Will Gov 2.0 initiatives be created by individuals or organisations for profit or illegal goals?

As an advocate for Gov 2.0 and open data I frequently encourage government agencies to work more closely with communities, tapping their expertise and experience to improve the operations of government.

However I'm not blind to the risks of community involvement.

Welcoming the crowd risks welcoming individuals, groups and organisations with agendas which may include commercial, criminal or extreme goals, which may not reflect the community at large.

For example, right now there's a major push on to encourage the 10% of adult Australians who are not yet registered to vote to do so before the upcoming federal election. In particular roughly half a million young Australians are not yet registered to vote.

The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), the government body responsible for managing electoral processes, has a campaign targeting younger voters, sending ambassadors to major music festivals and advertising through appropriate channels to reach this group.

Likewise TripleJ, a publicly funded radio station, is working with the AEC with the RockEnrol campaign to encourage the same goal.

Alongside these government-supported approaches are two independent campaigns, one supporting enrolment directly (Enrol for Gold), the second supporting it indirectly by informing potential new voters (Virgin Voters).

The first is from GetUp, an Australian grass-roots advocacy group. GetUp has created a campaign 'Enrol for Gold' which is giving a total of $40,000 in prize money in a competition for people who enrol to vote after 21 July. It's an interesting approach to encourage enrolment - one that a government could not use, but could be very appealing to elements of the community and support the overall AEC goals to raise the level of enrolment.

This campaign, although independent from the AEC, has clear information in their Terms and Privacy Policy which restrict any reuse of the information collected in the competition for any other purpose.

The second independent enrolment campaign is called Virgin Voters. The campaign is designed around supporting first-time voters to make good decisions with their federal vote.

The Canberra Times has been told that Virgin Voters was created to find and follow eight first-time voters through the federal election campaign to create a program about their experiences.

The site includes information a first-time voter will need to know, such as how Australia's political system works, who gets to vote, how to vote and details on Australia's 35 federal political parties. Very supportively there's information for both eligible young voters and for high school students (and their teachers) who might be following the process, but still ineligible to vote.

The site invites people to participate in television, radio, social media and print as an 'official VirginVoters Voice' through it's voicebox approach, and also encourages first-time voters to sign up to the campaign's Facebook page and Twitter feed.

The site bills itself as the voice of first-time voters and claims to be 'the most innovative social media commentary on any Federal Election'.

Despite the grand promise, the Virgin Voters site (at the time of writing) has little information about who is operating the site, why they are running it, who is funding it or whether the site is for profit.

There's also no privacy policy (at the time of writing). That's right, the site doesn't explain what happens to information submitted by people to VoiceBox, or how it will be used. This is disturbing to any experienced internet user and I hope they fix it soon.

With a little digging, and some twitter enquiries (where I did not get a specific answer) I've discovered Virgin Voters is run by the organisation credited in the site with its design (although there's no link). This is Pineapple Media, a company that specialises in creating programming and promotions for television, radio and print.

The person credited as the contact for Virgin Voters is the principal of PineApple Media, Richard Attieh - although this is currently not explicitly mentioned in the Virgin Voters site.

So is Virgin Voters a genuine Gov 2.0 initiative from a concerned individual and his organisation to support Australian democracy by giving first-time voters a voice in media?

Or is it an attempt to use the federal election and the naiviety of first-time (often 18yr old) voters to make profits for a media company by providing talent for programming?

I think Richard and Virgin Voters mean well, but will leave it up to readers to form their own conclusion.

What I believe this example demonstrates is that while there are many civic minded people and organisations who are using Government 2.0 approaches to help support, influence or improve government transparency in a positive way, there is room for the same or similar approaches to be used for pure commercial goals.

It may even be possible to use the guise of Government 2.0 to seek to achieve extreme or criminal goals.

What will it mean for government in the future if third parties use government data or piggyback on government goals in inappropriate ways?

Will there need to be better citizen education to help the community to make informed choices on who they provide information to, or more policing of online initiatives purporting to support government goals and programs?

Will governments rely on existing laws and frameworks, or need to legislate how and when government programs may be mentioned, leveraged and engaged with?

I think these are questions that most governments have not yet even engaged with.

Complete the 2013 Community Management survey for Australia and New Zealand

Quiip and Delib Australia have launched the second annual online community management survey for Australia and New Zealand.

