Complexity and Social Networks Blog

Readers of this blog will know that last week I summarized an NSF and Harvard funded report on which I was lead author on online townhalls. Our findings included: if a Member of Congress reaches out to constituents in an online forum, it will reach people who tend not to participate in politics, and especially individuals who are frustrated with the political system, it will affect those constituents' views of the Member and increase their policy knowledge and political engagement. Well, this was picked up on by Senator Tom Coburn (who is trying to defund the Political Science program in NSF) last Wednesday who hammered the report as a waste of taxpayer money. A flyer his staff passed out at a briefing we conducted to Congressional staff on Friday captures the spirit of the critique:

(would be interested in the provenance of the picture, in case any readers know)

At the moment I will not address the merits of the criticisms, but focus instead on the interesting diffusion process that followed from the initial criticism from Coburn. Each day it was picked up by another few blogs. A quote from John Stossel provides a sense of the tone of the postings: "This summer's town hall meetings made many congressmen and senators uncomfortable. No worries. The sycophants they fund have used your tax money to fund a study that advises politicians how they can avoid seeing you altogether." Initially, I would infer, the first few blogs must have been on some distribution list from Coburn's office (i.e., they weren't just watching his website) because there were quotations from materials from Coburn that were not on his website. Thereafter you could see how different blogs picked up on the story, typically quoting or copying from another blog. So what one sees is a signal propagation process through the blogs. And as the signal propagates it evolves. Thus, for example, Stossel quotes from the Heritage blog, but then adds his distinct emphasis. The link and copying structure reflects the attention each blogger is paying to other blogs, however one would guess that each blog has a different but overlapping audience. Here is a picture of the diffusion process to date:

Node colors correspond to dates (28: white, 29: light gray, 30: dark gray). Time flows left to right, where the variations within each day reflect publication time of day, but only in an "eyeballing" sense. Link weights are encoded white: explicit mention, black: shared text, grey: both. Arrows point from destination node to source

What one cannot see, but is certainly reflected here somehow is that there is an interpersonal network among these bloggers (and relevant nonbloggers). However, this micro case study does suggest ways that one might disentangle the informational ecosystem among blogs, by looking at shared text, link structure, and to look at it dynamically and by content. If you know of interesting papers along these lines, please feel free to post in comments. One relevant, freshly minted paper, is:

Carter Butts and B. Remy Cross, "Change and External Events in Computer-Mediated Citation Networks: English Language Weblogs and the 2004 U.S. Electoral Cycle", Journal of Social Structure 10, 2009.

Posted by David Lazer at 7:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

There might be some interest in the scholarly papers undergirding some of the research in the aforementioned report. Below we list some of the papers from the online deliberative field experiments that we posted on SSRN.

Who Wants to Deliberate - and Why?

Michael A. Neblo
Ohio State University - Department of Political Science

Kevin M. Esterling
University of California, Riverside - Department of Political Science

Ryan Kennedy
University of Houston - Department of Political Science

David Lazer
Northeastern University - Department of Political Science; Harvard University - John F. Kennedy School of Government

Anand E. Sokhey
University of Colorado at Boulder - Department of Political Science

Interest in deliberative theories of democracy has grown tremendously among political theorists over the last twenty years. Many scholars in political behavior, however, are skeptical that it is a practically viable theory, even on its own terms. They argue (inter alia) that most people dislike politics, and that deliberative initiatives would amount to a paternalistic imposition. Using two large, representative samples investigating people's hypothetical willingness to deliberate and their actual behavior in response to a real invitation to deliberate with their member of Congress, we find: 1) that willingness to deliberate in the U.S. is much more widespread than expected; and 2) that it is precisely people who are less likely to participate in traditional partisan politics who are most interested in deliberative participation. They are attracted to such participation as a partial alternative to "politics as usual."

Means, Motive, & Opportunity in Becoming Informed About Politics: A Deliberative Field Experiment with Members of Congress and Their Constituents

Kevin M. Esterling
University of California, Riverside - Department of Political Science

Michael A. Neblo
Ohio State University - Department of Political Science

David Lazer
Northeastern University - Department of Political Science; Harvard University - John F. Kennedy School of Government

Survey research on political knowledge typically measures citizens' ability to recall political information on the spot, and in these surveys most citizens appear appallingly ignorant. Deliberative theorists emphasize, however, that citizens' capacity to become informed when given a motive and opportunity to participate in politics is equally important for democratic accountability. We assess this capacity among citizens using two deliberative field experiments. In the summer of 2006 we conducted a field experiment in which we recruited twelve current members of the U.S. Congress to discuss immigration policy with randomly drawn small groups of their constituents. In the summer of 2008, we conducted a similar experiment using a large group of constituents interacting with Senator Carl Levin of Michigan on detainee policy. Using an innovative statistical method to identify average treatment effects from field experiments, we find that constituents demonstrate a strong capacity to become informed in response to this opportunity. The primary mechanism for knowledge gains is subjects' increased attention to policy outside the context of the experiment. This capacity to become informed seems to be spread widely throughout the population, in that it is unrelated to prior political knowledge.

Estimating Treatment Effects in the Presence of Noncompliance and Nonresponse: The Generalized Endogenous Treatment Model

Kevin M. Esterling
University of California, Riverside - Department of Political Science

Michael A. Neblo
Ohio State University - Department of Political Science

David Lazer
Northeastern University - Department of Political Science; Harvard University - John F. Kennedy School of Government

If ignored, non-compliance with a treatment and nonresponse on outcome measures can bias estimates of treatment effects in a randomized experiment. To identify treatment effects in the case where compliance and response are conditioned on subjects' unobserved compliance type, we propose the parametric generalized endogenous treatment (GET) model. GET incorporates behavioral responses within an experiment to measure each subjects' latent compliance type, and identifies causal effects via principal stratification. We use Monte Carlo methods to show GET has a lower MSE for treatment effect estimates than existing approaches to principal stratification that impute, rather than measure, compliance type for subjects assigned to the control. In an application, we use data from a recent field experiment to assess whether exposure to a deliberative session with their member of Congress changes constituents' levels of internal and external efficacy. Since it conditions on subjects' latent compliance type, GET is able to test whether exposure to the treatment is ignorable after balancing on observed covariates via matching methods. We show that internally efficacious subjects disproportionately select into the deliberative sessions, and that matching does not break the latent dependence between treatment compliance and outcome. The results suggest that exposure to the deliberative sessions improves external, but not internal, efficacy.

Posted by David Lazer at 7:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am pleased to announce the release of the report, Online Townhall Meetings: Exploring Democracy in the 21st Century. As noted below, this report summarizes the results of a series of randomized experiments, involving 13 Members of Congress meeting with constituents in small groups online. What were the quality of these sessions? What impact did these sessions have on participants? The results were quite heartening. Some of the key findings of the report:

• The meetings increased engagement in politics. Participants in the sessions were more likely to vote and were dramatically more likely to follow the election and to attempt to persuade other citizens how to vote.

• The discussions in the town hall meetings were of high quality. By standards of deliberative quality (use of accurate facts to support arguments, respect for alternative points of view, etc.) the discussions were of a very high quality.

• The town hall meetings attracted a diverse array of people. These sessions were more likely than traditional venues to attract people from demographics not traditionally engaged in politics and people frustrated with the political system.

• The sessions were extremely popular with constituents. A remarkable 96% of participants said they would like to be included in similar events in the future.

• The online town hall meetings increased constituents' approval of the Member of Congress. Members experienced an average net approval rating jump of 18 points. There were similar increases in trust and perceptions of personal qualities such as hardworking and accessible. The sessions also increased constituents' approval of the Member's position on the issue discussed.

• The online sessions increased the probability of voting for the Member. The probability of voting for the Member was 49% for control subjects and 56% for people who participated in a session, with a particularly dramatic impact on swing voters.

• The positive results were seen in small and large sessions. Most of the sessions were conducted by Representatives with small groups of 15-25 constituents. To test the scalability, the team conducted one session with a Senator and nearly 200 people. All of the major results were replicated with this larger group.

Posted by David Lazer at 10:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In today's post, I would like to address three issues related to Government 2.0: transparency, citizenship and agenda hi-jacking.

First, while we read a lot about transparency, it is easier said than done. For example, transparency levels may be highly dependent on the government context and its potential (unintended) impact on either discloser or public behavior--whether citizens or corporations. Second, when participation is emphasized--whether online of offline--, we need to revisit our understanding of citizenship today and in the future. Thirdly, political agendas/policies may be "hi-jacked" by bottom-up Internet-based approaches of proposing alternatives which also relates back to the question of citizenship and legitimacy.

Government 2.0 is the flavor of the year. Other terms now being introduced are WikiGovernment, Collaborative Government, Information Government or the U.S. administration's Open Government. While the terms might differ and the authors that introduce them slightly vary in their description and priorities, all of them intend to convey the same ideas: participation, collaboration, transparency and technology jointly allow for a new form of government and governance. Certain things are here to stay; others will pass out of fashion quickly.

The following quotes may illustrate my concerns:

A memo released by the White House, called federal agency heads to "upgrading the capacity of regulatory agencies for using the Internet to become more open, efficient, and responsive". The National Performance Review (NPR) recommended to "[u]se information technology and other techniques to increase opportunities for early, frequent, and interactive public participation during the rulemaking process and to increase program evaluation efforts."

