Defining Open Dialogue

by Nick Charney

---

There's a conference program -- the Canadian Open Dialogue Forum -- that caught my eye earlier this week. The conference is trying to answer the question How can we realize the potential of open government in today's policy making environment?

It's a good question that likely merits further reflection. How we define the potential of open government is likely in flux as the new administration continues to refine its public policy agenda and distance itself from the previous administration. Given what I can discern about the organizers, the speakers and overall agenda, the conference could offer a unique opportunity to influence that refinement; especially on anything that relates to the broad mandate letter commitment, which as Kent rightly points out all being parsed all around town right now (See: An Honest Question on Responsible Government). To wit:

We have also committed to set a higher bar for openness and transparency in government. It is time to shine more light on government to ensure it remains focused on the people it serves. Government and its information should be open by default. If we want Canadians to trust their government, we need a government that trusts Canadians. It is important that we acknowledge mistakes when we make them. Canadians do not expect us to be perfect – they expect us to be honest, open, and sincere in our efforts to serve the public interest.

Not to mention the more specific ones:

• Take a leadership role to review policies to improve the use of evidence and data in program innovation and evaluation, more open data, and a more modern approach to comptrollership
• Accelerate and expand open data initiatives and make government data available digitally, so that Canadians can easily access and use it.
• Work with the Minister of Justice to enhance the openness of government, including leading a review of the Access to Information Act to ensure that Canadians have easier access to their own personal information, that the Information Commissioner is empowered to order government information to be released and that the Act applies appropriately to the Prime Minister’s and Ministers’ Offices, as well as administrative institutions that support Parliament and the courts.

Moreover, having spoken with one of the principal organizers (a friend of mine) I can say that a lot of thought (and some enabling technology) has gone into trying to find ways to facilitate dialogue and co-creation with and among participants to bring them to ground on the conference theme. It's something that I've tried to architect in the past -- albeit with the old school technology of table guides and dedicated time for discussion and reporting out -- so I can say that it is a fairly ambitious undertaking that can produce some interesting insights and identify talent and/or expertise.

Hopefully there's room for discussions about the need for greater experimentation in policy development (See: Experimenting with Policy Development), about the relative maturity/immaturity of online tools for public engagement (See: Thinking, Fast and Slow about Online Public Engagement) and on the organizing principles of policy making in a digital era (See: On Organizing Principles: Policy or Delivery). These discussions are often too distributed to have significant impact and could benefit from catalyzing events such as these.

If you are in Ottawa on March 31/April 1 you might want to check it out.

Quick Thoughts from Nesta's Labworks 2015

by Nick Charney

---

Last week I was lucky enough to be at Nesta's LabWorks 2015 - Global Lab Gathering London. I attended the conference as both a delegate and a speaker, having the opportunity to both take in the day but also help shape it by setting up a panel discussion exploring the question: What is the best model for public sector innovation. Overall, the conference was one of the better one's I've attended in recent history and it was a great opportunity to catch up with some old friends and make new ones.

One of the key takeaways for me was a diagram that Charles Leadbeater used to explain the lab ecosystem:

He argued that the prevailing world view from the innovation literature is that while no one wants to be on the red line (old systems being disrupted) and everyone wants to be on the green line (new disruptive innovations) the reality is that there are people (and labs) operating (and innovating) all along both lines. Some are innovating to maintain the status quo, others to change it, and that ultimately these forces meet somewhere along the curve and create new possibilities and futures that spin out in a multiplicity of directions.

I thought the description was not only incredibly apt but challenged the audience to think more critically about where their lab was in the ecosystem and what purpose it served. Broadly speaking, the feeling I get is that everyone likes to stylize their work as being in that cool place on the lower left part of that green curve when that's not always the case.

I'd share more right now, but my brain is still operating in another time zone.

Cheers

Open Gov West Recap: Change, Connect, Contribute

This week I took some time off and headed out to Victoria British Columbia so I could be a part of Open Gov West BC.

