Comments on: Government is an elephant

By: NeuroGovernment » Blog Archive » Can Government Squash the Companies That Are Helping It Become Open and Transparent?

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 00:44:07 +0000

[...] The Public Strategist argues that government working with tech companies is like an elephant partnering with a mouse. [...]

By: Public Strategist

Public Strategist — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:44:30 +0000

As a lazy, cosy bureauacrat myself, I am slightly struggling with this thought. Setting up a straw man works as parody but not for much more than that. Disbanding public services is no part of my argument – if it were, the problem I am talking about here would just go away. We only need to worry about the co-existence of government and other service providers if both going to continue to exist.
It’s pretty easy to be cyncial about energy and enthusiasm and of course those qualities in isolation make for nothing. But they do act as powerful catalysts and neither is so prevalent that they can be taken for granted. I think there is conderable social value in welcoming and nurturing those qualities, because I don’t think government is beyond improvement.

By: benedict

benedict — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:24:30 +0000

Boo, bad government! Stupid arrogant public sector! Lazy, cozy bureaucrats!

Let’s just disband public services. We could replace them with cheerful young ‘social entrepreneurs’ and ‘innovators’ who, even if they can’t actually get their act together to put a rather basic digital service online over the course of a year, will no doubt prove entirely capable of providing large-scale social care for next to no money. After all, they’re so ‘enthusiastic and extraordinarily energetic’. And that’s just so much more uplifting than ‘progressive’, ‘experienced’ or ‘intelligent’.

One thing we particularly look forward to is having people who aren’t up to speed with digital tech further excluded from the public sector. Brilliant! They only get in the way, after all. (http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8781.html)

I am very much looking forward to the desolate neoliberal landscape we’ll be living in a few years down the line. That’s why I like ‘social innovation’, because it sounds really cool, which helps me shut down healthcare services and the like, whether or not anything transpires beyond the vague promise of exciting new services to come.

By: NeuroGovernment » Blog Archive » Tread Carefully Toward OpenGov

NeuroGovernment » Blog Archive » Tread Carefully Toward OpenGov — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:40:06 +0000

[...] Strategist has some words of caution when government partners with other [...]

By: Janet E Davis

Janet E Davis — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 11:40:33 +0000

Excellent and very thoughtful post.

These are issues that are very much on my mind as public cultural heritage web resources wither and die through lack of funding, and a tendency for public organisations to fund innovation that does not build upon what was created previously. The public cultural heritage web resources help to educate many and also to promote the UK. Publicly-funded web resources are required to be accessible. Commercial organisations appear to be far less interested in accessibility (though it would be in their best interests).

I think that there is also a trust issue. Who provides the most authoritative, trustworthy information? This question is not necessarily as clear as it may seem initially.

By: Four short links: 16 March 2010 « Murder Manual

Four short links: 16 March 2010 « Murder Manual — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 10:55:49 +0000

[...] Government is an Elephant (Public Strategist) — if Government is to be a platform, it will end up competing with the members of its ecosystems (the same way Apple’s Dashboard competed with Konfabulator, and Google’s MyMaps competed with Platial). If you think people squawk when a company competes, just wait until the competition is taxpayer-funded …. [...]

By: Ruth

Ruth — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 09:58:29 +0000

Excellent stuff. I think there’s another very simple argument too. There simply isn’t going to be the money available for government to invest in its own pet ‘let’s invent our own one here’ projects. There will be instead increasing interest in seeing others do the work FOR govt, preferably at low or no cost. I think this imperative will – and not before time – finally put paid to some of government’s less well considered efforts to reinvent things inside the machine. THe smarter bits of the public sector (local and central) are beginning to realise that they might both achieve better outcomes AND save the taxpayer money by small investments in infrastructure or social capital which enable people to get on with things on their own. After all – yes, DWP should ensure that it’s possible to find out information easily about benefits etc, but there’s no reason at all why the delivery of the information should be done BY government. Especially when it’s not very good at it.

By: James Munro

James Munro — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 22:56:03 +0000

Thank you for such a thoughtful and carefully considered post. I do think this is an important issue, and one which needs wide and continuing discussion.
It is hard to argue, from first principles, what government should or should not do online. I suspect online is no different to offline, and the proper boundaries of the state are a matter for constant debate and (dare I say it?) political struggle. I don’t presume to offer any special insight on this score.
But another way to look at this is to ask what the elephant would like to see happen. After all, the elephant is busy trumpeting about the release of government data and all the marvellous things people are going to do with it, and the value that will be generated for the nation.
Well, why would people give up their secure careers and public sector pensions and decide to create new online services and innovate in the public interest, if – having observed the case of myPolice, perhaps – they thought there was fair to middling chance that the elephant would come along and defecate all over their work just as they got going? After all, people aren’t stupid.
The elephant may have big feet and a small brain, but it isn’t stupid either, is it? Does it want to see people outside government innovate in the public interest, or not?

By: Martin Stewart-Weeks

Martin Stewart-Weeks — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 10:54:23 +0000

it is not about whether government ought to be allowed or not allowed to provide these forums and sites. It should all be about competence. The question is whether they are any good at it or not.

As a general rule, the characteristics of a good forum or platform of the Patient Opinion type – highly interactive, open and self-governed, transparent and willing to discuss any issues, however critical, easy to use and as interested in conversation between users as it is between users and the site itself – are going to be hard for governments to replicate.

The proper role of the ‘elephant’, perhaps is to make space for lots of ‘mice’ to play and experiment.

By: Links 13/3/2010: Fedora 13 Benchmarked; OpenGL 3.3, OpenGL 4.0 | Boycott Novell

Sat, 13 Mar 2010 08:50:54 +0000

[...] Government is an elephant Government is a big and unwieldy beast. Even when it is looking where it is going, it is all to easy for it to step on small creatures and hardly notice the crunch. All too often, it isn’t particularly looking where it is going and can tread on things without malice or intent – but if you are the small creature, the motives of the elephant are hardly your top concern. [...]