Category: Government 2.0

Mapping Obama's Speech in Berlin

by David

As announced on the Global Sensemaking blog, and building on Tim Bonnemann’s excellent Wordle and Mark Szpakowski’s suggestion, I produced a draft map of Barack Obama’s speech in Berlin yesterday, which you can view and explore here.

The snapshot below displays the top layer of the map, and you are welcome to log-in and improve both the top layer and the underlying structure of the first draft.


As noted in the earlier post, the preparation of the first draft of the map emphasised the different senses, dimensions and saliencies of the speech that emerge via the different forms and interpretations: video, transcript, Wordle, and map. And, no doubt, others experiencing Obama’s speech first via TV news analysis, newspaper reports, David Frum, a photograph, or at the speech itself would take away different senses too.

To illustrate how it is possible to develop this kind of mapping analysis further live on the web already, I have started to weave together the map and the transcript of the speech using the Future of the Book’s marvellous CommentPress tool to enable directly addressable, granular access to the text of Barack Obama’s speech, linked to the relevant sections of the map (and vice versa)—with a video clip layered into the latter example for good measure as well.

The granular addressability is shown at the paragraph level in this example; however, CommentPress—which is being applied imaginatively to several public consultations in the UK—allows the user to define a deeper level of granularity, enabling a finer one-to-one correspondence between the source document and the map.

The hope embodied in this experiment is that in the build up to the Presidential election in November it might be possible exemplify the potential of the emerging web technologies to shift the modus of political debate (a degree or two) away from the calculated cacophony of ephemeral soundbites toward a more considered, constructive and cumulative conversation.

If you are willing to help in the pursuit of this goal—working on the transcripts, mapping and tying together the arguments, highlighting inconsistencies and areas of agreement, and holding the candidates transparently accountable to their words—please join us.

Streaming live from 2gether08

by David

Thanks to Richard Jolly, here’s the live streaming feed from the wonderful 2gether08 conference. The full conference schedule is available here.

UPDATE: With the conference over for this year, here are a couple of video interviews recorded at the event by (the thankfully ubiquitous) David Wilcox:

(1) UK Minister for Transformational Government, and still prolific blogger, Tom Watson, on the announcement of Show Us a Better Way, a laudable and timely £20,000 public competition to find innovative ways of building on and mashing up Government data:

(2) An impromptu interview between Umair Haque, Director of the Havas Media Lab, and Benjamin Cohen, Channel 4’s technology correspondent, on Umair’s inspiring manifesto for the next industrial revolution:

Public Service Broadcasters in the Digital Age

by David

Two quick reminders for anyone thinking about the reformation of public service broadcasting in the UK:

(1) The closing date for responding to Phase 1 of Ofcom’s PSB Review is Thursday 19th June. You can read further details here and here about the Review which was launched in April by Ofcom’s Chief Executive Ed Richards.

Ofcom and Tom Loosemore, in particular, are to be congratulated for bringing the consultation process into the blogosphere, and for experimenting with the CommentOnThis / CommentPress approach to allow readers to comment directly on each paragraph in the PSB Review’s interactive Executive Summary.

I love the simplicity of the CommentOnThis and CommentPress approach, which is clearly motivated by similar urge to transparency and read/write participation as Debategraph.

The document-centric approach of CommentOnThis / CommentPress also makes it comparatively simple to enable public participation once the initial time, energy and resources has been expended on creating the original consultation documents.

Debategraph takes a more radical, subject-oriented approach to the same challenge, which if followed to its logical conclusion could (we think) significantly reduce the overall time spent by the consulting body and its stakeholders on the consultation process.

Instead of creating a long consultation document at the outset, the consultation team could start building a public debate map of the consultation issues, and invite the stakeholders to join them in this process—decomposing the subject matter into the individual issue, positions, arguments, evidence and scenarios, and allowing the stakeholders as well as the consultation team to edit, rate, challenge or support the individual arguments.

To give a sense of how this process might work I have produced a seed map of some of the arguments live Ofcom’s interactive summary executive summary (below).

As each element on the map is also its own wiki-page it’s easy to layer in longer commentaries (up to 50,000 words), images, tables, and charts etc as the map builds towards maturity. And as the core, hierarchical structure of the map is similar to the hierarchical outline of a standard report, it’s relatively straightforward at the end of the consultation period to automatically generate the basis of a final report directly from map—with the a key difference being that everyone’s contributions are already represented in the report.

In this way, rather than having multiple people create multiple documents that redundantly repeat many of the same arguments (each of which has to be written and read multiple times), everyone can focus collaboratively and directly on the issues at hand and ensure that all pertinent considerations and all voices are represented fairly on the map. Visualising and exploring the issues and arguments in this way also enhances transparency and trust in the consultation process and helps to ensure that every issues is surfaced and addressed comprehensively.

As well as potentially reducing the cycle time of the consultation process, the debate map could save further time and resources when the next consultation round on the topic begins; as many of the relevant arguments will already be in place on the map and will not need to be recreated from scratch. Indeed, once created, the debate map can be updated over time by the different stakeholders as new arguments, evidence and scenarios emerge; providing a continuously evolving view of the subject; so that when the next formal consultation process begins the majority of the thinking and work involved may have been accomplished on the map already.

(2) The second PSB reminder is that TechCrunch and the BBC are holding a debate at Broadcasting House on 25th June to discuss the issues around the BBC’s assets and technology prompted by the debates here and here.

