Rialtas.net – Government 2.0

I Have just finished attending an excellent symposium  ‘Government 2.0 and Beyond…Harnessing Collective Intelligence’ which was hosted by the US Assistant Secretary of Defense (Networks and Information Integration) DOD Chief Information Officer and the Information Resources Management College, US National Defense University.

Government 2.0 Symposium in the IRM Government Center in Second Life

The Panelists were

• David Wennergren, Deputy DOD Chief Information Officer (Moderator)
• Bruce Klein, Director of Public Sector Group, Cisco
• Anthony Williams, VP New Paradigm and co-author of Wikinomics
• Mike Bradshaw, Director, Enterprise Federal, Google

The kenote speech was given by David Weinberger, Weinberger is a U.S. technologist, writer, and
Web 2.0 guru. He is the co-author of the “Cluetrain Manifesto”.

The Seminar took place in Washington DC, but through the wonders of technology I was able to attend the symposium at the IRMC Government Center in Second Life.. Second Life participants could view a video feed, chat and interact with each other and could also submit questions to the panelists.

The presentations started with a showing of Shift Happens (watch it if you haven’t already..)

Shift Happens

The presentations will all be available on the IRMC website shortly.Overall, some fascinating presentations, the event was attended by representatives of over 30 US universities, over 15 government agencies, and personnel from NASA and the Library  of Congress and many more.
David Weinberger’s speech was a little marred for Second Life attendees as his lapel mike was malfunctioning and it was a little difficult to hear everything he was saying but essentially he outlined how for big organisations, change is hard, but then in time, a big ‘shift happens’ and that this shift provides a ‘moment of opportunity’ where change is made easier for organisations if they can only surf the wave of enthusiasm and excitement that is  felt by the public during these shifts, and that government organisations internationally currently have this opportunity..

Anthony Williams (author of Wikinomics)  spoke about rethinking public services and urged government  organisations to open channels for feedback, engagement and collaboration , he gave the examples of ChicagoCrime.org   and Fix MyStreet

Williams also discussed the problems that exist around the ‘complex machinery of government’ arguing that there are too many levels in government, and too many agencies, and explained that this was no one’s fault having grown organically over the centuries, but that  now ‘knowledge must flow horizontally’ as an example of this new type of structure he outlined the Intellipedia project,
Another key issue for Williams was that of restoring trust in democracy, in his view democracy internationally has suffered in recent years, the ‘broadcast’ model of politics is dead, he said. It is time to invite participation and to rethink the division of labour, harnessing mass collaboration to engage people in the creation of a better society. ‘ It is important to remember’, he highlighted, ‘that Web 2.0 (and Government 2.0) is not about technology, it is about connecting PEOPLE’.

Next up was Bruce Klein of Cisco who also outlined his view that Web 2.0 is not about technology but rather it is about ‘culture’ and ‘process’ he also spoke of the urgent need to move towards  collaborative and teamwork based organisations. In his opinion the biggest issues are the leadership and the organisational culture. The leaders need to be willing to change and to adapt to these new structures.  He explained how in Cisco the  leaders who couldn’t ‘get this’ were invited to choose another role..
Last up was Mike Bradshaw, Google’s Director for Government Services, who also spoke extensively about Generation Y / The Net-Gen and the difficulties in attracting them to work in government agencies and the need to open up the enterprise to these new social tools..
The Presentations will be available here.. they are well worth watching,  very focused on a collaborative future, and delivered with a real sense of urgency…