What next for government transformation?

December is the month that public servants, at the end of the year, publish the results of their work, and take some time off to spend with their families, knowing that the evidence of their achievements during the year is open for review by the public. Three governments – USA, UK and Australia - released major documents in December, and they give some signposts for the trends that we can expect to see in 2010 and beyond.

On December 22, Australia published Engage – getting on with Government 2.0, the report from a TaskForce set up by the Prime Minister to make recommendations on improving the accessibility, transparency, innovation, and collaboration of government. The report contains an excellent statement of the benefits and challenges of using ICT, particularly social media/web 2.0 tools. The report makes strong recommendations for government action, proposing both policy and operational changes to secure the identified benefits. The Task Force places a high priority on the value of freeing up public sector information (PSI), listing how PSI can be managed as a national resource to deliver increased accountability, economic growth and social benefits). It is particularly encouraging that the Task Force practiced what it preached – with extensive use of the taskforce blog, and community participation during the development of the report. (Disclosure – I was a member of the international reference group).

Earlier in the month, on December 8th, the UK government published Putting the Frontline First: smarter government, which also contains a strong emphasis on the value of opening up government data. The report has a broader aim than the Australian task force, considering how to improve the quality of public services through the use of ICT, devolving more responsibility to the frontline for regional and local services, and streamlining central government. Of particular relevance to readers of FutureGov will be the sections on “Accelerate the move to digitalised public services” (placing the emphasis on increased usage of online services, and a new “Tell Us Once” service), “Radically open up data” (creating a single access point for valuable public datasets, making them free for reuse), and “Harness the power of comparative data“ (using data on frontline performance to drive better performance, by giving citizens and professionals the tools to act as catalysts for change).

Also on December 8, the US government issued the Open Government Directive, which establish a clear action plan for individual government agencies to implement the commitment made by President Obama in his Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government, issued on his first day in office January 21, 2009. In a remarkable year, the Federal US government has demonstrated strong leadership in the use of Open Government to strengthen transparency, participation, and collaboration. Over the coming weeks, I will write about a number of common themes from these three landmark publications; here I discuss just one – Open Government.

All three governments recognise the value of opening up government data (covered in my final post as New Zealand’s Government CIO in April 2009). It is not an exaggeration to nominate Open Government Data as the most important idea of 2009; at the start of the year Open Data was an emerging concept, and each of these end-of-year publications shows how deeply the idea is now embedded in core government policy and operations. More links on this major shift in government policy thinking can be found in this article I wrote last year.

All three reports highlight the importance of engagement between government and citizens to strengthen trust in government, develop better policy, reduce operating costs and release resources for front-line service delivery.

Ensuring that government information is freely available is a foundation concept that has been enacted in legislation in a large number of countries, and a number of governments have also established independent agencies to monitor and oversee the operation of the legislation.

Government agencies are not able to respond to the demands for information – from individuals, the media, businesses and not-for-profit organisations. This is because government is currently operating as a “retailer” of information – using data that has been collected to prepare official reports; government needs to move to being a wholesaler of information, allowing the community to create the reports using government supplied data.

(also posted at http://www.futuregov.net/blog/2010/jan/5/what-next-government-transformation/)

NZ in the new information economy

I contributed to the Listener Feature article on Twenty Ideas for a Better World :

Sunrise or Sunset economic development?

The 21^st century will be the Information century – weightless products and services will be the engine of global economic growth, fuelled by the internet. This single market of two billion people will demand increasing information processing capability - massive data centres using renewable power with a long run competitive price. Almost 10% of NZs electricity generation capacity is currently used at Tiwai Point for a 20th century business - importing alumina and exporting manufactured aluminium. NZ is internationally respected for integrity, we have a "green" brand, a stable legal and regulatory regime, and last month were confirmed as the least corrupt country in the world. These factors create a unique competitive advantage for a globally attractive data centre facility drawing on renewable Manapouri energy. The information industry is at a discontinuity point. Do we have the vision and courage to seize the opportunity and establish NZ as a trusted provider of services to the new global economy?

This post places the article in a wider context . Feel free to contribute via comments.

What can we expect this century?

Thinking about the 21st century world economy, it is not easy to project forward 90 years; imagine forecasting 2009 from 1919 – faster buggy whips anyone?

