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Ideas for local government 2.0
03 June 2010
The most interesting seminars I attended at the recent FCM were about what's been dubbed "government 2.0" - government that's open, accountable, and uses the technological tools to create interactive communication with its residents. It's as much a philosophy as a practice. But it requires an administration and bureaucracy committed to open, accountable government (maybe next term).
I was surprised at how many Canadian municipalities are actually using these ideas today, including using social media networks to help connect to their younger residents, and how many actually provide full and unrestricted online access to their municipal data. Rather than shying away from public interaction and access to information, they actually embrace it.
Vancouver, for examples, provides access to everything. And I mean everything: from alleyways and apartment recycling through contour lines and community centres, drinking fountains, easements, fire halls, graffiti, heritage properties, one way streets, property taxes, public art, sanitary mains, schools, street lighting conduits, all the way to water hydrants and web cams. Everything the city has on file, you can access.*
Now you might not think that anyone cares about all this data. But independent developers have created dozens of applications for residents, using that data in ways no one in the city ever thought of. One example is a group that created maps of the city showing zones for garbage pickup days and sends emails to subscribers advising them beforehand when the next pickup is. This is handy if you're a new resident, or if you've forgotten whether garbage is picked up on a holiday or delayed by a day.
And there are correlations between that data that might not occur to anyone until someone outside analyses it and sees in it what others overlooked. Businesses looking to market or even move to a community can use the data to examine areas for things like infrastructure, parks, crime rates, bars and shopping.
The traditional model of government is top down: we tell you what to do and you obey. We decide what information to pass along. In the late 20th century, we started getting more interactive - having public planning meetings and similar formal but more-or-less open events to get public input. Freedom of Information acts started to pry open some of the information that had traditionally been cloaked in secrecy. But until the Internet came along, it was still pretty much a static, one-way mode.
Now the buzz is about using the Internet to communicate with the residents and get their feedback online in real time. That's what government 2.0 is: a people-centric democracy, an interactive, real-time exchange.
Back in 2005, William Eggers wrote what became a bestseller on the topic. In part what he proposed was to use the transformational technology of the Internet to create interactive e-government and in the process, "slashing bureaucracies; improving services; producing innovative solutions to some of our nation's thorniest problems; changing the terms of the Left/Right political debate; and offering ordinary people access to a degree of information and individual influence until recently accessible only to the most powerful citizens, finally redeeming the Founding Fathers' original vision for our democracy, and transforming American life and society in the process. "
Okay, we're not Americans, and our problems and issues may be somewhat different, but in general his ideas apply here. But first we need to recognize the potential and then take the plunge.
When Collingwood's Web site was being overhauled a couple of years ago, I recommended we have a forum where the residents could publicly interact with staff and members of council. Monitored, of course, to prevent abuse and spam. That suggestion was ignored. I also recommended we have a blog zone for town departments and even councillors to provide updates, news and commentary. Also ignored. Yet these ideas are being used successfully by other municipalities.
We have a good municipal Web site, certainly a light year better than what we had in the past, but for the most part, it's static, one-way and doesn't allow any input from the public. Our IT staff work very hard to maintain it, but it needs a policy overhaul more than a technical upgrade. Any deficiencies lie with council's attitudes towards open, interactive government, not in staff's capabilities.
Some municipalities have their own Facebook pages and create fan groups (a potential source of volunteers for community events and committees). Others use Twitter to keep residents informed of immediate issues like parades, broken water mains, traffic accidents, fires, potholes and other immediate, transient issues.
Our system actually blocks town computers from accessing any social network service, instead of embracing the opportunities they offer. That's not a council policy by the way. It's common to see social networking sites blocked in corporations because they're seen as counterproductive. That's the 20th century view of the Net: as competition and time waster. It's the same mindset that wants to keep data private and secret.
But after all, who does the data belong to? You, the taxpayer. So why shouldn't it be made available to you? Available and easy to access?**
That brings up the second question about cost. You have already paid for everything through your taxes. Why should a municipality charge you a second time to retrieve that data? That would be double-dipping. And that's why open and farsighted governments like Vancouver provide the data free: they recognize that their residents are the real owners, not the bureaucrats.
It's not all internal. Sites like SeeClickFix provide an external service where residents can report on non-emergency issues in their community - potholes, traffic accidents, construction and so on (yes, you can report on Collingwood issues there, too). That way all residents can share and report on things they see or want addressed.