It was an absolutely amazing experience

I had the privilege of sharing the opening keynote with friend Walter Schwabe. Walter and I have an excellent rapport and wanted to shake things up a little bit, we wanted to try something different, we wanted to inspire immediate action. We didn't just sit at the front of the room and talk down to audience from the riser. We walked among the crowd, armed with microphones, iPads, and a surprise.

Under the cover of darkness a few nights before the conference we created a group blog and invited everyone in the room, and those watching remotely to engage right now by changing, connecting, and contributing. We drove the theme home by telling everyone why we thought these things we so incredibly important.


Change

When I first joined the public service I was struck by how closed it was, the system has a hard time surfacing talent and ideas. Moreover, it is being constantly reinforced by a culture of playing your cards really close to your chest. After a year circling the drain in a closed system I decided to approach things from an ethos of open. But it wasn't a fluke, I recall a conversation with a senior manager:

"Just because that's how everyone else acts, doesn't mean you have to do it too."

It was such a simple statement, but made at an opportune time. It completely changed my perspective. Since then I've come to better understand some of the challenges facing the public sector: impending retirements, out migration of knowledge and expertise, budgetary constraints, and the lack of sustainable engagement. Through hard fought experience I've come to the realization that openness isn't a panacea, but it is without question part of the answer. Often people just need to be told that change is in fact possible, I certainly did.


Connect

With this in mind, the single most important thing that people can start doing is narrating their work. So much of what we do as public servants gets locked away on proprietary drives, closed records and document management systems, or email. We need to start readily sharing not only the information we currently have on lockdown but also how we are making sense of that information, and how we are contextualizing it within our work.

Never before has technology allowed us to paint such a clear picture of what is informing decision-making, policy, and program delivery. Embracing a more open ethos and grabbing hold of enabling technology will do more for our public services than we could possibly imagine. It starts with a simple switch: connecting what we used to write in the margins of our paper based notebooks on the web.


Contribute

This was the thinking behind the communal blog. We wanted to not only drive the message home but make participation as easy as possible. In addition to unleashing the blog, Walter purposefully walked participants through other low risk ways to be a part of the online conversation. We wanted to show them the path, and make it as easy as possible to walk down.

In the end, all we asked of participants was 100 words.


What we got was so much more



By about noon the traffic to the blog actually crashed the site. Participants weren't scribbling way in their individual notebooks, they were creating one communal one online and in real time. Participants had taken the message to heart, they changed, connected and contributed both in the room and online, which tells me that the event was an incredible success.

Kudos to everyone who participated.

Lessons in Collaboration

When we speak of collaboration we often talk about the benefits of serendipity or emerging leadership, but within the confines of the current public institution, complete with Ministerial accountability, perhaps we speak about it too much. My underlying worry is that proponents of collaboration do themselves a disservice by failing to engage in a debate around how to be directive within a collaborative effort, to demonstrate how exactly collaboration is different from the status quo, and what are the inherent benefits of this new approach. The conversation around collaboration to date is far too Utopian for my liking; it conjures 1960s imagery of peace and love. Collaboration, it would seem, is a real righteous groove, and those who oppose it are just squares in need of a good melvin.

This attitude makes me uneasy. I think it is problematic, and the reason I think we are stuck there is that we don't know how to be directive within collaboration. We seem to think that collaboration is an open arrangement that, through a mystical and undefined process, reaches an outcome. What we are missing is discourse on how we move from open process to outcome. We need to unpack the elusive magic between the two. In order to do this, I want to first lay out a conceptual frameworks and then move to an example to illustrate my thinking.


