Group Hugs and Stating the Obvious

by Kent Aitken

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In 2010 I attended an event variously called GOC3/Collaborative Culture Camp and Collaborative Management Camp. This was back in the halcyon days of our youth when events had tweet walls, displaying the inner workings of the hivemind. Some of this was insights and connections between speakers’ points, though most was essentially live-tweeting quotes from the on-stage conversation. At one point, the tweet wall showed someone’s assessment that the event was “So far, mostly group hugs and stating the obvious.”

Which serves today as a launching point for thinking about that community, how it has changed, and where we are today. (Crowdsourced timeline here: http://gc20.pbworks.com/w/page/99478487/FrontPage.)

At one point in 2006, there were zero public servants on Twitter – because there was no Twitter. By 2010 it was probably in the scant hundreds; you could reach the end of the community, so why not follow everyone? We could figure out the “why” out later, but for the time being it was good enough to be connected around a general ideology of sharing, collaboration, experimentation, and openness (see: Millenials, Lego and the Perimeter of Ignorance). I wrote about the value of writing in the open as a way to create “rough edges” that could create connections with people learning the same directions or trying to solve the same problems (see: On the Importance of Being Earnest (and Open)).

That was before the era of information overload and much need for Twitter hiatuses or culling who you follow (though one of Nick’s most popular posts, a full decade ago, was about using Yahoo! pipes to fast-filter articles shared through social media (see: Signal to Noise)). The community matured, grew, and one of the driving common problems – bringing government into the social media era – started looking like a solv-ed/able problem. So people started subdividing into more niche and specialized sub-elements, and taking the natural step of expanding networks across sectors (though there’s still a serious core of “people on Twitter outside government that people inside government know”).

In parallel, the double-edged sword of asking “What problem are we really trying to solve?” emerged as a guiding principle. I say “double-edged” because an impact focus is, of course, a healthy lens. On the other hand, it may have undervalued community-building efforts where the “goal” was really a Venn diagram of many different goals for different people. In many ways, “group hugs and stating the obvious” was exactly what many people needed to start growing into a new and wider community. The first time I heard this question answered really well was Heather Remacle in the BC gov: success for a collaborative community is “growing people who fulfill the vision.”

Which roughly leads us to why posting on CSPRenewal.ca fell off for me. Like Nick (see: Fully, Completely), it was a combination of factors: new and challenges roles in my career, a busier personal life, but there was also an element of the GC collaborative community changing. Where once I agreed whole-heartedly with Andrew Kjurata’s “Shut up and say something” call for people to raise their voices in public spaces, the other increasingly plausible lens was that additional voices were as likely to just be uninformed bellowing into a cacophony. My standards for what I posted about and why went up.

So now, in a cacophonous environment characterized by information overload, Nick and I have both returned to posting at around the same time, and again for some of the same reasons. A little bit more professional and personal space, but at the same time, I think there are some useful things to discuss about the cacophony. One of my strongest conclusions from a year of interviewing people about digital-era governance was how warped our discourse can be about technology and change. Talking points can enjoy years of repetition before critical voices and evidence emerge to correct them – and even then likely don’t stand a chance against the ingrained memes.

Which I don’t purport to be able to correct, but it does mean that I continue to find this space interesting. And I wrote way too much stuff a couple years back (see: Governance in the Digital Era) that I had always intended to chop up into somewhat more digestible sections, which seems like a worthwhile project. I enjoyed Laura Wesley’s description of writing in open spaces as talking to her future self, and I’d like to keep making deposits in that collection rather than just withdrawing all the time.

And if we’ve met recently and you’re new here, here’s a few starting points from the past years that I think remain non-embarassing. Also, holy shit. The current count is 715 posts (more Nick than me and the other contributors). I’ll leave Nick to note his own, if he so chooses. 

• Public Service Anonymity is Dead, Long Live Public Service Anonymity
• Public service: the Long Game and the Dark Side 
• Innovation is Information
• The Next Big Thing
• Tricksters, Hackers, and Schemers

Best,

Kent

Tricksters, Hackers, and Schemers

by Kent Aitken

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In literature, trickster characters are the rule-breakers. They cross boundaries, put others outside their zones of comfort, and question authority. They "playfully disrupt normal life and then re-establish it on a new basis." They're often set in a world such that the rule-breaking appears, to the audience, to be understandable - if not downright virtuous.