But there are some clear signals; it will be an information century, and there will be a single global economy connected using the Internet - we are still at early stages in the history of the Internet, and it will continue to evolve. There will be a massive increase in information-based products and services - entertainment, movies, e-books, and other e-things not yet invented - as all products move to this single open infrastructure.

Think how financial markets have evolved over the last 40 years since capital flows went global – recall Walter Wriston, talking about the Twilight of Sovereignty which I referenced in an earlier post. Now think what similar globalisation will mean for information-based products, and imagine the disruption as one single market is created.

Information in this century will be universally available, in any language, updatable from anywhere on the planet, at any time. It will be copied and distributed instantly at zero cost.

What will this flat world look like?

In this new economy, points of commerce will emerge (in a similar way to the entrepots of the 18th century, or the financial centres of the 20th century) – attractor locations in an otherwise flat world. Network economics will drive more and more interaction to these attractors, which will develop unassailable critical mass, securing a long-term ringside seat - top tier countries in the digital information economy. Other locations, service providers, and economies will be relegated to a second tier seating, where they jostle for position as feeders to the top tier.

We are still early in the century, and the seat tickets have not yet been claimed; for example in the entertainment and media world, NZ has a top tier seat, based on the work of Weta Workshop. As a consequence of this creative leadership, we have also built a technology capability and now NZ has eight supercomputers in the world's top 500, compared to one in Australia.

For an example of how a country has identified the future potential, consider Singapore's Intelligent Nation vision - iN2015 . The Singapore story of the last 50 years is remarkable– successfully establishing a viable and growing economy with no natural resources. Now they are looking to maintain a leadership position in the information century, and have aligned their activities - government and private sector behind this strategic vision.

Future success

What is needed to become one of these attractors – a top tier player in the information economy?

In my view the most important pre-requisite is a strategic intent to be a player – that is, a national decision that this is where we want our economy to be in 50 years time.

The characteristics needed to be successful are many, and I would not presume to know what they all are. I do know that a collection of NZ leaders, drawn from multiple disciplines and focused on the question, could develop a shortlist, and assess our current position – world leader, in the peloton, or off the pace – in each. Then we could develop a build/buy/partner approach to strengthen areas where we are not currently competitive, and position us for success.

I think it likely that physical presence, in the form of the global data centre that I suggested in the Listener article, is likely to be one – not something that will differentiate a country, but a necessary price of being in the top tier. There is also the related infrastructure - power, bandwidth and international connectivity, and when I have talked with people this is the area where the discussion has focused. There are lots of reasons why we could not build such a facility – we don't have the funds to invest, there is no payback, there will be even less jobs for a data centre than for an aluminium smelter, we don't have the bandwidth, we don’t have the .... In my view these technology and infrastructure issues can be solved by investment.

The strategic assets that a country will need to claim and retain a top tier position are a lot more difficult to secure simply by investment - assets such as trust, integrity, a stable legal and regulatory regime, and good relations with both the West and Asia (the Internet economy is moving inexorably to the population centres of China and India). These assets are core to New Zealand values, and we need to protect and nurture our current leadership position in these (for example NZ has the least corrupt public sector in the world according to the Transparency International annual survey)

People are the third essential ingredient (after technology and values). As life in the world becomes more difficult (crowding, pollution, climate, traffic, violence - pick your own dystopian trigger), New Zealand becomes an increasingly attractive place to live. We have a special place in the world's consciousness as an accessible and friendly Shangri-la; how many people, when they hear you are from NZ say "Oh, I've always wanted to go there"? If we can attract creativity and build more components needed for success in the digital information economy, there is no reason why we should not sit in a top tier seat.

The big question

The top tier seats will be claimed over the next 10-20 years. To get one will require focused strategic thinking, which is then transformed into action, by government, private sector investors and individuals. Are we up to it?

"while the future's there for anyone to change
still you know it seems
it would easier sometimes to change the past"

(Fountain of Sorrow, Jackson Browne 1974)

Ga1a strikes back

Has there been an increase in unusual natural disasters recently of more extreme weather leading to flooding, more earthquakes and tsunamis, and more hurricanes and tornados? Or is it just an increase in the vividness of the reporting, beaming live footage of distress into our living rooms or mobile phones. While there is definitely more loss of life (more people living in 'at risk" places), and more reporting, the evidence seems to suggest that, in addition, the world is getting more unpredictable.



