Guest blog: Can open data really form the basis of a social good startup in Australia?

This is a guest post written by Rosie Williams, a leading Australian Open Data Developer and Citizen Journalist, who created and manages infoAus.net and writes for NoFibs.com.au. It's republished with her permission.

Can open data really form the basis of a social good startup in Australia?

I've come round to the realisation that doing open data as a business product/service (unless you are an already established business with established customer base ie not a startup) is not a realistic way to be doing open data anymore than expecting to start organisations on alternative bases such as cooperatives or charities and achieve things within a short timeframe.

After all just look how long it took for the OKFNAu to get incorporated, much less set up a sustainable financial model to fund new open knowledge projects. Now apply that level of challenge to a team of maybe one or more open knowledge advocates trying to establish similar organisations.
Trying to establish an organisation to accomplish goals whether it is under an ABN or ACN is a difficult process which is why there are so few open data projects for financial and political transparency other than my own and so few open data projects generally.

Even the OpenAustralia Foundation gets income from selling some of their services/products so the line between what is a 'startup' and any other type of organisation trying to make open data projects survive is pretty slim.

This is why so few gov hacks go on to form the basis of future projects- because of the challenges inherent in creating financial sustainability for those creating and implementing them.

If they require very little in the way of upkeep (and therefore not require full time labour) that might be plausible to continue them but most things that have value have value for the reason that they do require significant investment of labour and expertise.

When people only ever spend a weekend mocking up apps, I'm not sure that gives the true picture of the ongoing labour, expertise and lobbying required to make projects an ongoing success. For example issues in the data may not be noticeable in hack events and only come to light when more serious/ongoing engagement with the data occurs.

A better example is to compare your average hacker's daily work which requires full time commitment, a multidisciplinary team, management, contracts etc - all of which are deemed necessary in order to create and maintain successful projects. That open data projects are so often considered not to need these things to achieve the same level of stability and success is something I've always found quite interesting.

From my own experience, requiring one person to lobby to release data- wait for that release which may be months or years into the future, collect data (perhaps from multiple agency sites, clean it, design and write database backed websites, promote it etc) puts everything on the shoulders of one person or at best a very small team.

Open source projects hope to encourage volunteers to do the actual coding for free but those I know of struggle to recruit people willing to do that.  I certainly went down that road when I first launched some months ago now, but found it untenable given the short time frame put on me to prove my success.

Much open data needs tweaking in order to be made serious use of which can only take place in consultation with agencies publishing the data. It is not just a matter of agencies saying here is the data and that's that, but of a process of engagement where those working with the data can give feedback as to how the data can be improved.

This goes right into the way of making submissions to inquiries into agency annual reports or budget data sets (for example) where you are actually changing the information that eventually ends up as open data.

This sort of approach requires serious ongoing commitment and a decent level of expertise in the matters at hand.

Very few people in Australia actually run ongoing open data projects to know what it involves. Most people work day jobs doing other things (which may or may not be related to open data).

I do have a plan for going forward so that the accumulated expertise (not to mention technological output) I have created in InfoAus is not lost at such a crucial stage as the lead-up to Australia's Open Government Partnership National Action Plan.

However it is only in considering a different role to maintaining finished and regularly updated commercial grade open data projects that I have realised what a burden I was placing upon myself.
Having said that, without having done what I have over the past six months I doubt I'd be in a position to carry on in the way I intend. I'll post more about that another time.

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There's two things organisations need to effectively manage social media crises - great people and great systems

More and more organisations are finding themselves the focus of social media crises.

Whether the crisis originates online, or from another source, it is frequently expressed, shared and amplified via social channels, and can become a matter of national or even international attention very rapidly when handled poorly.

Many organisations still struggle to deal effectively with these crises, however some are getting good at managing these situations.

There's two things these effective organisations have in common, great people and great systems.

Great people speaks for itself. When you have people skilled and experienced in social media engagement and community management they are able to rapidly respond to a crisis as it occurs, providing the right blend of content and empathy to address a fast-changing situation.

However having great people in your team has its limits.

If those responding on behalf of the organisation via social channels are disconnected from the rest of the organisation, don't have clear triage, escalation and management guidance, are restricted from engaging due to legacy policies and attitudes or are simply not available when a social media crisis occurs, an organisation can rapidly lose control of a situation.

That's where systems come in.

There's a range of systems organisations can develop to proactively prepared for crisis and emergency services and, in many cases, they already have systems in place for their physical response to situations, how they engage with journalists and communicate with the public through phone and even email.

By developing appropriate systems for social media crises organisations can take their preparedness to the next level - leading to a situation where they can proactively manage and contain situations as they are discussed online.