This sounds familiar. However, the White House memo dates back to Dec 17, 1999 and NPR's recommendation back to September 1993. Therefore, policies that connect openness and responsiveness to the potential of technology have been around for over 40 years in government. Some think that eGovernment is dead. But its ideas are quite alive; especially thoughts on eDemocracy seem to finally become reality. eGovernment (the internal/external use of technology in government) does not contradict Government 2.0 anyways. On a 50.000 foot level the use of social media in government is the use of technology.The envisioned transformation requires patience and long-term support from policy makers because government is a complex ecosystem which is resilient to change.

Along these lines, I recently read an interesting blog post (Steve Radick) which reminded me of a post I contributed to this blog (why government is ahead in web 2.0 in 2008.

Of course we should not let the past constrain our vision about the future. Yet, the past may prevent us from being overly optimistic or in other words, overly disappointed when all things envisioned don't become reality.

Transparency
The Obama administration's agenda on transparency (the latest move was making information on government IT spendingavailable) is amazing but these policies as a form of regulation are not new to government. For an overview of transparency initiatives and regulations visit freedominfo.org, wobsite.be or Wikipedia. The European Commission also introduced a directive on the re-use of public sector information in 2003. Unfortunately, it is difficult to get a full overview and understanding of the level of progress of the latter in EU Member States. Consequently, it should openly be discussed how the level of transparency of a government or any of its agencies can be measured.

While Vivek Kundra agrees in principle that all public government data should be online, he also cautions that the reality is government data sits in more than 10,000 different systems, many of them written in old programing languages or are still locked in dusty paper archives. Accordingly, eGovernment is not dead. Without the appropriate infrastructure (interoperability standards, electronic records management, enterprise architecture) projects such as data.gov can only achieve parts of their true potential.

In general, for transparency we have two primary actors: the discloser and the user. There are many ways for discloser to provide less than complete information or hide important information by providing excessive amounts of information. Placing data in the public domain does not guarantee that it will be used or used in the intended way. Data may be ignored, approached with indifference, misunderstood or misused. For example, data may make it easier for special interest groups to lobby for their own interests. Transparency activities are complex and need full commitment of a government body.

Finally, government and politics are based on the type and flow of information. Transparency policies, social media and the influx of "believers of openness" in government have slightly altered the process. That may have two effects.

On the one hand, it has become more difficult to contain information. At the same time the need to monitor the "global thought stream" is increasing to be able to proactively react to emerging "crisis". These continue to be defined by traditional media (tv, radio, press) once they declare some Internet trend "news" (Note the change: Digital collective action can quickly lead to more media coverage; past: media leading to collective action).

On the other hand, transparency and social media could lead to even tighter confidentiality protocols and altered behaviour of elected officials. "Negative" media coverage/spin continues to be "sunlight" which government tries to avoid at all costs. A recent episode of "The Daily Show" provides a case in point.

Mainstream media also like to quote twitter messages of U.S. members of Congress and adding their spin to 140 character thoughts. Some of the early adopters still offer unique commentary. How long will this be he case?

Citizenship and Participation
Despite all the anti-American sentiment around the globe, the Obama administration has remarkably managed to export its open government policy around the globe. It spread virally through the Internet. Inspired by U.S. and UK based initiatives, individuals (early adopters) in other countries have started applying these initiatives to their national context (mostly exact copies) or supporting calls for government action ("democratization"). Numerous "experts" are presenting (mostly the same) ideas and good practice cases to government officials. Many of those officials are still struggling with the topic. For example, many are still wondering about the best way of "eParticipation" which is the current buzz.

However, there is an underlying question we need to answer that is far more complex and fundamental than eParticipation:

How do we define citizenship in an era of Government 2.0?

This requires a return to political theorists such as Aristotle, John Rawls and Jurgen Habermas as well as multi-disciplinary deliberation of what we would like citizenship to be. Because in the near future, every established form of decision making--especially on the political level--will experience collective action based on the increase of expressive capability of the Internet (Everyone can claim for a democratization of "something" pointing to the potential use of social media). In addition, the digital divide between those who are offline, those who are online and those who "live" online ("Netcitizen") continues to exist.

Similar to transparency, the opportunity to participate may simply be neglected until a true need arises. An average worker might only have 2-3 hours available per day to engage in participatory action which are competing with many other leisure activities. Consequently, there is also the issue of legitimacy of those participatory actions that were either offered by government or started by citizens.

Agenda hi-jacking
To prove my last point, I would like to draw on a current example from Europe. In November 2009, the EU Ministerial eGovernment Conference will take place in Malmoe, Sweden. It is planned to present a ministerial declaration on eGovernment in the EU for the next seven years. This declaration will be the result of back-room dealings between EU Member States (MS).

However, this year a group of people led by two companies decided to use a
social media facilitated bottom-up approach to create a declaration alongside the official one in Malmoe for eGovernment 2015 It is also their goal to get official endorsement of their version from the European Commission. As the content of the platform is openly accessibly, ideas might even find their way into the official document. The group's motivation is probably a mix of self-marketing, fascination for social media and spirit to influence policy making.

So far, 75 individuals participated in the activity. It will be interesting to see how many people will sign the declaration. It will also be interesting to see whether and when the media will pick-up the story of alternative agenda and how much pressure this will exert on policy makers. Considering the total population of 500 Mio EU citizens, legitimacy of this initiative is questionable.

Nevertheless, the EU is at a crossroads: If it does not open up more, it will further strip itself of legitimacy. Gov 2.0 type activities provide one avenue to strengthen the EU and its institutions.

Finally, with regards to research, I see two issues. First, old and new research from various disciplines relating to Government 20 is not connected. Second, researchers can hardly keep pace with the current output of Government 2.0 policies and projects being implemented.

Posted by Alexander Schellong at 12:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

In line with David Gibson's recent post I would like to recommend watching the following video from a talk of Clay Shirky (NYU) at the U.S. Department of State on June 17th. Its a great summary for government and enterprise executives to better understand the issue and impact of the Internet, social media and the emerging networking society on their organizations/work.

There is a follow up interview with Shirky on the emerging events in Iran and the role of social media.

Source: World Bank

Posted by Alexander Schellong at 6:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I just came back from the three-day event (5/18-20) "ISPRAT 1st International Government CIO Knoweldge Exchange" in Washington, D.C. ISPRAT is a non-profit think tank based in Germany. The think tank's scope is on technology and innovation/trends in government and bridging the gap between disciplines. Thus ISPRAT's members come from industry, academia and government. Usually it organizes government CIO summits and government related studies in Germany. The U.S. event brought its activities to a new level. The underlying idea was to bring German/EU and U.S. government CIOs together to exchange ideas/experiences on current challenges and trends.

The first day was spent at CSC, Falls Church, VA, talking about identity management (linked to post @Shaping Network Society inspired by the movie "Beyond the shadow of a doubt"), privacy, trust and enterprise architecture (case stuides on MITA, IRS and DoE). Many might not be aware of it, but both areas - identity management and enterprise architecture - are fundamental to Government 2.0. A couple of former CIOs joined the discussion and offered their insights on issues such as cross-boundary collaboration: Dan Mintz (DoT), Pat Schambach (DHS) and Mark Kneidinger (NY, VA, DoS).

The morning of the second day we spent at the White House Conference Center. Officially Supported by GSA and the U.S. CIO Council , we had a couple of acting CIOs present to offer their insights in a roundtable discussion with German, Austrian and Mexican government executives. Unfortunately, Vivek Kundra couldn't come as he had to testify on Information Security on the hill. (Update 5/29: Read the Whitehouse Cyberspace Policy Review).Two take-aways. First, when talking about new collaboration tools, the CIOs admitted that it is quite a challenge to align social media with the existing laws and regulations--some dating back to the 70s--"they can get you fired, put you in jail or burden you with huge fines". Second, data.gov will go live on May 1st--it now is.

Using Cisco's telepresence center in Herndon, VA, the group--including gov execs sitting in Germany--exchanged thoughts with the Paul Cosgrave (NYC) and Teri Takai (California). It was the first time I participated in such a"video conference" (Cisco doesn't like that term) and I was amazed. The world really becomes a small place (D.C., L.A., New York, Berlin) and while there are still some minor glitches to it, you quickly emerge in a conversation that feels quite real. For dinner, we had Jackie Patillo, the acting CIO of DoT who was also willing to share her knowledge with the group.

The final day we spent time at IBM's Institute for eGovernment with an introductory part by Sherry Amos from SAP on the economic stimulus package and transparency. A vivid discussion started and I am curious to see how some ideas will be transferred to Germany/Europe. Many were skeptical about the use of Web 2.0 tools in the coming national election in Germany. Unlike the Obama campaign, Angela Merkel and Frank Walter Steinmeier, the candidates running for chancellor, lack a comparable story and mission. Moreover, a survey among participants conducted on the first day, showed that most perceived the level of transparency in government in Germany as rather poor. Other topics included: cloud computing (Among others, people wondered about: how does this connect the security needs of government?), government 2020 and "smart cities" (everything connected).

Several people twittered about the event: Ines Mergel (Ines also recently posted some Twitter recommendations), Anke Domscheit, Thomas Langkabel and Philipp Mueller.

We also managed to convince/bring Harald Lemke, the former CIO of the German State of Hesse, to the Twitter community.

