Last week I had the distinct pleasure of flying halfway around the world to attend the 4th annual International Conference on Electronic Government in Beijing, China. A couple folks on the Deloitte team submitted papers for presentation and despite the usual deathstroke associated with giving me an author credit, we were asked to come on down. Even with the mind-bending jet-lag fog of a 12 hour time difference, I had a truly excellent time. Highlights and observations are as follows:

* US Open Government Initiative – One of my favorite trends as of late is all of the data exposition and general geekery that is coming out the of the US Federal Government as a result of the Open Government Initiative. Beth Noveck, Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Open Government gave a pretty interesting overview of her office’s achievements and as well as told a compelling story of how the push for technical transparency (my words) has a vast impact on the quality of citizen services provided at the Federal level. For the 4 of you who religiously read this blog, I suppose it is no surprise that I believe squarely in the transformative power of data exposition. Seems Ms. Noveck does as well and while she was playing to a friendly crowd, the message was still very good.

* Estonia – Do you know about the egov work Estonia is doing? I certainly didn’t (not that my ignorance is all that surprising) and was solidly impressed by the presentation given by the Estonia Academy for EGovernment. I am going to stay far , far away from the political arguments surrounding the implementation of a National ID system, but from a technology perspective, there is some real brilliance occurring. For example, through the aforementioned third-rail issue of a National ID, they rock nationwide single sign on (with two factor authentication) and identity management to/for all electronically provided government systems. They literally turned their government into something of a service oriented architecture and every time you want to auth into the license plate renewal service or health care record database, you inset your National ID and whammo – Big Bro knows who you are, where you live, and what your favorite cereal is. Seems they implemented a bus of sorts (called X-road) and wrapped all of their existing egov services to play nicely with one another. Again, I am not going to comment on the political angle here…merely state that the tech used to accomplish this was pretty hip. One thing – the presenter stated the Auth service allows you to define delegates and permissions for various types of data on the grid. So doctors can see your health records, children could see your tax records if you die, etc, etc. While this struck me as something that should obviously be implemented, I can’t imagine the learning curve associated with these privacy settings. I mean, drunk college kids can’t figure out how to keep their moronic photobombs private in Facebook (yeah kids, when you interview, we look. Sweet bong, flapjack. Somehow, I don’t think you will make the cut) …Can you imagine configuring a privacy scheme for almost all of your sensitive personal data?

* Crispy Bird Skin – Sorry…this wasn’t really a function of the conference, but the Peking Duck was off the freaking map. Best place I went was called Da Dong and seriously, I have tasted heaven and it is apparently carved tableside. That garbage we (or maybe just I) eat in the States compares to this golden-skinned football of glory like RuPaul does to Naomi Campbell.

Turns out next year the conference is actually in Estonia. If you can make it, I highly recommend coming.

“I will have to send you the tracker.”

“We have developed a tool that helps us track things.”

“You have the wrong version of the tracker.  I am sending a new one out now.”

“Did you get the tracker I sent last night?“

Ugh. Head butt me with a barbed wire bust of myself. I really do have a visceral reaction to the word “tracker”. It pains me greatly. I immediately have nightmarish visions of being buried alive under reams of awkwardly-printed spreadsheets. I peer up out of my Office-borne grave while a lifesize Excel icon cackles madly and continues to shovel.  No thanks (unnamed) friends (quoted above). Keep your trackers. I’m opting for sanity.

Seemingly, the act of “tracking” things is important. But the tool of choice for execution is almost always an utter failure. I mean no disrespect to the people I have come to know that use these tools. For the most part you work off inertia, inheriting endless scrolling and eye-scratching color schemes from some former POC. You toil madly to maintain the false reality of “up to date”, applying cryptic file naming conventions that no one understands but you, all the while crushing your co-workers’ email with multiple meg attachments replete with animated gifs and 18pt Comic Sans. Super. Please send more.

I thunk on this for a while and tried to figure out what about this practice bothers me so much. Here’s what I came up with:

1. The information is never current. Never. The sheer mechanics of emailing requests, receiving and consolidating information, and then sending out again is too slow to keep up with the velocity of life. Every time I get a tracker briefed to me, there are always caveats that x,y, and z, have changed since the time of publication. Alrighty then. So what’s the point? Thanks for letting me know what life was like last week.
2. The information is presented in the way the “collector” believes to be logical, understandable, and efficient. Unfortunately, this thesis is rarely true for anyone else. There are discrete professions dedicated to making information consumable and meaningful. 99 times out of 100, you are not one of these professionals. Therefore your use of color, presentation, and the basic tenets of usability are about as informed as my understanding of dairy farming or snake handling. (I love me some Dirty Jobs, but you definitely don’t want me to milk anything.)
3. Spreadsheets are great for accounting. But drop dead awful for faking workflow or including narrative. Creating columns to be filled in with dates that signify actions is not only the technological equivalent of building a house with an shoe-last celt, but completely ridiculous for conveying current status. And don’t get me started on narrative. Spreadsheets can handle a word or two here and there, but if I have to read another center-aligned, 6pt font excerpt in cell AZ154 I am going to blow a major artery.