Systems for social media crisis communications addresses many of the issues that great staff can face such as disconnects between management, operational and communications teams, difficulty in rapidly identifying the appropriate actions for specific comments and addressing controversial topics while fatigued.

Systems also help proactively address any legacy policy or legal issues in how and what can be communicated, by challenging organisations to actively reconsider and adjust their approach before crises occur, rather than attempting to change policies during an actual crisis.

Other benefits include mitigating some risks organisations face when less trained or experienced staff engage in crisis communications on social media channels, where a slight misstep - even by great staff - in how or when something is said or responded to can quickly escalate into a secondary crisis that requires additional management.

Having systems in place also makes it possible to test and benchmark an organisation's capability to address a social media crisis. Organisations can simulate a crisis and test how well the systems work and adjust them as needed before they get blooded in a real incident.

Given a choice between great people and great systems for social media crisis management, I'd pick systems every time.

Systems allow less-experienced staff to respond almost as effectively as great staff and provides a standard, repeatable environment for managing successive crisis situations.

While great staff are valuable and can be very effective in managing an organisations reputation and a situation on social media, they are in short supply - harder to find and retain. Staff are also not available 24/7 and are subject to stress, fatigue and emotions which can affect the ongoing quality of a crisis response online.

So even if you're fortunate enough to have great people in your social media crisis response team, don't neglect your systems. They provide consistency for your organisation and support your team, helping them remain great for as long as a crisis persists.

If you want help designing or testing your social media crisis systems, please get in touch, I've been helping organisations manage online and social media crises since 1998 and have a range of strategies, tactics and tools available.

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What comes after digital transformation for government?

There's a lot of buzz across governments in Australia at the moment about 'digital transformation'.

What this commonly refers to is taking current government services and systems and redeveloping them as digital solutions based on Agile and Lean approaches, principles and methodologies to make them far easier to use and manage.

Users are placed at the centre of the experience and extensive evidence is collected and used to direct development, rather than the whims and beliefs of 'Highly Important People' - the decision-makers and developers themselves, who are rarely the actual end users.

But let's speak frankly - the need for digital transformation means that government has failed.

Transformation of any form becomes necessary when individuals or organisations have not evolved as their environments evolved.

These organisations have been left behind by changes in technology, social culture and thinking, stuck in a past age due to internal factors such as their culture, structural rigidity, leadership beliefs and lack of resources. External factors such as the legislative frameworks they're required to follow, or their local environment (like ancient species who survive in one small precarious niche) can also have held them to a specific form or slowed their speed of adaptation.

No-one today talks about Google having to digitally (or otherwise) transform, or even organisations like Microsoft (who has faced transformation in the past - particularly in their internet pivot fostered by Bill Gates). 

These organisations have designed their cultures and systems around evolution, meaning they can constantly reinvent themselves as technology and social expectations change, avoiding the need to make rapid and painful transformations.

So taking digital transformation as a painful and rapid process fostered from failure, what happens once government has digitally transformed?

There's four primary outcomes I see: failure, reversion, stasis and evolution.

Failure is self-explanatory. The digital transformation fails (due to internal resistance or external strictures) and government tosses out the concept as unworkable. This isn't really likely given the enthusiasm and passion of the people working in government to make it happen.

In the reversion case, which I have personally witnessed in government a number of times, the digital transformation occurs to a greater or lessor degree, led by talented and passionate people. Then those people begin to disperse onto other things, leaving behind a group of individuals who prefer to maintain and support rather than innovate and reinvent.

These individuals don't have the passion or charisma to 'maintain the rage' for the transformed approaches and gradually, as external and internal demands mount and political 'realities' creep in, the transformation work stops and slides backwards.

Come back a few years later and the digital transformation spirit is all gone, with many agencies having reverted to 'how they've always done things'. Innovation remains illusive and digital transformation is regarded as a fad that has now passed. 

This can particularly occur where organisations are well-insulated from competition or outside pressures (such as competing for staff or resources).

It's the worst case in my view, as not only the fruits of digital transformation are lost, but the process is seen as a failure, leaving governments less inclined to fund future attempts to turn the ship of state onto a new course. Citizens are left frustrated and minimising their engagement with government - unable to express their will electorally, as no elected party can really promise they'd be better at making the necessary changes.

In the third case, stasis, again the digital transformation is successful to a lessor or greater degree. Then, as people move on or burn out, again their places are taken by people with less enthusiasm or experience in the process. 

While the gains of the digital transformation mean that these changes stick, permanently shifting how government operates, agencies see their job as done. They've digitally transformed - project finished. With few people left to drive the process, the culture of transformation doesn't stick on the rest of the public service, who continue to maintain their current cultures, which are largely conservative and resistance to ongoing change.