In society, the tricksters might be the civic tech, NGO, social entrepreneurship, and hacker communities. Hackers, in this view, are those who take things apart to understand them and reconstruct them to suit their needs, be it technology, institutions, or machinery (try these pieces by Tanya Snook or David Fleming for this take). Dealing with government is just one lever to pull towards achieving their goals.

Inside organizations the tricksters may be called innovators, or perhaps mavericks or "rebels at work." Less flatteringly, they might be called "headstrong" or "naive".

There's always conflict between tricksters and those around them, including other tricksters with different levels of willingness to break the rules. The Fantastic Mr. Fox (the character in the image, above) revels in tricking farmers out of chickens until he realizes that his actions are endangering the other animals in his community by provoking the gun-toting farmers. In many stories, a common theme is discord between members of the counterculture: some people are willing to do anything to reach their goals, and their friends have to stop them from compromising their principles. Ideals and goals don't always get along.

Wither rebels?

Brett Scott's recent piece The hacker hacked gets into the conflict faced by the first group, those outside large businesses or institutions. 

"We are currently witnessing the gentrification of hacker culture. The countercultural trickster has been pressed into the service of the preppy tech entrepreneur class. It began innocently, no doubt. The association of the hacker ethic with startups might have started with an authentic counter-cultural impulse on the part of outsider nerds tinkering away on websites. But, like all gentrification, the influx into the scene of successive waves of ever less disaffected individuals results in a growing emphasis on the unthreatening elements of hacking over the subversive ones.

 In this setting, the hacker attitude of playful troublemaking can be cast in Schumpeterian terms: success-driven innovators seeking to ‘disrupt’ old incumbents within a market in an elite ‘rebellion’."

(See also: "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads." - Jeff Hammerbacher)

I highly recommend reading the full piece. For one, it's as a fascinating take on the arc of the technology and digital world - once considered a disruptive, democratic, playing-field-leveling force. Two, there's an obvious parallel for anyone trying to remake an organization around themselves.

The trickster's dilemma

Akin to hackers being subsumed into the tech entrepreneurship scene, change-wanters will face a practical dilemma in efforts to drive change. Sometimes, after years of suggesting X project, someone will say "Ah, now you have your chance to put your money where your mouth is: we'd like you to do X. But by our rules." This invariably means that you won't actually get to spend much of your time on X, instead worrying about HR, finance, proving the value of X, building partnerships, and navigating internal politics. And you'll realize that they're using a different definition of X. But, you're finally getting the chance, so you can't rock the boat now. You need to succeed, even if it's not exactly what you wanted to succeed at, to gain the credibility for future such projects. Besides, if you decline the opportunity they'll ask someone else anyway, and it won't be done as well. You're stuck.

Last year I had the opportunity to speak on a topic I was passionate about and I was pumped. When I accepted, I heard the parameters: it was an "un-panel," and I'd be "randomly" selected from the audience to ask a question and then join the panel. My question was scripted and a speaker would magically have a presentation ready to answer it. I backed out, but the principles versus impact debate is rarely so lopsided.

So you believe in change and doing things right. But do you do things less than right for the opportunity to do things right in the future? Or dogmatically stick to your guns, but end up alienated from the organizations and people that can facilitate progress? Do you stay as a garage hacker, or join an organization that limits your freedom but expands your impact?

Ryan Androsoff was recently musing about whether the W2P (web 2.0 practitioners) community in the Government of Canada had withered, and he captured the discussion. It seems I'm not alone in viewing the people in that community as innovators and schemers, but that they've moved on to "operationalizing" their goals or simply "doing."

In the US, the Presidential Innovation Fellows program exists to get bright and talented tech experts into government to revamp systems, build tools, and shake established mindsets. My anecdotal evidence from conversations with public servants south of the border is this: one, that the "not-quite-in-government" position allows the freedom to question established practices and push through solutions. Two, that institutions have had problems following through and maintaining Fellows' projects after they leave. The program was made permanent this week, which could help the latter problem - but might hurt the former advantage.

For the Fellows and W2P, there's a power in being distant enough from portfolios that you can truly speak your mind. Once institutionalized, operationalized, or made responsible, these Fantastic Mr. Foxes may realize that other animals are counting on them and that playing with the rules - even if virtuously done - isn't the right approach anymore.