The "Why", "How", and "What" of collaboration

"Leaders hold a position of power or authority. But those who lead inspire us. Whether they're individuals or organizations, we follow those who lead, not because we have to, but because we want to. We follow those who lead, not for them, but for ourselves. And it's those who start with "why" that have the ability to inspire those around them or find others who inspire them." - Simon Sinek, "How great leaders inspire action" TEDx Puget Sound (full video embedded below)

My view is that being directive within a collaboration largely means inspiring action:

One of the problems is that we tend to inverse Sinek's golden circle (as explained by Sinek in the TEDx talk above), focusing too much on what it is that we do. How many of us would describe our work starting with why we have chosen to undertake it?


The proof is in the collaborative pudding


Last week a small group of public servants held a free collaboration-themed conference for 200 of their colleagues (called the Collaborative Culture Camp, or C3). While there are a number of things about the conference worth mentioning, I will try to limit my comments to the context of directive collaboration.


Why collaborative culture?


The idea to focus on the cultural elements of collaboration came from Richard Akerman. I was facilitating a session on the future of GCPEDIA and was lucky enough to have Richard sitting in my group. I noticed him slightly behind me going over something in his head. When pressed, Richard shared this gem (paraphrased):

"We, as web practitioners proceed to a discussion about the platform upon which collaboration happens because we recognize the inherent value of collaboration over the status quo. If others don't recognize that value then they don't understand why they should ever pick up a collaborative tool in the first place. Perhaps what we need to do is show people the value of collaboration."

The intervention itself was brilliant, timely and right on target. It provided a ‘why’ around which people could mobilize, a ‘what’ and finally a ‘how’. In short, his leadership inspired action. Now what I find fascinating is that Richard himself wasn't a part of the organizing committee (at least in a formal sense). He was present, but on the periphery. It would seem to me that the person who issues the direction (leadership inspiring action) doesn't need to be physically present if the direction is compelling enough to inspire the "how" discussion.


How to build a collaborative culture


The organizing committee also had to engage in a discussion of how the group itself would work, assign tasks, report back etc. This was incredibly challenging. However agreement on why we were initiating the work provided some common ground upon which to build out the details of how we would go about doing it. But even here we needed direction. We were friends, colleagues, and professional public servants, yet we were also reticent to step up and be directive (at least in my view).

We eventually settled on a model for decided quorum, assigning leads, and delegating the authority to those leads to make any decision they faced along their critical path. For example, at one point I was in charge of booking the venue and was delegated the authority to enter into agreement with a provider should the space have met our needs. Trust then seems to be a critical element and is only possible when there is agreement as to why a particular thing is undertaken. The “why”, it would seem provides a common ground upon which how and subsequently what can be built.


What to do? Host a Collaborative Culture Camp


Having ironed out the “how” the group could finally focus in on the what. We settled on a dual track unconference model that allowed multiple ways for people to participate. You could lead a session, you could take in a fireside chat, if you weren’t interested in a given topic you could move into another session that was more to your liking.

In some cases, organizing and operationalizing the “what” was detailed and tedious. For example someone had to step up and handle the registration emails, the responses, the wait list, etc. The only explanation as to why someone would take on this work is that they believed in the why and in turn accepted the responsibilities. If we had simply asked someone to take care of that for us I doubt they would have been as committed as Tariq was.


Looking back before looking forward


The goal of the conference was to help teach people about the value of collaboration. Looking back, I think the organizing committee not only taught others the value of collaboration, but also learned a great deal about it during the process, and demonstrated that learning the day the conference took place. That being said, my reflections on what happened that day will have to wait until next week. Thanks for reading, and congratulations to everyone who raised a hand and got involved with the conference.

Kudos on a job well done.

Update: Things to Do in March

Just thought I'd give you a quick update on what I'm up to in March... (so far)

1. I will be giving my Social Media in Government talk on March 2nd, Ottawa c/o Social Media in Government, Advanced Learning Institute.

2. On March 5th I will be attending the Public Policy Forum's session entitled: "The Future is Open: How open government is essential to creating a culture of public service innovation" featuring my friend David Eaves and former CTO of the Government of Canada Chuck Henry.

