Bill's Notebook

I was not impressed by Google Wave and I think Google Buzz was a better idea because it was based on GMail.  But I was confused on how I would actually use Buzz.  Now O’Reilly tells you how to Google Buzz can combine blogging, Tweeting, and Facebooking into a hybrid blog.  I need to read further and see what I can do with this new tool.

Public Strategist has some words of caution when government partners with other organizations.

The latest issue of Scientific American Mind has a good article disputing popular myths in pop psychology.  Myths like “we only use 10% of our minds” and the idea of learning styles.  I bring this up because the authors use the magic words – “evidence-based.”  I’m seeing more practioners in various fields advocate for a research-based reevaluation of the field’s core concepts.

The rise of evidence-based practice seems unnecessary because it seems that is plenty of research out there.  But, as the founders of evidence-based medicine found, the research seems to sit on the shelf while practitioners rely on rules of thumb and “professional folklore” to practice their arts.  There has always been a gap between the academic world and the practical world but it seems that the Internet has made that gap more apparent. 

For example, as patients began to use WebMD and similar sites to research their illnesses and treatments, many doctors were questioned on their ability to diagnose and successfully treat their patients.  The same started to happen in the legal community, investing, and so on.  The informed consumer is skeptical of the tactics that used to work for the professionals because this professional body of knowledge didn’t seem to have a basis in the latest research.

That is why the successful practitioners will be both scholarly and practical.  They should have the ability to understand the latest research and to critically appraise that research.  They should also have the ability to find the practical applications of the latest research findings and be able to communicate to their clients the implications of the research.  Selling the sizzle instead of the steak is not the way to consulting success in the 21st Century.

Today, I received Daniel Lathrop and Laurel Ruma’s Open Government: Collaboration, Transparency, and Participation in Practice.  I just read the first chapter, “A Peace Corps for Programmers,” and I already know this will be a great book!  What a refreshing and blunt assessment of what is wrong with the current way the federal government procures software.

Even though Will Thalheimer’s post is directed to learning professionals, his observation that unleashing too much information on the public can be overwhelming and confusing is a great warning for open government advocates.  So, when discussing opening up government data to the public, there also needs to be a complementary effort to help citizens understand and manage the massive data flow.  Maybe it should be Open-and-EngagedGov rather than just OpenGov.

Along the same lines of my own research – simulation of cultural change.  Computational social science is going to revolutionize the social sciences as simulation revolutionized the hard sciences.

Great interactive demonstration of the Space Communication Network.  Good example of creative of citizen engagement.

My other day job is teaching web development and political communication for the University of Louisville.  I’ve taught college classes for ten years now and to a wide range of ages.  That is why I am skeptical about the concept of the Digital Natives (students born between 1980 and 2000).  In my experience, age is not a good predictor of the technical expertise of students.  This is why I was glad to see a recent article in The Economist that validated my anecdotal experiences.

According to the “Net Generation, Unplugged,” there is growing skepticism among academics that the digital natives are any better at technology than the other generations.

“Michael Wesch, who pioneered the use of new media in his cultural anthropology classes at Kansas State University, is also sceptical [sic], saying that many of his incoming students have only a superficial familiarity with the digital tools that they use regularly, especially when it comes to the tools’ social and political potential. Only a small fraction of students may count as true digital natives, in other words. The rest are no better or worse at using technology than the rest of the population.”

This is important to the OpenGov community because preconceptions about how the generations approach technology can hinder efforts for openness and engagement.  These preconceptions can also affect how new government managers are treated as they enter the workforce.  As Jennifer Deal argues in her book, Retiring the Generation Gap: How Employees Young and Old Can Find Common Ground, the generations all want the same things (family, recognition, achievement, etc.) but how they perceive each other is what causes the gaps.  Changing perceptions is the first step in better engagement.

Federal CIO, Vivek Kundra, describes the inefficient use of technology of federal government at a recent speech.  Inefficiencies such as forms that are entered online, printed out, passed around in manila folders, and then rekeyed into another computer system.  This is nothing new and federal employees are quite aware of these inefficiencies.   So, why don’t the agencies just adopt new technologies?

It can be summed up as the agencies are more comfortable with the devil they know then a possible devil they don’t know.  A fascinating study on why rural hospitals don’t readily adopt new technologies describes six barriers to adoption.  Understanding and confronting these barriers can help overcome inefficiencies.

The first barrier, cost, is an obvious one and quite relevant to current state of the federal budget.  Legality, the second barrier is also a well-understood cause.  President Obama’s policy of Open Government addresses and overcomes these barriers.  But the remaining four barriers may be more difficult because they are tied into the culture of government.

Time is a barrier because implementing and learning a new technology may take longer to realize than an impatient public is willing to give.  Political appointees also like to see immediate results and may not have the patience for a new technology.  Allied with time are the barriers of inefficiency and complexity.  Poorly implemented new technology solutions will provide “proof” that the old system may be ineffective but not as bad as the new “ineffeciency.”

The above barriers all feed into the fundamental barrier – the fear of change.  Technologies and processes are embedded in the culture of the organization.  Technology adoption is not plug-n-play where you can easily swap one process for another.  Adopting new technologies takes time, trust, and the willingness to tolerate failure as the employees learn to use the new technologies.  Again, change is not about technology but about people.

UPDATE: Firoze Lafeer makes an insightful comment that government should require contractors to set aside funds for developing Plan B innovations while creating the Plan A innovation.

Imagine if the federal government had a similar contest for its 1.2 million employees.  Probably the most amazing burst of innovation and productivity in the government’s IT infrastructure.