FixMyStreet.ca (part of visiblegovernment.ca) lets citizens report problems with streets - potholes, infrastructure failures, etc. That means residents can also search by their postal code to find any local problems that might affect them. It doesn't have Collingwood in it, yet, but all it takes is one resident to act as a regional representative and start sharing the data (anyone willing to volunteer?).
Stumble Safely is another app for citizens. It correlates crime reports with street maps and shows the safest route to walk home from the bar you're at (based on as current data as it can get about crime and reported incidents). That requires a collaborative relationship between police and the municipality, too.
These and similar apps create feedback loops between citizens and the municipality so that both are aware of issues and incidents. You can't get your municipality integrated with this sort of use unless you have open, accessible data. Some people have even ported these apps over to smart phone use, so residents have access anywhere they have phone service. This is the future of government. Or at least the future of open, accountable government.
This sort of access and information exchange creates a culture of trust between citizens, their politicians and the bureaucracy. We all benefit from openness.
Another idea promoted by Nanaimo, BC, is to create fully realized, 3D maps and models of their city. To that end, they created a contest for residents to build 3D models of downtown buildings using Google Sketchup, a free software tool. No reason we couldn't do that here, too. The result, for Nanaimo is a stunning 3D model of their downtown that can be virtually visited by anyone online (and which can also be downloaded and used by any Sketchup user).
Nanaimo also has a searchable development database, linked to Google and Bing maps, updated monthly, to show all development, with permit and building values also showing. Want to know what properties are available for your next home or business? They're available through a cross-reference with MLS and the city maps. A simple click gives you a map, a satellite image, a tax rate, a listed selling price, local schools, bus routes, shopping and more.***
How do you get your news about what council's doing? Through the radio, the newspaper, maybe watching us on Rogers' Community channel? Through this blog or the EEU? They're all good, but each presents a mere fragment of what is happening. They're also not real time by any stretch of the imagination.
Some municipalities put the council TV feed on a Webcast, so people can watch it live online, unfiltered by reporters or opinionated bloggers like myself. And then they post it online in smaller segments, each identified by a certain clickable event in the agenda - say the public meeting you wanted to watch, or the discussion on patios. You can watch that bit online or download it to your computer to view later or share with others. We could do that, if we wanted.
We could do a lot more than we do, if we embraced the concepts of government 2.0. But, of course, we first need a culture of openness, accountability and transparency that is willing to take the bold steps.
Most of these ideas face two concerns: cost and staff time. Well, for the most part, a lot of the costs can be mitigated by using free apps that are open source, GPL licence. The cost of implementing open government isn't really very high. A huge number of apps and programs are already available and municipalities are more than willing to share their experience and sometimes their software.
Staff is another matter. Someone has to monitor the Web at all times - probably more than one person. This doesn't need to be much more than multi-tasking, but it needs constant attention. We need a CIO - Chief Information Officer - who coordinates information, makes sure it is transmitted quickly and appropriately, oversees Web updates and proofreads every document the municipality releases for spelling, grammar and style, who handles citizen and media requests, designs and develops information strategies and policies, creates open, accessible data formats, and makes sure what we present online is up to date, correct, accurate and timely and coordinates all information from all departments. There really isn't any way around it but to hire someone for that job (or promote someone internally). Every private corporation of our size has someone in that role. It's a weakness that we haven't already found someone to fill that for us. A CIO is to a corporation what an editor is to a newspaper.****
Yes, if we had an open forum for residents, staff and council to interact, someone would have to manage the language, the content and act as moderator. So what? Other municipalities share that sort of role among staff, without having to hire more people. In fact, it might also become a volunteer role for some of our committee and board members as well. Being appointed a moderator could be a recognition of the town's confidence in a volunteer.
The benefit for the residents is a simple, central place to discuss problems and get answers. The benefit for the town is a way to measure the resident's thoughts, attitudes and identify problems before they become more serious. And if we use tools like Twitter, we could really move to real-time information sharing.
This is the sort of collaborative effort we could have today, right now, without a lot of expense. Local government 2.0 is all about participation, about sharing, exchanging ideas and information and interaction - all for the greater good of the municipality. We have the technology and we have the staff to implement most of this right now. We could have a truly interactive, collaborative government here with very little effort. All we really need is the political desire to create a more open, more interactive democracy for our citizens.