Posted by Alexander Schellong at 5:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Almost a decade ago, the EU Commission started to measure the progress of eGovernment in its Member States (now 27) and some other countries. Whenever the new version is published, results usually receives a lot of media attention. Headlines may state "Country X is a leader in eGovernment, it ranked 2nd behind country Y".

Whenever I attend EU conferences that are in some way connected to eGoverment, representatives of Member States like to point out their country's position in the EU eGovernment benchmarking study to underline how far they have come. In fact, whenever politicans or high-level administrators from EU Member States talk about eGovernment, they refer to one particular result the EU eGovernment benchmark--online sophistication Therefore, the benchmark has positively influenced eGovernment policies in EU Member States (MS) and beyond.

Yet, what can the benchmark tell us?

The EU eGovernment benchmark measure 20 public services and the national portal, using four indicators : online sophistication (5-stages), online availability, user centricity and national portals. So in its essence the E-Government benchmark only tells us what is happening on the supply-side of eGovernment in 20 areas. eGovernment, of course, is much more complex than that.

Other eGovernment benchmarks like the one conducted by the United Nations face similar difficulties. How do you measure a complex issue with a limited amount of budget? How do include new trends such as Government 2.0 (Paper / Blog) in a benchmark?

Furthermore, how can you allign benchmarks? They tend differ in scope(EU=20 public services; UN= mix of info society indexes (e.g. from ITU) and eParticipation), underlying cause-effect framework, measures, analysis or transparency of the methodology . Results differ widely and politicians tend to focus on one result. For example, Iceland ranks EU=19, Brown/Brookings=68, UN=21. Why not agree on one cross-financed benchmark and indicators?

The EU and the United Nations are currently revising the eGovernment benchmark methodology. This happens mostly in closed circles of government representatives and experts from academia. While I don't want to criticize this process in general, revising an eGovernment benchmark could be improved by consulting the public (anyone...academics, citizens..) on e.g. how to come up with a framework of measures to capture citizen-centricity, what should be measures or how that should be done. Furthermore, why not make the complete set of data-set available for researchers after 2 years?

Let me close this entry with two recommendations for those involved in redesigning eGovernment benchmarks:

Selecting Measures:
(You should consider this for each measure and any combination of measures)
- Understandibility
- Impact
- Timeliness
- Validity/Accuracy
- Uniqueness
- Comprehensiveness
- Weight
- Collection costs
- Controllability

Scope:
(You can focus on)
- Input
- Process
- Output
- Outcome
- Efficiency (outputs relative to inputs)
- Effectiveness (outcome relative to output and goals)
- Demand
- Usage / Adoption

Posted by Alexander Schellong at 6:00 PM | Permalink

The CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) is using several different social media channels to inform about the swine flu besides the traditional (Web 1.0) channels, such as frequent press briefings, general information in audio and video, etc.:

1. Updates from the H1N1 page haven an RSS feed.


2. Frequent updates are spread using Twitter.


3. Video updates are posted using podcasts.


4. Image sharing on the CDCs Flickr site.


5. Buttons for your website.


6. Information sharing on MySpace's e-health page and daily strength group.


7. Updates can be shared using several different services (Google Reader, Bookmarks, Delicious, Facebook, Digg, etc.).


8. e-Cards to send by email to family members and friends to remind people to wash their hands.


9. Agencies can embed a flu widget on their page.

On the funny side: Do you have swine flu?

Posted by Ines Mergel at 7:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Are you in favour of more efficient and effective government? Of course you are. If one counted the reasons given most often for any type of government reform, these two would score the highest marks.

It is widely recognised that the characteristics of information and communication technologies (ICT) have strong impact on both. Government was thus among the first to utilise ICT. In the early days, punch-card machines were used for the census, and electronic databases replaced large amounts of data stored in non-digital form (for example, in files) throughout government once the technology was available.

Because information drawn from data is at the core of everything government does - analysis, decision-making or verifying eligibility for access to public services, to name just a few - the proliferation of databases, data mining and ICT in general is unsurprising. However, it is this increase in databases, the kind of data being gathered, the way that data is protected (or rather the opposite) and the way it is used internally and externally, that has come under increased scrutiny and been criticised by many civil libertarians.

But the criticisms are not just about civil liberties. When governments implement ICT, outcomes vary. Large-scale projects such as the FBI's Virtual Case File, the UK's C-NOMIS or Germany's FISKUS either failed completely or largely exceeded their estimated budgets, wasting billions of taxpayers' money. There are, of course, also successful projects but, by and large, the expected impact of eGovernment in moving into a brave new world of efficient, effective and citizen-focused government administration has not happened.

The power of ICT
ICT has characteristics that need to be understood before carrying out any impact assessment. These characteristics underline why digital data and databases will continue to grow in the future, and why it is necessary to find balanced governance mechanisms for ICT, for the organisations they are embedded in, and for us - the individuals using them.

ICT allows information processing, coordination and flows to be structured without the common boundaries of roles, organisational relationships and operating procedures found in government. As a consequence, the relationship between information and the physical factors of organisational size, distance, time and costs are altered.

Digital information makes geographical dispersion irrelevant, allowing for new forms of collaboration and networks. Information technologies facilitate the speed of communication and more selectively control access to, and participation in, information exchange.

Interestingly, the standardisation, routinisation and formalisation of information sharing are not only technical requirements for shared databases to be effective; they are also typical traits of bureaucracies.

Organisational memory that was once hidden in non-digital forms or an individual's memory can be stored, managed and analysed in digital form to improve knowledge or facilitate decision-making - helped by the fact that information storage, provision and search costs are virtually zero once information is digitised. Moreover, the human constraints of processing large quantities of information are reduced (for example, through the use of search engines), and software applications make it possible to combine and reconfigure data so as to provide new information.

This has been spurred by the rise of Web 2.0 applications such as social networking sites, mash-ups, tagging, and wikis, with the underlying philosophy that comes with it - i.e. mass collaboration and data sharing - further facilitating the growth of data.

The public has followed this trend on a scale that no one imagined. Younger people in particular store and share data about their activities, location, buying behaviour or personal lives like no other generation before, and periodical incidents of security breaches, identity theft and fraud have not reversed this trend.

Often, this behaviour is based on a conscious decision: millions of users joined corporate loyalty programmes (offered by, for example, airlines, hotels or shops) in return for personalised services, rebates or points that can be used in various ways. People may also just be following an intrinsic desire to share and connect. Wikipedia is one of the prominent examples of the powerful force of collaborative peer production.

Data is also gathered and stored by companies in ways which customers are unaware of, but while the public has less control over the activities of companies, there is generally greater concern when government is engaging in these types of activities.

The rise of government databases
The counter argument is that governments do not gather more data; they are just gathering and combining data in new ways (for example, databases, biometrics, face-recognition software, remotely readable chips (RFID)).

They do so for good reasons: national security, accountability, to provide better public services and to bridge organisational silos. Yet, since 9/11, more data is being sought indiscriminately rather than selectively, meaning that innocent people's data is included through law-enforcement agencies' screening processes.

Indeed, studies have shown that bigger DNA databases produce better results. This may argue in favour of creating a comprehensive DNA database containing information on all citizens and not just those convicted of crimes, as this may actually help to exclude suspects, save investigative resources and have a deterrent effect overall.

The automatic transfer of data about passengers flying from Europe to the US sheds light on another important aspect of the discussion on databases and data sharing. In a globalised world, should countries grant access to their domestic databases and how can they protect personal data beyond their national borders?

Incidents such as the day in November 2007 when the UK government managed to lose two CDs with unencrypted data of more than 25 million citizens underline four key issues relating to government databases.

First, the government has a mandate to protect the public's data. Second, data security is not only about technology. Thirdly, government needs strategies to manage digital trust. Finally, the characteristics that make ICT so valuable (for example, the ease with which it can be transferred) mean there are increasing vulnerabilities and risks: that data will be shared when it should not be, or that it will be lost, stolen or misused. At the same time, there is a risk that data will not be available when it should be.

Paradoxically, calls for new government databases and better interoperability do arise when the system of government fails. Accordingly, new databases to track and monitor individuals and institutions, or links between formerly separate databases, are built.

Moreover, many ideas for creating pro-active, multi-channel, one-stop and joined-up government simply do not work without databases. The volume of data to be collected will grow constantly in the near future as more government transactions are digitised, and cases of data being cross-referenced ('mined') will also grow as the relevant software improves.

Even if a government body decides to discard data, it faces many difficulties.

First, because data storage costs are continuously decreasing, governmental organisations prefer to keep everything, creating 'data cemeteries'. The expansion in the volume and kinds of data maintained by agencies have made it almost impossible to maintain an inventory of resources.

Second, interim systems sometimes bridge the incompatibilities between the old and the new system, thus keeping the legacy system alive and increasing its overall complexity. For example, the US' Internal Revenue Service launched a new software application to support a total quality management initiative, but never shut it down after the initiative ended. The amount of work it would take to resolve issues relating to data exchange with other systems were considered too high.

Moreover, these 'electronic mounds' accumulate massive quantities of rules that conflict with changes to other systems. For example, to control user access, user behavior or make sure different software applications can work together. The possibilities of storing and searching electronic information may also justify the development of large sets of these rules, so ICT does not always cut red tape. This is why some have proposed a combination of laws and technology to require and make it easier for data to be deleted - and thus "revive our society's capacity to forget".

