Government Innovation: Liberty (Part 2 of 3)

“There is but one method of rendering a republican form of government durable, and that is by disseminating the seeds of virtue and knowledge through every part of the state by means of proper places and modes of education and this can be done effectively only by the aid of the legislature.”

To ensure the liberty of our people, and indeed all people, we have created a democratically elected government split into three branches each which balances the others, created publicly funded education, infrastructure, information, public safety and military resources and reshaped our public policies —albeit often slowly — as people realized we could do better.

Our ability to progressively re-evaluate current practices is based on the assumption that people have access to all of the information available and are best able to use that information to move forward a new idea.

But, throughout the past few decades, our values have shifted. Creativity has become bogged down by drudgery, thoughtfulness by superficiality and education by bureaucracy. The most interesting classes are getting cut from curricula, national debate is shaped by sound-bites not real discussion and our process of educating young people, so that they can overcome these challenges, has slowly been re-focused. Our attention is no longer on what knowledge and values we are imparting or what people need to learn to be successful in our times but rather on how we can most efficiently measure what we are doing. But there is hope, and it has a lot to do with leveraging new technology.

Technology, Entertainment, Design, or TED, as many of us know it, is an organization that fosters global innovation through the inspiration of, aggregation and mass free distribution of some of the most brilliant talks on pressing issues that exists on this planet. All of TED’s content is made available online for free and has been translated into more than 50 languages by a corps of volunteers.

The lesson: Education doesn’t always need to take place in a classroom or by a textbook. Sometimes a media platform delivers information better than a book can, and if it can reach people a classroom textbook otherwise wouldn’t, so much the better.

Does this mean all schools should take place online? Certainly not. But does it mean that through public schools the government should invest in ways to inspire, education and connect people using the internet, much like many colleges have been doing for years? Absolutely.

Public schools should be our most connected institutions, using online media, social networking, online games that foster curiosity and real-time audio/visual communication to connect students with all of the resources the world has to offer. Schools don’t need to offer every single class in every single subject. Just by having a well-connected accessible library or study space, schools could connect all of their students to nearly infinite outside resources. Yet many schools still operate under primitive IT policies that often prohibit students from accessing the most valuable online platforms, and few go as far as to actually encourage them.

In another field that is one of the most productive to invest in, we see libraries across the country getting their funding cut, even as patron usage steadily increases.
Even in South Orange, where the library has taken many proactive financial steps already, it voluntarily eliminated a full-time staff position worth $62,000, and is forced to cut another $25,000 out of the budget between 2009 and 2010.

People need these knowledge centers where they can perform research, connect with other people and be linked to the rest of the world, especially if they cannot afford home broadband access.

Guaranteeing both that all people have equal access to information and know they have such access is one of the best safeguards against tyranny, ignorance, polarization and hatred, all things that I know I am not alone in seeing more and more of in national debate these days. A truly excellent education will allow people the chance to rise above this.

Education is our assurance that when, for example, looking at racially-biased drug laws, the complex implications of immigration policies or military strategies that will influence decades of international relations, that we can approach these issues in educated, nuanced and thoughtful ways with the shared values of progress, community betterment and rationality. That is what the founding fathers meant by liberty and that is what we must work towards. And the first step is education.

Government Innovation: Life (Part 1 of 3)

Life. I’m not talking about Oprah’s version of the BBC and David Attenborough’s Planet Earth. I’m talking about what is perhaps the most fundamental of rights granted to any person by positive law, natural law, social contract or any other system we could use to quantify rules and rights.

Our right to live is the cornerstone of ensuring a prosperous and sustainable society. Animal hierarchies decide and categorize social interactions to lessen violence and death and our laws seek to do the same. Life, however, has not always been a given right in human civilization and has not even extended to all people for the entire history of this country.  People from various political persuasions would argue that today, in the United States, our right to live is threatened by either the death penalty, poor healthcare, violence terrorism and war, abortion, poverty, poor nutrition and the list goes on.