Like I said earlier, maybe next term.
~~~~~
* Having the data isn't enough. You have to make it available in a way the average user can find it and then use it. Try, for example, to discover the population of Collingwood from the town's Web site. Good luck. The "community information" page doesn't actually provide any information: it links you to an external site for Community Connection's business search. Using a Google search for "population collingwood ontario", the town's Web site doesn't even appear on the first 25 pages, which is far deeper than most people will look. The Economic Development department's stand-alone Web site appears on page one, however. Searching for "population collingwood ontario town" finally brings up a link to the town's sustainability plan on Google's page four, but that opens a PDF file that itself has to be searched. The population figures aren't reached until page four of that file and even then, the figure is wrong! It says "the estimated 2006 total of 23,000." That's 5,500 higher than what Census Canada reports. But you have to go to another, external site to find that out. So there's no simple, fast way to find out how - accurately - many people live here without doing a lot of work and going to sites outside the town's own. That's not open, accessible data.
** Available and accessible are not synonymous. Simply putting up a PDF with figures is not accessible data. The average person lacks the tools to extract the information from the file. Accessible means the data is presented in some machine-readable format that can be extracted and manipulated. This could be an HTML page, a SQL database, a text format file, or any of a number of open formats.
*** Investcollingwood.com lists only three properties for development on its website as of June 5, 2010. Two of three have static maps (none have interactive Google maps), one has a photo of the actual site, one has a blurry aerial photo, the other has no images. None show nearby infrastructure, list taxes, show transportation or bus routes, or have links from the zoning to a description of what that zoning represents for a developer. The average home assessment value is three years out of date, the building stats are also equally outdated. There is no map of bus routes, no regional map... the list of this site's deficiencies is long. And why is it not part of the town's Web site?
**** I've been pushing for a staff information officer for the past five years without any support from staff or council. The need for someone who can oversee our communications only grows more pronounced. This spring the Economic Development office released a full-colour brochure advertising the benefits of moving to Collingwood in which "buses" was misspelled as "busses." A CIO would prevent such egregious mistakes from happening by making sure everything the town produced was proofread first. Maybe it's just me having been a book, magazine and newspaper editor, but I am embarrassed and chagrined when I see spelling mistakes in "official" documents.
I was surprised at how many Canadian municipalities are actually using these ideas today, including using social media networks to help connect to their younger residents, and how many actually provide full and unrestricted online access to their municipal data. Rather than shying away from public interaction and access to information, they actually embrace it.
Vancouver, for examples, provides access to everything. And I mean everything: from alleyways and apartment recycling through contour lines and community centres, drinking fountains, easements, fire halls, graffiti, heritage properties, one way streets, property taxes, public art, sanitary mains, schools, street lighting conduits, all the way to water hydrants and web cams. Everything the city has on file, you can access.*
Now you might not think that anyone cares about all this data. But independent developers have created dozens of applications for residents, using that data in ways no one in the city ever thought of. One example is a group that created maps of the city showing zones for garbage pickup days and sends emails to subscribers advising them beforehand when the next pickup is. This is handy if you're a new resident, or if you've forgotten whether garbage is picked up on a holiday or delayed by a day.
And there are correlations between that data that might not occur to anyone until someone outside analyses it and sees in it what others overlooked. Businesses looking to market or even move to a community can use the data to examine areas for things like infrastructure, parks, crime rates, bars and shopping.
The traditional model of government is top down: we tell you what to do and you obey. We decide what information to pass along. In the late 20th century, we started getting more interactive - having public planning meetings and similar formal but more-or-less open events to get public input. Freedom of Information acts started to pry open some of the information that had traditionally been cloaked in secrecy. But until the Internet came along, it was still pretty much a static, one-way mode.
Now the buzz is about using the Internet to communicate with the residents and get their feedback online in real time. That's what government 2.0 is: a people-centric democracy, an interactive, real-time exchange.
Back in 2005, William Eggers wrote what became a bestseller on the topic. In part what he proposed was to use the transformational technology of the Internet to create interactive e-government and in the process, "slashing bureaucracies; improving services; producing innovative solutions to some of our nation's thorniest problems; changing the terms of the Left/Right political debate; and offering ordinary people access to a degree of information and individual influence until recently accessible only to the most powerful citizens, finally redeeming the Founding Fathers' original vision for our democracy, and transforming American life and society in the process. "
Okay, we're not Americans, and our problems and issues may be somewhat different, but in general his ideas apply here. But first we need to recognize the potential and then take the plunge.