I can't help but harbour a sneaking suspicion that as we move inexorably beyond the 350 threshold, that mother earth, Gaia, is sending increasingly impatient signals saying "enough already". This is echoed by Bill McKibben : "The negotiations that will happen in Copenhagen aren't really about what we want to do, or what the Chinese want to do, or what Exxon Mobil wants to do. They're about what physics and chemistry want to do: the physical world has set its bottom line at 350, and it's not likely to budge."

Some suggested that the financial meltdown in 2008 was Gaia trying to communicate with global policy makers in the only language they understood – economics and markets; while this may be a bit fanciful, it is clear that the real power is held by nature rather than man.





Everywhere you look there is evidence of this, apart from in the urban centres where policy makers and politicians spend all their lives.

The recent establishment of the G20 to include such countries such as Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Indoensia in addition to the Old Powers was a recognition of the importance of enrolling more leaders in charting the future of the planet. As Paul Collier observed, there are any number of G groupings from the G77 (who have no voice, other than the voice of dignity in poverty), to the G5, who have the economic muscle to compel countries to avoid the tragedy of the commons and work for the collective good.

I hope they do, otherwise there is a real chance that G1 (Ga1a) will decide that she has had enough of the human race destroying the planet and issue an eviction order.

Open Data － the three-legged stool

It was great to see the launch of www.data.govt.nz this week – an official catalog of New Zealand government data sources. It follows the launch of similar sites in the US and Australia. The NZ site includes a discussion forum, and the opportunity to suggest data sources, both of which suggest an openness to working with the wider community. Australia offers an an RSS feed of newly added datasets, and US offers featured tools, both of which could enhance the NZ site.

All three sites come from a world view that has government at the centre, and the sole source of information. While that perspective is understandable when you are working in government, there is a risk that the mental model of a hub and spoke (with government as the hub) will constrain co-creation.

I prefer the mental model of a three legged stool for Open Government Data - supply of data, demand for data and tools to work with the data; all are needed to create success. The three legs can develop at different speeds, but without a growth in all three, we will not have an effective result.

We are seeing an exciting growth in the area of tools – check out examples such as Gapminder, ManyEyes, Swivel, and Datamasher. Both Australia and the US have competitions for open source tools, and there continues to be re-use of software and ideas between governments (such as the Parliament mashup and For your Information). So that leg of the stool is strong and growing.

There is emerging evidence of political commitment to open government data. The launch of data.govt.nz is an important milestone in strengthening the supply side of data, and was launched by the Minister of Internal Affairs, Hon Nathan Guy. In Canberra, the Hon Lindsay Tanner, Minister of Finance and Deregulation said at the recent gov2.0 conference that the Govt 2.0 TaskForce is fundamental to the Rudd government and his role as Minister of Finance. The release by SSC of the Government Open Access Licensing (NZGOAL) discussion draft is another positive step. So we also have a demand side that is getting steadily stronger.

In the USA, there is also a strong demand side – initiatives and institutions like the Sunlight Foundation, OReilly Radar, Governing People, and a myriad of others, reflect a society and economy with a high level of energy and funding from within the community, demanding better results from government. In New Zealand, possibly as a result of our size, there is a much less well developed not-for-profit sector, and organisations in the voluntary sector are fragmented and stretched. The 2020 Communications Trust has been a steady presence in the community side of ICT for many years, and I am delighted to have recently joined as a trustee. While there is a small group of enthusiastic participants in the open government movement, this leg of the stool needs strengthening.

Andrea deMaio blogged this week that the critical succes factor for govt 2.0 is to let it go, and letting go is pretty scary. We need to ensure that the third leg - the community - is strong enough so that when government does let go, the stool is stable enough to remain upright.

Don't accept a NO from somebody who can't give you a YES in the first place

The Gov.0 Summit was held in Washington DC earlier in September. The speakers were a who's who of IT and government. The title of this post is my favourite quote from the event (a variation on the “seek forgiveness rather than permission”) from Michele Quaid.

Attendees were mainly from the US - catchphrases like "East meets West" and "Geeks go to Washington" illustrate the IT folk from Silicon Valley working with the federal folk from Washington. There were a small number of overseas attendees – I met people from UK, Canada, Australia, and Singapore – plus myself and Nat Torkington from NZ. Nat spoke about his views on the radio yesterday.

I tweeted from the conference continuously, so you can read the full stream, if you have the stamina, or can visualise the content from my comments on twitter.(produced by www.wordle.net).