And we expect our government, even the most libertarian among us, to protect our lives. We generally expect police/fire/emergency management services, a military and the most basic regulations to ensure that we don’t die as easily as some wouldn’t mind us to.

Personally, I would consider that protection of life extending to healthcare, including diet and nutrition, certain consumer regulations, like seat belts and pharmaceutical regulation, and the ability for us to live in a society where violence and death are not accepted forms of social dynamics.

So, we have arguably the most powerful military in the world. We have over one million police officers employed throughout the country. We have an unbelievably responsive 9-1-1 system that sends emergency personnel to your doorstep in minutes in most of the country - without asking how much money you have or insurance information or whether you paid your taxes or even voted (Except in South Fulton, TN). Not bad.

But the biggest gap that is readily visible is the health of our country. This lack of attention being paid to health is causing epidemic obesity and diabetes rates, steadily climbing rates of sexually transmitted diseases, emerging strains of antibiotic resistant bacteria and exploding rates of conditions, from cardiac issues, strokes, cancer, and of course, traumatic injuries.

And we don’t even provide the infrastructure to encourage people towards preventative care and personal responsibility.

Some argue the market will handle this. However, the facts are simple: We spend more per-capita and get less than other developed countries because we are allowing the private sector to cash in on our lagging health by discouraging cost-saving preventative measures.

We are putting the onus on the emergency medical system to pick up this slack, which ends up being astronomically more expensive and time consuming than if we had approached these problems from a proactive perspective. 

But by using technology, without even tackling the larger issues that are wrapped up in the all too ubiquitous mindless political posturing of our time, the government can take major steps towards improving this system and helping us improve our health and reduce the strain on our economy and healthcare system.

Allowing consumers total control over their healthcare information, as the VA is beginning to do with their ‘blue button,’ where people can download all of their medical history from the VA website, and then take that information, do with it what they will, is a great way to put a little control back in our hands. 

Modernizing patient care by switching to electronic charting, where medical records are kept on computers, will prevent errors from being made, save medical staff time and will save us money. Electronic records are cheaper, easier, transportable, downloadable and secure. We need to re-imagine the government’s role in e-charting as a springboard for developers to create the innovations that we can use to modernize our healthcare system. Should we tell the government to create this system? Not necessarily. But should we tell our government to ensure that data is accessible so that 3rd parties can create new innovations? Absolutely.

Even by expanding broadband internet, public libraries and educational resources to more people, we can help ensure people have all of the information to make the right decisions. Of course wrapped up in a larger discussion of a failing education system that doesn't teach people how to (a) find information and (b) make their own decisions, the idea that people should be able to realize what is healthy is critical. By releasing government data for reconsumption and sharing, we can allow third party innovators create meaningful web-based informational resources on personal health, how to choose the best healthcare providers and more.

None of these issues will solve the problem. They are but the tip of the iceberg of apolitical technology-based solutions that save money, improve efficiency and make the government more transparent and accountable.

Todd Park, the Chief Technology Officer for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said it best with an interview with NPR, "I think everyone, I would presume, is in favor of better informed consumers. Everyone's in favor of healthy Americans, everyone's in favor of more functional marketplaces. I mean it's not a political thing, it's an American thing."

Furthermore, healthcare is but one of a dozen fields that we can improve the government’s life-saving directive by using open technology. What are some ways you think government can better protect our lives using technology?

The Declaration of Independence as a Framework for Modern Government Innovation

After spending the better part of the first week of September in Washington, DC for O’Reilly Media’s Gov 2.0 Summit, I am re-invigorated and re-energized as to the enormous potential that exists for innovation in the public sector, especially as it relates to using technology as a springboard for innovation.

Although the public sector is not always the first place one thinks of when considering innovation, especially with technology, it has always been there, directly or indirectly since the beginning. So many technologies — GPS or the internet itself even, have been offshoots of government projects, usually coming from the Department of Defense. And understandably so,  what is more fundamental and important in government than protecting its own citizens from harm?