The debate will be chaired by Steve Bowbrick, with an impressive list of speakers:

* Tony Ageh, BBC New Media controller of internet.

* James Cridland, Head of Future Media & Technology for BBC Audio & Music Interactive.

* Jem Stone, Portfolio Executive, BBC new media.

* Azeem Azhar, startups angel investor, ex-BBC, proposer of the BBC Public License.

* Mike Butcher, Editor, TechCrunch UK.

Web startups and developers are encouraged to attend, with tickets available here. And for anyone interested in exploring the debate in detail in advance or afterwards I have seeded a debate map here:

Debate Mapping Obama's VP choice…

by David

In the wonderful way of the web, a generous invitation from Seb Schmoller to guest blog an overview post about Debategraph, led to encouraging and deeply insightful feedback from David Weinberger about Debategraph.

In a subsequent post, David called for transparent debate about Barack Obama’s choice of vice-presidential running mate, noting that:

Obama

“Barack Obama has promised to tear down the stone wall and dense bushes with which the current administration has barricaded the White House. Good. Democracy without transparency is at best assumed.

And, Obama has promised to take advantage of our new connective technology — the Internets and all its associated tubeware — to enable a level of citizen participation undreamed of since our population outgrew the local town hall.

So, how about if the campaign starts now by opening up the vice presidential selection process?”

…so here’s a debate map featuring some of the mooted VP candidates and the arguments for and against their candidacy. Anyone can add new candidates and new arguments. Anyone can rate the candidates and the arguments for and against. And anyone can embed this (automatically updating) map of the debate on their blog; so that changes made anywhere will be displayed everywhere.

Which is about as transparent as it gets.

Help us share the debate as widely as possible, and let’s find out what the collective and connective wisdom of the web makes of Obama’s potential running mates…

ICT for Governance and Policy Modelling

by David

Thanks to David Osimo’s highly recommended blog on eGovernment 2.0, I was in Brussels at the end of last month to present our work-in-progress on Debategraph to the European Commission’s ICT for Governance and Policy Modelling Consultation Workshop Framework Programme VII.

It was a fascinating day, exploring the Information Society Directorate’s long-term research agenda in this field, against a background, outlined by David Broster Head of Unit for eGovernment and CIP Operations, of the movement of web 2.0 tools from the social and professional domain into the political and policy domains (see slide below).

ICT for Participative eGoverance

Among the many excellent and thought-provoking presentations to the workshop, Anthony D. Williams’s (co-author of Wikinomics) on Wikinomics and the Future of Government and Governance, and Andy Mulholland (Global CTO of Cap Gemini) on From National Citizen to Web Citizen, had a particularly powerful resonance from my perspective.

The full set of presentations is available here.

The cluster of institutions working on interrelated projects and arriving at similar conclusions from different angles signalled strong validation for the approach that we are implementing and the goals that we are pursuing, and the enthusiasm with which Debategraph was greeted on the day was tremendously encouraging and much appreciated.

The next big event on the calendar, in Lyon, 25-27 November 2008, is highly recommended to everyone with an interest in eGovernance and eParticipation in Europe.

Government 2.0 – only connect…

by David

“Only connect… Live in fragments no longer.” E. M. Forster, Howards End (1910).

Government 2.0?

The lightweight, collaborative, multiway technologies emerging across the web, and the new patterns of social interaction associated with them, are about to transform the shape of government, our experience of government, and our participation in government. To misquote Clay Shirky: government that’s targeted at you but doesn’t include you may not be worth sitting still for.

But what kinds of government will emerge from this process?

Paul Johnston and the Connected Republic team have been thinking deeply about this, and today published Seven Principles of Government 2.0 that articulate their sense of the ways in which things may be different.

Their suggested principles are:

  1. A less Hierarchical Public Sector: Government 2.0 will have moved away from command and control, devolving much more decision-making to local units and frontline staff.
  2. A Collaborative, Joined-up Public Sector: Government 2.0 will offer a more joined-up face to citizens and will use collaborative models and tools to break down silo barriers, maximise the use of precious resources and dramatically reduce process time cycles.
  3. A Public Purpose Sector: The boundaries of Government 2.0 will be wider and more flexible, enabling creation of public value by a ‘public purpose’ sector which will be much broader and more diverse than the traditional public sector.
  4. Empowered Citizens: Government 2.0 will enable citizens to do more for themselves, either individually or collectively, as co-producers of services and shapers of public policies.
  5. A Feedback-driven Public Sector: Government 2.0 will be radically closer to citizens and will give multiple and real opportunities for feedback, and will ensure the feedback has a real impact in shaping its decisions.
  6. Open and Transparent Government: Government 2.0 will be radically more open and transparent than current models in relation to policy making, service delivery, internal administration and accountability processes.
  7. Facilitative Government: Government 2.0 will see government’s role shift much more towards creating context, orchestrating and facilitating, rather than controlling and delivering, public discourse and service delivery.

In keeping with the spirit of the analysis, the principles are open for discussion on a new wiki on the Connected Republic site.

On your way over to wiki, you might also like to glance at: Personal Democracy Forum 2008: Rebooting the System, From Wikinomics to Government 2.0 (via Don Tapscott), How Web 2.0 can Reinvent Government, and Liza Sabater’s The Cluetrain Manifesto for People Powered Politics.