1EISBUR TAIPS conference, Urbino, 19 April 2012

When people meet data: Collaborative approaches to

public sector innovation

katarzyna.szkuta@tech4i2.com david.osimo@tech4i2.comRoberto Pizzicannella (Tech4i2, Autonomous Province of Trento)

Sluggish growth of eGovernment take-up

Is collaborative production of eGovernment services the answer to the problem of low usage?

Our research questions

• What does it mean to collaboratively deliver public services?

• What are the success factors?• What are the incentives for:– innovators and third-party players? for citizens?

public administration?

Conceptual model of Collaborative eGovernment

DATAPRODUCTION

SERVICE PROVISION

Our case studiesISTAT widget

Google Transit

Digitalkoot

OpenlyLocal

ActivMobs

SeeClickFix

Well-defined needs hence greater uptake

• Digitalkoot managed to engage 8 000 citizens during first four months of the service - equivalent of three person year work !

• SeeClickFix - over 100,000 issues reports (2011), results doubled every year

What’s in for me? Implications of collaborative eGovernment

• For innovators and third-party players• For citizens• For public administration

What brings in the innovators?

• Desire to make a difference• Opportunities for visibility• Possible financial gain• Low cost of setup– SeeClickFix - first version was created over a weekend by

friends– Chris Taggart set up the OpenlyLocal website a proof of

concept – G-Transit invented as one of the Google Labs initiatives

• Fail small, fast and forward

What drives the citizens to participate?

• New incentives to participate – benefits are tangible – ActivMobs builds a self-help network

• Attracting citizens who are not policy-savvy– No service demands prerequisite knowledge or interest in policy-

making (with exception of OpenlyLocal)• Gamification

– Digitalkoot makes it fun to correct scans of 19th century journals• more social & more local

– SeeClickFix shows the most active contributors• “allowing citizens to demonstrate citizenship in diverse

ways” (Chadwick, 2009)

What is unique contribution that citizens can make to public service delivery?

• IT skills: Openly Local is a far more usable and sophisticated service that government have implemented, ISTAT widget was developed by a civil servant in his free time

• specific thematic knowledge: Openly Local links to hyperlocal bloggers which use the local data to explain the local issues

• experience as users of public services: it is costly and difficult for government to understand the perspective of users. SeeClickFix shows what’s important for citizens in their neighbourhood.

• pervasive geographic coverage: SeeClickFix is more efficient thanintermittent controls of civil servants

• trust: ActiveMobs based its success on the power of imitation and influence of networks

• many eyes and many hands: large collaborative endeavors such as in the case of DigitalKoot are less expensive and easier to coordinate

Increase in uptake results in better quality of the service

“Hands-on care by health professionals can't scale. One-on-one advice from professional intermediaries, like librarians, can't scale. Networked peer support, research, and advice can scale. In other words: Altruism scales.”Susannah Fox

Additive not substitutive services

• A niche that exists – all of the services (with the exception of G-transit) tend to replace a government service

• Therefore there is no need for permission (OpenlyLocal founder expected the service to be

out in couple of days)

ConclusionsNot a magic solution but an opportunity for:

• Job creation• Democracy enhancement • More efficient public service delivery: not a direct saving

but a new way to innovate public services• Still requires change in governance and institutional culture• Conditions for success: relevant topic, appealing design,

transparent impact