Now, however, new technology offers something so much more than advancement of military technology or public safety functions. Technology, if properly implemented, has nearly limitless potential for improving our quality of life, maximizing educational opportunities, improving the efficiency of government services, connecting people who otherwise could not have been connected and boldly offering the promise of actually ensuring what could reasonably be considered our most fundamental trifecta of basic rights: Life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

Perhaps one of the most well-known phrases in the English language, “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness,” a guarantee of one’s unalienable rights in the Declaration of Independence, is the perfect way to think about how important and profound the government’s role in technological innovation can be.

A theme of the Gov 2.0 Summit, and a generally interesting concept to consider, is rethinking how we get the public services that we increasingly demand. Traditionally, government is looked at as a vending machine of services —where we put money through tax dollars in and get services out. But we would be missing an opportunity if we didn’t at least attempt to re-conceptualize that relationship.

What if the government provided the ability and platforms to allow us - the citizens - to innovate and improve our quality of life? What if ‘public’ didn’t mean the government but if it actually meant the public: us?

Over three forthcoming posts, I will focus each one on how the government is, can be, and should be innovating in each of those sectors, taking care to ask how best we can accomplish guaranteeing each of those rights and what role the government should actually play in:

Life: This analysis will focus on the military, public safety, medicine  and healthcare, emergency services and consumer regulations. In 2010, how can we re-guarantee the live’s of our citizens and what role should the government play in doing so?

 

Liberty: This will focus on criminal justice, judicial equality, ensuring social equality and freedom and the ability for all to succeed to the degree to which they desire and work towards. In 2010, how can we re-guarantee liberty, justice and equality for all of our citizens?

Pursuit of Happiness: This will focus on providing the platforms for our continued engagement in the arts, culture, shared experiences and leisure. In 2010, how can we re-guarantee the ability for all of our citizens to be part of activities and legacies which they most enjoy and which provide cultural value to our society?

Each of these fields is worth a volume of encyclopedias and I will barely do justice to each by limiting them, for now at least, to a singular article.

I do not claim that any of these analysis will answer all of these questions. In fact, I would prefer if they raised more questions than answered, as asking questions, and figuring out how to ask the right questions is, or at least should be, a precursor to progress and innovation, especially when it relates to blindingly fast moving technological innovation that can easily change fundamentals of our society without us even noticing.

Why don't people vote and what can we do about it?

In my column last week we briefly looked at how social perceptions are the primary driving force behind motivating people to get out and vote come election day. However, most people, by a substantial majority, do not actually vote. What are the forces at work that keep people home on election day? And if social perceptions influence how people vote, could affecting a change of the social and cultural perceptions around voting could lead to an increased voter turnout over time?

Working on election day November 3rd provided a very interesting experience about all of these issues. I learned a great deal about peoples’ feelings and thoughts towards voting from the conversations that I became engaged in throughout the day.

By and large, the people who weren’t planning on voting, weren’t registered, and perhaps never have voted, expressed a certain skepticism about the process itself and about how important their role in the process of choosing representatives was. Interestingly, to this group of people, the idea that their one vote was no more or less than anyone else’s created a feeling of unimportance. Oddly, this is the opposite of many other people’s reactions, who feel empowered to be able to freely cast their ballot for the representative of their choice.

Additionally, there are people, for example a couple, who agree to disagree on the candidate of their choice, and by perhaps both even going to the polls together, effectively cancel each other’s vote, yet still feel necessity of going to the polls.

However, all these different ideas and perspectives are just many ways to look at the same situation. For example, some people feel empowered that by going to the polls, they can ‘cancel out’ the vote of an opposing voter. Others, however, feel powerless as they feel their vote will be ‘canceled out’ by someone less informed by them. Each situation is exactly the same, it is just two people casting opposing votes, yet one glass half-full perspective sounds positive while the glass half-empty perspective sounds completely futile.

What this really comes down to is that voting is more about social perceptions than anything else. People who feel that their vote is futile will fulfill their own destiny by not voting and making their opinion futile, which will only create more frustration down the road as the person becomes increasingly outside of the process happening around them. And people who feel that their vote is powerful will get out there and feel engaged to whatever is happening - even if they disagree with it.

