system, basing my critique on my own personal experiences with my own two children. Interested?

Meet Gabriel : he is now 6 and has had a rough start at school over the last two years. He has a whole bunch of things that are now going much better these days, in large part thanks to the new principal and his management approach, but it was not always the case. Gabe attends a school where he has a before and after daycare service available to him, a service which is not part of the school board, it is an independent institution. During his first two years, Gabe had issues with his behavior at school, but was perfectly fine within the daycare system and during his weekly activities. I will spare you the reasons why his behavior was such, but I wanted to bring up an incident which has made me question whether the school system as we know it today, is actually ready for tomorrow’s reality.

The incident : during one of our meetings with the then principal of the school, Gabe’s mother and myself, a meeting called because of an incident which had occurred during school hours, we indicated to the school that he had no issues with Gabriel while in activities outside of school and during his daycare hours, we simply wanted to understand why our son had issues during school hours. What ensued was puzzling. The school’s reaction to our concerns was, that same evening, to browse on Facebook and determine why my son’s educator at the daycare was friends of both Gabe’s mother and I. The next week, at our agreed upon follow up meeting, the school chastised this daycare employee for befriending us on Facebook, a tool we had been using to communicate and discuss Gabe’s behavior during daycare hours, a way for all of us to stay connected and understand issues, and deal with them the next day. This employee was going above and beyond the call of duty, providing Gabriel’s mother and I access to her via social media, outside of daycare hours, she should have been commended, not chastised.

Leaving that particular issue aside for a moment, the events lead to several interesting questions : how did the school system portray the use of social media? If the school’s reaction to this educator’s actions was a negative one, was the education system capable of seeing the potential in social media to reach out to parents, students, contributors, investors, the school board, etc.? Even more interesting was the question of whether the education system as a whole, was ready for the reality that children simply do not generate and consume information the same way they used to. The day of sitting a child down for a good book by the fire place are, sadly, disappearing. My children, and their friends, consume information in high speed format, having several screens working the computer screen at a time, connecting the computer view to the television world and manipulating several types of content simultaneously… to a point where I think it may actually promote and foster my son’s attention deficit disorder.

That being said, this digital way of creating and consuming information has immense potential, whether it be from increased productivity, to the increase creativity it generates within young minds, etc., the digital age is here, and our children are digital natives. This means they are born with technology all around them and have not been brought up as adults learning to utilize immersive technologies, making them the first generation to be technologically native.

Taking a step back for a moment, this throws the entire education system upside down. Text books, disciplines, approaches, etc., all are simply not equipped to deal with the change in social fabric our children will bring. Now you will say that this is no different than any other generational change, but you may be wrong. This change is as significant as the industrial revolution, except it is the information revolution, this type of significant change does not happen every generation, it is different, it consumes and changes, as is the case with our children in the context of today’s digital world.

Technologies used by children these days are extremely different than even 5 years ago. Mobile devices and smart phones : my 10 year old daughter has been playing iPhone app games for close to 2 years now, and she never required me to even show her how to find a game on the phone, to my surprise she just picked it up one day and played. Social media : my 6 year old son knows what Facebook is, not because I have shown him, but because it is inherently more and more part of our social fabric… scary? Half of me agrees, very scary; the other half welcomes it as it keeps me connected with friends, colleagues and family while I travel. Video : yes children are reading less and less and the video world is taking over. Gaming is here, not sure of its impacts, but children are used to this world and will continue to develop in it.

These technologies are not going to disappear, in fact they are getting more and more common. I simply hope that our education system realizes this and has a very profound and self evaluating look as it begins to develop new educational models moving forward… embrace technology, do not fear it 

How Can Canada Help Bridge the Digital Divide

2010-10-13T13:28:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since I have had a chance to blog about anything, but today I want to talk about a subject near and dear to my heart, the global digital divide.

I have had the privilege of working for the Canadian International Development Agency and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade of Canada in my previous life as a federal government employee, and in both organisations, the concept of digital divide was not always front and centre on everyone's mind when dealing with development issues. There is no blame to lay here, balancing various development priorities such as global security, or food security issues or even maternal health, is a very difficult job indeed. The lack of attention provided by Canada to the digital divide has no one to blame, but it is not too late to adjust our thinking.

We do live in an infomration society and the sad reality is that many of our global international development institutions simply have not come to that realisation. To balance this cynicism, it is important to note that several NGOs have, but as government aid (whether it be Canadian or other) is concerned, our methods do not take into consideration that : world content double severy thirty days, that African states have some of the fastest growing mobile and smart phone markets in the world, that India apparently increases its cellular users by 20 million annually, etc. This means that African farmers often tend to their fields while having access to cellular devices, now this is not the norm, granted, but it is becoming more and more frequent. So imagine how invaluable a particular piece of geospatial data could be for that particular African farmer, it could help him generate better crops, simply by accessing data on his cellular device.

Yes we live in an information society and information is all around us, regardless of where one lives. And Canada is uniquely positioned to help tackle some of these challenges, here are a few reasons why :

1. Canada does not typically have proprietary laws : as in many technology companies do not have a need within their corporate structures to appropriate their clients' data, which means a country dealing with Canadian companies can maintain its digital sovereignty as it deals with Canadian private entities.

2. Multilingual cloud computing : as in we support multiple languages within our Canadian digital infrastructure and our overall national culture, something very important when dealing with developing nations that often are required to support dozens of dialects and several official languages. Our multilingual tolerance is often seen as a beacon of success internationally.

3. Our government collaborates with private sector entities : look no further than the 2010 G20 to discover that government and industry can effectively collaborate; a secure government social media site was established, a semi-public collaborative solution was provided to the world, as was a web-immersive environment bringing the G20 media centre to the world and effectively lowering the physical walls and access to the Toronto summit, a first in multilateral events.

4. Canada needs this... as a nation Canada is losing its global reputation as a champion of multilateralism. This hard earned reputation was achieved through constant global dialogue and a spirit of collaboration; even leading to the creation of the UN Security Council. Today however, Canada is taking a back seat to non-G20 countries in several key global policy issues, including the Security Council, an institution it helped create. Conquering the digital divide is the one item that Canada can address and resolve... it needs to in order to remain relevant internationally.