Policy options
The expansion of databases puts greater burdens on the political-administrative-ethical calculus to strike the right balance between innovation and regulatory regimes. The following questions should be considered by policy-makers in the planning stages of initiatives that include setting up databases:

• What type of data should be collected and why?
• Who collects, maintains and owns the data?
• How is the data collected?
• How long should the data be stored?
• Should the data be shared and why?
• Who will be affected by making data more widely available?
• What impact will the data have on different stakeholder groups?
• Is the data aggregated?
• Is there a minimum opt-out provision for those who provide the data directly or indirectly?
• What security measures and policies are in place to protect the data?
• How to can the data be accessed and changed by those who provide it directly or indirectly?
• How can accuracy of the data be ensured?
• How can the data be reviewed and disclosed?
• Do third parties who provide or use the data have the same security standards and privacy policies?

Policy-makers should also consider educating the public better on issues such as privacy and identity self-management - a process which may need to begin as early as in elementary school. They also need to understand how trust and the perception of security in digital government is created.

In any case, there will be many alternatives for government, businesses and the public to choose from when incorporating ICT into their lives. The perception of what is right and wrong will evolve alongside the values they are measured against, and the databases and techniques they are applied to.

(a longer version will appear in the European Policy Centre's "Challenge Europe - Is Big Brother watching you - and who is watching Big Brother" publication)

References:
D. Lazer (Ed) (2004) DNA and the Criminal Justice System, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

V. Mayer-Schoenberger (2007) 'Useful Void: The Art of Forgetting in the Age of Ubiquitous Computing', RWP07-22, Faculty Research Working Paper Series, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA: John F. Kennedy School of Government.

National Research Council (2008) Protecting Individual Privacy in the Struggle Against Terrorists: A Framework for Program Assessment, Washington, D.C: National Academies Press

A. Schellong (2008) Citizen Relationship Management, Brussels: Peter Lang Publishing.

D. Tappscott; A. D. Williams (2007) Wikinomics, New York: Portfolio Hardcover.

The Economist 'Data Mining, 27 September 2008.

The Economist 'Privacy in Britain, 28 January, 2008.

The Economist Big, bigger, biggest', 28 February 2008

The Economist 'Identity parade, 14 February 2008.

Posted by Alexander Schellong at 6:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It is my pleasure to announce that "Citizen Relationship Management - A Study of CRM in Government" is now available. Just follow the link to Peter Lang Publishing Group.

Here is a brief description of the book:

This study explores Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in government. Based on an interdisciplinary literature review and multiple-case study design, a model of Citizen Relationship Management (CiRM) is developed and discussed. The case studies explore the perceptions of CRM/CiRM by administrators, elected officials and consultants as well as its implementation and impact on the municipal level and in a multijurisdictional environment in the United States. Although the explorative part of the study focuses broadly on a theoretical conceptualization of CiRM, the immediate empirical referent of research are the 311 initiatives in the City of Baltimore, the City of Chicago, the City of New York and Miami-Dade County. Thus, the results help administrators and researchers to convey the idea and challenges of 311 well. The study shows that CRM is to a certain extent only partly able to make novel contributions to currently active reform movements in government. In addition, the study's findings support the idea that CiRM provides the means to a different kind of public participation.

Contents:
From Customer Relationship Management towards citizen oriented government - CRM - New Public Management - TQM - eGovernment - Citizen public administration relationship - Citizen as customer - Administrative contacting as public participation - Case Studies: CiRM and 311 in Baltimore, Chicago, New York City, Miami-Dade County (Implementation, Understanding, Impact) - Comparing CRM with TQM and eGovernment - A model of Citizen Relationship Management - CiRM and public participation.

I will try to keep you updated on trends in CRM in government on my blog on Citizen Relationship Management.

Posted by Alexander Schellong at 8:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In the late 1990s everything connected to the Internet got an "e"–say eGovernment or eCommerce. With the evolution of mobile technology we saw the "m" appear by 2002–say mGovernment. Eventually we also saw the rise of "i" a little later. Now its a "2.0" frenzy every time ideas and principles of Web 2.0 are applied to a subject matter. To name a few: War 2.0, Politics 2.0 or Cyberlawyer 2.0. Of course there is also Government 2.0. A little research reveals that O'Reilly who coined the term Web 2.0 had briefly addressed this topic in May 2006. Though NYT's David Pogue stated in May 2007 that we have only picked the "low hanging fruit" of Web 2.0 ideas. Among his suggestions of what had been missed were applying Web 2.0 to government. Further research gave me the impression that with a few exceptions, the discussion of Government 2.0 has not been truly connected to work in eGovernment, political or administrative science. While I am still working on a paper to address this issue, I would already like to put one of my arguments out for discussion, that is the philosophy of Web 2.0 was more revolutionary for the business world than for government.

A fundamental aspect of Web 2.0 is user empowerment. In Web 2.0 this is done in different ways. Information that was formerly rated as proprietary, is now openly available. Users may rate or comment on products or firms in general, whether facilitated through an enterprise or by using their blogs. Moreover, firms make various resources available to the users so that they can satisfy their individual needs or create something new. In the early 90s, enterprises recognized the need to build closer relationships with their customers. While many companies have not lost control, they have significantly opened up. They have also followed public expectations and are active in government domains. We could, therefore, say that there has been a democratization of the consumer. The individual and collective power of the voice option increased.

Shouldn't governments do the same? Well, yes you might say. However, let me ask you the following question: Haven't they done so in the past? For centuries political philosophers have discussed the obligations of government and citizens and the relationship of the two sides. For hundreds of years it has been a common practice to offer citizens (offline) alternatives of participation/ empowerment. For hundreds of years we have also seen many ways of disempowerment. Today, there are citizen consultation groups, commentary sections on websites, virtual/real town hall meetings and many more ways of participation. Of course there is a lot of information government does not want to share with the public for other reasons than national security. Government could also do better by including Web 2.0 ideas into their eGovernment offerings. In particular, in the field of public participation which is still rated at a low maturity stage in the latest eGovernment survey be the UN. In conclusion, a government's experience in integrating the "consumer" should not be forgotten when talking about Government 2.0.

Posted by Alexander Schellong at 6:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Technology, societal changes and new management practices influence how we perceive the roles of government. Moreover, they may transform how government does business and creates public value. However, we might as well fall into the trap of technological determinism--moving from eGovernment straight to Government X.0 hype. Therefore, many predicted a significant transformation of government thanks to new technologies such as ICT, in particular, the Internet while current research shows that the transformation has not happened (e.g. work by West, Norris, Fountain or Lazer). eDemocracy also remains a rethorical promise (Mahrer/Krimmer; UN).

In any case, while I am still working on my contribution to the discourse on Web 2.0 & Government, I have two recommendations for any of our readers interested in the matter:

First, Philipp Mueller, who has already contributed some guest entries to this blog, is offering a course on "Government 2.0" for master students at Erfurt University's School of Public Policy (ESPP) (Spring term 2008). The course covers various aspects such as Web 2.0, open source, NPM, PPP, citizen-centric governance or performance management. The sessions can be viewed online or downloaded as an mp3 file.

Second, a blog by David Osimo, a researcher at the European Commission's Joint Research Centre IPTS, who is working on the impact of Web 2.0 on public services.

Posted by Alexander Schellong at 5:19 PM | Permalink

For anyone who attended the talk today on Intellipedia by Sean Dennehy and Don Burke, you can post reactions on the blog....

"From the Bottom-up: Building the 21st Century CIA"

Sean Dennehy
Chief of the CIA Intellipedia Development Cell

Don Burke
Intellipedia Doyen

Abstract: In this seminar, Sean Dennehy and Don Burke will brief the technical and cultural changes underway at the CIA involving the adoption of wikis, blogs, and social bookmarking tools. These tools are being used to improve information sharing across the US Intelligence Community by moving information out of traditional channels. Sean and Don will also host a question and answer session. In 2005, Dr. Calvin Andrus published “The Wiki and The Blog: Toward a Complex Adaptive Intelligence Community.” Three years later, a vibrant and rapidly growing community has transformed how the CIA aggregates, communicates, and organizes intelligence information.

Sean Dennehy has more than 15 years of experience in various elements of the US Intelligence Community, including the CIA’s Directorate of Intelligence, DIA’s Joint Staff Intelligence, and supporting US Air Force operations. As the pilot customer for Intellipedia, he has become a leading change agent for incorporating Enterprise 2.0 solutions into the Intelligence Community's business practices. He has developed an innovative “sabbatical” program that introduces Intelligence Community officers to the numerous web 2.0 applications that are being deployed on multiple intelligence networks. The focus of his efforts is encouraging a viral adoption where officers replace existing processes to take advantage of network effects encountered when individuals move projects out of “channels” and onto “platforms”. His actions are based on the National Intelligence Strategy’s six main characteristics: results-focused, collaborative, bold, future-oriented, self-evaluating, and innovative. Together with a small cadre of early adopters, Mr. Dennehy is helping to break down stovepipes to allow intelligence professionals to truly act as a "community”.

