Do citizens care about Gov 2.0?

February 9, 2010 9:41 pm 2 comments

In a word, NO.  If you walked down main street of your town and ask the average citizen what Government 2.0 is, you’d probably get a blank stare and maybe even a bonk on the head for wasting their time.

Well then, who should be paying attention to the Government 2.0 movement?

Elected officials, town or city administrations that’s who.  Ultimately citizens want their roads cleared, buses to run on time, garbage picked up and…well you get the point.  Citizens want services in exchange for tax dollars.  Most of the time citizens feel like they’re getting the short-end of the stick and they’re not afraid to light-up the complaint line and let you know about it either.

Why don’t they care?

Most people get into their car and turn the key, they’re not interested in precisely how the engine works with each turn of the crankshaft. Should the car break down, they’ll take it to a guy who knows how to fix it and frankly, they’re mostly upset about the cost and inconvenience of the whole ordeal and not so much the part.  The same goes for Gov 2.0, and most people absolutely care-less with respect to the fact that I’m writing a book on the topic.  As far as they’re concerned, I might as well be writing about typewriter maintenance.

That’s ok, I’m not discouraged and here’s why.  Do open government initiatives save tax dollars?  Absolutely!  Do open government initiatives improve the quality of life for massive amounts of citizens?  Absolutely!  Do Web 2.0 technologies play a key role?  Once again absolutely!  These are the end results and outcomes citizens care about.  Should Premier Stelmach fire-up a conversation with kids in government about what the province should do?  Of course, yesterday in fact, truth is I know he’s already having those kinds of chats.  The real test will be if the Government of Alberta gets past the chatter and takes action.  We’ll have to wait and see but at this point the province is lagging behind.  I know, no surprise right?  Despite that fact, we’ll keep cheering them on.

If you’re a town administrator or Mayor and you do not understand these concepts, it is recommended that you get up to speed quickly. Will it mean more work?  Oh the cry of the overworked bureaucrat.  Of course!  In the short-term, learning new things always means more work, and there’s terrific payoffs for your community should you be able to heard the rest of the cats in your administration.

The potential payoffs

  1. Increased citizen engagement
  2. Increased process efficiencies
  3. Increased relevant communication reach internally
  4. Decreased tax dollar spending on IT, while increasing available applications driven by the private sector
  5. Increased information distribution which will lead to improved citizen conveniences
  6. Increased awareness of the community-at-large, good for economic development and tourism
  7. Increased opportunities for collaboration internally and with other levels of government
  8. Government speeds up – HURRAAYYYY!

There are others and this is quick list for you to consider.  As for motivation to care, we’re heading into a municipal election year are we not? Hmm, you may want to be careful, your opponent or a citizen at a town hall may be well-versed in these areas and you could find yourself at a disadvantage at the worst possible time.  The outcome being that you suddenly have plenty of time to read my book and the soon to be released expanded edition on typewriters.

My personal pipe dream

Imagine a world where the federal government banned the phrase “that’s the way we’ve always done it” and began to collaborate in real-time internally and with provinces and the provinces shared data and information in real-time with cities and towns and they in turn all shared that data with us…(appropriately of course).

Unfortunately, in order for that to happen we need leaders.  Leaders who care about what I’ve just written above and leaders who care about you.  Further, we need administrations who don’t cringe at the hint of learning and implementing something new.  We need leaders who demonstrate caring through action rather than words to placate.  Leaders driven by the motivation to collaborate for the greater good rather than by identifying barriers out of fear of losing their jobs.

That my friends, is why in many cases, this is a pipe dream and yet I remain optimistic.

  • http://twitter.com/publivate Geordie Adams

    Walter,
    Great blog and would absolutely agree with your view on the current status. I would actually go a step further and say…do citizens or public servants care about Gov 2.0? I would say that the majority do not…yet. However, if you make the rather logical assumption that social media is going to continue to evolve and “get better”, embed itself further into what we do at work, home, or play, then those that don't care now eventually will. One question is when that will happen…is there a tipping point for social media engagement for government? Depends on your jurisdiction…ask the people of Manor, Texas and Dustin Haisler and it probably was a few years ago. In my opinion, many governments that the Canadian federal government and the provinces measure themselves against are further to much further advanced regarding social media…but we can and hopefully will catch up quickly.

  • http://twitter.com/nickcharney Nicholas Charney

    Walter – I agree that citizens most likely do not care about the #gov20 meme, what they care about are the tangible results they see. I suspect that as governments start to realize greater efficiencies from new ways of working a narrative will emerge that will start to turn citizens on to the meme.

    While I am hesitant to speak about what political masters should care about, I think that senior (non-political) government leaders should care (and educate themselves) about the context within which their organizations are operating. More specifically I think they should engage people within their organizations to look at how the web has, and will continue, to fundamentally reshape the world around us. Often we get bogged down in getting through the day instead of investing in our future, the result is that we fall behind a little more every day. While on a daily basis this isn't much, taken on the whole we can see how governments can, over time, lose their relevancy as the disconnect between them and their citizenry slowly expands.

    Our continued relevancy as a public service begs for introspection, cries out for a closer inspection of how we operate, and demands action. Unfortunately, that is highly demanding, and when you combine a highly demanding process with a bureaucratic culture, you produce a “war of attrition” sentiment, which in turn stops public servants in their tracks.

    I suppose that is where people like you and I come in.