Well, there you have it, a rant on why and how Canada needs to invest more time addressing the global digital divide. As always, please feel free to email me at abenay@opentext.com should you wish to discuss this any further, I know I would.

Help... I'm Bleeding!

2010-08-27T09:48:00.000-07:00

Digital Culture Hemorrhage

Did you know that Canada has less than 2% of its culture available online?

Let me provide you with a few other factoids before we start outlining one of our country's greatest threats to its sovereignty.

Threat to our sovereignty!?

Yes, there are as pressing threats to our national sovereignty as the issue of assuming our dominance over the Canadian North, and they are silent digital threats, but nonetheless as important. Now hold that "less than 2% of Canadian culture is online" factoid in your head for one moment and consider this: Facebook and Youtube have equalled Google in online search and usage patterns over the past 5 years. Why? Because if you are under 25 and are considered a digital native, you search online via Google, YouTube and Facebook, all three, nothing more. You certainly do not go to a library that's for sure!

So back to Canadian culture... why am I saying it is facing one of its biggest threats ever? Because if it isn't on YouTube, Facebook or Google, for most under 25, it simply does not exist! With less than 2% of our Canadian culture being digitized, and with most under 25 using tools that are not being considered as part of mainstream public policy debates... we are heading for a cultural brick wall heading at 100 km/h. Welcome to Canada folks... where our culture is provided to us by other nation states!

Now I am being slightly dramatic here - granted - however Canada is not the only country facing this issue, we may be one of the countries at least considering the issue, but nonetheless we are not the only country facing this threat. It is a silent threat, a threat that rarely receives political attention, an underfunded challenge and quite frankly, a challenge without clear expertise and lacking a clear vision to address this evergrowing digital threat to all national identities.

Great so we are not digitally cultural... ok... let's image everything and be done with... no?

A digitally-enabled online culture requires a solid digital infrastructure; something Canada simply does not yet possess. What is a solid digital infrastructure? Well, how many digital copies of documents created in WordPerfect 1 can we open today? My apologies, let me rephrase, how many can we open without reverting to altering the information? Because don't forget, when managing digital records, we need to prove the document has never been altered, never been tampered with, is eligible in Canadian courts, etc. I dare you to try and open a WordPerfect 1 document without altering it... not sure you will be able to without modifying its original form in some way shape or form. Digital accessibility... imagine how this impacts open government? Access to what information? We can't even open the document... how can we release it to enquiring citizens? Now imagine the lack of digital preservation infrastructure and apply it to a digitized artefact from Library and Archives Canada, how would we sustain it over 100 years? Not a simple record, but a map from Jacques Cartier himself? Slightly more culturally important wouldn't you say?

The point here is that even if we digitize our culture and put it all online, we still don’t have the digital infrastructure required to support a fully digital Canada. While much of the economic stimulus funding has been provided to hard infastructure such as roads and bridges (which we need ... as my car can attest to) we have very few investments in soft infrastrure such as data centres, cloud computing, adequate public policies, etc.; all items which are required for a long-term, digitally-preserved, and fully-online Canadian cultural revolution.

Cultural revolution is the word ... yes revolution. Because while industry and governments are now starting to realize the impact of the information revolution on overall productivity and competitiveness, the cultural aspect of this massive societal change is lagging far behind. The less we deal with this issue, the more we, nation states of the world, will continue to drift further into the cultural dark ages... what a paradox: culturally we will be less enabled than ever while productivity reaches new heights with the emergence of newer and more advanced technologies. The undergrad history student in me finds this extremely sad.

Mind you, there may be a way to put a silver linging to all of this ... maybe this apparent "descent" into the nationalistic cultural abyss is not a bad thing... I mean, we are heading towards a more global human species are we not? Maybe in 200 years, nations as we know them will no longer mean anything? So maybe losing our national culture isn't such a bad thing after all? We will all be one culture anyway... the one culture Google, Facebook and YouTube wishes us to be, which one would argue is user driven anyway so it would therefore be an exact representation of us... Welcome to the Internet Nation!

Let's Put ECM ROI to Bed Once and For All

2010-07-28T04:57:00.000-07:00

So I will try and make what I find to be a typically long subject very easy and straight forward, and do so whitout re-reading my text 20 times, shooting from the hip so to speak; ECM return on investments is the subject for today.

First, let's start with some basic premises that will apply throughout this piece :

Today's government worker is a knowledge worker. Let's assume for argument's sake that a typical government employee spends 50-75% of his or her time managing information in some way shape or form : whether creating documents, knowledge mining, collating data, etc. This isn't a scientific equation, just my observations having worked in that space for a decent amount of time.

The stats you will find below, they too are not scientifically proven, but if you read Gartner, Forrester, etc., you could easily find similar stats to suit your purposes, again for simplicity's sake, I will use random stats as an example, I will even cut them in half at the end of this exercise and you will find the ROI is more than appealing.
Finally, the last premise... you can argue the validity of what follows, and you probably could be right, but I just want to show you the magnitude of what ECM can do for your organisation... so bear with me :)

Now that the housekeeping is out of the way, let's begin.

WHAT DOES A KNOWLEDGE WORKER DO?

Let's begin by defining what typically makes up a knowledge worker's day :

- Searching : this is the single biggest activity accomplished during the course of a day in the life of a public service employee. Searching dozens upon dozens of databases for the right data, searching emails, sifting through (if they are so lucky) their corporate document store, browsing the web for latest studies, etc. Searching is king in today's knowledge worker's world.
- Creating information : once relevant knowledge has been found, a typical government employee will add to that body of knowledge by creating a report for his or her minister, by sending a new email, by conducting a program review report, etc., some new piece of information is created, this happens all day, every day, nonstop... content doubles every 90 days.
Reporting : within most public sector settings, reporting can take up a significant amount of time, and represents the collecting of data, the analysis of raw information, determining the context and the meaning behind the figures, presenting the findings to management, etc. Reporting is one of those things that every program manager must do and a function which only gets more complicated with the unbelievable amount of data requiring management in this day and age.
- Knowledge transfer : well there has already been enough jokes made about "meetings", that people hold meetings to determine if a meeting is required in the first place, etc. But really, often meetings are to provide knowledge transfer, whether it be a briefing, someone leaving their position and moving on to other challenges, training, etc. To make things worst, knowledge transfer, as everyone knows, is getting more and more complex as more and more public sector staff depart for retirement, a huge knowledge void is being created... the public sector is losing its history every day that goes by.