Funds get shifted into other areas, or to maintaining completed transformation work. Innovation and transformation still occurs, but it is pushed out of the limelight by new priorities and gradually recedes back into the corners of organisations (where it started) where it doesn't cause significant disruption or risk.

Over a few years the pace slows to a crawl, government continues to function but loses its capability to evolve at the rate of the market and community. The culture, while maybe more open to innovation, largely remains the same as before the 'digital transformation project' began.

Five or ten years later, suddenly government finds itself well behind in meeting citizen needs and using modern technology and has to consider a new transformation process to get back on track.

In my view this is the most likely case - it's hard to make sustained changes to the culture of large organisations (such as the public service) without a concerted long-term effort and complete alignment of leadership. 

It's easier for most people to think of digital transformation as just another project rather than a process and as having a fixed end point when agencies will have digitally transformed, rather than reworking their structures, funding models, legislative frameworks and embedding performance indicators that favour ongoing evolutionary change.

This scenario has been repeated periodically in government over the years with a succession of major change programs. 

While government may regard this scenario as a success as 'outcomes of the project were met', it is essentially a failure. While short-term changes occurred, the nature of the agencies themselves fundamentally hasn't, leaving them unable or unwilling to continue evolving in order to avoid the need for any future transformational projects.

Essentially in this scenario government is simply chasing its tail, institutionalising its failure to evolve as a series of costly transformational projects that can be more disruptive and damaging in the long-term.

The last scenario, my preferred one, involves evolution.

In this case government not only is successful in meeting the objectives of its digital transformation, but also removes the need for any future transformational projects by reinventing its own structures, cultures and frameworks to bake evolution into the genes of agencies.

Agencies no longer follow a 'wait until it breaks' approach to services, systems and policies, but institutionalise evolution, constantly observing the market and citizens, embedding evidence-based testing and iteration into every policy, program, service and IT approach, and constantly evolve themselves to remain up-to-date with community needs and expectations.

This scenario is a true transformation - not only of government services, but of government culture at every level. It renders future transformation unnecessary and removes the constant attempts agencies make at rearranging deck chairs or spending huge sums on failed projects that characterises today's public service.

If you're going to invest in transforming government then invest in transforming government, not just playing around the edges as a project that is repeated again and again over time.

Government needs to move the needle permanently, not simply rev the engine a few times - transform into an evolutionary organisation that is closely attuned to community needs, rather than a sloth capable of short bursts of speed to catch up with the tail-end of the crowd.

I salute the work of everyone currently involved in transforming government - digital or otherwise - to be more agile, lean and evolutionary.

As you work consider what you want your legacy to be - a moment in the sun or a lasting transformation. 

No one person can do this alone.

However if we all share the same long-term vision of what comes after digital transformation for government - a new evolutionary state where agencies and the public service can self-manage their ongoing adaptations and growth to meet community needs, without periodic injections of a 'transformation project' - we might just be able to shift the needle a little further in the right direction and avoid repeating the past in an endless cycle.

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How can we benchmark and judge whether government decision-making is improving, or getting worse?

I've had an interesting day today, with a number of meetings with different businesses to discuss various projects and activities they're undertaking that are affected to a significant extent by government decisions.

In three of those meetings business people, from vastly different businesses, told me about recent decisions by government agencies that had made their work more expensive and difficult - in all cases without any consultation as to the business impacts and from a public sector perspective that appeared to lack any understanding of commercial requirements.

From my perspective, as someone who often champions the public sector as hard working, diligent and committed to good public outcomes, it was disappointing to hear a similar story echoed by three different businesses in different economic sectors, dealing with different agencies in different circumstances, but with one common theme.

A lack of consultation.

In all three cases the businesses were financially out-of-pocket due to poorly considered government decisions adding unnecessary red tape, stress and repetition over systems that had been working relatively well.

In all three cases the imposition of new requirements was made at a public service level by senior bureaucrats without commercial experience who did not seek to consult with potentially affected businesses to assay the impact of the changes they implemented.

I've spoken previously about how in my former role leading Delib Australia we found that, compared to Canada, the US and the UK, red tape in Australia added about 40% to the operating costs of our business - this is excluding business costs such as wages, products, systems and marketing.

I've previously spoken with business people who have found that Australian governments impose poorly considered, even contradictory, requirements on their operations, making their work unnecessarily complex.

However to have three businesses in one day, all 20-year veterans in their industries, detail to me exactly why the decisions by agencies in their sectors were flawed, how they hurt the end consumers of products and services, how they added cost and complexity to businesses and how they actually hurt the government's own ability to access the best talent and services, was a new low for me.