The survey aims to help local organisations and individuals better understand the skills required to work in these professions, help uncover role challenges, training and support needs and the actual work and salaries that online community management and social media management professionals can expect.

The results of the survey will be presented at Swarm later this year and released online as a free report.

For more information visit Quiip's site at quiip.com.au/online-community-management-2013-survey.

To complete the survey go to au.citizenspace.com/app/delib-au/cmsurvey2013 or click on the button above.

For a copy of last year's report visit: quiip.com.au/2013/03/26/australian-community-manager-benchmark-report

Note: I'm involved in the design and management and will be involved in the analysis and reporting for this survey. The goal is to provide information that organisations can use to design community management and social media management roles and to help identify the training and support individuals working in these professions require to be most effective.

Social media impacts on ICT teams - presentation from the Technology in Government conference

Over the last two days I've been down at the Technology in Government conference - an event I thought went very well, with a great group of speakers (including the UK Government's CIO Liam Maxwell).

I gave a presentation this morning, and chaired the afternoon, for the Connected Government stream and have uploaded my presentation for wider access.

In it I discussed the impact of social media on agency ICT teams and some potential approaches they can take to work with business areas to ensure that agency goals are met with a minimum of intra-agency friction.

Overall my message was that social media must be engaged with, not ignored, in government and agency ICT teams have a role to play.

There's several stances ICT teams can take - whether as a leader, supporter or observer of agency social media efforts and, depending on this stance, they could take on a greater or lesser involvement in the various roles required to implement a successful social media approach.

Social media offers benefits for ICT teams, as it does for other areas of agencies - it is simply up to ICT leadership to either step up and work with business areas in a closer ongoing way, or stay out of the way and allow other areas of an agency to move forward.

Fantastic article: The more things change: Technology, government and the public sector

Martin Stewart-Weeks, Senior Director, Public Sector, Cisco Consulting Services, has written a fantastic article on the potential for technology to disrupt and create new possibilities for governments and the public sector.

The article discusses how technology is changing the shape and speed of government, as well as many jobs in the public sector, and looks at potential models for reshaping the public service to meet the needs of the 21st Century.

The article was presented at the Australian Government Leaders Network event in July 2013 and, with Martin's permission, I've included a copy below.

It is well worth a read! 

IAB Australia releases free guide to Best Practice in Content Moderation for social media

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Australia has released a free guide to Best Practice in Content Moderation for social media channels, drawing on the experience of organisations like Quiip and Dialogue Consulting.

The guide, while targeted at the private sector, is quite applicable to the public sector. It references many of the same steps I personally recommend to government agencies and councils (have a content moderation policy, publish it, have an internal moderation plan, create a escalation process for difficult comments and crises) and adds some useful tips and recommendations useful for anyone involved in community management.

The IAB's guide is available from their website at: http://iabaustralia.com.au/en/About_IAB/Media_Releases/2013_-_IAB_Australia_releases_Social_Media_Comment_Moderation_Guidelines.aspx

I've also uploaded it to Scribd and embedded it below for easy access - as the document in their site is in a nonstandard ashx format.

Please note the free guide is copyright to the IAB Australia. I'm simply helping build awareness and ensure it is more widely accessible to people.

The guide would have been well suited for release under a Creative Commons, Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia license (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 AU) instead.

Contribute to The Guide for Opening Government

In an example of openness in action, the Transparency and Accountability Initiative (T/AI) is redeveloping The Guide to Opening Government using a collaborative approach.

First developed by the T/AI in 2011 with leading experts, The Guide brought together key practical steps governments can take to achieve openness, supporting civil society organisations and governments to develop and update effective Open Government Action Plans.

The T/AI is now working to update The Guide in a transparent and collaborative manner.

Bringing together expert organisations and participants in the Open Government Partnership, the T/AI is working to update and expand The Guide into a richer online resource with new topic areas and more lessons and updates from ongoing experience.

You can contribute to the new version of The Guide to Opening Government at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/16VYWpslkyE0w9tZwIApisQB8zKXtsThtC7kjh9TQPy4/edit?disco=AAAAAGGEkNU# 

How should governments educate agencies about open data?

Australia now has eight whole-of-jurisdiction open data catalogues at state and federal level, alongside agency-based repositories such as at the ABS and Geosciences Australia.