Now that we have established, grosso modo, what a knowledge worker actually does in a day, let's look at how much time these tasks take up in a typical day's work :

- Searching : let's say 15% of a typical day's work is spent on searching through the vast array of corporate content;
- Creating : for this one, let's use 30% of a day's work;
- Reporting : 15% of a typical government employee can be spent on reporting related activities; and
- Knowledge transfer : 10% of an employee's time, I figure that is conservative enough.

Therefore, the overall amount of time spent on ECM related activities in a day by a government employee is estimated at 70% - and this is an employee that is not an IM/IT expert may I add, this is a typical government program manager or analyst. I believe I can make this statement because an employee working for a natural resources ministry does not actually manage the trees or rivers, they manage information about those trees and rivers; an employee working on delivering employment insurance to a citizen does not actually physically deliver the cheque to the door, he or she manages the information and process for delivering this service to the citizen, etc. Consequently, it is conceivable that a typical government employee could spend 70% of his or her time managing content in some way shape or form; welcome to the information age!

ATTRIBUTING COSTS

So now that we understand how much time a typical employee spends on ECM related activities, let us look at attributing costs to these information activities.

Let's say that a typical government organisation has 2000 employees who manage content in some way shape or form. Now, let's say the average government salary is $70,000.00 a year, which represents a best guess average in a typical goverment organisation. Therefore, the total salary cost for such an organisation would represent $140,000,000.00... all in.

Back to the employee level for a second, if the total time spent on the above mentioned activities totals 70% of an employee's time, this means that $49,000.00 of a typical $70,000.00 salary is spent on ECM activities, this is per year, per employee.

Therefore, $49,000.00 per year x 2000 employees is $98,000,000.00 in salary spent on managing content in a typical government institution, again, per year.

What this would mean is that such an organisation would spend the following on ECM activities:

- Search : $21,000,000.00 per year (or 15% of a single employee's time);
- Creation : $42,000,000.00 per year; (or 30% of a single employee's time);
- Reporting : $21,000,000.00 per year (or 15% of a single employee's time); and
- Knowledge transfer : $14,0000,000.00 per year (or 10% of a single employee's time).

Therefore, an organisation with 2000 employees, who's average employee salary is $70,000.00 per year, that institution's staff which spends 70% of its time on ECM related activities, consequently expends an estimated $98,000,000.00 a year in salary on ECM.

Think I am crazy?

Ok then... let's say I am wrong by 50%... and that only 35% of the time spent by employees is spent on ECM related functions, that still represents an expenditure of $49,000,000.00 per year, $49,000,000.00 spent on ECM in the form of salary costs on a yearly basis.

Still think I am too aggressive? Let's say I missed the mark by 75%... and that really employees don't spend that much time managing information, then the amount spent in salary dollars in a year on ECM activities represents an expense of $35,000,000.00, yearly. Get where I am going with this?

INVESTMENTS IN ECM

I do not want to spend too much time on this one but let's assume that a typical ECM deployment for a 2000 person organisation would require functions such as : business analysis, project planning, architecture, technical analysts, etc. Timelines? Or at least what I would accept as an acceptable timeline in my organisation? Well for a full team to deploy an ECM solution to 2000 employees, that could take... let's say... about 18 months. Given the market in which I reside, such a project could cost roughly... say... $1,000,000.00 in capital expenses for professional services.

So again I can hear you say that I am way off base with my estimates here... .ok so let's say I am 100% wrong and the cost is closer to $2,000.000.00 to deploy ECM throughout the enterprise... let's see what the ROI is on both then shall we?

RETURN ON INVESTMENT

Now here's is what we have established so far :

- a typical government employee can spend up to 70% of his or her time managing information;
the average salary for government is $70,000.00;
- a typical government organisation has 2,000 employees;
- the costs of such an organisation for ECM related activities represents $98,000,000.00 in salary or level of effort; and
- the costs for a deployment of the latest ECM technologies within that department could cost anywhere between $1,000,000.00 and $2,000,000.00

Let us say at this point that a typical ECM implementation could generate ... say ... 10% efficiency in an organization in all four ECM areas we have previously outlined (search, creation, reporting, knowledge transfer). 10% efficiency would represent the following savings :

- search : 10% of $21,000,000.00 is $2,100,000.00 in savings;
- creation : 10% of $42,000,000.00 is $4,200,000.00 in savings;
- reporting : 10% of $21,000,000.00 is $2,100,000.00 in savings; and
- kknowledge transfer : 10% of $14,000,000.00 is $1,400,000.00 in savings.

Total? If your ECM deployment only generates a 10% increase in efficiency, you are still looking at a $9,800,000.00 savings on year 1! Given the fact you have just spent $1,000,000.00 on your deployment (or $2,000,000.00 if you had to), I would say that the ration outlined above certainly is a better rate of return than anything that is on the stock market these days no?

CONCLUSION

The bottom line is you can make numbers say just about anything, we've all heard that one before right?

Well... why not make them say ECM investments make sense then? I am not asking you to fake some numbers for the sake of getting approvals for your project, just to quantify what ECM really means in cost avoidance in your organisation and what it could do if deployed properly. Speaking of deployments, next time we will talk about the top 5 commone pitfalls in deploying ECM solutions.

Social Media and the G20… How Canada Modernized International Meetings

2010-06-29T06:39:00.000-07:00

Established in 1997, the G20 was created as a result of the 1997 Asian financial crisis. The main focus of these multilateral events was, and continues to be, global fiscal planning and management in an effort to stabilize the world’s economy. The series of summits brings together the heads of state of the world’s advanced and emerging economies, in order to help regulate and manage the world’s financial sectors, discuss related development topics, ensure financial security, etc.

Since 1997, several meetings have occurred, however of late, given the impacts of the latest recession on the world’s economies, the G20 has taken on new and more pronounced political importance. Over the past few years, G20 summits have occurred in Washington in 2008, London and Pittsburgh in 2009, and more recently in Toronto in 2010, with Korea scheduled to host later in 2010 and France in 2011.

Lastly, while a typical multilateral event is centred on government to government discussions, there is a major ecosystem that is often built around such events; an ecosystem that often includes academia, business leaders, the media and various youth movements. In this case, all major elements were included in the world’s most connected multilateral event… ever.

