Rowan's blog

The Power of Open: 2.0 Public, Private and Community Sectors

In September, the Open Government Partnership formally launched with a series of high-level meetings highlighting the transformative nature of open governance.
 
Events included a day-long multi-stakeholder discussion, "The Power of Open," that brought together governments, civil society, industry leaders, academics and the media in a series of panels and networking events. The launch page states, these were “focused on the role of openness in improving responsiveness, fostering accountability, creating efficiencies, promoting innovation and growth, fighting corruption, improving performance, and capturing dispersed knowledge in support of smarter policies.”

As part of this, Eight nations (Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Norway, Philippines, South Africa, United Kingdom, and the US) formally endorsed a broadly-worded Open Government Declaration, all of them openly asserting that their goal is to achieve “greater prosperity, well-being, and human dignity in our own countries and in an increasingly interconnected world.”

This is something I feel incredibly hopeful about - I see increased 'Openness' in the public, private and community sectors as a huge step towards ethical, sustainable, agile progress. Last year I had a (somewhat radical) rant on the need (and possibilities) for crowd-sourced democracy here.

Watch President Obama’s opening address from the meeting, along with comments from multiple countries:


Highlights:

• The UK has ambition to be the most transparent government in the world. Francis Maude, Minister for the Cabinet Office, gave an extremely articulate speech and call to action (at 46:59).
• Rakesh Rajani, one of the civil society representatives used his moment well.
• President Obama's closing remarks included a pertinent comment on the challenge of being a human being in a position of power.

Read Susan Crawford’s detailed blog post on the topic, including how you can get involved in the US: http://scrawford.net/blog/

In the private sector:

• The power of the consumer is well known and is being leveraged in the marketing space ('Customer-made' became a trend back in 2006).
• In the B2B space, collaboration between internal and external experts, prospects and clients is becoming commonplace too.
• In large organisations, 'jams' are providing opportunity for internal crowdsourcing, for example, IBM's ValuesJam in 2003 gave its workforce the opportunity to redefine the core IBM values for the first time in nearly 100 years.
• These initiatives have generally been led from the top.

The community sector now has the power to lead and drive big change from the bottom up:

• Nathan Winograd made San Fransico the first 'no kill' state for shelter animals in the United States and went on to make the same change in other places (see 01.45 in video).
• A different example of community leadership is the collaborative, bottom up, coordinated research effort of the distributed http://occupyresearch.net project. Anyone can participate. A team led development of the wiki, which describes itself as "an open, shared space for distributed research focused around OccupyWallStreet / OccupyTogether". They are sharing ideas, research methods, tools, datasets, with a view to writing, analysing, discussing, codesigning new tools, and otherwise developing theory and practice together.

 

So, becoming more open (and finding ways for people from all sectors to collaborate on shared interests, beliefs, ambitions) is perhaps inevitable, since everyone now has a voice and anyone can drive change.

I see two keys to smooth progress in this area - the exact two challenges mentioned in my previous post; imagination and leadership. Scalable technologies have emerged that permit collaboration top down and bottom up. The question is, can a leader find constituents including experts who share interests, beliefs or ambitions - and lead them to;

• define a shared vision that represents ethical, sustainable progress (a 'win' for all constituents)
• and then work towards it in a coordinated way?

The project leader and participants would need imagination and leadership (internal and external) to commit to the possibility of a shared vision and to willingly, consistently collaborate and coordinate with each other over time to achieve win/win progress.

If you’re interested in hearing what OpenGov experts and enthusiasts have to say, feel free to follow this OpenGov Twitter list.

Lets hope the power of 'open' culminates in constituents with expertise collaborating to drive ethical, sustainable progress more transparently and democratically in all sectors.

Isn't it time we replaced political parties with crowd-sourced democracy?

ZDNet just revealed the Australian Lib's National Broadband Network (NBN) policy to be yet another half-baked, shambolic effort. Some of the background is in my blog posts from last year.

So much time has been wasted - as with almost all major government projects. The political system drives me nuts. So here is an alternate, half baked (but much broader) idea:

Why don't we create a new system for developing and managing Australian national projects whereby:

• Members of the Australian public who are qualified*, collaboratively co-develop policies/projects/solutions within their area(s) of expertise with the aid of neutral, monitored facilitation. *One idea would be to 'qualify' people via an online test, through which they must demonstrate balanced understanding of the points and history surrounding the issues.
• All the policy/project/solution initiatives developed collaboratively, nationally, could be submitted, presented and sorted by Australians via voting tools into a country priority list.
• The Australian public could then collaboratively vote in a Project Leader to implement each priority project (based on the leader's proven ability to successfully implement similar complex projects).

In other words, why don't we develop a system to crowd-source national policies/projects/solutions, so we can make 'politicians' obsolete?