There's now a recommendation, if not a clear mandate, that agencies release data in some kind of open form - although machine-readable data remains limited and some agencies have attempted to develop their own copyright processes rather than using a pre-existing scheme such as Creative Commons (the standard to by Attorney-Generals several years ago and implemented as default in several jurisdictions).

However the quantity of data released remains low - as does the quality and context around much of the data that has been released. Agencies still resist calls to release data, with some requiring FOI requests to prompt them rather than proactively provide data to the public for reuse.

While a growing group of public servants at both senior and junior levels are becoming more aware of open data, there is often still a low level of awareness about what open data means, why it is important, what agencies have been requested to do and what this means in practice.

This isn't an issue unique to Australia, it is a challenge in every jurisdiction releasing open data around the world - over 300 of them.

Fortunately some jurisdictions have recognised this issue and taken steps to address it.

A great example is the City of Philadelphia in the United States of America.

Philadelphia had been an early entry into the open data space, originally releasing its GIS (Geographic information system) data free to the public in 2001, long before the open data movement gained steam.

However they had lost steam by 2009, with other city, state and national governments moving forward with their own open data sites. As the city was in the midst of the GFC and couldn't afford to develop its own open data presence, it worked with a group of open data advocates and companies, who had an interest in accessing and using the data - particularly with Azavea, a data visualisation company.

The resulting site, OpenDataPhilly, is still a great example of a very usable open data site and the City has used it effectively to expose much of the data it already had made public and build on this with additional data.

However, like other jurisdictions, the City of Philadelphia struck the same issue in terms of many public servants not understanding the value or importance of open data. While I can't speak specifically for the City of Philadelphia's experience, this issue can lead to the gradual decay of open data sites, with few new datasets added, old data not being updated and data that is released not having been collected in ways designed to simplify and reduce the cost of publishing.

As a result, two years after launching OpenDataPhilly, the City's government has released the Open Data Guidebook, designed to provide practical guidance to City of Philadelphia departments and agencies on the release of open data to the public.

Released as a work-in-progress Google Doc and subject to regular updates, the Open Data Guidebook is an excellent guide for any jurisdiction seeking to increase internal awareness and understanding of open data and its value to government and the community.

Will the Australian Government take an open government approach to developing its Open Government National Action Plan?

Now that Australia has finally sent a letter of intent to join the Open Government Partnership, I've been reading examples of how other jurisdictions went about developing their National Action Plans (a requirement of OGP membership) to foster and support government openness.

It is clear that one of the key attributes of the most meaningful Plans is broad engagement with external and internal stakeholders and with the public on what should be included and emphasised within the National Action Plan itself.

For example, the US's second National Action Plan states:

As it developed a U.S. National Action Plan (“National Plan”), the Federal Government engaged in extensive consultations with external stakeholders, including a broad range of civil society groups and members of the private sector. It solicited inputfrom theAdministration’s own Open Government Working Group, comprised of senior-level representatives from executive branch departments and agencies. White House policymakers also engaged the public via a series of blog posts, requesting ideas about how to focus Open Government efforts on increasing public integrity, more effectively managing public resources, and improving public services. Responsive submissions were posted online.

And Canada's National Action Plan states:

Over the past two years, we have consulted Canadians on both the development of a Digital Economy Strategy and on Open Government. Our Digital Economy consultation sought feedback from all Canadians on how to improve innovation and creativity, and achieve the shared goal of making Canada a global leader in the digital economy. More recently, in the fall of 2011, we launched a consultation to explore Canadians’ perspectives on Open Government in order to inform the development of Canada’s Action Plan on Open Government. 

In fact, it is a requirement for joining the OGP that nations engage in public consultation around their National Action Plan - not simply trump out previous consultations on related topics.

For example, the UK's draft for their second National Action Plan is currently out for public consultation at https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/open-government-partnership-uk-draft-national-action-plan-2013

Something that will be keenly watched by the open government community in Australia is therefore not only whether the Australian Government releases a National Action Plan and completes its commitments to join the OGP, but how the Government goes about creating the plan.

This is a case of monkey see, monkey do - the tone of openness for future Australian governments could be set by how the Government consults and engages the public and external stakeholders in creating the plan.

If the Australian Government takes a 'lip service' approach, resting on past achievements and limited engagement, this will provide senior public servants with a lead that the Government wants to be seen to be open, but doesn't really wish to be open, leading to similar behaviour in future consultations and openness across the Australian Public Service (APS).