For anyone who has ever been involved in international or multilateral meetings, they would know that organizations and participants in such events have typically collaborated via email or telephone, even as recently as the 2009 Pittsburgh summit. Policy development, negotiations, networking, etc., was all done via outdated technologies such as the telephone or email, or in person during these summits, which by then, was often too late. The world is a big place, and connecting with people in the months leading up to such a large summit often proved difficult and sometimes even impossible. Simply put, no other field within the public sector was in greater need of a shift in how it conducted its outreach and communications than the global public sector, and no other sector could benefit more than this one in adopting social media practices.

The solution was simple, the G20 needed to adopt social media practices, doing so quickly and efficiently with as little human impacts as possible. To this end, a partnership was struck between the Canadian Digital Media Network, a federally funded network representing most major Canadian technology firms, and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT), who was ultimately responsible for the G20 summit and its execution. CDMN member Open Text provided a hosted social media platform, available through throughout a variety of mobile platforms and the Internet, while DFAIT provided the business context and framework to engage all participating countries as well as their executive management teams attending the summit.

This experiment was truly be the first of its kind, all 20 countries, their leadership and government employees, participating on a social media site, both online and with their mobile devices, sharing policy views, negotiating country specific policy positions, networking, etc. All participants with online profiles, multi-media capacity, videos, blogs, wikis, etc. , all leveraging true 2.0 capacities in a public sector domain, all from different backgrounds, for the first time ever, the world’s governments were online in one platform engaging in global fiscal planning.

In addition to this, CDMN also provided a second service, for non-governmental interested parties such as : universities, major thought leadership organizations, youth movements, the world’s press, business leaders, etc., therefore providing these groups with an opportunity to contribute what is called ‘social knowledge’, all in support of the Toronto G20 agenda. By social knowledge we mean one’s contribution to an existing body of knowledge, often found on static web pages, by providing real-time collaboration and dialogue through social media exchanges. This body of knowledge proved invaluable to the G20 ecosystem and continues to live on today on www.g20net.org .

Lastly, Open Text and the CDMN were also able to develop an interactive web presence to the Experience Canada Pavilion, a facility hosted within the G20 International Media Centre designed to promote Canada to the world throughout the summit. Online immersive technologies were used to showcase all the participants in this pavilion who were proud to show Canadian knowhow and innovation to the world’s media. This online immersive environment is available at www.vg20net.org and continues to be seen by thousands individuals from around the world, another digital Canadian innovation in the context of multilateral events such as the G20.

What was achieved out of all of this you may ask? Well let’s take a look at the obvious:

• Governments from around the world, from different backgrounds and with different rules, collaborated on a single social media platform, all accessible from their mobile devices;
• Policy development and negotiations were conducted in an enterprise 2.0 fashion, and the Toronto summit was enabled like no other global public sector event of its kind;
• Non-governmental entities were enabled like never before, leveraging the partnership struck between DFAIT and the CDMN; and
• Social mobility was introduced into multilateral events and new media concepts were also brought to the forefront.

In addition, more strategically, the event accomplished the following :

• Canada, through DFAIT , CDMN and Open Text, was able to provide the world’s most connected global multilateral public sector event of its kind and continue challenging as one of the world’s most connected countries;
• DFAIT demonstrated tremendous leadership in a way never before experienced in a global public sector setting, and for this they should be commended, striking key partnerships in support of a well thought out and defined e-communications strategy; and
• The Toronto summit has set the standard for what can be achieved within a public sector domain by leveraging the power of social media to generate collaboration amongst interested parties, seek out new contributors and manage all the content associated to such multilateral events.

With the dust barely settled on the Toronto G20 summit, it is more and more apparent that other nations are interested in maintaining the services established for the Canadian event. Much of this interest is the result of the heads of state all requesting ongoing discussions on key agenda items on an ongoing basis in order to maintain the momentum between summits, for this most important requirement, social media has proven to be the answer. Social media maintains records, provides an engagement layer never before experienced and promotes dialogue in a world used to collaborating by email and telephone.

Certainly the efforts of many organizations and key individuals was required to get both the government and non-governmental sites off the ground; and certainly the sustained efforts and interests of participating countries will be required to maintain the social media presence for future G20 events. However one thing is clear at this point, social media usefulness in a public sector setting has been concretely demonstrated once and for all, and the future of the public sector is definitely a social one, the world’s leading public sectors have demonstrated this quite clearly last week in Toronto.

G20 Media -ATale of Two Worlds

2010-06-25T19:50:00.001-07:00

So here I find myself at the G20 in Toronto... standing between two buildings… and two worlds.

On one side is the Allstream Centre, which houses the Alternative Media Centre, designed to house non-governmental organizations, bloggers, YouTube reporters, civil society groups, think tanks, etc.; essentially the non-traditional media of the world. Yet it is these non-traditional media types which are reaching millions and millions of Internet users, sometimes reaching even more users than the traditional media types such as television and papers. They do so because they are connected into the Internet and mass communication channels and leverage social media capacities such as Facebook, Twitter, their own social media platform, etc.

On the other side is the Direct Energy Centre, which houses the Media Centre for accredited members of the press and most major television networks, all focusing on television, print, and static information communications via the Internet. In this centre itself, there is no wifi and limited Internet connectivity. Sounds very “1.0 ish.” But there are good reasons for this: security, technical challenges in having so many networks located in one area pushing out massive Wifi traffic, etc.; these are very legit and very real challenges facing the traditional media world.

Even though there are various reasons for this lack of traditional media ‘connectivity’ (used in multiple terms), what I am struggling to come to terms with is that the Alternative Media Centre is more connected and online than the Media Centre with its major networks. The alternative media have better Wifi, the media are engaging and interactive, videos are instantaneously uploaded, etc.; true social media at its finest.

I am not criticizing or picking one side over the other, only making an observation: governments and traditional media are faced with what appears to be more difficult adoption paths for both social media and 2.0 practices, while new media and non-governmental organizations embrace it... where do these two worlds come together? Maybe the question is how do they come together… if at all? Is social media to be the tool of the poor, while governments and traditional media are doomed to be mainly 1.0 Web users; that is, users that only push content out to the world as oppose to actively collaborating with the world?