Which is not to say that accepting positions of responsibility is inadvisable. It's actually the core of the public service ethos. It's why we're here. If you have a meaningful job and your work actually impacts citizens then it comes with responsibility. But there will be constant tension: is the value you had as a trickster being left behind?

A last word about naiveté

Naiveté is the true enemy of tricksters, hackers, and schemers. But it comes in two different flavours.

• Failing to understand or appreciate the value of "the way things are". Ever complain about something and have a friend respond "Actually, there's a perfectly good reason for that"? The more you learn about something, the more you'll see both its flaws and its virtues. If you're trying to change things, you have a responsibility to understand them.

• Failing to understand or appreciate the value of ideals. There's a reverse-image naiveté to the above and it manifests in Machiavellianism, acting as though everything is strategic, pragmatic, and political. As bad as the naive tricksters, the naive institutionalist can't tell when the tricksters are right, and falsely believes that the rules of the game can never change.

Public service renewal: the weekly round-up

For the week of September 19 - 23, 2011

If you’re involved in public service renewal – or just a curious bystander – here's the run down of stuff you'll want to read and do this week.

To do:

Sign up (as soon as possible!) for an inexpensive (read: $5) opportunity to scheme virtuously and network at: Beyond the Kool-Aid: Open Government? Space is limited and conversation promises to be dynamic. Join experts from Google, other levels of government and Mediastyle to talk Government 2.0; while the ideas have been discussed over and over, for many it feels as if little progress is being made. Where do we go from here?

Join us: Now that school has started we’re gearing up for yet another #w2p mixer, this time with a different twist. Mark your calendars for September 28 where the #w2p community will be mixing it up with the Advanced Leadership Program.

To read:

• The Future of the Federal Workforce: can we apply the cloud model to the PS workforce?

• On cuts: Federal unions launch petition drive to call on Clement to put critical services and the long-term social safety first.

• Junk the jargon, cut the clichés and use plain English – a new tone of voice would help so many public organizations

• The U.S. is having a national dialogue on improving government web sites - and there are loads of fabulous ideas to be found on the site.

Have a great week!

This post has been a collaborative effort from Lee-Anne Peluk and Nicholas Charney.You can check out Lee-Anne's blog "In the Shuffle" at www.leeannepeluk.wordpress.com

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Public service renewal: the weekly round-up

Here's the usual round up of good stuff worth reading from last week. Enjoy!

Here at home:

• EI centres in Nova Scotia, P.E.I. and Vancouver to shrink workforce
• Elections Canada eyes online voting
• The Common Look and Feel for the Internet 2.0 Standard (CLF 2.0) is being replaced by 3 new Standards
• The GoC is looking for a new look.
• But we might need more than a fresh coat of paint

International:

• Japan: interesting move by Takeo City in Japan, who have made the bold decision to move their entire council website to Facebook.
• Australia: The state government of Western Australia recently announced that it is abandoning shared corporate services after spending in excess of A$345m over seven years implementing a shared services strategy. This outcome should send a shiver down the spine of any government contemplating shared services strategies to reduce costs. Ouch.
• Greece: Public pension fund pays 1,473 dead Greeks
• U.K.: constructive talks about the use of social media in recent rioting

Social media

• Everything You Need To Know About Google Plus
• Why did you unfollow me? The Psychology of Twitter

This post has been a collaborative effort from Lee-Anne Peluk and Nicholas Charney.You can check out Lee-Anne's blog "In the Shuffle" at www.leeannepeluk.wordpress.com


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Public service renewal: the weekly round-up

August 15 – 19, 2011

Thought of the week: Your ideas are not obvious to other people. That’s why you need to share them.

Watch of the week: a WW2-era Disney cartoon, All Together Now. This historically avant-garde collaboration between the National Film Board of Canada and Walt Disney Studios aimed to get more Canadians to invest in war bonds. (And, truly, there’s just something about seeing the Disney gang march up and down in front of an animated version of the Canadian Parliament buildings. Priceless.)

Crowd sourcing:

Maybe I am behind the times, but this week I discovered a service called Servio, with an 80,000+ strong workforce where you can crowd source your content needs. Its software carves a given task into microscopically small pieces, and then farms it out to their community of workers, who get paid piecemeal to complete each section of the task.