3. I will be in Edmonton on March 6th in order to help the city with its Open City Workshop. The workshop is intended to help build community through open information. Among other things it will feature a panel discussion on the subject of government as platform with David Eaves, Mark Kuznicki, and myself.

I hope to see you sometime in the month of March, if you need more information about any of these events please feel free to contact me.

Cheers.

Upcoming Talks in February

Just thought I'd give you a quick update on what I'm up to in February. I have provided descriptions and links to conference agendas. Feel free to ping me w/an email/comment/tweet if you want to know more.

1. Getting Your Organization Ready for Social Media
February 16-17, Ottawa
Social Media in Government, Federated Press

Social media is one of the latest trends in communications inside
government, but getting into the game before knowing the rules can be
costly, or even embarrassing. This session will help you understand the
importance of learning how to run behind the firewall, before walking
outside it.

In this session, you will learn:

• Why traditional hierarchies are obstacles to engagement and innovation
• How these new communication tools aretearing down silos faster then ever
• How to engage yourself, your employees and your colleagues and create an environment conducive to user-driven innovation, increased productivity and better retention

2. Schemed Virtuously
February 17-18, Ottawa
Youth Mandate for Greater Involvment (YMAGIN) National Conference (internal link)

Starting a career in the public service is often a difficult transition. There are many rules and cultural norms that at first glance don't seem to make sense or inhibit innovation. The confusion that some new public servants feel can be overwhelming, the messages they receive contradictory. Success or failure in the public service is often left to a mystical combination people, organizational architecture, routines and culture. Sometimes that combination works out on its own, sometimes you have to make it work. In Nicholas' case, he had to make it work. In his two part presentation Nicholas will tell his personal story of public service renewal and then share some of the tactics he learned along the way.

YMAGIN is Human Resources and Skills Development Canada's (HRSDC) young professionals network. This talk will be a bit of a homecoming for me as I got my start in HRSDC and with YMAGIN.


3. Effective Uses of Social Media for HR
February 22-23, Ottawa
Public Sector Human Resources 2010: Building Capability for Future Challenges, Conference Board of Canada

Collaboration is a core element of any successful organization, and many public service HR managers are exploring the collaborative benefits of social media tools. As with any new technology, however, this early adopter enthusiasm can rapidly turn into disillusion as anticipated results fail to materialize.

Nicholas Charney will discuss how these technologies are transforming workplaces, how to manage this transformation, and why managing it will lead to greater innovation, increased productivity and better retention. Gain a new appreciation for the possibilities as you learn practical strategies for realizing the full benefits of Web 2.0 tools in your organization.

Social Mixer

Also you if your active online and a public servant, you may want to attend the next W2P mixer. It should be great, we will have some of our friends from Edmonton who happen to be in town.

Update: Putting the Social in Social Media

Hi All - I just wanted to share the feedback I received from my presentation at the Advanced Learning Institute's Social Media in Government (SMGOV) conference here in Ottawa. The conference took place back in September. If you are interested, I posted the presentation here on my blog.

Moreover, I will be opening the next SMGOV Ottawa with an updated version of the my Putting the Social in Social Media talk. It has, in my mind become a much tighter presentation over time and I am looking forward to delivering the new one on March 2. Sadly I was also supposed to go out to do the same talk at SMGOV Edmonton but it looks like I no longer have the budget to do it, so if you are planning on attending the conference you have my sincerest apologies. There are however some great presentations on the lineup including friends of mine from the city of Edmonton, the province of Alberta and of course from the federal family.

All of that being said, what I am really interested is your reaction to the comments below, especially the one about my use of profanity. You may recall that I purposely dropped one f-bomb in a positive context about how much I love my job. Even despite the f-bomb my talk was rated a 4.86 out of 5 (not bad!) which put me tops on the list of presenters. Kudos everyone who rounded out the top 5, they were all great presentations.

Cheers.

(click to enlarge the scan - note you might have to click again to zoom in once you get to the picture)