I believe that a key metric in government over time should be that the decisions made at both political and public service levels should lead to improved outcomes for citizens, less overhead via red tape on businesses and more cost-effective sourcing of services for governments.

This of course must take into account the competing values and needs and maintain a safety net underneath individuals to ensure they are able to bounce back as productive members of society after unpredictable calamities or inappropriate conduct by others.

To measure this metric governments need to benchmark what people think of the decisions that affect them now and then be both regularly consulted as to whether actual and proposed changes will improve outcomes rather than stifling innovation, employment and growth.

This starts and ends with consultation - finding out what people think now about a particular regulatory or legislative regime, inviting their views into any discussion as to changes and asking them after a change is implemented to verify that it has had the intended impact.

From my conversations today the impression I had was that government was simply a black box, spitting out red tape and changing its rules and approaches whenever someone internal felt the need. No consultation was being undertaken with the companies or end consumers (citizens) affected, and these decisions were based on blind assumptions made by career public servants - assumptions that could have been rapidly tested and verified or dismissed.

No matter what government does or doesn't do, agencies won't easily, quickly and largely painlessly get the setting right without extensive consultation with the right groups throughout our society.

There's wisdom out there in the community. If governments and public servants don't tap into it and damage the fabric of a community, employment opportunities or add unnecessary cost onto their own procurement processes, there's no-one to blame but them.

Sure agencies can argue it is expensive and time-consuming to consult, but it is far costlier to the overall nation to avoid consultation and make unnecessary and costly mistakes.

The three businesses I spoke to all laughed off the absurdity and stupidity of the agency decisions that had affected them. They didn't expect government to be able to do better and saw it simply a lumbering dinosaur whose feet they had to avoid.

Governments can do much better than this. Pubic services can do much better than this. All it takes is a shift in the culture of internal expertise to recognise that consulting can provide perspectives and a deeper understanding of situations than any career public policy professional ever can.

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Open government doesn't just happen - contribute now to Australia's Open Government Partnership National Action Plan

Open government means different things to different people, and in Australia, where our government is already quite open, it's sometimes not considered such a priority.

However alongside our open data, public consultations, freedom of information laws and transparent voting systems, there's still many areas where the Australian government could lift its openness and improve public confidence and involvement in our democracy.

Right now Australia is engaged in developing its first ever National Action Plan for open government, part of the process to become a full member of the Open Government Partnership and a step that aims to strengthen our democracy in the eyes of Australians and the world.

There's benefits in the process for everyone in Australia.

For the community there's the potential to improve the inclusiveness and transparency of decision-making - leading to better outcomes for individuals and groups, supporting both Australia's 'fair go' culture and our lifestyle choices, ranging from health and education to workplace safety and career decisions.

For businesses greater government openness can provide a more level playing field for government contracts and access to important population data that can influence commercial decisions. There's opportunities for enterprises to use open data to extend their services and products, or even to build new businesses.

For government agencies there's also benefits. Being able to see what other agencies are doing, researching and the data they hold with less bureaucratic friction helps accelerate and improve policy development and support more nuanced responses to complex challenges. There can be greater capability to identify and address illegal or corrupt behaviour and to work with non-government organisations to design solutions that address both political needs and community needs.

However despite these and other benefits, open government doesn't just happen by itself, it takes concerted thought and effort by individuals and groups, and a willingness on the part of government to move the needle forward on transparency.

Right now Australians have an opportunity to move this needle.

The National Action Plan being led from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet offers a significant opportunity to suggest and discuss the priority actions that could be undertaken in Australia, by the government alone or with the participation of civil society and the community, to further enhance our government openness and transparency.

Feel free to approach this opportunity with optimism or skepticism - there's good reasons for both perspectives depending on your past experience with government in Australia.

However, don't discount or overlook this opportunity.

People who claim to support more open government in Australia but fail to engage are only demonstrating that they don't back their own views with action. It's easy to trash talk government, it's harder to actually formulate sound and achievable options that can lead to action and change.

So if you've ever complained about government's lack of transparency during a consultancy or decision-making process, found it difficult or impossible to source useful or important information from an agency or feel that any part of Australian government has acted in a self-serving or corrupt manner on a particular topic - contribute to this process positively.

There's a range of ways to contribute, but the window to submit action priorities is closing soon, at the end of February 2016.

To learn more visit ogpau.govspace.gov.au

To contribute your priorities, visit: ogpau.wikispaces.com

And to join like-minded folk from the community to discuss the process and priorities, visit: opengovernment.org.au

Or, if you prefer not to get involve and simply sit back and complain about how the government isn't open enough, read below:

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