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.

This is key. While the drive to do IT differently, more cheaply and more transparently is clearly emanating from the folks now holding the reigns of the government, this notion easily be lost somewhere deep in the opaque depths of the IT procurement process. If there is one thing that some government technology contractors have come to appreciate, it’s that building a system that is expensive, difficult to retire, and complicated can often serve to lock in years of future revenue. As one presenter put it, some companies consider building bad enterprise software “a competitive advantage”. In some cases, this has become the only way they know how to operate. Think of the billions in contracting vehicles now rendered useless by a government who only wants to buy lightweight, open source software built on flexible data exchange standards – software that many of its legacy contracts aren’t able to provide.

Some will adapt. Some won’t. But, this opens a tremendous opportunity for smaller, more agile firms that have concepts like OSS, sound UX design, and web services built into their DNA. At Government 2.0, people like Peter Corbett of iStrategyLabs showed the feds that massive, data-intensive websites can be built quickly, and even crowd sourced to citizens who feel engaged by this approach. His Apps for Democracy project exemplifies this (in fact, Vivek Kundra sponsored this project when he was DC’s CIO). I’m confident that we’ll see the new administration work with IT vendors that can deliver projects that follow this model, big or small.

It can, and agencies are starting to show how. NASA’s Nebula enables project teams to develop and deploy software to meet their needs, and can take advantage of the scalability Cloud platforms can provide. The GSA’s planned “app store” would allow government users to quickly purchase applications and infrastructure, have them delivered through the Cloud, and pay via a credit card. Agencies that want to make their internal Cloud platforms successful should keep the notion of customer centricity in mind; to be successful they’ll need to keep their private Cloud simple, and accessible to end users. Looking at Cloud computing solely from the lens of an IT director or CFO won’t make Cloud computing anything more significant than the infrastructure technologies that preceded it. By bringing users a step closer to the technology that can help solve their problems, Cloud Computing can be as transformative in government as it has been in the private sector.

During our conversation I brought up the idea of bringing data exposition and mashup contests (is that what they are called?) to the developing world. Often times when Jay or I are overseas working within Ministry this or trade association that, the root of our challenges center on getting data from one place to another. Hopefully, that other place being somewhere near Usefultown. (Ever been to Usefultown? Not many people, but there is plenty of parking.)  As such we spend a whole bucketload of our moderately expensive hours trying to solve data-related issues. Either there isn’t any data, the data that exists is bad, or what is produced from the data is typically not citizen focused.

As I spoke about this to Peter, it struck me that we could score a development hat trick by instead of developing these apps ourselves, running a contest sponsored by the IT trade association. 1) The recipient government and citizens would end up with a useful application. 2) An entrepreneurial developer would receive startup funding, spurring private sector growth. 3) The US taxpayer development dollar would have a greater direct impact on the recipient country. I think this idea might be especially applicable for the two projects I have worked on in Jordan. (For those of you just tuning in, one is focused on private sector development and the other on capacity building within a government IT Department.) Within the IT capacity-building program we will implement an executive information system to aid in the development of policy, decision-making, and overall information awareness by aggregating various data sources. As usual, we are slogging our way through the traditional approach of driving requirements, unscrewing data sources, and visioneering (Ha!) what this thing might look like in the end. But, seems to me that if we focused on publishing as much data as possible and ran an Apps for Democracy style contest, we would have a much greater chance at ending up with something spicy. Like I would rather us focus on making the data available and harnessing the collective (and growing) crowd of IT talent, than beating our way through a traditional waterfall, black box implementation.

If I had a nickel for every time I spent months building a “projects database” or “management information system” that ended up serving the needs of 3 people tops, I could buy Montana. Or maybe just a Big Montana. Whatever. Too many nickels either way. It strikes me that the spirit of something like Apps for Democracy applied to international development makes a huge amount of sense. We should spend our nickels exposing government data (within reason) to its true owners, the citizens. Give them the tools to create useful applications and you will outrun any consultant-only driven model. Inspiring constituencies to participate in government and the resulting decisions will prove the centuries old adages of democracy by leveraging the years old approaches of all things 2.0. That, in my opinion is true development.