Yes, that idea is half-baked - there would need to be a lot of detail ironed out behind how it could work... back-end infrastructure, privacy, making the collaboration & voting tools secure and facilitation neutral etc, but surely this is all possible now that we live in the time of the inter-webs?

Frankly, I think piloting this kind of approach, starting small and learning and refining it until it is workable on a broad scale would have to be worthwhile... Pretty much any system that focuses on developing an excellent end solution for the country would be better than having multiple competing parties made up of bipartisan politicians working on it?! 

What do you think?

(I have not missed the irony that we'd probably need the NBN to be in place to facilitate this kind of solution on a broad scale... ;)

Advertisers swarm over Julia (and Kevin)

I got on a plane yesterday and 14 hrs later turned on my phone to see a message from my husband saying Australia now has a lady Prime Minister. Amazing what can happen in the world during a plane ride!

Some of the specially created ads that came out hours after Julia Gillard became PM are below. I'm told Jetstar was the first to fly into print with an ad in the mX afternoon edition, featuring a photo of Kevin Rudd and the headline "Taking a break?"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Ads sent to me via Clare - thanks Clare!)

Q: How do you promote sailing? A: Jessica Watson

How to promote the sport of sailing to the masses has always been a conundrum.

When there is another element added to the actual sailing, it can become interesting; e.g. the danger of the Sydney to Hobart, supporting your country in the Americas Cup, or the thrill of watching fast catamarans try to stay upright and win a race in strong winds.

But unless there is another element, it is hard to get excited about sailing as a spectator sport. First, it is difficult to get close to sailing action. Second, unless you have a deep understanding of wind shifts, tides and race tactics, most people would be more interested in watching paint dry than a sailing race.

Sixteen yr old Australian Jessica Watson solved that conundrum, at least for today. Channel 7 (TV) is running special extended coverage of Jessica's completion of her solo 'round the world' adventure / arrival into Sydney harbour. The front page of today's Sydney Morning Herald is a special feature 'Welcome home Jessica' and the Prime Minister is there to greet her along with an expected 50,000 people!

Kristina Keneally, the NSW Premier is with her son down at the harbour, talking with spectators. She did an interview on Channel 7 highlighting the inspirational impact Jessica has had on the many children and teens who have been following her journey. 

Today, it seems the whole country is talking about sailing.

So, what is the learning? What worked?

• Jessica had a big dream that many people thought was crazy.
• She stuck to her guns amongst criticism and went on to achieve it.
• She engaged with her audience (mostly children & teens) via her blog (over 250 million hits).
• Perhaps the most important ingredient is the inspiration her achievement provides to others (or to be accurate what she is just about to achieve - she is still 3k away).

Now, how can we apply those learnings to the sport of equestrian; dressage, show jumping, eventing? Is anyone out there up for an inspiring, newsworthy equestrian feat?!

Russell King's Open letter to Conservatives (US)

I was left speechless after reading the recent Harris poll which revealed Republican attitudes about Obama.

Russell King, clearly, was not. Read his 'Open letter to Conservatives'. Brilliant!

Obama: Health and education

A new Harris poll reveals Republican attitudes about Obama:

• 67 percent of Republicans (and 40 percent of Americans overall) believe that Obama is a socialist.
• 57 percent of Republicans (32 percent overall) believe that Obama is a Muslim
• 45 percent of Republicans (25 percent overall) agree with the Birthers in their belief that Obama was "not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president"
• 38 percent of Republicans (20 percent overall) say that Obama is "doing many of the things that Hitler did"
• Scariest of all, 24 percent of Republicans (14 percent overall) say that Obama "may be the Antichrist."

The belief that Obama is a “domestic enemy” is widely held—a sign of trouble yet to come.

...The poll, which surveyed 2,230 people at the height of the health-care reform debate, clearly shows that education is a barrier to extremism. Respondents without a college education are vastly more likely to believe such claims, while Americans with college degrees or better are less easily duped. It's a reminder of what the 19th-century educator Horace Mann once too-loftily said: "Ignorance breeds monsters to fill up the vacancies of the soul that are unoccupied by the verities of knowledge."...

Read the full article in The Daily Beast.

Obama, I think you may need to focus on education reform. The 'shift happens' video goes some of the way to investigating the skills we need to teach our kids to prepare for the world of the future, but don't we also need to teach our kids basic discernment i.e. how to judge based on measurable benchmarks rather than fearful folktales? Isn't that a pre-requisite to a successful democracy?

I, for once, am speechless.

Australia's NBN: Conroy's digital economy roadmap

Digital Economy Minister Stephen Conroy released the government's roadmap for Australia's participation in the digital economy last night at an event at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney. The report is now available from the government website.