All the material from the conference is available online. In this post I highlight the items that were of particular resonance for me, with links to more information. From the links you can generally find a Powerpoint and a video to see more. Use this like a menu – choose the dishes that attract you.

Law is the Operating System of Democracy

• Used more than once by speakers discussing the importance of free and open access to legal proceedings.
• Government information is national infrastructure and an engine of innovation. Carl Malamud, the only speaker to get a standing ovation.

Government needs to shift from being a retailer of data to providing wholesale data

• Successful information businesses have operated as a platform - iPhone is the classic example. Govt can get uptake by learning from this. Tim O’Reilly opening keynote
• Every platform has a killer app. 2.0 closes the loop to consumer about energy consumption.
• Open and decentralised delivers results ecosystem - open source, ethernet, TCP/IP, Wifi. All based on idea of shared resources Mitch Kapor on government as a platform.
• What is the role of government in information infrastructure? Government as platform provider of last resort, as well as building on existing platforms.
  
• Government is in the wholesale data business. Focus should be on quality of data, let the community do presentation.
  
• If you have never seen Gapminder, check it out – the community is much better placed to use these tools to create insight from official data.

Government data is public data

• Public means on-line. Public means real-time. Government role is wholesale and retail.
• Priority for government is to produce machine readable data (wholesale). Secondary is interpretation (retail) which many can do - any interpretation of data is only one view.
• Appsforamerica2 shows that true value lies at the intersection of data feeds.
  
• A government agency can’t mash up data from multiple agencies.
  
• Government provides the platform for the public as watchdog and innovator.
• Discussion between Ellen Miller (Sunlight Foundation) and Vivek Kundra (Government CIO).

Three values of open government: transparency, participation, and collaboration

• Each agency must have a roadmap for Open Government.
• Roadmap is not just technology, also includes people and operations. Schedule for publishing data online in raw structured machine readable formats.
• Policy work on how legal framework needs to be reinterpreted in a 2.0 world.
• How can anyone argue against open and transparency? It's a triple whammy - tap into wisdom and expertise, strengthen trust in government, reduce costs.
• Beth Noveck Director of the White House Open Government Initiative.

Use wikis and other collaborative tools to create policy on how to open up govt data (aka Eat your own dogfood)

• From discussion with Aneesh Chopra, US Chief Technology Officer.
  

If you can’t describe what you are delivering in a few words, you’re probably doing it wrong.

• Words of wisdom based on real world experience from Tom Steinberg in eight and a half minutes.

Open source delivers Moore’s Law for software

• Cost nothing to acquire - costs nothing to retire.
• .. and many other sound bites on open source from Michael Tiemann.
  

Vint Cerf See why he still rocks - on the video

• TCP/IP being open was critical to breaking dominance of proprietary.
• Platforms of liberation and platforms of control. Is there an inevitability that they move to the control model as they go dominant.
• Twitter as the channel for the intenet of things?
• If I designed the internet knowing what I know now, I would have done more on authentication, and mobility.

Thomas Watson was out by 4

• Thomas Watson, head of IBM, famouly predicted that the market was big enough for five computers. He was wrong – the internet is a single connected computer.

• Tim O’Reilly in discussion with Craig Mundie (Microsoft CTO).

"I decided not to move to XX after I checked it out on the EPA site"

• An email to the site manager about the personal impact of access to information on the levels of environmental pollution by location.

"Is it disrespectful to wear virtual shoes in a virtual mosque?"

• Presentation on Digital Diplomacy: Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds - using second life as a way of enabling better understanding of different cultures.

Make a real difference to people’s lives

• UNICEF use SMS and mobile phones to collect data from the field in Malawi and respond with thank you and diagnosis. Python code on www.unicefinnovation.org.

San Francisco open data

• CivicDB.org is open source community for public access to raw government data in machine readable formats – includes utilities for conversion of data files from XL to more useable forms for mashup. Offshoot from DataSF.org.

The winner of the department of defence cyberchallenge hacked the server holding the scores.

• That says STYLE. Here he is.

Just because you can mashup data doesn’t mean you should.

• Winner of Apps for America2.

"Only pack it if you can hack it."

• Army speaking to the culture of improvisation and RedHat. Surface innovation by soldiers on forge.mil, for widespread deployment.