I typically am much more optimistic about the usage of social media, but today, on a bright sunny day, as I stand in the middle of the well guarded road between the Alternative Media Centre and the Media Centre, I wonder what it would take to get the world connected?

Open Government… Myth or Reality? Fixing Canada’s Federal Access to Information Dilemma

2010-06-14T12:26:00.000-07:00

In the context of access to information and managing privacy concerns in the public sector, the cost to both the Government of Canada (GC) and ultimately to Canadian tax payers of managing a federal information burden is staggering. Furthermore, in today’s knowledge economy, things are only getting worst when it comes to managing information overload, regardless of where you operate and in what sector, information overload is winning the battle.

Recently, there have been numerous articles in the press outlining how inefficient many federal organizations are in managing access to government information, even failing to meet basic legal requirements of the Access to Information Act, a basic right of any Canadian citizen; a sign of how bad the situation has gotten, when, practically speaking, we Canadian citizens no longer have access to government information.

Another great example of the cost of today’s information burden in the federal government : the Ottawa Citizen recently reported the costs incurred by DND in managing the Afghanistan access to information file, and no other file may I add, Afghanistan alone has apparently cost the department over $1M in process fees. We could go on and on with numerous examples of what is simply put, an inefficient process which does not address the core problem: there is simply too much information to make open government work within the confines of the existing policy framework.

Now, I am not picking on the access to information and privacy professionals in government, because they are working long hours to try and meet these impossible demands. They are not to blame for any of this. What I do find odd however, is the fact that the government of Canada has had a records management solution in place for over a decade now, with currently 80,000 users and counting, yet somehow, we (and I do mean the collective we), have not been able to rectify the access to information problem? Even more alarming, as a leader in today’s global knowledge economy, Canada, and therefore its federal government organizations, has not been able to develop strategic alliances between the access to information and privacy (ATIP) community and the government IM/IT sector, nor has the ATIP community been able to leverage public-private partnerships to help its open government cause. It is this lack of strategic partnership and a lack of a multi-faceted open government vision which represent some of the biggest issues facing access to government information… let me explain further.

I have spent nine years working in the federal government in various roles from program management, to access to information ending my public sector stint as an IM/IT executive. What I have not quite understood throughout this period of time was why there has never truly been an alliance between key information driven professions such as lawyers, access to information or privacy professionals, security experts, etc., and the information management community; to be blunt: the ATIP and IM/IT communities don’t talk enough even though they are on the same team.

Now... that being said, there is a way to resolve the information burden in the Government of Canada in support of providing greater access to government decisions and information, and it is for a three way partnership between the private sector, the ATIP community and the public sector IM/IT community to develop strategic partnerships in support of a new open government vision. Essentially, solutions to open government can only be achieved through partnership and will require a major analysis of the ATIP program framework as it exists today.

To begin with, 80,000 users of a common records management platform throughout the Government of Canada is no small feat. I firmly believe that this particular IM/IT accomplishment should be leveraged by the information and privacy communities as it represents a solid base from which to begin revamping the ATIP framework. Unfortunately, to date, the access to information and privacy sector within the Government of Canada simply has not leveraged this platform. Imagine a single repository of record for government documents, therefore when an ATIP request is received, there are significantly fewer repositories requiring discovery? What would DND’s costs be in managing it’s Afghanistan ATIP file then? Would it still be $1M? Probably not.

Sounds too simple yes I know. Well, in theory it is that simple, and it should be achievable. Luckily, the information management community is continuously working towards open government. Currently, there are central agencies and select line departments who are already working, in partnership with industry, on a shared repository of record for government utilizing the latest in web technologies. The question is: will the ATIP community join the party as a key strategic partner, or will it stay on the side lines? Can the ATIP community build the right partnership to achieve its objectives?

I remain somewhat bewildered when I continue to hear how ATIP remains a major challenge in government when so many building blocks already exist; and even more bewildered in my conversations with some of the senior government officials responsible for supporting and monitoring the state of access to information and privacy when they claim this cannot be resolved with the help of the private sector? These are shortcomings in the very foundation of an open government vision which need to be addressed as quickly as possible if Canadian citizens are ever to retrieve their lost right to access government information.

Partnerships are often complex… fully understood … and I completely agree. But if the ATIP community could proactively work with the Government of Canada IM/IT community and develop a long term vision for the Government of Canada concerning access to information, it could force industry to take a look at this issues and develop the right solution, and by solution I mean more than simple technology. We, the industry, are listening to public sector access to information concerns, but we need coordinated direction and leadership before we can provide help.

Furthermore, there is hope, many elements are already in place. The central repository of record within the Government of Canada is under way and it is has strong leadership. We know that there are various forms of isolated leadership within the ATIP community. Certainly when industry is called upon to help provide greater open access to government it will respond. But to make this work, partnerships will be required. This is a multidisciplinary problem that requires multidisciplinary solutions and a multi-faceted open government vision.

There you have it, my plea. If anyone from the ATIP community is reading this right now, please do not hesitate to contact me because we all want to work together to make ATIP issues disappear throughout the Government of Canada. The information management community and the technology sectors are both waiting to work with you to help increase access to government information for all Canadians… drop us a line!

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle... The World's Most Cost Effective Public IT Agreement

2010-06-01T16:30:00.000-07:00

5 Strategic Projects the Government of Canada Could Accomplish using RDIMS... Today

Now I know RDIMS is a bad word throughout the Government of Canada (GC), it has somehow earned a bad rap over the years. The GC Records, Document and Information Management System has typically been seen as a stand-alone, non-integrated records management bundle. Given that perception, it is only natural that, these days , considering the economic climate, there simply isn’t enough funding in most federal organizations to deploy a stand-alone records management repository using yesterday’s technology.

However, what 99% of GC doesn’t know, is that with the arrival of new web based technologies, RDIMS can do much much more than simple document and records management. Below are a few examples, not only of stand-alone departmental projects, but of true enterprise wide process enabling projects, which could lead towards a consistent and universal GC repository of record, accessible by all yes, but also with controls in place that respect all IM and IT policies throughout the government.