That engagement is they key piece to the puzzle. Not everyone will always agree. The only way we could have true total 100% representation is if we all were representatives in a pure democracy, yet even then I would think that we wouldn’t understand and agree with even ourselves as much as we’d like to think.

So what can we do about people who feel powerless and disengaged? By making people feel invested in their community and their world, we can work to avoid the tragedy of the commons scenario that our voting numbers are emblematic of.

Getting involved or volunteering for something in the direct community is a sure way to start to feel connected and a working and productive part of this crazy and chaotic world.

If we can help focus more education efforts at really fostering a feeling of community ownership, we can begin to reverse the unfortunate trends over the past few decades of decreased community and civic involvement.

For a person who has never voted before, casting a ballot on a national level may seem of too little impact. Opening up government to really connect, work with and seek the feedback of residents on all ranges of projects is a prime way to help people feel they are part of something that is both larger than themselves and larger than the sum of its parts. Feeling part of something productive like that is an inspiring experience. Embracing the use of technology for open government and community engagement to reach new audiences and make new connections are sure ways for us to get there.

October 29th News-Record Column: How the internet empowers the people:

Click here to read the article: http://bit.ly/2ORXJI

More Information on Column

Please watch Michael Wesch's Talk "The Machine is (changing) Us here.

More links about this subject:
Media Ecology on Wikipedia
Media Ecology Association



Some further comments:
Although there is no way to answer the question of how exactly we are changing media and how in turn, our media is changing us, it is important to ask and to explore. Just because we don't have the answer doesn't mean we should not ask the question. We can learn a lot about ourselves and the way we communicate just by asking questions about media ecology and culture. I hope to cover this topic more both in my blog and in my column, so definitely keep an eye out for what I hope to be more and continued question asking about how we interact with eachother.

WhiteHouse.gov Goes Open Source

On October 24th, the White House switched their website (whitehouse.gov) to Drupal, an open-source content management system. This will be hosted on Linux Red Hat servers.

Clearly this a big win for open source proponents as the White House has taken a large step in opening the door for more government departments on all levels to consider using open-source technology. In working towards better government transparency, the Obama Administration has made several large steps towards that goal, and this latest development in that field. There is a lot of opportunity for Government 2.0 deployments, and it is great to see Obama Administration so clearly on board with enhancing government transparency.

Read More:

http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/10/whitehouse-switch-drupal-opensource.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20091024/us-obama-web-site/

Embracing Technology for Open Government

Open Government has become quite a campaign buzzword over the past few years as technology and computer/online software are beginning the show the limitless potential available to us to create accessible and transparent government.

There are two primary distinctions when looking at the utilization of technology in government. The first is how government appears, or is accessible, to people. The second is government works internally.

The first has been adopted quite widely in campaign settings. Campaign websites often offer social-networking connections, mobile updates, smartphone apps, and other interactive features that help people stay connected. This transparency and engagement as not been widely adopted in the actual governance process, however. Although indeed rare, there are a few excellent examples. The best one may be the Federal IT Dashboard, a website that traces and explains all federal IT spending. Check out the website at: http://it.usaspending.gov/. You can find all of the investments, contracts, people in charge of projects, timelines and more. This site should be a tool not only to research federal spending but as an example of how open government can look and work.

The second is government technology for internal processes. One of the often quoted reasons for some failings in national security in the past is that defense and intelligence agencies, up until the past year or two, were using outlandishly outdated software that didn't allow collaboration or communication between different operatives in the field. Now many agencies have adopted Wikipedia-like software in top-secret platforms to encourage collaboration and sharing of information among various agents and agencies. This type of software, though of course critical in high-risk national security situations, can also be applied to save government money through increased efficiency while improving the services that are offered to people. The private sector has been pushing into increased collaboration and connectivity between various people working on projects, and that same technology could be applied to government to vastly improve upon the technology that exists and is used now.


Every once in a while, I will update this blog with interesting software or platforms which I encourage people to read further about:
Federal IT Dashboard: http://it.usaspending.gov/
NY Senate Website: http://www.nysenate.gov/