Don Burke is a leading proponent of the Enterprise 2.0 ethos within the Intelligence Community and is currently the "Intellipedia Doyen", which is a role he has held since the spring of 2006. In this role he is partnered with other early adopters in an effort to demonstrate the value of social software tools, educate the Community on how to use these tools, and advocate for improvements to the environment with the goal of improving our ability to capture our knowledge and expertise. Mr. Burke is currently employed by the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology and has a diverse 19+ year background in the Federal Government working a wide range of technical and analytical issues including collection, technical analysis, congressionally directed actions, direct support to operations, project management, advanced visualization technologies, software development, budgeting, and management. Mr. Burke was quoted extensively in the October 2007 SIGNAL magazine article "Intellipedia Seeks Ultimate Information Sharing."

Relevant Readings:

1. NY Times Article (good for general introduction to IC cultural and technological issues)
URL:
2. 2004 - Seminal Paper about why the IC needs to adopt social software technologies
Title: The Wiki and the Blog: Toward a Complex Adaptive Intelligence Community
3. Wikipedia article on "Intellipedia"

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Posted by David Lazer at 2:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

by Philip Mueller

VENDOR-DRIVEN Theory: a vendor's conception or mental scheme of something to be done, or of the method of doing it;

As we are moving into network society, we need to be aware of the phenomenon of vendor-driven theorizing and able to critically reflect vendor-driven theories.

- When we talk about theory, it makes sense to distinguish between theories observing the world and theories shaping the world. Let us call the first, explanatory theories (e.g. Newtonian Physics) and the second constitutive theories ( Liberal Democracy). Of course, most theories are hybrids (think Marxism, Liberalism, or Confucianism), but we can distinguish when hybrid theories observe or shape.

- I use the term vendor-driven theories to talk about situations in which a supposedly neutral software application or management approach introduces a substantive theory into a process. Think of enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), and supply chain management in the business world in the 1990s as examples of how the software changed the theory of how business was done.

- ERP and CRM vendors, integrated solution providers, and consulting firms have recently discovered the public sector as the next market for existing software applications. ERP has been re-christened GRP, as in Government Resource Planning and CRM, CiRM, as in Citizen Relationship Management. Government officials and public administrators have been happy to take up the ideas pitched to them and are implementing.

- What is interesting is to ask of course, in how far the analogy between ERP and GRP and CRM and CiRM works and where it breaks down? We also have to ask in how far these vendor-driven theories carry transformative potential and if it corresponds with our ideas about how governance should be organized.

This posting is indebted to Alexander Schellong, Hasnain Bokhari, and Philipp Zimmermann. In discussions with them I developed an appreciation for the amazing/scary transformative power of vendor driven theorizing. I believe it is an important term to introduce into the debate, which I hereby do.

Posted by Alexander Schellong at 12:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The move to establish an easy to remember number (311) for non-emergency government services has lately gained attention around the globe. There are now initiatives underway in Germany (D115) and the UK (101). After 10 years, more and more counties and cities decide to start 311 projects. Yet 311 is far from being available for the whole population in the U.S. if we consider an earlier post of mine (map of U.S./Canadian 311 service center projects). In order to discuss the alternative or future options of 311 I will first take a look at the general options a government can follow to establish the phone as public service delivery channel. Part I will present the five options. The combination of performance management and service centers is mostly excluded to reduce complexity. The models are based on a country with a federal government structure. Part II which will be added in a couple of days will discuss the future of 311 and issues such as performance management.

The central approach
At first glance it is probably the easiest way to set up a central service center for any government. This can be a single, big service center or a number of service centers which are virtually connected. In Figure 1 below a service-center that covers more than one level of government (either of the same level e.g. several cities or several cities and a county) is called "Regional Service Center". The core aspect of this concept is the central character: Governance, finance (e.g. federal budget) and data bases. While centrality makes many things like setting standards or reducing redundancies easy, data bases are the central challenge of this approach. Not the technology but rather the content. Just gathering and maintaining the data from all levels of governments sounds like a goal that is either unrealistic (if we consider the principle of subsidiarity in a federal state which is many times protected by the constitution) or never ending. Moreover, if we think of the way 311 is used as a tool for performance management and tapping into the local knowledge of citizens there is challenge on how this data gets redistributed to the right sources.

The 311 approach
I am not going into much detail here. An advantage of 311 is that it avoids the political battles of a central approach or the move to start with a multi-jurisdictional approach. Figure 2 shows the current situation in the U.S. We have mostly 311 centers on the local level. They may have information on higher jurisdictions in their data bases but they are generally not fully integrated in the service value chain. A few Regional Service Centers can be found already. For example, Miami-Dade County has integrated the City of Miami. 34 cities have not been integrated yet. The challenge of administrators in Miami-Dade derives from budget constraints (property tax issue) or the regulatory environment. An additional challenge is to come up with finance and service level agreements that result in benefits for both sides and a sustainable service to the citizens. As one administrators once pointed out to me: "Setting up the call center and data base is easy. Changing the integrated administrations (departments) and preparing them for the change in citizens' expectation is the real challenge". Finally, Figure 2 also points to two further issues of this approach. First, 311 results in a lot of isolated and many times redundant relationships (either data or other form of agreements). Second, it is difficult to realize country wide accessibility. Less populated areas, therefore, the municipalities will lack the financial and HR capacity to realize 311 on their own.

The Central/311 Hybrid approach
This model (Figure 3) is generally a combination of the central and the 311 approach. Certain information and services that are provided by higher jurisdictions (here: State/Federal) are managed and available from a central unit/access point. This avoids some of the redundancies of the 311 approach. Regional and local service centers may develop at different speeds and provide varying degrees of services. Therefore, political battles are less likely to come up as would be the case in the central model. Service centers are not exchanging their local data or services with other service centers.

The Networked Approach
The networked approach generally builds on most of the components described in the 311 model. The core difference is that all of the service centers build a network. Information is shared widely while each service center integrates government entities based on its needs or plans. Figure 4 shows the complexity of the network and the probability of creating highly redundant activities and relationships. In order for the network to function all members need to establish some form of governance to solve issues of standards and coordination.

The Multi-centric Approach
The Multi-centric approach combines aspects of the central, 311 and network approach. It characteristics of a central approach because there are central units/db which provide information/services/coordination for a certain subset of service-centers within one "center". The service centers can evolve at different speeds and service-depths. They can be local or regional service centers. Therefore, the multi-centric approach starts like the current 311 activities. However, there is a core difference. Within one "center" the service centers are supposed to coordinate their efforts. In addition, there is a central unit (see top left of Figure 5) which coordinates and supports (e.g. good practice sharing, etc.) the overall efforts of all the "centers" and the service centers. Finally, the multi-centric approach also adopts the idea of the network approach. Each center shares information/services with other centers.

The multi-centric model is currently the favored approach for the introduction of the project "D115 Behördentelefon / Behördeneinheitliche Rufnummer" in Germany.

Posted by Alexander Schellong at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Below is a posting by Darrell West based on his chapter in Goveranance and Information Technology: From Electronic Government to Information Government, "Global Perspectives on E-Government":

Electronic government offers the promise of moving beyond the use of technology to improve public sector performance to thinking about how to employ new advances for information government and democracy itself. In this latter perspective, the technocratic vision of e-government is supplanted by a viewpoint that envisions technology empowering ordinary citizens and using digital means to bring citizens closer to leaders. In its boldest formulation, technology is seen as becoming a tool for long-term system transformation and democratization.

Not all technological innovation, though, leads to large-scale transformation. There are a number of reasons why political change tends to be small-scale and gradual. Government actions are mediated by a range of factors: institutional arrangements, budget scarcity, group conflict, cultural norms, and prevailing patterns of social and political behavior, each of which restricts the ability of technology to transform society and politics. The fact that governments are divided into competing agencies and jurisdictions limits the ability of policymakers to get bureaucrats to work together promoting technological innovation. Budget considerations prevent government offices from placing services online and using technology for democratic outreach. Cultural norms and patterns of individual behavior affect the manner in which technology is used by citizens and policymakers. In addition, the political process is characterized by intense group conflict over resources. With systems that are open and permeable, groups organize easily and make demands on the political system.

In my research, I look at the speed of global e-government change as a way to investigate whether digital technology is producing system-wide transformation. Thinking globally about technology is useful because it broadens the scope to nations that have very different political, organizational, and financial dynamics. One of the limits of relying on any single country is the difficulty of generalizing beyond that area. An international approach gives researchers a chance to see how political and institutional context affects the ability of governments to innovate in the technology area. Using a detailed content analysis of government websites in 198 different nations in 2001, 2002, and 2003, I measure the information and services that are online and discuss how e-government has changed overtime.

In general, I found that global e-government is not producing a major transformation of the public sector. While some countries have embraced digital government broadly defined, a number of other countries have not placed much information or services online, and are not taking advantage of the interactive features of the Internet. This limits the transformational potential of the Internet and weakens the ability of technology to empower citizens and businesses. Few nations view the Internet as a way to empower ordinary citizens and produce fundamental change in their political systems. This limits the transformational potential of digital government.

______________________________________________________

As noted earlier, I have negotiated with MIT a 20% discount for readers of this blog.

Posted by David Lazer at 12:23 PM | Permalink

Interesting op eds in today’s and yesterday’s New York Times, which together highlight that the defining characteristic of the state, the monopoly on the legitimate application of force (bullets), carries little weight in the absence of information as to how to apply that force (bits).