Before providing you with a list of examples, a quick synopsis of the highlights of the RDIMS framework :

• Document and records management functionality: embedded into process models and workflows therefore making IM compliance seamless to the everyday end user;

• Workflow : enabling organizations to cut through siloes within their own departments, but also across multiple jurisdictions when required, effectively managing business processes and information throughout the entire GC ecosystem;

• Archiving : the federal government has the potential to install a single repository of record for all its organizations, essentially eliminating duplicates, managing emails in the process and drastically reducing storage costs, thus increasing green computing footprints around the federal government;

• Managing communities : wikis, blogs, instant messaging, project spaces, polls, etc., everything the enterprise needs to move into a 2.0 space is within RDIMS, better yet, it is 2.0 WITH compliance to policies and regulations;

• There are already close to 80,000 users of RDIMS in the federal government who pay annual maintenance and have access to all the functions outlined above. Therefore the potential for enterprise wide solutions already exists as the costs have already been absorbed; and

• There are no more upfront costs for deployments, the software has already been purchased. All departments have to do is work with PWGSC and requests licenses and pay an annual maintenance fee… no cost.

So now that we all have a better understanding of what is in front of us, let’s look at how we can use these building blocks to develop GC enterprise solutions :

A Single Government of Canada Repository of Record

Imagine if the federal government only had to go to one central location to find its information for Access to Information or Privacy requests? Imagine if duplicate information, and its associated direct and indirect costs, was a thing of the past? Imagine if all departments could share, based on business rules, content from a single repository, as opposed to managing all information in isolation? This would be a world where collecting information once and re-using many, would be a reality… no more having to provide my date of birth to CRA, DFAIT, Transport Canada, Health Canada, etc. Workflows could tap into this single repository of record and automate government business much more easily.

By now many of you are thinking I am crazy… but I am not; implement the archive and workflow capacities as previously outlined and you are there, the functionality exists… today.

A Single Ministerial Correspondence Solution

With workflow and document management capacities within RDIMS, the Government of Canada could implement a consistent and generic ministerial correspondence solution. Imagine an environment where rules and processes are coordinated centrally from PMO, PCO and TBS, where departments are contributing to a pan-government correspondence process and where standardization is achieved, driving efficiency in correspondence throughout the federal government?

No… I promise… I am not crazy… again the functionality is there : document management for versioning and workflow for process automation… Government of Canada owns this now.

A Policy Compliant GC Pedia

The Government of Canada has been a pioneer in the enterprise 2.0 space for a few years now, thanks in large part to its efforts with GC Pedia, an online collaboration tool for government employees. The concept has been proven and it does work, but now GC needs to look at how it makes this concept compliant with a myriad of policies and rules around information management lifecycle, security, privacy, etc.

Again RDIMS can help. Because of its web interface, the exact same look and feel of GC Pedia can be achieved, however one can now have the robustness of an enterprise solution underpinning the collaboration efforts. With a secure enterprise repository running beneath the RDIMS/GC Pedia web interface, one can achieve compliance with a host of policies such as ATIP, the Library and Archives Canada Act, management of IT security policies, etc. Additionally, one could even add instant messaging and workflows into the mix and really bring GC Pedia into a new collaborative space altogether, not to mention increase the GC Pedia user base to 80,000 users overnight.

Ok you get it by now… no not crazy… just use the document and records functionality, the web user interface as well as the communities of practice function within RDIMS… and you are there!

A Single Travel Approval Process for Government

Many departments have their own travel approval process, even though much improvement has been made over the past few years in standardizing the approach. However, with 80,000 users of RDIMS, one could once again argue that the federal government could leverage this tremendous user base and implement a consistent and managed travel approval process for all GC employees. A centrally hosted solution where web forms and workflows route information to and from designated financial authorities, all this, while maintaining clear and distinct audit trails I may add, is a very real possibility.

How so? Use the workflow and web interfaces of the RDIMS agreement, if you really want to, even integrate this into the ‘new’ central repository of record we discussed earlier, so all transactions are recorded.

Modernized Translation Process for Government

There is currently tremendous duplication, and triplication even, of content when departments and agencies throughout the federal government utilize translation services. The initial department keeps copies, the translation bureau keeps some of the translated material, the receiving department may keep duplicates of both official languages, etc. It is easy to see how information burdens occur quite rapidly, and this is taxing our infrastructures and certainly not enabling green computing.

Same gig … different venue… use the web interface to design the templates, use workflow to manage the process throughout the enterprise that is the Government of Canada, and use the records and document management function to ensure proper information management rules are applied… voilà!

There you have it, five enterprise wide projects answering clear business needs throughout the federal government, using an agreement that already has 80,000 users thanks to the hard work by many in the IM/IT community over the past decade. This solid base, often acquired through sweat and tears, can now be leveraged to truly make the RDIMS agreement, with its bad rap and all, a framework that Canada can be proud of, and which the world can admire. All the pieces are there, we just need to build the right plan with the right leadership.

Why Government Needs Social Media

2010-05-26T12:04:00.000-07:00

1. Representative government from Victoria to St-John’s

Social media brings people together. It adds a new layer of interaction not seen before in society; the impacts are such that social media even managed to elect the United-States’ first black President. It accomplished this because it destroyed typical Republican vs Democrat landscapes, and it forced the country to rethink its traditional views on geopolitics. Therefore, one could argue that social media not only brings people together, but that it also breaks down geographical barriers in a way not seen since the invention of the telephone.

In such a large country as Canada, with multiple levels of government, social media can facilitate and help the governance process like no other technology offering ever experienced. It can help citizens in rural British-Columbia get employment insurance (EI) answers online through instant messaging conversations with a representative from Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, who himself is located in Ottawa. Social media can connect a Newfoundland constituent to her federally elected official’s office directly, through the use of a wiki located on her MP’s own personal website.

Even more significant… this same citizen in St-John’s, who was actually asking her MP’s office a question concerning EI in her region, and after stumbling on a federal government collaboration site, has discovered that the exact same question she was posing her MP’s office, was actually being asked by a fellow citizen in BC; the St-John’s resident even saw the HRSDC response online as the entire instant messaging conversation between the BC resident and the Ottawa federal employee was published within the EI QA section that same day… A BC resident assisting a Newfoundland resident without direct government involvement… a picture of efficiency emerges… a self-serve government body operating in a government cloud.