When Collingwood's Web site was being overhauled a couple of years ago, I recommended we have a forum where the residents could publicly interact with staff and members of council. Monitored, of course, to prevent abuse and spam. That suggestion was ignored. I also recommended we have a blog zone for town departments and even councillors to provide updates, news and commentary. Also ignored. Yet these ideas are being used successfully by other municipalities.
We have a good municipal Web site, certainly a light year better than what we had in the past, but for the most part, it's static, one-way and doesn't allow any input from the public. Our IT staff work very hard to maintain it, but it needs a policy overhaul more than a technical upgrade. Any deficiencies lie with council's attitudes towards open, interactive government, not in staff's capabilities.
Some municipalities have their own Facebook pages and create fan groups (a potential source of volunteers for community events and committees). Others use Twitter to keep residents informed of immediate issues like parades, broken water mains, traffic accidents, fires, potholes and other immediate, transient issues.
Our system actually blocks town computers from accessing any social network service, instead of embracing the opportunities they offer. That's not a council policy by the way. It's common to see social networking sites blocked in corporations because they're seen as counterproductive. That's the 20th century view of the Net: as competition and time waster. It's the same mindset that wants to keep data private and secret.
But after all, who does the data belong to? You, the taxpayer. So why shouldn't it be made available to you? Available and easy to access?**
That brings up the second question about cost. You have already paid for everything through your taxes. Why should a municipality charge you a second time to retrieve that data? That would be double-dipping. And that's why open and farsighted governments like Vancouver provide the data free: they recognize that their residents are the real owners, not the bureaucrats.
It's not all internal. Sites like SeeClickFix provide an external service where residents can report on non-emergency issues in their community - potholes, traffic accidents, construction and so on (yes, you can report on Collingwood issues there, too). That way all residents can share and report on things they see or want addressed.
FixMyStreet.ca (part of visiblegovernment.ca) lets citizens report problems with streets - potholes, infrastructure failures, etc. That means residents can also search by their postal code to find any local problems that might affect them. It doesn't have Collingwood in it, yet, but all it takes is one resident to act as a regional representative and start sharing the data (anyone willing to volunteer?).
Stumble Safely is another app for citizens. It correlates crime reports with street maps and shows the safest route to walk home from the bar you're at (based on as current data as it can get about crime and reported incidents). That requires a collaborative relationship between police and the municipality, too.
These and similar apps create feedback loops between citizens and the municipality so that both are aware of issues and incidents. You can't get your municipality integrated with this sort of use unless you have open, accessible data. Some people have even ported these apps over to smart phone use, so residents have access anywhere they have phone service. This is the future of government. Or at least the future of open, accountable government.
This sort of access and information exchange creates a culture of trust between citizens, their politicians and the bureaucracy. We all benefit from openness.
Another idea promoted by Nanaimo, BC, is to create fully realized, 3D maps and models of their city. To that end, they created a contest for residents to build 3D models of downtown buildings using Google Sketchup, a free software tool. No reason we couldn't do that here, too. The result, for Nanaimo is a stunning 3D model of their downtown that can be virtually visited by anyone online (and which can also be downloaded and used by any Sketchup user).
Nanaimo also has a searchable development database, linked to Google and Bing maps, updated monthly, to show all development, with permit and building values also showing. Want to know what properties are available for your next home or business? They're available through a cross-reference with MLS and the city maps. A simple click gives you a map, a satellite image, a tax rate, a listed selling price, local schools, bus routes, shopping and more.***
How do you get your news about what council's doing? Through the radio, the newspaper, maybe watching us on Rogers' Community channel? Through this blog or the EEU? They're all good, but each presents a mere fragment of what is happening. They're also not real time by any stretch of the imagination.
Some municipalities put the council TV feed on a Webcast, so people can watch it live online, unfiltered by reporters or opinionated bloggers like myself. And then they post it online in smaller segments, each identified by a certain clickable event in the agenda - say the public meeting you wanted to watch, or the discussion on patios. You can watch that bit online or download it to your computer to view later or share with others. We could do that, if we wanted.