Best I can tell, the difference or relationship or commonalities or whatever between Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 kind of look like this:

From Blog Pics

From the point of view of an enterprise, the E2 stuff typically engages people inside some sort of organizational boundary.  Like our internal Confluence implementation. The Web 2.0 stuff, while using the same technologies typically engages people outside an organizational boundary. The Web 2.0 stuff can (and probably should) engage people inside an organization, but it is not necessarily as deep or pervasive as the E2 stuff. An example of this might be something like my company’s corporate blog. We author, but the majority of the readers and commenters are supposedly outside the firewall. Also, there can be some crossover between the two. Twitter might be an example of that, but the jury is still out for me. Yeah I know…this is a gross oversimplification and “stuff” isn’t the most technical of terms, but (hopefully) you get the point. 

But in listening to round table discussion on Government 2.0, it sounded like this was the concept.

From Blog Pics

There was seemingly a mixing of “stuff” engaging both sides of an organizational boundary at once. Maybe this is less confusing to some, but to me I think it tended to get people bogged down in technologies and approaches, rather than community engagement. For example, a particular audience member was turned off by the entire 2.0 concept, merely because she thought every taxpayer in the world would see her mistake if she ever incorrectly edited a wiki. While this is a valid concern, it sort of depends on where that wiki is, what it is used for, and who it is engaging. To have a potential convert write off an entire concept because of this minor misunderstanding is unfortunate, and might possibly be avoided by drawing some corrollary Web/Enterprise 2.0 lines for the public sector.

Who knows though….Maybe I am trying to put too much structure around something that is inherently unstructured and emergent. What do you think?

All in all, the event was a bangin’ good time. In addition to my blathering and Jay’s wisdom, Ken Olofsen was on hand from the Atlassian mothership to give product updates, company overview, etc to the attendees consisting of government and private sector types from around the Beltway. Also, shout out to the guys from Blackboard who gave a neato rundown on their Atlassian stack to SilkCentral integration. 

Thanks to everyone at Atlassian (especially Jessie Curtner!) for throwing down a righteous shindig in the District. Well…as righteous of a shindig that can be had with a bunch of geeks like me. Looking forward to doing it faster, better, and with even more consultanese at the Summit.

Today’s Morning Edition has a segment on Obama’s plan to appoint a government-wide Technology Czar / CTO. The story also describes his administration’s plans to make government information more accessible by citizens.

Will the next administration treat technology differently then what we’ve seen in the past? Will the push for added transparency provide opportunities for BE? Take a look at the contrast so far – both the Obama Transition Team and the GSA have websites designed to help enable the smooth transition of a presidential administration. The difference between the says a lot about Obama’s staff and aides will see the role of technology in government:

GSA Transition Website vs. Change.gov

My resolution was to “listen to more talk radio”. (I know, I know…far from earth shattering. But listen, when you start about 25 degrees south of “somewhat informed”, any news will help.) And in keeping my resolution, I had the chance to hear Don Tapscott interviewed on NPR about the applicability of Web/Enterprise 2.0 for government. Thanks to that interview, and a rising demand from clients, I have decided to start a series of posts focused on the specific applicability of Enterprise 2.0 for the government organizations I have worked with either directly or indirectly.

I mused earlier on transparent international development work and am happy to see what I believe are some excellent steps in that direction from the Millennium Challenge Corporation. As a baseline, I think MCC has done an excellent job in adding functionality to their website that fosters a sense of transparency as well as enlightens taxpayers to the challenges of development work. One of the most interesting additions in recent months is the posting of the models used to determine a significant funding driver, the Economic Rate of Return. Additionally, the CEO Blog and Poverty Reduction Blog provide insight into the complex and challenging work of executing billions of dollars of international aid with a staff capped at 300. External stakeholders are waving the 2.o flag and sharing MCC content for the world to see. I believe MCC’s web property is fast becoming a popular and effective way to not only educate, but engage constituents from many perspectives. At the very least, odious SEO jockeys think so.