2. Decision making speed and transparency can be increased

As previously discussed in other blogs, government entities are hierarchical in nature. This very hierarchy often causes significant delays in responding to citizen needs, whether it be access to information requests, questions around travel warnings, etc. Additionally, emails and telephones perpetuate this structure because these are the technologies which are the most widely used in governments today and over the past 20 years; this fact does not help to break the mold as they are non-collaborative technologies and are ultimately restrictive in nature. Lastly, these hierarchies date back to a pre-information age society where the rules could afford to be rigid because the information flow was much slower than it is in today’s knowledge economy.

Today and in the foreseeable future, the foundation and essence of these rules are still required. However, how they are administered requires some investigation. For example, the emergence of social media can effectively flatten typical government hierarchies as the transmission of information is drastically increased and the collaboration factor brings people and content together in a way never seen before. In a true social media savvy government, citizens can actually contribute to the body of knowledge of a particular federal, provincial or municipal program, not simply receive information. Once an answer has been provided to a citizen once by a public sector representative, it can be shared and communicated in such a way where citizens can themselves educate their fellow citizens, effectively reducing the information burden on government institutions. People want to help and be helped, and often social media is the answer. Such an ecosystem could drastically reduce the information burden on both public sector organizations themselves and on citizens seeking answers from a typical hierarchical system, which itself has relied on emails and phone calls to obtain answers for the past twenty years.

Essentially, new ways of designing and delivering government programs are required; this new place must be one where a balance is struck, a place where our society’s legal and policy building blocks continue to be respected, and a place where collaborative and open government is available to all citizens through social media.

3. New generations of employees do not ‘do’ email and telephone

My brother is 25, if I send an email, I get an answer within 3 days… at best. If I send him a Facebook posting, I get an answer within an hour… the point here is younger digital natives are used to these ‘new’ collaborative platforms. Texting is replacing phone calls, Youtube, Facebook and/or LinkedIn are replacing emails… the media types which we have been typical government staples have already been replaced within younger generations of professionals, and it is inevitable that they will enter the public sector workplace at some point or another, the key to this is managing this entry into the public sector workplace in a strategic fashion, where a balance between policy compliance and collaboration is respected.

Private sector entities have already adopted these technologies in many instances. Therefore attracting and maintaining young talent through technology usage is less of an issue than in the public sector, which still relies heavily on email and telephones as its primary means of communication. However, should the public sector actively engage these new communication and collaborative methods, it would find that young professionals would most likely feel more engaged and able to make a difference in the workplace and could even contribute to longer term strategic program planning as a result of their acuteness to these types of communications platforms. But beware, it is not simply a question of having this type of media available to younger generations of public sector employees, these new professionals are used to the essence of collaboration and are more challenging of typical government hierarchies. Hence a warning, involve the young professionals in program design and delivery as you are designing tomorrow’s government 2.0 programs for them.

4. Open government is possible with social media

How the public sector perceives itself in the information age is in need of a radical transformation because most public sector organizations have not quite fully understood that they have effectively lost the information battle; content is everywhere and is everything, it is produced within and outside firewalls, information consumers are now generators and generators are also consumers. Realizing that the information war is lost, versus conceiving new management frameworks which operate within this new context are two distinctly different elements.

Today, information is available to public sector employees and citizens alike outside of governmental firewalls at a much quicker rate and broader range than ever before. Additionally, the line between the corporate web vs the personal web is ever blurring, to a point where it will cease to exist in the very near future. These factors, to name a few, create an unprecedented level of stress on both the access to information and the privacy spaces. While social media is often seen as a key source for these new stresses, it may also represent the cure for this ever increasing information burden ecosystem that is the public sector cloud or web.

A social web experience means citizens can manage their own content, their own access and their own personal and private experiences within a government information cloud in ways never available until recently. Yes, rules and policies are still required as they are key building blocks of Canadian society. Such is the case for access to government information for example… no one is suggesting we part ways with our core values, simply that we incorporate our core values into a social media reality.

Consequently, one should investigate how social media can increase open government, how the concept of opening government data can be exploited to feed a knowledge economy as well as a knowledge society from St-John’s to Victoria. This type of study has never occurred. But such an undertaking should be conducted with a broad range of representatives around the table, from youth to senior bureaucrats, from academic thought leaders to business leaders… and this type of representation should be representative of all major geographic entities throughout Canada. The public sector applications are endless : opening public policy debate throughout the vast expanse of Canada’s territory, program funding discussions occurring with constituents and stakeholders from all walks of life, communicating government priorities, etc., all these activities could be a part of an opening up of Canadian government, and this, at all levels of government.

5. A mobile government is an agile government

Why is social media different? Because unlike the web, it has leveraged the potential of mobility, almost from its arrival, whether it be Facebook and Myspace, social media has meant mobile media. Reading any analytical study on this topic, one will notice that the mobility domain is one of the fastest growing industry in the world. Mobile devices are even found in shanty towns in South Africa or in extreme poverty environments in Bangladesh; mobile devices are everywhere regardless of social status, and equally present are Facebookers, Twitters, etc. Essentially, social media has expanded its reach to include all levels of society by leveraging mobile platforms throughout the world.

How is it then, that mobile social media penetration in a public sector environment is proving so difficult? An interesting question, especially when one considers the key concepts developed by social media platforms around instant alerts, integration of typical communication medias such as email into their platforms, leveraging text capabilities, etc. , all of these elements lead to a social media experience that is both work enabling and increasingly mobile in nature. Consequently, because our society is increasingly mobile itself, social media is becoming increasingly class agnostic, which in return should only increase the efficiency of open government; but why the slow adoption? Is the reason funding, policy related or simply that social media has no such place in a public sector setting?

Essentially, governments should be developing their mobility strategies of tomorrow, today. Imagine, reducing costs by eliminating the need for landlines… if you have a mobile device, why would you even need a landline? Imagine a world where government employees can collaborate on projects from home or at the airport or the cottage… do I really need to be at my desk utilizing costly office space? A place where Canadians can access government online services through their iphones or blackberries?

The needs for ‘heavier’ infrastructures and physically needing to be at one’s desk are disappearing… yet government seems to be the last place where some of these new realities are embedding themselves, even though this is exactly the space where the most returns could be obtained : a program employee being able to answer citizen related texts or wiki posts via his blackberry while on the bus ride home, email notifications about new and emerging discussion threads from employees’ personal iphones, etc. If true cost savings are to occur, we need to investigate these new ways of doing business, and do this soon… using a ‘let’s just do it’ approach.