Yesterday’s op ed, "The Laptop is Mightier than the Sword," by Owen and Bing West, discussed the lack of use of information technology by US forces in the Iraq war. Some excerpts:

The war in Iraq would be over in a week if the insurgents wore uniforms. Instead, they hide in plain sight, and Iraqi and American soldiers have no means of checking the true identity and history of anyone they stop.

This is inexcusable. In Vietnam, the mobility of the Vietcong guerrilla forces was eventually crippled by a laborious hamlet-level census completed by hand in 1968. Biometric tracking and databases have since made extraordinary advances, yet our vaunted technical experts have failed at this elementary task in Iraq.

In short, we have been unable to track individuals in Iraq, and this is fundamentally handicapping efforts to control the population.

In the op ed today, there is a piece by the police commissioner of New York City, Raymond Kelly, Washington’s Secret Gun Files, examining the lack of use of information technology in US law enforcement. An excerpt:

When a gun is recovered from a crime scene, the police ask the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to trace the weapon’s provenance. Yet when our officers request the trace data for all gun crimes, the Tiahrt amendment [which Kelly opposes re-authorization of] stops us dead in our tracks — even though this aggregate information would tell us which individuals and dealers are most often involved in buying and selling guns that end up in the hands of criminals.

These two examples highlight the importance of the control and manipulation of information for the state. In fact, much of the impetus for the development of biometrics originally came from the desire of the modern state in the late 19th century to track the identities of individuals in an increasingly mobile society (see Simon Cole’s excellent book on the emergence of biometrics for further details).

The defining governance challenges of the 21st century will almost certainly revolve around bits and not bullets. The state figured out how to deliver overwhelming force vis a vis its citizens long ago; but where and how to apply that force is far more difficult. Within the state, a key part of the information architecture has to do with what in citizens see and report to authorities (see article in yesterday’s Boston Globe on a new text messaging system to get anonymous tips about crime). These mechanisms of social control by themselves have important limits in a mobile society, hence the increasing importance of information technology. Obviously, in a setting such as Iraq, both the social and technical infrastructures for control by the state are severely limited.

These informational challenges multiply in a world where problems often cross jurisdictional boundaries but information does not. One sees this even within the information architectures of the most modern of states (e.g., the US); however, within the global scene problems will hide where the informational architecture is nonexistent.

……………………

I will also take this posting to make a quick pitch for a forthcoming edited volume that Viktor Mayer-Schoenberger and I have coming out this Summer that explores this and related issues, Information Technology and Governance: From Electronic Government to Information Government (MIT Press: 2007).

Posted by David Lazer at 11:36 AM | Permalink

While CRM has been researched and applied in private enterprises for years, it has only recently gained attention as a concept for government. Concurrent with the emergence of eGovernment and the general tendency of transferring more and more business concepts into the government domain, articles and studies started to address the topic. Many articles on eGovernment briefly address CRM when referring to aspects such as one-stop government or a multi-channel environment directly or indirectly. Besides CRM, authors introduce slightly altered terms like Citizen Relationship Management (CiRM), Constituent Relationship Management (CRM), Public Relationship Management (PRM) or Citizen Encounter and Relationship Management (CERM) to underline its government orientation and application.

Private sector CRM literature is highly fragmented and lacks a common conceptualization (Zablah/Bellenger/Johnston 2004). It is, therefore, somewhat unsurprising to find the same characteristics in its application to government. Truly sarcastic oberserves might say "garbage in, garbage out". The literature on CiRM currently lacks a common definition, conceptualization and set of goals. I define Citizen Relationship Management (CiRM) as,

a strategy and set of management practices, enabled by technology with a broad citizen focus, to maintain and optimize relationships and encourage new forms of citizen participation.

Most articles on CiRM review private sector CRM, technological aspects (CRM systems) and expected benefits in government. There is a general agreement that many aspects of CRM are not sector-specific. However, they need to be translated into the context of each sector. Customer segmentation can serve administrators to identify those needing help or who are about to do so. Customer retention strategies can be directed at preventing citizen’s from using a service again. Yet, the termination of unprofitable customers, data mining, broadening the service range and thus choice, the issue of externalities or conceptualizing the citizen as customer are believed to be harder to transfer to government.

Another issue is that term CiRM is applied to describe any citizen-focused initiative or interaction. For instance, public service provision through an online portals are presented as successful CiRM projects. Administrators struggle with the lack of knowledge on CRM, in addition to their discomfort with CRM terminology. Public administrations, which claim to engage in CiRM, connect it to single customer service initiatives, online portals, electronic case management, call centers, physical one-stop service centers and CRM software. However, the literature offers little to no insights into organizational, cultural or process related changes in CiRM initiatives in terms of a holistic understanding of CRM.

King (2007) analyzed the results of the British CRM Pathfinder program (2001-02) and the CRM National Programme (2003-04). The majority of CRM projects focussed on adding CRM capabilities to call centers and one-stop shops. Participating municipalities can be in different stages of a proposed CRM development path which do not build upon each other. Therefore, a contact center and multi-channel environment may be realized without the changes towards a customer centric organization. In addition, there was little evidence for citizen analytics (segmentation, needs analysis), organizational changes (bridging departmental silos) or true multi-channel access. Janssen and Wagenaar (2002) found similar results and concluded that Dutch CiRM efforts are in an “embryonic stage”. Along these lines, in their survey of the status quo of CRM in German public administration, Bauer, Grether and Richter (2002) reported that the CRM elements implemented are far from meeting the holistic concept of CRM. Per-sonalization and a closer analysis of commonly used public services are frequent practices, while segmentation or profitability analyses remain untested concepts. Among the biggest barri-ers to exploring CRM, German administrations mention their lack of human resources and time constraints. In the United States, CiRM is mostly connected to 311 non-emergency number call center initiatives and innovations such as the performance management concept CITISTAT.

Based on some of these facts, I strongly recommend making sure to come up with a clear definition and concept of CiRM before communicating it throughout the organization and attempting an implementation.CiRM is more than a contact center and it is also different to eGovernment although both can certainly enrich each other.

Posted by Alexander Schellong at 12:00 AM | Permalink

Today's blog entry raises the question to our readers how social software could facilitate the inclusion of immigrants and minorities. Furthermore, there is a link to two post-doc positions.

I recently attended a EU policy finding workshop which aimed to contribute ideas and suggestions drawn from social capital and ICT (Web20, social software) perspective to the preparation process of the EC Communication (2007) and subsequent Initiative (2008) on eInclusion within the i2010 framework initiative. The Riga Ministerial Declaration dentified the participation by immigrants and ethnic minorities (IEM) in the European information society as important to improve their possibilities for economic and social participation and integration, creativity and entrepreneurship. Greater employability and productivity of minorities are specifically mentioned as a target, for which tailored ICT training and support actions are deemed to be important.

The following questions guided our discussions during the workshop which I would like to post here to collect further ideas and suggestions:

- Under which conditions can social capital be used as a lever to counter a number of risks of digital exclusion and to exploit ICT-enabled opportunities to promote greater socio-economic integration and cultural diversity?

- Which contribution especially in a social capital enhancing perspective, can new ICT applications and services (particularly mobile phone and social computing) make to address crucial integration challenges, on the one hand, and to support the creative and entrepreneurial usage of ICT by IEM, on the other?

- Which kind of instruments can the European Commission mobilise to enhance social capital and its cohesive effects through the use ICT? How should innovation and research agendas be inspired to respond to the considered challenges? How successful experiences can be best replicated?

Accordingly, recommendations were structured around the following areas: deepening understanding, research and innnovation, cooperation, awareness & marketing, good practice promotion, monitoring and benachmaring, legislative action and finally provision of "public" services. Now its your turn. One example for an "immigrant" oriented website was a project in the Netherlands for Moroccans.

Besides your comments to this blog you can also go directly to the eInclusion of immigrants and minorities project website and gather more information or share your ideas.

There are also two post-doc positions available at IPTS in lovely Seville, Spain. The Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS) is one of the seven scientific institutes of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) so you should work in a very interesting environment. Paul Timmers who is leading the project was the former head of the EU eGovernment Unit. If you are interested in investigating, from a technological and socio-economic point of view, the future of eServices and Web 2.0 technologies, and have knowledge in one or several of the following research lines: eInclusion, eLearning, eGovernment and eHealth you should send them your CV by no later than May 25.!

Posted by Alexander Schellong at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Today Google announced partnerships with the states of Arizona, California, Utah and Virginia to make it easier to search for hard-to-find public information on state government websites. With millions of data bases scattered throughout the government landscape, Google is of course interested in tapping into that market. It is already offering a special search engine for US government information. Google also provided Ireland with its search technology. Governments on the other hand realized that many citizens already prefer finding government information by using private sector search engines (due to better search results) instead of the ones developed for government portals. Google's government collaborations are probably more about using their technology like "Coop" or "Search Appliance" rather than the data but the press release did not elaborate further on that issue. Google retains personally identifiable information which is a big issue for privacy advocates. Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google once said that, "We are moving to a Google that knows more about you". Google, therefore, refused sharing this data with governments in the past. If Google just supplies the technology and data is stored on government servers Google should be safe from conflicts of interest. However, in other arrangements (i.e. outsourcing) it might be more difficult to draw the line in terms of data ownership and access.

In any case here is an overview on how to find government information.