So what is the alternative you ask? Simple:

Anytime you think you might need to track something with inputs from multiple people, say one word out loud: WEB-BASED. Start there and you will probably be miles ahead of where you are today.  I am a big fan of Confluence and JIRA for things like this but there are literally thousands of applications out there that will remove you from the hellish existence of spreadsheet trackers.

I suppose I should warn you that reading any further will immediately erase all doubts you may have as to whether I am a geek or not. That is, assuming there is anyone that had those doubts in the first place (Hi Mom…thanks for the Easter basket this year.)

So sports fans….tell me. Did you too spill Flavia-powered coffee on your moderately pressed J. Crew button down shirt, curse the beard of Zeus, and fall directly out of your rarely comfortable office chair when the World Bank announced they had built what data.gov should be today? No? Huh. Weird. And here I was thinking I was normal.

Whether you are a data geek, care about transparency, or work in international development, this app is exceptionally relevant and seriously hot. And it’s hot for a whole rack of reasons I would guess the traditional development types will probably miss. In fact, I asked a few today and confirmed this hypothesis. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I heart the multiple advanced degrees out of each and every one of you, but seriously, lemme see some jazz hands at least when the World Bank makes Biggest Loser bellyflop size waves in the choppy wading pool of open government.  Here are my favorite statements so far and a bit of editorializing as to why they are missing the proverbial enchilada.

• “So what? The World Bank Data has been public for years.” – Well ok. That is partially true. But not really and you’re missing the point. Granted, some of it was behind a paywall, but even that isn’t the point. The point is the nuanced meaning of the word available.  Much like the World Bank data, the capabilities of the iPhone were available for years prior to its launch. You could call people. You could sort of use apps. You could sort of watch videos or listen to music. But when the iPhone arrived, the interface, seamless integration, and overwhelmingly usable presentation of functionality fundamentally changed our expectations around a mobile device. And by extension, it changed the way we work. So yeah, the data has been around for a while. But this interface, seamless integration, and overwhelmingly usable presentation of functionality are fresh like strawberries in July. And that positions the underlying data to fundamentally change the way we work.
• “Cool. It’s all in one place now” – Um…kinda. It’s definitely all in one “place” from a presentation perspective, and undoubtedly, that is bangin’. But the underlying data work to make it all in one service is what really changes my oil. More technically, the API made publicly available is the same one powering the app itself. Yeah this is a touch wonky, but stay with me. The World Bank had an API for a while. But it was built for the wrong reasons. It wasn’t built to power an app like data.worldbank.org. I am not sure why it was built, but it wasn’t really used and missed cashing in on why APIs for data are hip. By first building (or extending) the API, then presenting an app on top of it, the World Bank has shown the developer community the art of the possible. They are inviting leagues of people to use their data to drive applications that can benefit the overall mission of the Bank without spending a dime. By creating an API that is shown to be usable (i.e. cool app with stuff in one place), they demonstrate the real power of open data – crowdsourcing the development of innovative (and free) applications to support their mission.
• “It isn’t detailed enough for what I need.” – Ugh. This one really gets me. Come on, have some vision people. Again, yes. The level of detail presented may not be what you need. But frankly that only matters right now. And it really only matters to you. The architecture is what is important. Moreover, the potential impact to the business of international development embodied by the architecture is vastly important. Even if you don’t care about APIs, XML, GTL, or the Biggest Loser, mark my words, this move will present “detail” in the future that you never thought possible. As partners and implementers around the world begin mashing up their own data with the data provided by the World Bank in a usable, open, and transparent manner, the results will be detailed and ramifications will be significant.

So go check it out. Even if you aren’t a data geek, it’s worth a look. Also, I can’t wrap up without a hat tip to my boys at Developmentseed for creating a website that is just plain fun to use. An even bigger hat tip for doing it all with open source tools and proving that open gov data exposition can (and should) be more than just spreadsheets and FOIA streamlining.