5 Reasons Why Government is Not Ready to Adopt 2.0

2010-05-18T05:12:00.000-07:00

I will try and make this sound positive, promise. That being said, it will be hard as there are many challenges ahead of us if we are truly to make government an open government, one that embraces citizen - institution mass collaboration in a connected digital nation; and if we are to succeed in this quest, we need to point out the elephants in the room. I won't sugar coat anything by saying "this is an opportunity" when really it is just a plain simple barrier to progress... and I will try to not turn this into a rant :)

Here are the top 5 reasons why 2.0 collaboration will not easily be accepted by government:

1. Open Government is Scary
Public sector employees, at all levels, are simply ill equipped to interact with citizens and businesses in such an open forum. Providing citizens and businesses with online collaborative means and access to government isn't as easy as it sounds. This is a new frontier for our public sector, one that has not been adopted anywhere else in Canada. Imagine a world where employment insurance discussions could be settled online via instant messaging, where blogs of the latest policy surrounding the government's foreign aid policies was readily available for critique by citizens from Iqaluit to Vancouver? This type of openness shakes the very core of the public sector as we know it today and it instils fear in most employees to think they could be called upon to collaborate en mass with Canadians throughout the country; and rightfully so. Something like this calls for new ways of designing programs, outreach strategies, technologies, new outlooks on the role of government, etc. No one has started to plan for these types of processes and new-age programs and actually began delivering on a modernized public sector program delivery strategy, yet we now have the tools to do so... just not the framework to proceed.

2. Hierarchy still prevails
True story... someone I recently met (let's call him John) outlined how they were asked to put together a blogging forum for their department. They did so with great anticipation and were even aloud to post the first comment on this great new collaborative tool. So off John goes and posts a blog on a topic of great interest to him within his organisation, a process he sees as needing modernization, John wants to highlight this to all who wish to read his blog... this process sucks. Off he posts. The next day, his supervisor instructs him that this particular process isn't really that bad, but that it is a challenge and the wording should have read as such. John is perplexed and confused, but leaves it at that. Now the following day after that, John's CIO crosses him in the hall and informs him to change the tone to reflect the fact that this particular process he outlined, really is not a challenge, but rather is an opportunity... ??? ... Now John is lost and simply does not understand ... thought this was supposed to be MY blog page?

This outlines a critical paradigm conflict of web 2.0 in a public sector setting... 2.0 crushes typical government hierarchies that have been in place for centuries... are we ready for this? Because the newer generations of employees coming in, they will not be shy about posting things on a blog or wiki that do not make sense to them within their institution, they will be digital natives used to the Facebook and Twitter phenomenon... CIOs and ADMs out there.... are you ready to hear what the team has to say? Every day of the week? And is this new professional generation ready to accept a combination of 'old world' rules and dilute their appetite for mass collaboration? Tough questions... no clear answers yet...

3. Youth not Engaged
I am 29, left government at 27 because I was lucky in reaching a Director position at 24 but got disenfranchised very quickly. When I was in government and complaining (yes complaining I will admit it :)) about how it simply is not fair to have competitions outline requirements such as '15 years of experience in this' and 'need 20 years of experience in that'... I simply did not have a forum to be heard. When we wanted to do projects well but trim down on the timelines, I was told there were processes to follow; again no one to turn to that would act. So I left. But now that I am outside of the public sector, I can blog more freely, tweet more freely and participate in conferences and speak my mind, people actually want to hear what I have to say... how twisted... and sad really. All you senior Deputy Ministers out there please take notice, you have thousands of bright young minds within the public sector today who get this Facebook thing, please include them when possible in how you design your programs, how you integrate 2.0 technologies into the workplace and how you can expand the reach of your activities outside of Ottawa, Toronto, Québec City and other traditional centres of power; and please do so before they do what I did, and leave government all together. This new generation is a digital-native one, they are used to this type of environment and could bring much value to the discussion... reversely, this new generation also needs leadership and guidance as to why these public sector rules exist and why they must be respected... both parties could gain so much from such an exchange, yet they rarely happen because today's government focusses too much on hierarchy and rank, not on innovation.

4. Processes not suited for mass collaboration
Government processes are linear, and they are designed this way for transparency and reporting reasons, please do not argue that they are for efficiency's sake :) Collaboration on the other hand, creates more of a 'bubble' environment, where processes are not as linear and do not necessarily require such rigour, as a result of the fact that collaboration environments rely on the intellect and power of a large community as opposed to relying on a linear process and a typical industrial age production line system. Now there are good reasons why government processes must be linear, but again we introduce online collaboration to the equation and it begins to pose a paradigm conflict, yet again, as both of these worlds are conflicting in many ways. How to maintain transparency and reporting capacities while introducing more 'free wielding' mass collaboration platforms to the public sector workplace in order to drive efficiency? That is the challenge in today's 1.75 public sector world.

5. Unclear path
One of the biggest issues we face in modernizing our public sector and introducing more 2.0 technologies, is that no one has had the leadership to do it. GC Pedia is a first step, a humble one, but a first one. However there is no policy rigour against GCPedia (IM, Security, etc.), but at least it can start to connect federal government employees. What is missing is how we introduce more robust and enterprise scalable collaboration concepts and platforms into government program delivery framework that encourages collaboration with its citizens; how do we use Facebook as government entities? How do we leverage blogs and wikis within a program delivery framework designed to reach out from Vancouver to St-John's? If the US could elect its first black President on the strength of Facebook and Barrackobama.org, certainly the Canadian government can renew its program delivery approach to citizens using 2.0 technologies? We just need our own Canadian Barrack to stand up and be heard.

Ok...I am done what has turned into a rant and I do apologize for this. However there are many roadblocks ahead - not opportunities... but roadblocks - and we must face them head on if we are to modernize our public sector program delivery approach to leverage the 2.0 technologies being used around the world. If ISO was able to modernize its voting system to reduce its standards adoption period from years to weeks, by using the web, Canada, as the world's once #1 rated digital country, should embrace this challenge head on and lead. I would go as far as it is our role to do so and lead the way... just have to find that Canadian Obama somewhere, if you see him or her, please let me know.