MCC has undoubtedly made strides toward the Gov 2.0 goal line, but I posit that more can be done. MCC can and should engage the international development online community to not only increase awareness, but to harness their collective intelligence in addressing difficult challenges. The blogs and ERR models are a great step forward, but it is almost transparency for transparency’s sake. Use that transparency to foster a community that not only talks to you, but more importantly, interacts with each other to solve your problems.

• What if instead MCC’s blogs expressed various internal perspectives and gathered external feedback on something like Google’s lobbying to include ICCR obligations in their funding determination?
• What if MCC publicly embraced a pre-existing development professional social network, another development agency, and a professional services firm to orchestrate insight around common problems from otherwise disconnected perspectives?
• What if MCC implemented an idea market for to determine funding priorities of US taxpayer dollars or innovate on solutions to what must be the daunting challenge of breaking new ground in the development world?

With private sector examples of the value of crowdsourcing like the Goldcorp Challenge, it is easy to see the potential crossover into Government 2.0. As a government corporation with an emphasis on operating like a business, MCC is well positioned to realize those same benefits for US taxpayers.

What can government leaders can do to improve the situation?  For starters, mandate transparency. OMB publishes a list of high risk IT projects, innovative state governments are making their project performance dashboards publicly available and some government agencies are publishing their project’s failure analysis out to their constituencies. Work to open a dialogue about ongoing and past IT projects at your agency, and allow any staff member or the public to participate. Create a citizen community that allows your project staff to interact directly with members of the public that might be impacted by your project. The technology to build these types of communities is getting more sophisticated.

Your government agency should consider exposing the inner workings of its projects to the public; show them what they are getting for their money. Make your internal IT teams sweat a little, transparency will help to focus them on project success. Most of all, transparency can help better align project stakeholders. When all of the actors in a project – political appointees, staff, contractors and taxpayers – share in the same information, better decisions will result, and the outcome of the project will be closer to its original objectives.

But, there’s no reason to wait until after a project has failed to begin uncloaking it – start early in the process with a public project blog or wiki, that allows both project stakeholders and the public to provide feedback on the project’s goals and progress. If you take this approach, bad projects are likely to fail earlier, and good projects will attract the positive attention they deserve.

I digress…back to the ones and zeros…

As my French friend is contemplating my financing of his next vacation, I started to think about the possible connections between recent press on Wal-Mart’s buyer blogging, my post about transparent development, and Jay’s post about sound corporate blogging. And henceforth the following idea came to mind:

Buyer blogging for government. More specifically, stakeholder blogging for donor-funded international development work.

In the same vein that Wal-Mart’s buyers are openly sharing opinions as to the quality or usefulness or value or whatever of consumer products, what if recipient countries, government contracting officers, or implementing partners could openly blog about their project experiences? Couple this with an exposed representation of project execution and I believe you start to truly realize transparent government. It would almost be like a preemptive FOIA request.

While MCC has taken a novel step (for a US Government Agency) with their CEO blog, they may suffer from the same early criticism Wal-Mart did for their Working Families for Wal-Mart efforts.

“Critics dismissed both as thinly veiled extensions of Wal-Mart’s P.R. department, and Wal-Mart shut them down The lesson seemed clear: create an authentic blog or don’t create a blog at all…” (NYT)

By expanding the scope of their blogging to project managers and recipient country stakeholders, MCC has solid ground to stand upon when defending burn-rate criticisms. Well, at least their defense is less “tell”, and more “show”.

Interestingly enough, I think my industry may institute a widespread fear-mongering campaign in response to something like this. Similar to the irritation of Wal-Mart suppliers, the massive government consulting machine might look unfavorably upon government contracting officers openly discussing their inability to execute a project or the latest empty solution. Perhaps if professional services firms were to seriously think about decaying IP combined with sound blogging policies, the government wouldn’t be unpleasantly surprised by “proprietary incompetence”? Expectation management is consulting 101. If you are a transparent consulting firm, the government will know what they are getting in advance. By extension, if they knew what they were getting in the first place, they have little ground to stand upon when complaining about it later. Maybe you wouldn’t have even been hired in the first place? (Sacre bleu!)

I assume there are multiple legal reasons this is impossible, but I still think it is a neat idea. What do you think?