Posted by Alexander Schellong at 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Governments worldwide are facing three issues of importance. Many experienced administrators will retire which also results in a drain of knowledge. Furthermore, governments have to do more with less and be innovative by i.e. exploiting the benefits of ICT while at the same time cutting budgets. I recently read an article about new government recuriting methods which nicely illustrates Granovetter's theory of weak ties for job finding and possible utilization of SNS in government.

"All over the country, municipalities are widely reporting that it’s hard to recruit city managers, technology directors, engineers and people with expertise in the fields of accounting and finance. States seem to be having a little easier time of it right now, especially if they are in the heady throes of gubernatorial transition. In Massachusetts and New York, private-sector experts in areas ranging from public health to homeland security have been enticed to lend a hand to ambitious new governors, even though it has meant putting another career on hold and taking a huge hit in salary [...] When Antonio Villaraigosa became mayor of Los Angeles in 2005, his headhunters required all potential high-level aspirants to apply online, says his transition chief and now chief of staff, Robin Kramer. In the end, Villaraigosa ended up filling most of his top jobs the tried-and-true way: He approached people who were known to him or his top staff or who were referred by some other trusted source. "

In order to find the right people governments are increasingly tapping into headhunters, web based job platforms and certainly social networking sites like LinkedIn to widen their choice of possible candidates.

Posted by Alexander Schellong at 12:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Jane Fountain’s book “Building the Virtual State” introduced social science researchers to the technology enactment framework (TEF). This working paper presents further modifications to the revised TEF by Okumura who introduced key actors that influence technology enactment. I propose a fourth actor group, the citizen and further causal relations between existing actors and the organisational setting. The revisions towards a more hybrid TEF between an actor-centric and institutional approach allows overcoming some of the limitations brought up by the framework's critics such as the absence of socio-technical systems theory.

Posted by Alexander Schellong at 12:15 AM | Permalink

Administrative and political leadership need to use their growing understanding of
eGovernment to come up with strategies that help them crossing the boundary between organizatonal units for better collaboration and coordination. The PNG working paper "Crossing the boundary - Why putting the e in Government is the easy part" reviews the current status of eGovernment projects and research from around the globe and offers additional insights in how to overcome these challenges.

Figure: Modified Gartner eGovernment Hype Cycle

Posted by Alexander Schellong at 12:00 AM | Permalink

Today's post ends my entry series on the use of local Social Networking Services by Japanese municipal governments. If you would like to read the entries in order just click here: Introduction, Yatsushiro Case, / Nagaoka case, discussion (organizational aspects).

Even without knowing the respective research and terms interviewees made the correct assumptions about social networks or tell stories reflecting results of social networks and social support in disaster literature. Drawing for example on the narrative of the family that was helped by many strangers after a the mother of a sons friend (weak tie) wrote about their flooded house in her “Gorotto Yatchiro” blog which supports Granovetter’s weak tie and Burt’s structural hole role in non routine activities (2004; 1983). Those interviewees who joined the local SNS found new friends on the platform and expanded their social network as concluded by Tindall and Wellman (2001). Furthermore, Soiga NPO is a great example how an organization, once brought into existence for one set of purpose (environmental activities), can also aid others for different purposes described by Coleman, thus constituting social capital available for use (1988). The NPO’s blogs were considered a trusted source and can provide an alternative to the mass media which is regarded by many individuals as a more credible source of risk information than government (McComas, 2001). A centralized approach to the provision and publication of local information might not be fine-grained enough to cater to the viral and capillary spread of word-of-mouth information anyway. This informal interaction can only be supported by recognizing the peer-to-peer nature of local interaction which is distinct from the conventional many-to-many, few-to-many, or one-to-many broadcast nature of other online interaction (Foth, 2006). In the past this role was taken by neighbourhood organizations which are already impacted by demographic and cultural change (young generations are not really interested in joining).
Finally, if the majority of the population would be represented on local SNS platform, sociograms could provide snapshots of networks and interaction structures. From these types of diagrams government and citizens can visually identify emergent positrons and clusters of interaction. By examining these patterns of mediated and unmediated interaction they could gain an added perspective on communication structures that underpin explicit community processes as well as those that support affective, less instrumental behaviors (Garton, Haythornthwaite, & Wellman, 1997). Privacy might be a concern for citizens of course. At the moment, local SNS can serve the functions of managing and building social networks. In disasters it covers the areas of “observe and report” and “warn and inform”. Along the lines of La Porte, I argue that the design and rules of the network constrain the character, use and content of member roles and exchanges and the network (1996). Consequently, local SNS could support the community and government beyond its current scope.

Sidenote: As I heard this week MIC is planing to extend their local SNS pilot with 10 other cities. I will keep you posted.

Posted by Alexander Schellong at 12:10 AM | Permalink

In today's entry I would like to make some comments on the two Japanes local government SNS case studies (Yatsushiro / Nagaoka) I presented earlier.

Mr. Kobayashi, the member of Yatsushiro's IT department, has a key role for the future development and functionalities of the SNS platform. He started this local SNS completely on his own, inspired by the rise of private social networking platforms and personal interest in technology. His government membership and high level of personal involvement ensure the sustainability of “Gorotto Yatchiro”. By comparison, “Ococo Nagaoka” is managed by an actor outside of government. The NPO, although well connected, has less leverage on the level government support and involvement. Government officials reportedly evaluate success by the quantity of users which influences their willingness of support. Therefore, "Ococo Nagaoka" is in a critical state (only 600-700 users).

Many online activities (i.e. exchanges) are depending on a critical mass for others to be attractive, a criteria which has not been met in both cases (1%< of the total population) and both mostly exclude older generations. In addition, both are competing with big platforms like Mixi.

If the local SNS has more users, the load on technology and burden on involved managers will also grow. Mr. Kobayashi would not be able to monitor user behavior without further help if that happens. Although officials claim to learn something from citizens, there is nobody checking the information in the citizens' blogs.
Mr. Kobayashi is right when pointing to the importance taking a gradual approach of getting more users and introducing the platform. However, government marketing is not helping much and poorly done which reminded me of discussions with administrators who were wondering about the slow user uptake in their eGovernment projects.

Although Mr. Kobayashi added the map feature, functionality and design of existing platforms led to an early framing of his understanding of the possibilities and limits of local SNS. The lack of feedback by other people in the creation process is certainly a reason why its use in disaster or the government citizen relationship is not fully exploited. Administrative members would also be more willing to join, add content and engage with the citizen if there would be a considerable and visible amount of support by executive level administrators. Again, Mixi and Gree formed their perception of SNS so that in their words local SNS is mainly a way to interact with the public and offer it a way to interact with each other. They miss the aspect of building social capital.

Moreover, MIC should have planned a longer pilot phase since the tendency of a slow user uptake was already visible in the data for Yatsushiro. Central government is still influential in Japan so MIC could have also done more to inform and motivate the public and administrators alike.

Posted by Alexander Schellong at 12:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The following describes my findings from Nagaoka city. Follow the highlighted area to read the first part about on government social software in Yatsushiro.

Nagaoka is a city located in the center of Niigata prefecture spanning from the northern coast inland of Japan’s main island Honshu. Just like Yatsushiro, Nagaoka merged with a couple of surrounding cities and towns between April 2005 and January 2006 increasing its population by approximately 100.000. Nagaoka was completely destroyed during Second World War and always had to cope with some form of disaster (earthquakes, snow, flood). This fact left its distinctive mark on the now roughly 283.000 people living in Nagaoka and is a reason why the Phoenix was chosen as a symbol of the city. The recovery of the Chuuetsu earthquake (More on the geophysics) in October 2004 is still taking place in some mountainous areas. The community is said to be better connected in those rural areas than in the city. According to city officials internet penetration is now at 60%. During the earthquake the internet and basic mobile messaging were the only communication channels working.

Before Nagaoka introduced the local SNS platform, it had a web bulletin board besides its official city website. Citizens showed the same frustration with the language and inappropriate behavior of some users which led many to abandon the platform. The city’s local SNS called “Ococo Nagaoka” was introduced in mid December 2005. As it is based on “Open Gorotto” I will not go into detail about its functionality. By now (December 2006) there are 600 registered users compared to 300 at the end of the MIC test phase in February. Only a few forums around casual topics like food eco-tourism can be considered active. The local SNS was marketed through publications in city newspapers, banners and section on the city website. In contrast, Mixi has 2000 members just for Nagaoka.

The process that ultimately led to the Nagaoka local SNS started in 2004. Soiga, an NPO, originally founded for environmental activities in April 2004 used a blogs and RSS to inform the public when the region first experienced a severe flood in April and earthquake in October. They provided faster information than government which received wide media attention, especially when they took over communication after Nakanashima government was operational ineffective through flooding. The NPO tried to convince government officials later that year to start an official government blog but their idea was rejected because nobody saw any need or importance in it. Thereafter, the head of the NPO was asked by MIC to join a newly formed working group on local SNS. (Furthere information in Japanese) The group consisted of academics, members from MIC and members of local administrators among them Mr. Kobayashi. They formed two groups to cover the theoretical and implementation/system aspects. First, they all looked at Mixi and Gree as the majority of them had never heard of SNS or used it before. To get the funds, the official project goal was officially about improving civic participation in Nagaoka and Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward. Although they could not think of a different kind of use, improved information sharing in disasters was a secondary object. MIC covered the costs (¥ 1,500.000) for the local SNS pilot phase whereas the NPO was asked to manage it and work together with local government. Running costs are at around ¥ 30,000 per month.