However if the Australian Government takes this opportunity to pursue a world-class approach to demonstrating it s commitment to being as open as a national government can realistically be, this sends a different signal, a signal of commitment to true transparency, which will provide a different lead to senior public servants, one which fosters ongoing commitment throughout the APS.

A lot rests on the approach the Australian Government takes to progresses its intent to join the OGP over the next few months - with a backdrop of a new Prime Minister, new Ministry and new agenda facing an upcoming federal election and an in-progress FOI review.

With the Attorney-General's Department in charge of the OGP process, rather than a government body more intimately connected with an openness agenda, we can only wait and see how the Australian Government will take this forward.

Freedom of information advocacy: a global snapshot, from Open & Shut

I've had no time to blog this week due to family commitments, however thought it worth drawing attention to Peter Timmins' fascinating post on freedom of information, over at his Open & Shut blog.

Titled Freedom of information advocacy: a global snapshot, the post provides information on the recent report from the Freedom of Information Advocates Network about global Freedom of Information (FOI), also known as Right To Information (RTI), looking at the 95 jurisdictions (slightly under half of the world's countries) that currently have FOI or RTI laws.

Peter wrote the section for Australasia and Oceania and includes an extract in his post.

For the report itself, visit www.foiadvocates.net

Delivering last decade's technology today - what has gone wrong with ATO eTAX?

Six months ago I blogged about the success of e-tax as an egovernment service.

Over the last 14 years the service had grown to an annual 2.5 million submissions, with growth of around 5% per year.

I called it an egovernment success story for Australia - and stand by that view. E-tax has done a great job of delivering a service most adult Australians needed, a way of completing our annual tax return in a much faster and simpler manner.

However the buzz around the Australian Tax Office's (ATO) launch of an Apple version of its e-tax software has been uniformly negative.

Error message in etax for Apple
Source: Sydney Morning Herald

Besides there being issues with the software not working under the default security settings for Apple's operating system (now fixed), the interface not complying with Apple's user interface standards (due to being a direct port from Windows), and the time it has taken for an Apple version (17 years), concerns have also been raised at the development cost (reportedly $5.2 million) and the entire approach - developing system-specific software rather than a web application.

When the ATO first launched e-tax (for Windows only) in 1997 on CD, it was considered a state-of-the-art egovernment service, showcasing the way ahead for government in moving from paper to a digital-first approach.

Over the years, as the service grew in popularity, so did the calls for the ATO to support other platforms - even create a web-based service.

The ATO continued developing e-tax, updating it every year with the latest tax law changes, refining the interface, improving the speed and logic and ensuring it worked with the latest versions of Windows - apparently spending over $39 million on the software to 2013, or an average of $2.8 million per year.

Of that, approximately $32 million went to the private company that developed the software, yes e-tax was outsourced from the start.

According to Crikey, in 2004 the Tax Commissioner indicated at Senate Estimates that the ATO hadn't seen substantial demand for versions of e-tax on other platforms, however by 2007 the ATO announced in a media release that they would test an Apple version in 2008.

These tests were subsequently abandoned and nothing further happened until 2011, when the ATO again said it had an Apple version almost ready - but again delayed it until 2013 due to issues.

The Apple version of e-tax released last Friday, reportedly cost $5.2 million to develop on top of the cost of the Windows product.

I can't verify how good this version is, as I've not yet succeeded in getting it to run on my Apple laptop.

However even if it runs perfectly, the ATO has reached a point where it needs to look beyond the current software-based approach to e-tax.

While understanding the ATO's commitment to security, in an age when the majority of Australians use the internet for their banking, companies use web-based financial, HR and CRM systems and the world's financial markets are managed through web-based trading systems, it doesn't make sense that the ATO is still developing and maintaining operating system specific software.

While I appreciate that not all Australians are online, that hasn't been a barrier to other commercial or government services offering online services, backed by face-to-face, phone or paper processes for people offline.

In fact the ATO's paper submission process works quite well - the design thinking employed by the ATO has borne a lot of fruit in this area.

From being a leader in the electronic tax return area, we've now dropped in the list significantly - with some other nations offering more sophisticated web-based solutions, or having opened the field to private companies who meet their tax office's requirements.