This ZDNet article outlines some of the reactions from Industry at the launch.
iiNet regulatory officer Steve Dalby raised the important point that we need applications that make use of the 100MBPS speeds, not just the speed itself. Brad Howarth expanded on this on his blog. A couple of his points:

• "Enterprise Connect, the digital literacy programs and small business online programs will assist with takeup of the NBN, but there seems to be no cohesive strategy for developing broadband-enabled services themselves.
• "The work needs to be done now to equip businesses and business associations with the skills - and potentially the seed funding - to begin developing next-generation broadband services today, so that they will be ready when the network begins to go live. Failure to do so means that the benefits from the network will not be realised until quite some time later, meaning our investment in infrastructure may be quickly leapfrogged in economies where the focus has been on infrastructure and services, as opposed to just infrastructure."

IBM has ideas in this area, communicated in their Smarter Planet campaign.

I really hope we don't end up with more obtrusive rich online advertising and increased piracy (has the RIAA started lobbying against NBN / putting together a case to sue the Australian Federal Government yet?!!)

Is 100MBPS enough to support human teleportation services? Now that would be cool...

The AFR Broadband Conference

I was invited to attend the AFR Broadband Conference in Sydney last Tuesday on behalf of IBM Australia. The event attracted a variety of interesting speakers.

In short, the situation in Australia:

• Broadband speeds are currently slow in comparison to the US, Europe, Japan, Korea etc. (Average download speed in Australia is 710.6 Kbps, based on 12469 tests from download-speed.org)
• Broadband coverage is patchy. The cities have reasonable coverage, but there are holes (e.g. Balmain in Sydney). Most of the country (geographically speaking) cannot access ADSL2+ broadband. See the map.
• Telstra owns the existing copper wire network. In the cities, there is competition, with companies like iiNet having set up their own. Unsurprisingly, where Telstra is the only provider, prices are much higher (Telstra was privatised and therefore acts in the best interests of its shareholders - not the public, or the country).

The Australian Federal Government recognises that digital information and communication is becoming increasingly important to businesses / the Australian economy, culture and society and that Australia will be significantly disadvantaged if the lack of broadband speed and coverage is not addressed.

The Australian Federal Government has committed to create a National Broadband Network (NBN), which will be the single largest infrastructure project in Australian history. The details are still being ironed out. This is what we know so far:

• The NBN will be a wholesale only fibre network (i.e. not allowing for retail conflict as with Telstra in the past)

• The NBN will deliver 100-1,000MB connection speeds via direct fibre.

• The NBN will connect at least 90% of homes/premises in Australia (actually, the Hon Senator Stephen Conroy indicated during his speech that he was not interested in leaving out any % of the population).

• Wireless networks will be supplementary to the direct fibre NBN.

• The NBN is estimated to take approx 8-10 years to roll out (2017-2019 completion).

• The NBN is expected to have a 50+ year life.

• The NBN will be future proofed. (Professor Douglas Van Houweling said he expects packet info transfers will always be used via Internet Protocol but that the way those connections occur will evolve.)

• The NBN is expected to cost 43 billion AUD (mostly labour cost) and create 25,000 jobs.

The main discussion points at the conference:

1. Is structural reform a necessary precursor to the NBN?

• The consensus was ‘yes’, a regulatory reform package is required to get the structure of the sector right.

• Professor Allan Fels suggested rules governing broadcasting should be reviewed by the Productivity Commission (they performed the 2000 review).

• An agreement must be reached to separate Telstra’s existing assets (their copper wire network will become obsolete with the rollout of NBN). Government may need to compensate Telstra?

• The NBN must be a wholesale network, separate from retail. (This means the retail ISP’s would not be able to differentiate on product. Some are already starting to focus on customer service!)

• Since the NBN project is actually a 40-50yr investment (taking adoption into account) – in order to see the project through to completion, the Labour Government would need to be re-elected three times! Because of this, it would make sense to have laws put in place to protect the build of and investments in the NBN.

2. Where will the 43 billion come from?

• Firstly, the estimate of 43 billion is now considered to be on the high side. Phil Campbell from Citi Investment Research estimated, during the panel discussion that it would cost 30 billion.
  

• The Federal Government recently committed 5 billion (the Hon Senator Stephen Conroy confirmed during his speech that they would foot the whole bill if necessary, though they don't expect to have to do that). Suggestions were: 10 billion vended assets, 20 billion via infrastructure bonds (tax free investment opportunity).

3. What will the NBN mean for the broadband industry in Australia?

• In the next 8-10 years (the gap prior to NBN), steps must be taken to ensure existing broadband services continue to expand and competition continues in order to keep prices down.

• Once NBN is in place, the ISP’s will need to differentiate based on service (as the product will be ubiquitous). This is the situation in Korea, where the broadband network is a wholesale monopoly with the retailers playing on top of it.