When Nagaoka’s local SNS started, many sections except for information policy did not understand the SNS concept and why Nagaoka was chosen. In fact, of those interviewed, many admit that they are still wondering what SNS is all about, why they should put their information online and how it could be further utilized for government. Many immediately joined Mixi to get a feeling for SNS. Perceptions of local SNS vary. The dominating view is that local SNS provides a convenient location for communication and information sharing for citizens and government. In the past neighbourhood associations (NA) were the link between government and citizens. However, most leaders and people in the NA are now very old and lack knowledge or interest in the use of IT. Some interviewees think it could complete or add value to real-life relationships. People could help each other more by learning more about each other, what they could do for the community and as a result rely less on government. One mentions a group that started discussing how to have a nicer city and improve economic growth which members first got to each other through the local and later offline. A member of the disaster section adds that it is strengthening the community by building broad networks between the newly merged cities. Sceptics think that there are more dominating means of communication like mobile phones. A council member who uses multiple blogs and the SNS, thinks that the level of impact on the community of the local SNS is very low. To stress this point he compares his networks on Mixi (112 contacts) and the local SNS (12 contacts). In general though, SNS helped the council member to interact with the younger community.

Currently the members of Soiga (Japanese only) are working on an updated version which should be online by early 2007. The biggest change lies in the use of the Google Maps API. They are as well talking about online advertisement space and how to attract more users to the platform. Significant changes to “Open Gorotto” can only be introduced if they are implemented by Mr. Kobayashi or someone with his skills.

Posted by Alexander Schellong at 12:02 AM | Permalink

As I wrote in an earlier entry I am currently in Japan doing research in 2 areas. First, I look at local SNS (social software) and how this could be useful for disaster management. Second, I will do another case study for my research on Citizen Relationship Management.

Yatsushiro is the second largest city of the Kumamoto prefecture and is centrally located about 40 km from the Kyushu west coast, the southernmost of the four Japanese islands. As part of the eGovernment efforts in 2002/03 the city started “Gorotto Yatchiro”. It offered a bulletin board, calendar, link posting and email form functionality. However, it never got quite of the ground with a final community size of 600, 40 truly active users and 10.000 page views per month. Usage decreased over time and since membership offered anonymity some members did not stick to accepted conventions of online behaviour. As for Japanese culture, this keeps a lot of people critical of such initiatives paired with general mistrust in government and public administration in Japan. More than 900 local governments around Japan had set up citizens’ virtual conference rooms by 2004 as part of their eParticipation efforts. Though, most of these projects met the same fate as the one in Yatsushiro city.

Meet Mr. Takao Kobayashi who had/ still has the biggest influence on local government social networking services in Japan with his ideas and "Open Gorotto" platform which is available free as openSource software (click the above link to download the latest version).

In response to the decline of the bulletin board and inspired by bigger and popular social networking platforms such as Mixi, Mr. Takao Kobayashi, a young member of the Yatsushiro IT department, decided to design and program a new version of Gorotto in 2004. Interestingly, he was neither ordered to do so nor did he ask for permission. Within three months the first version of the “Open-Gorotto” SNS using openSource software as Free BSD, PostgreSQL, and PHP was developed. Except being inspired by existing social networking platforms no additional surveys on user needs were conducted. As the platform is hosted on government servers and development was done in work and free-time costs can be considered insignificant. Up to this day there is no additional budget set aside or significant recognition of political or administrative leadership except that that there is no interference.

Mr. Kobayashi mentions four points that motivated him to create the SNS platform: First, citizens are much better at sharing government information, so each citizen’s network serves as a multiplier. Second, the platform helps the community to grow stronger, meaning that people who share mutual interests can get together in a pleasant atmosphere. Third, the platform presents general and government information in a different way. Finally, administrators can interact and learn from citizens. Disaster is missing here but was picked up by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) as a goal. MIC conducted empirical testing of SNS communities in the City of Nagaoka which will be described in LINK and in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward in early 2006.

The SNS platform exists parallel toYatsushiro city's website which links to the former. “Gorotto Yatchiro” functionality includes a blog, networking, personal profile, picture/media library, calendar and newsgroups (see picture below). Its uniqueness compared to sites like Mixi, Gree, MySpace or Xing lies in additional features as GIS/Google maps mash-up, a fire alert or open architecture with allows for integration of other features. Besides that the platform is mobile friendly. Although everybody can use the platform registered users can invite contacts. In order to prevent a development similar to the bulletin board “Open Gorotto” includes the “Alien” or “Grey Person” feature. This automatically scans for swearwords and the like and also sends a quick note to the administrator (Mr. Kobayashi) and another person supporting him with this task.

Since the new version was made available online by end of 2004, member expansion was left to invitations of users only. Mr. Kobayashi thinks that this allows for a healthier online community and avoids the objections citizens might have towards government although it is much slower. Advertising was only done through links on the city website, flyers and ads in the city magazine. Additional public attention came through press articles first in the regional and later in national press which is visible in higher website traffic after key interviews. By now the platform has around 2800 members with 70% being from Yatsushiro. Average age of members is 39 with males tending to be more active than females (ratio: 7:3). 400 users can be counted as truly active in terms of their blog, commenting or in forum behavior. The most used features are the diary followed by the internal email system and forums. 400 users have also subscribed the RSS feature. Smaller forums are managed by citizens; bigger ones are managed by the admins. 100 members of the community belong to the local administration or politics. When asked, Government officials see the local SNS mostly as another communication channel. They are still thinking about further use, especially with regard to disaster though.

Mr. Kobayashi is currently promoting the idea of having local interconnected SNS in all of Japan's municipalities that also mirror each other in case of a failure/disruption like a disaster. Modifications of "Open Gorotto" are already used by other local SNS throughout Japan. However, many times Mixi is able to attract more people from the same area as the local SNS. This relates very much to questions raised by Ines Mergel regarding individual social networking platform online behavior.

In any case, the actions of Mr. Kobayashi are unique. It is proof of an individual's impact on a smaller and ultimately broader scale. I could not find similar projects of government SNS in the world with regard to eDemocracy or disaster management. Hence, "Open Gorotto" is an innovation for local government worthwhile spending more time thinking about.

Posted by Alexander Schellong at 12:30 AM | Permalink

Apparently, the government in Japan is promoting the use of Social Networking Services (SNS) as they are hoping to take advantage of this for consultation and during a crisis like a disaster. As I will take a look at the attempts in my case studies of Yatsushiro-city, Kumamoto prefecture and Nagaoka-city, Niigata prefecture I will keep you updated in the upcoming weeks.

Let's take a look at one of the big social networking platforms in Japan the meantime. Its called Mixi and has some of the following features:
- Invitation only
- It includes a sort of diary or blog which can be shared only with the people directly connected.
- Users review goods and services
- Miximusic / iTunes integration
- You can see who visited your profile
- Anonymous profiles mostly.
- Groups. Mixi has up to a million groups that users have created
- Heavily mobile-based / friendly. Japanese people spend a lot of time commuting on the train so there is plenty of time to take advantage of the 3G network and advanced phone features like chat, mms or GPS.

I begin to wonder when we will move into the mobile SNS world. Imagine when vast ammounts people start tagging their environment with the integrated GPS or connect with their direct or in case of dating, interested "peers". This will also allow for new types of government citizen interactions with regard to disasters and everyday management.

Update: If you would like to read the full story on government social software follow this link.

Posted by Alexander Schellong at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Last week, an article in the New York Times reported on the newest developments in a decade-long struggle to modernize the F.B.I. computer system (“Cost Concerns for F.B.I. Computer Overhaul", March 14, 2006). Citing a Justice Department report, it says that the overhaul will likely cost “another half-billion dollars to complete". The same amount has already been spent: After the report by the 9/11 commission revealed that the antiquated computer system might have played a part in the intelligence gaps before 9/11, the F.B.I. reacted by devoting $535 million to its Trilogy Program, a network “designed to provide all FBI offices with better organization, access and analysis of information" (F.B.I. press release). So far, the results have been less than satisfactory: Its core component, a case management system (known as Virtual Case File system), collapsed under technical difficulties and was abandoned by the F.B.I. after it had spent $170 million on it. And a few days ago, an audit by the GAO revealed that the F.B.I. and its contractors spent more than $17 million on “questionable payments" (Washington Post, March 18, 2006). Now, the F.B.I. plans to spend $425 million on a new case management system, partly with the same contractors, named Sentinel.

What puzzled me was a statement by the inspector general’s office of the Justice Department quoted in the Times saying that they were unsure whether the new system, “even if successful, would allow the bureau to share information adequately with other intelligence and law enforcement agencies". The lack of information sharing was one of the main issues pointed out by the 9/11 commission, and yet, after investing a billion dollars, information sharing is not built into the system. It seems to me that the project would benefit enormously from the insights organizational researchers have into information networks. For example, my research shows that large IT projects that start off with an exploration of informational needs are more successful in the “exploitation", or implementation phase. Rather than focusing solely on network technology, the F.B.I. should devote some resources to finding out who needs to talk to whom. Have researchers conduct interviews, run focus groups, maybe even do an ethnography to identify the information network, then build the computer network to support it.

Posted by Maria Binz-Scharf at 8:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)