The ATO's centralised software-based approach is a good 20th Century solution, but an increasingly poor approach for the 21st Century as the range of devices people are using keeps increasing.

While the ATO might be able to justify cost-efficiencies in continuing to deliver e-tax as a software product, the writing is on the wall for operating system specific client software.

More and more software is moving online, with computers and other internet connection devices increasingly using web browsers essentially as their operating systems.

The risk the ATO faces is that the rising cost of maintaining and updating multiple copies of e-tax might leave the agency with less and less funds for product innovation.

In effect, if the ATO doesn't put a concerted effort into making the leap from software clients to software as a service it risks having e-tax become a white elephant, dragging down its future innovation capability.

Many organisations face this type of decision at some point. Deciding when to make a paradigm leap of  this type is hard, and quickly distinguishes good from bad management.

Microsoft is moving its products online as services, as is Adobe and companies such as Salesforce.com have led the way in replacing locally hosted CRM, HR, financial and other organisational systems with online equivalents.

Government agencies will need to make similar, if not identical, decisions. When to shift the services they provide, such as e-tax, from client to cloud, when to replace the services they use with cloud from client - and which they especially need to not replace.

Whatever impact the current media storm has on the ATO, I hope both political and public sector leadership is prepared to lead in this area. To change how they approach and deliver IT to deliver long-term efficiencies and improvements.

With the focus on the ATO, I hope they are able to step up. While their track record on egovernment is good, the environment has changed and they must change with it.

My presentation to the UK Government Digital Service

I'm going to do a full post on my visit to the UK Government Digital Service (the GDS), but thought I'd lead with the presentation I gave to them regarding the state of Government 2.0 and open government in Australia, and how we've reached the point we're at.

Note this is purely my view of the situation - if I've gotten things wrong, please correct me so I keep it in mind when speaking to others.

How to shut down or redirect an official Ministerial or agency social media account

With the change in Australia's Prime Minister last week, the resignation of a large handful of Ministers, and the announcement of new Ministers this week, we've seen some interesting approaches to shutting down Ministerial Twitter accounts.

Senator Jacinta Collins closed her Ministerial account with two very-matter-of-fact tweets, redirecting people to the new Ministers:

This account is now closed. For Education media, follow @MinShortenMedia and @ParlSecThomson.
— Sen Jacinta Collins (@SenCollinsMedia) July 2, 2013

This account is now closed. For Employment media, please follow @MinOConnorMedia and @KateEllisMP.
— Sen Jacinta Collins (@SenCollinsMedia) July 2, 2013

Senator Conroy, Wayne Swan MP and Peter Garrett MP ended on higher notes, before the new Ministry was announced (therefore not redirecting to new Ministers):

For everyone who's asked 'Why the Dalek?' - farewell from all of us in Team Conroy pic.twitter.com/v05YmLP1We
— Conroy MO (@ConroyMO) June 27, 2013

Thank you Australia for the absolute privilege of being your Treasurer for the past five and a half years
— Wayne Swan (@SwannyQLD) June 26, 2013

Thanks for all the support, no regrets here as I resign as Minister and rejoin my dear family with good things done for our nation. PG
— Peter Garrett AM MP (@PGarrettMP) June 26, 2013

My point in highlighting these tweets is to consider how Ministers and agencies should close down their Twitter or other social media accounts after losing a position (for a Minister) or are 'MOGed' (Machinery of Government) - merged into another agency or disbanded (for an agency or department).

Clearly there's a range of transition or shut down steps that need to be taken in any of these cases and social media can be at the bottom of the list of concerns. However as social channels are increasingly important methods for contacting a Minister or agency, there does need to be some care taken to continue monitoring live accounts and providing appropriate redirection instructions (as Senator Collins has done for her account).

So how should accounts be shutdown or redirected?

Here's some suggested steps:

1. Transfer the account and keep operating it if feasible. Sure a person may have left a position, or an agency's duties may be subsumed into another department, however in many cases the role or responsibility hasn't disappeared entirely.
   
   A social media audience is an asset - companies and agencies pay a great deal of money to access the audiences 'owned' by media outlets and it is not sensible to throw away a Minister or agency's audience just because of a change in personnel.
2. If a position is disappearing or an agency's role is ending, avoid an immediate shutdown or cessation of activity on an account. Yes Ministers can disappear overnight, and agencies can be swallowed up quite quickly, however it takes longer for all members of the community to get the message that a change has occurred.
   