So, what happens when a journalist crowd sources out background research? Is hiring a team of freelance reporters to research, report, and write a story on your behalf an ethical violation?

Social:

• New to Twitter? Check out this primer on the use of hashtags
• Twitter is selling and Facebook is marketing. Or, is it that Twitter is about connecting with the people you want to know, and Facebook is about re-connecting with everyone you have ever met?
• Did you know LinkedIn gave itself permission to use your image on its advertising? Don’t want to see yourself in a surprise ad? Turn off the option.

It may be trite to say, but laughing is good for you:

• A good laugh, smile, or giggle is essential to start out the week on the right foot. Make time for it, and pass it on.
• If you live in Ottawa, you’re gonna love this video of Bhangra in the Capital. Bhangra is a combination of dances from different parts of the Punjab region, and this video breaks it out.
• I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the use of gimmicks in communication. Check out this super creative ‘pomegranate’ smart phone ad, which is really an advertisement for Nova Scotia tourism.

This post has been a collaborative effort from Lee-Anne Peluk and Nicholas Charney.You can check out Lee-Anne's blog "In the Shuffle" at www.leeannepeluk.wordpress.com

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Public service renewal: the weekly round-up

August 8 - 12, 2011

It’s Monday, folks. Here’s the weekly.

If you read one thing this week, it should be this post from the Snarky Optimist. It’s a thoughtful, well-written, and eye-opening response (in part) to my previous post: I would’ve eaten glass to get this job. I love a good dialogue, and Chelsea’s post illustrates that the story of contractors in the federal government is a complicated one, with many equally valid perspectives.

This week in cuts:

• An excellent overview of the federal government job cuts, so far
• Why you, not me? The Hill Times publishes a piece on the Environment Canada cuts from last week
• And, more opportunities and even bigger challenges loom large for our newest department, Shared Services -- who is responsible for giving us an infrastructure for the 21^st century

Social goodies:

• Who loves Haiku? People in Japan are flocking to Twitter to make social poetry
• Are Twitter and Facebook the anti-social networks?
• Old, but new to me: Malcolm Gladwell – why the revolution will not be tweeted. OR: Social media can’t provide what social change has always required
• An argument that all of our disclaimers do not matter – and that there is no difference between our personal accounts and your professional ones
• What does the U.S. Army really think about social media? Find out!

Relationships and Cultural change

• Since the PS culture is shifting all around us, here are the 10 key lessons you can take with you for the ride
• The newest web standard is out for us to view, and it’s got me thinking all about content strategy. Here’s a read on why making relationships with your web visitors is important

And let’s end with a laugh, shall we?

• How to kill a dead horse

This post has been a collaborative effort from Lee-Anne Peluk and Nicholas Charney. You can check out Lee-Anne's blog "In the Shuffle" at www.leeannepeluk.wordpress.com

Column: With a Little Help From My Friends

Last week, the Web 2.0 Practitioner's (W2P) Community (of which I am a part) held its informal mixer as it does every 3 weeks. I happened to be on point for organizing the event this time, although truth be told I couldn't have done it without a little help from my friends.

Lend Me Your Ears and I'll Sing You a Song

Looking back I think the event was a huge success. There were approximately fifty people in attendance, a book exchange and the Clerk of the Privy Council, Wayne Wouters, came by, donned a nametag and introduced himself around. For those of you who don't know, the Clerk of the Privy Council is the most senior non-political official in the Government of Canada.

While I only managed to speak to him for a few minutes, it was a rewarding experience and firmed up what I had been hearing around town - that he has a keen interest in the confluence of the web and the public service. His interest, signaled by his attendance, is something we can all look to for encouragement and is coincidentally the reason I smiled the whole way home that night. Given what I have written previously about the risks of public servants innovating in the absence of leadership, the support of the most senior public servant moving forward is paramount. The Clerk's presence, coupled with some other moving and shaking that I have been privy to, make me feel as though we are turning an important corner.

Moving forward, I think one of the biggest wins out of the Clerk's appearance is leverage. If the Clerk can find time in his busy schedule to stop by and check in with the W2P community after hours, then surely other senior leaders can find time to discuss the use of Web 2.0 technologies during work hours, and when the time comes, make sure to try not to sing out of key.