4. How will the NBN change things for business, society and the country?

Rohan Lund from Yahoo!7 spoke about the media revolution we’re already seeing as audiences use the internet to communicate, discover and be entertained. He outlined how Australians have adapted their internet behaviour to the speed currently available:

• Yahoo!7 (which aims to be a guide to content on the internet) holds proportionately less market share to Google in Australia than in other countries. Google’s cleaner, faster search experience has been embraced by 90% of the Australian market.

• Video is consumed, but in low quality, bite sized chunks.

• The lighter social networking sites are most popular.

Clearly the NBN would be a good thing for Rohan and Yahoo!7 !

Abigail Thomas from the ABC talked about some of the innovative projects she’s undertaking. ABC iView (internet television) is, I gather, currently only feasible due to agreements with several ISP’s whereby the content download charges are not ‘metered’ for their customers.

Projects being undertaken overseas, such as digital health record systems (England, Denmark, Chicago), or traffic management systems (Stockholm, London), are reliant upon the creation of the NBN. See my earlier post ‘"Towards a smarter economy" with a National Broadband Network’.

Professor Douglas Van Houweling (in the US) joked via phone hook-up (after his video speech had been played) that it was a shame he couldn’t yet see us – his audience – via real-time video hook-up. Real-time video upload will be possible with the NBN.

Related points:

• Professor Douglas Van Houweling said the rest of world will be watching as Australia rolls out the NBN and becomes a leader in this area. He suggested the US needs to think about ensuring 100MB connectivity within 3 years, with at least 10MB upload speeds. (It’s important to remember users will contribute, not just consume. Example is medical centres uploading x-rays.) This point re. upload capacity will hopefully be considered for the Australian NBN.
• NBN will ‘float the boats’ in that many internet based applications that will be created by the business community and government will be reliant / sit upon it.
• Korea currently has the fastest broadband speeds in the world and is investing 24 billion to increase to 1GIG connectivity by 2012!

Videos of some speeches from the conference:

• Marianne King, first assistant secretary for Department of Broadband Communications and the Digital Economy.
• "Pipe Network's Bevan Slattery, Nextgen's Malcolm Roe, Ericsson's Tony Malligeorgos and TransACT's Gordon Dunsford discuss what the federal government's national broadband network will actually deliver". (Source: misaustralia.com)
• The Hon Senator Stephen Conroy, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy.

For more info, check out 'The Scoop' by Mark Jones.

"Towards a smarter economy" with a National Broadband Network

Glen Boreham addressed the National Press Club last month. His speech 'Towards a smarter economy' described how sensors in the form of transistors and computer chips (that are already built into most aspects of our lives*), combined with a high-speed, high coverage broadband connection (i.e. the National Broadband Network) could report information that would allow us - individuals, corporations and government - to make smarter decisions. 

Synopsis of Glen Boreham's speech from ibm.com/au:

"When people have more information, they make smarter decisions.

In Germany, 6 million households are reducing their electricity bills, because an intelligent energy grid gives them enough information to do so. In Sweden, an intelligent road system gives Stockholm’s commuters enough information to reduce traffic congestion by 25% and carbon emissions by 40%.

If Australians had more information about the impact of their decisions – on their pocket, on the environment, on their quality of life, on GDP – they would act very differently.

Glen Boreham contends that – as we invest billions in building infrastructure through the stimulus package – Australia has a unique opportunity to embed intelligence into every road, building, city and utility grid. In his view, the information this would generate would empower our citizens, businesses and governments to get behind the issues that affect us all.

Mr Boreham looks to a future where the sum of millions of smarter decisions help us to use less energy, make far more efficient use of our water resources, unclog our congested cities and boost our GDP – creating a smarter, sustainable economy."

You can download Glen Boreham's full speech here. I thought it was visionary. What do you think?

I attended the AFR Broadband Conference yesterday, during which the National Broadband Network (NBN) was discussed. If we don't get the NFN, I fear Australia will suffer greatly. Glen Boreham's vision, for one, is dependent upon the NBN.

*Interesting snippet: The new Mercedes contains as many control units as the new Airbus A380. That's just a car. The same thing is happening in almost every commercial sector.

Govt unleashes web 2.0 taskforce

Today, the Australian Federal Government launched a taskforce to investigate web 2.0's ability to make government more transparent and increase community engagement.

Sounds like they've taken note of Obama's great success in the digital arena.
Download Social Pulpit - Barack Obamas Social Media Toolkit 1.09

I think this is fascinating! How will 'governing' evolve? Will ideas / solutions to national problems be brainstormed, collaborated upon and strengthened by massive online communities of suitably qualified experts? Will algorithms be created to help define policies based on online feedback loops?

Read the full article on the new Aussie taskforce at ZDNet.