Health sector innovations

• Some neat ones here. I especially liked Healthloop (automated email between doctor and patient on effect of medication on patient daily) – in Healthspottr presentation. As well as feedback to GP, can provide aggregate data on effectiveness of medication for public health policy purposes.

Geospatial is foundation information infrastructure.

• Extraordinary demonstration by ESRI on what can be done with geo-mashup (demo is about half way through the video – worth waiting through the talking head).
• If Geo is the bones of the new global computer, then identity must be the arteries.

Beyond geo - Augmented Reality as new public infrastructure

• Eat your heart out William Gibson.

National Broadband is the major infrastructure challenge for this generation.

• Like the railways and the electricity grid for previous generations - Chairman of FCC Julius Genachowski.
• Policy and program development is designed to be open and participatory - 20 consultation meetings streamed online last month.
• Level of involvement very high for a dull regulatory subject - sign of the (2.0) times and the importance of broadband.

Is Gov2.0 a political struggle over power & accountability? Or an upgrade?

• Article about the summit in Personal Democracy Forum.
  

45% of government systems are low risk – can be in public cloud.

• Avoid wasting public money on the management of commodities. Government agencies and cloud computing Casey Coleman, CIO, GSA.

Use your gmail logon for govt low risk sites

• OpenID Pilot Program announced by US Government.
  

What makes government sites work?

• Organize content for the public
• Rely on (and don’t fear) Web 2.0
• Listen (and respond) to user needs
• Know visitors come to conduct specific tasks
• Engage customers with candid, well written blogs

Start small, fail quick

This mantra for Gov2.0 development was mentioned by multiple speakers; it is hard for government to action, but essential as we operate in a richly connected 21st century world.

"We are all individuals" - "I'm not"

My favourite Monty Python is this priceless gem from the movie "Life of Brian".

I am sure the Python team had not foreseen the chattering classes that now make up the on-line world, but behind the humour of paradox, there is an important truth - everyone being an individual does not a movement make.

The Sound of Silence

I went to a performance of John Cageś 4´33 by Margaret Tan some years ago. This legendary piece is in three movements, all of them consisting of silence - the performer not playing their instrument.The content of the composition is meant to be perceived as the sounds of the environment that the listeners hear while it is performed, rather than merely as four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence.

At the performance I attended, Margaret played the piece on a toy piano, opening and closing the lid of the piano to mark the end of each movement - the first being timed at 30 seconds, the second (the long second movement) being 2′40″ and the final movement of 1′20″. She invited the audience to turn on their mobile phones for the duration of the piece. The effect was extraordinary - the concert hall was filled with a constellation of sound that covered the entire classical music spectrum (saying something about the choice of ring tone for people that attend such concerts). It was a dramatic illustration of the sheer volume of interactions between people.

The global babble

Now in the transparent world of 2.0, we have visibility of how much people talk to other people - on Facebook, Twitter and blogosphere - or sometimes just to the void, in the hope that someone is listening. I was told as a child that I had one mouth and two ears, and should use them in the right proportions. Well, we clearly have ten fingers and are using them all to communicate to the world.

And each person has their own point of view and story to tell, so where can we find or seek the new collective narrative?

The traditional sources of collective narrative, based on personal interactions, are all being dissipated in the new rolling conversations that are happening around the world, around the clock. None of the old sources of authority seem to be relevant any more: we have increasingly fragmented religion, and the old ideologies - communism, socialism, capitalism - all seem to fall short of our collective expectation.

Analysis? - FAIL

One possible response is to break down the world into smaller chunks, to a size that we are capable of understanding; problem is, there are no tidy segments that the ideas or the dialog fit into.

As an aside, I attended the World Summit Awards last week. The awards seek to recognise great use of internet technologies in eight categories - e-Business & Commerce, e-Government & Institutions, e-Health & Environment, e-Learning & Education, Entertainment & Games, e-Science & Technology, e-Inclusion & Participation, and e-Culture & Heritage. There were 20,000 entries from 157 countries and some extraordinary innovations and achievements in the winning 40. While the categories were needed to organise the judging, there were no clear boundaries between the different domains, and indeed all knowledge connects.