   Abrupt disconnects can also be disrespectful if handled poorly, leaving a community upset and abandoned - just like walking away from a conversation with someone while you or they are in mid-sentence.
   
   Continue monitoring and communicating through the account for at least a few days, and preferably a few weeks to retain the connection with the community and allow a gradual withdrawal and redirection. This will help maintain the relationship during the transition and ensure that the new Minister or agency has a base to build on.
3. Communicate the change actively, not just through tweets and posts, but also in the profile and 'about' information for an account. Tweets and posts appear and disappear in peoples' streams whereas profile information is there continually, ensuring followers and visitors can see the message at anytime.
   
   If continuing to communicate through the account (such as during a handover or to prevent issues around an immediate shutdown), ensure that you periodically communicate the change via tweets and posts as well.
4. Give people somewhere to go. When shutting down an account, provide details of where people should go to continue to follow the topic. For an agency this means directing people to the new agency's social media accounts (if they have them), for a Minister it means (if the same party) directing them to the new Minister's social media accounts, as Senator Collins did in her accounts as illustrated above, or to the department or political party's accounts if the new Minister doesn't have a social presence.
   
   If there's a change in government occurring, it is unlikely that a Minister or their advisors would be very willing to provide the community with a link to their successor however, if the account is personally operated, redirecting to the ex-Minister's personal account or political party's account is an option instead.

In summary, if agencies and Ministers avoid abruptly ending the conversation (abandoning their audience), communicate the change clearly and provide a path for people who wish to continue to follow the topic and have a conversation, changes in social media accounts can be managed quite effectively without losing reputation or respect and avoiding negative consequences or attention.

Is there a place for Agile in policy development?

The Agile software development methodology has changed the way many software companies operate.

The approach replaced production-line sequential and hierarchical 'waterfall' methods of developing code and services (based on the automobile production line), with iterative and responsive processes involving self-organising teams, continuous engagement and the division of bigger goals into short-term objectives - systems more attuned to the iterative modular nature of software.

Many of the top software and online services available today simply would not exist without Agile, or would be considerably less developed, from Microsoft Office to Facebook. Agile is also widely used by IT teams in government agencies, at varying degrees of sophistication and rigour.

Agile is said to increase productivity, reduce risk and improve ROI. However, that said, it isn't for the fainthearted, requiring organisational buy-in, discipline, commitment and a willingness to put customers and stakeholders at the centre of the development process, ahead of ideological or expert beliefs.

The question I have is whether Agile methodologies can be adapted to another process, which is still largely based on hierarchical systems, embedded interests and sequential design - government policy development.

The UK is currently committed to a major step towards an Agile-like policy approach, with a reform process to adapt an 'Open Policymaking' approach.

Detailed in http://my.civilservice.gov.uk, Open Policy mirrors a number of the attributes of Agile methodologies.

The approach intends to shift UK policy processes from being driven by top-down authority and fixed policy teams, towards co-design processes deeply involving stakeholders and managed by flexible policy teams drawn, based on skill, not status, from across government and other sectors.

The UK is even introducing the concept of contestable policy making, whereby the government is making funds available for organisations outside of government to develop policies, which would then be considered and potentially adopted by government as legislation, or integrated into agency-developed policy deliberations.

While open policy doesn't entirely reflect Agile methodologies, it draws from it in an attempt to create a new, more iterative and responsive approach to policy development.

With the UK's reforms still underway it is hard to yet assess whether the move to open policy will bear fruit. Trials of similar approaches (with varying levels of political and public sector commitment) elsewhere in the world are also still in early stages, so it is hard to identify successes - or failures - for open policy processes as yet.

However in an environment more complex and fast changing than ever before in history, open policy making attempts are likely to at minimum provide insights and significant lessons to governments who are prepared to innovate - learnings that could lead to improvements or changes to existing policy development processes.

To my thinking the key to this isn't necessarily the outcome - the key is to innovate in policy making, just as governments are seeking to innovate in other areas. If governments don't constantly try new things, measure the extent of change (improvement or otherwise) and share these learnings, then agencies and public sectors will ossify and undoubtably become fossils in a fast changing world.

To read more on open policymaking, see http://openpolicy.demsoc.org