OpenGov - Open Government Brainstorm

This is for Collaboration across EVERYTHING...for Participation and for Capacity Building

Between Federal Agencies

Between Federal, State, and Local Governments

Public-Private Partnerships

Do-It-Yourself Government

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Making innovative change in big systems is challenging. I know, I have been working hard on a particularly large challenge myself - supporting the emergence of the identity layer of the web. One of the biggest reasons for our success has been to meet face to face every 6 months but not using "traditional" conference formats - instead we meet using participant driven processes (80-90% of the time is spend using open space technology). I want to share the story of it and then talk about how the ideas can be applied to open government.

Traditional Gathering - They are boring and the WEB CHANGES EVERYTHING

One way people think about getting change to happen is bringing people together for conferences and meetings. This is an important part. HOWEVER most meetings and conferences that use traditional the traditional format of one-to-many speaking to a theater style audience WASTE time and effort and don't actually get closer to collaboration, don't build community and don't make constructive change. The web changes everything - just get people to watch

Changing Big Systems with Innovative Gatherings

When I began 5 years ago it was a small group of people with big ideas about what was possible if people had the ability to move across the web with their own identity. We met at other people's conferences in side meetings for a year and then in the fall of 2005 we decided to have our own "big" conference of 85 people. The first day we heard presentations from 8 different projects working on being part of making an identity (for people) layer of the web happen. The second day we used the open space technology method to support the community gathered meeting and talking about the overall goal and moving projects forward.

One conversation that was had was about how URL based user-centric protocols could just work together instead of being separate. This it turned out was first conversation of what would become OpenID version 2. (http://www.openid.net)

The community continued to meet every 6 months at the Internet Identity Workshop (http://www.internetidentityworkshop.com) we just had our 8th one it is attended by the most senior architects and decision makers working at all the major technology companies. This includes Microsoft, MySpace, Facebook, AOL, Yahoo!, Plaxo, Google, CA, Novell, BT, Oracle, SUN, Cisco, etc.

We are making a lot of progress and open standards are being innovated and adopted by the community. Their are several reasons we make so much progress:

*The agenda for our meetings is not set ahead of time - it is created live the day the event happens. All who care and have a passion for what we are working can come and participate - putting their ideas forward.

* New pressing/emerging issues can be discussed at length.

* There is a real community between people who have each other - a deep respect for their work and them as people. This culture both comes for some having known each other for years now AND is not an "old-boys/girls" network that is unwelcoming to new peole - because the agenda is open to all - it creates a welcoming forum for new people and new ideas.

* The face to face meeting time is leveraged by existing projects that have mailing lists to get work done. Rather then having "real" meetings around the edges of "pre-programmed" talking heads.

Relevance to Governenace

What do technical things on the internet have to do with governance and society? You can look at with a sort of "code is law" perspective that is the protocols and the code that uses the protocol defines what is possible - the "laws" by which these systems operate.

There are MANY diverse interested (conflicting commercial and ego) interests at play working in this field. This is the same as any political governance space. Over time we have seen a marked reduction in the tensions and acramony and really profound collaborations emerge.

Change the Format Change Everything

"Traditional" conferences and trade shows that government agencies host and that government employees attend should be strongly encouraged to adopt open space technology and other interactive formats. Ending events where 95% of all the boring from the front presentations that are one-many. Where the real value of face time is used for dialogue and discussion between people. People got to meetings with "pre-planned" talking heads agenda's because their "boss will approve" this culture needs to end and supporting events where real and deep dialogue occurs amongst knowledgeable professionals and with citizens needs to become a priority.

What is prestigious?

Government Workers with "important titles" should see participating in a collaborative forum as more valuable and more prestigious then "giving a talk" to a conference audience and then running off to the next meeting or talk. I have seen this happen and little value comes from it except a resume/or record check box is filled.

If agencies and others need people to "see" presentations - have them sent ahead as YouTube Video's or as PDF documents. People time should be used for what is most rare and valuable in this time of shrinking budgets for travel and limited time - DIALOGUE. The wisdom in the room should be tapped through dialogue not "spoken at".

Facilitation and Documentation.

Skilled facilitation and design is needed to make these events very successful. There is a whole network and community of facilitators who use both open space and other methods to support professional communities coming together over time and being very effective. The results of these interactive conference formats need to be documented - this is a place where innovation can occur. Most often right now it is done with volunteers amongst participants talking notes. Resources can be put into having paid note takers along with having photo, video and other electronic forms of documentation to support the meetings.

I do design and Facilitation of "unconferences" for professional communities regularly.

I blog on this as well - http://www.unconference.net

Kaliya Hamlin

kaliya (at) Mac (dot) com