How can we cope with the sheer volume of opinion. Thanks to Confused of Calcutta last month for pointing out The Mountain Men’s Three Wolf Moon Short Tee Shirt.
¨Just take a look at the reviews of the item on Amazon. 136 customer reviews. 13,171 finding the first review helpful. 181 comments on that review. Don’t stop there, you must take a look at some of the other reviews. Preferably while sitting down in a comfortable position.¨

It puts me in mind of Google´s audacious goal - ¨to organise the world´s information¨ - which I think is unachievable. Any classification system - Dewey, Dublin Core, or metadata - will collapse under the weight of the world´s information and the peopleś perspective. Ever tried to create a search engine in Mandarin? - well neither have I, but I am told it is a real challenge because the characters have different meanings dependent on context.

Meaning is lost in the choices that are made. The search for a new semantic order is a courageous undertaking.

What can bring it together?

We do seem to have a basic need for a unifying narrative - if history is any indicator. A new narrative needs to be global, multi-cultural, inclusive and trans-national, if indeed one is possible.

This leads me to conclude that the health of the planet - ecology, green movement, sustainability - is the only possible narrative that will be able to connect such a diversity of interests.

The topic of Climate Change has increased in importance over the last few years, with major debates about the level of emission reduction that can be expected, and what will be needed to stave off catastrophe. The only focal point for such action is the United Nations, an institution that has considerable political baggage; the risk is that the need for action on climate change is supplanted by debates on the role and value of the UN, and other options for global governance (which is where I started this story).

However, for all it´s faults, the UN is all we have right now and we will see how effectively that is working at the Copenhagen Summit in December.

Dealing with SPIN - the four horsemen

Nicholas Gruen, leading the Australian Government 2.0 task force proposed a new theory of SPIN (Serial Professional Innovation Negation); the theory outlines the very strong political incentives against greater risk taking, which in turn holds up the adoption of Web 2.0 approaches – and indeed quite a few Web 1.0 approaches.

I cross-post my comment from the blog here, but I highly recommend that you visit the original post, and the ensuing commentary - essential reading for anyone interested in technology led change in government.

===============

Good to see the conversation getting to the heart of the challenges that the TaskForce faces.

Government is a large and complex organisation, with most incentives geared towards maintaining the status quo (because that is the natural state of power in any large complex organisation). “2.0″ is disruptive technology that will re-engineer information flows within government and between government and the people. But the natural order is for strong resistance from within (Machiavelli first pointed this out), and technology will only be effective when operating in combination with other forces.

In my view there are four forces for change that can be channelled to achieve change in government – leadership, economics, heroes and citizens.

Leadership has to come from political leaders – they alone are the ones that can adjust the values that public servants operate within. However, other political issues – education, healthcare, taxation, foreign affairs, environment, transport, law and order – will always be higher up the agenda than reform of the bureaucracy.

Economics is a powerful force for change – organisations change when they can no longer afford to stay the same. In NZ, where I am based, the financial crisis that we faced in the 1980s (as a result of the collapse of our agricultural exports to Britain arising from the EU) led to major reform of the public service. There have been similar pressures in most other jurisdictions, and there is some indication that the current global financial meltdown will create some additional pressure for change. As the current catch phrase goes: “never waste a good crisis”.

Heroes is the word I use for those who operate within the public service to drive change from within. These can range from “skunk-works” activities to free up government information, to personal leadership of high visibility transformational change programmes by senior public servants. The bigger the change, the bigger the fall, and the less incentive to take the risk.

Citizens are the most powerful force that will, over time, create change. The role of txt messaging in the fall of the Estrada government in the Philippines in 2001, and the recent power of twitter in Iran after the election are two dramatic examples. Other examples include the use of people’s choice to drive better performance in service delivery in government administration.

Effective public service transformation have components of all four of these forces acting together. I give three examples here, I am sure anyone on this discussion can create their own:

1. The movement that is currently sweeping through American federal government – started by a combination of leadership (Obama) and citizens (internet campaigning), reinforced by economics, and some emerging heroes within the administration.

2. The current change in California, almost entirely driven by economics at this stage, and needing an enrolment of leadership, citizens and heroes, if it is to pull out of a downward spiral.

3. Government reform in the UK in the 1990s, which used a combination of leadership (Tony Blair) and citizen choice, supported by heroes in various government agencies and only a small amount of economic pressure.

So what should we do if we want to drive government transformation ? Make sure that all four of these forces for change are harnessed to a common future vision. Government 2.0 can deliver lower cost government, economic growth, citizen engagement, and rewarding job opportunities for those in the public service with the courage to seize them.