We could do a lot more than we do, if we embraced the concepts of government 2.0. But, of course, we first need a culture of openness, accountability and transparency that is willing to take the bold steps.
Most of these ideas face two concerns: cost and staff time. Well, for the most part, a lot of the costs can be mitigated by using free apps that are open source, GPL licence. The cost of implementing open government isn't really very high. A huge number of apps and programs are already available and municipalities are more than willing to share their experience and sometimes their software.
Staff is another matter. Someone has to monitor the Web at all times - probably more than one person. This doesn't need to be much more than multi-tasking, but it needs constant attention. We need a CIO - Chief Information Officer - who coordinates information, makes sure it is transmitted quickly and appropriately, oversees Web updates and proofreads every document the municipality releases for spelling, grammar and style, who handles citizen and media requests, designs and develops information strategies and policies, creates open, accessible data formats, and makes sure what we present online is up to date, correct, accurate and timely and coordinates all information from all departments. There really isn't any way around it but to hire someone for that job (or promote someone internally). Every private corporation of our size has someone in that role. It's a weakness that we haven't already found someone to fill that for us. A CIO is to a corporation what an editor is to a newspaper.****
Yes, if we had an open forum for residents, staff and council to interact, someone would have to manage the language, the content and act as moderator. So what? Other municipalities share that sort of role among staff, without having to hire more people. In fact, it might also become a volunteer role for some of our committee and board members as well. Being appointed a moderator could be a recognition of the town's confidence in a volunteer.
The benefit for the residents is a simple, central place to discuss problems and get answers. The benefit for the town is a way to measure the resident's thoughts, attitudes and identify problems before they become more serious. And if we use tools like Twitter, we could really move to real-time information sharing.
This is the sort of collaborative effort we could have today, right now, without a lot of expense. Local government 2.0 is all about participation, about sharing, exchanging ideas and information and interaction - all for the greater good of the municipality. We have the technology and we have the staff to implement most of this right now. We could have a truly interactive, collaborative government here with very little effort. All we really need is the political desire to create a more open, more interactive democracy for our citizens.
Like I said earlier, maybe next term.
~~~~~
* Having the data isn't enough. You have to make it available in a way the average user can find it and then use it. Try, for example, to discover the population of Collingwood from the town's Web site. Good luck. The "community information" page doesn't actually provide any information: it links you to an external site for Community Connection's business search. Using a Google search for "population collingwood ontario", the town's Web site doesn't even appear on the first 25 pages, which is far deeper than most people will look. The Economic Development department's stand-alone Web site appears on page one, however. Searching for "population collingwood ontario town" finally brings up a link to the town's sustainability plan on Google's page four, but that opens a PDF file that itself has to be searched. The population figures aren't reached until page four of that file and even then, the figure is wrong! It says "the estimated 2006 total of 23,000." That's 5,500 higher than what Census Canada reports. But you have to go to another, external site to find that out. So there's no simple, fast way to find out how - accurately - many people live here without doing a lot of work and going to sites outside the town's own. That's not open, accessible data.
** Available and accessible are not synonymous. Simply putting up a PDF with figures is not accessible data. The average person lacks the tools to extract the information from the file. Accessible means the data is presented in some machine-readable format that can be extracted and manipulated. This could be an HTML page, a SQL database, a text format file, or any of a number of open formats.
*** Investcollingwood.com lists only three properties for development on its website as of June 5, 2010. Two of three have static maps (none have interactive Google maps), one has a photo of the actual site, one has a blurry aerial photo, the other has no images. None show nearby infrastructure, list taxes, show transportation or bus routes, or have links from the zoning to a description of what that zoning represents for a developer. The average home assessment value is three years out of date, the building stats are also equally outdated. There is no map of bus routes, no regional map... the list of this site's deficiencies is long. And why is it not part of the town's Web site?
**** I've been pushing for a staff information officer for the past five years without any support from staff or council. The need for someone who can oversee our communications only grows more pronounced. This spring the Economic Development office released a full-colour brochure advertising the benefits of moving to Collingwood in which "buses" was misspelled as "busses." A CIO would prevent such egregious mistakes from happening by making sure everything the town produced was proofread first. Maybe it's just me having been a book, magazine and newspaper editor, but I am embarrassed and chagrined when I see spelling mistakes in "official" documents.
