My post might go but my job lives on

Earlier today myself and Martin Howitt (Co-collaborator and all round good egg) posted about how the future of the Enterprise Architecture function here at the council (which we are part of)  could be sustained, but without assuming we would have to be employed to actually do it. Now if only we could ensure we got paid as well …

We both feel the same way about this which is that Enterprise Architecture is even more critical to do in the current economic climate and in our opinion without adopting EA approaches etc the organisation could be at risk of not maximising value from its activities.

One outcome of the process could be that we actually architect ourselves out of a job. But in this climate it is personally more important to ensure the organisation is capable of succeeding then whether or not I can justify my job.

Anyway, the posts are very focused on the function of Enterprise Architecture, but it occurred to me that the public sector needs to adopt an approach which allows for the main streaming of a number of core disciplines moving forward,  so you may find some shareable lessons in here for your own area of work

Have a read and if you can post a comment

We are also going to be posting about the process and approach we are following too, so look out for that.

GartnerSym 20:20 Vision

My second session on Wednesday was more about the future, which is the kind of session i like as it gets my brain thinking and buzzing around with ideas and opportunities. The Session was called 20:20 vision  and the Gartner Analyst was Steve Prentice.

The format of this session was to look at where we are how we got here and then instead of making forecasts or predictions – Steve was going to suggest some projections.

These notes bounce around a bit as it wasn’t a standard session it was intended to stimulate thought and suggest a potential future.

The life cycle of a revolution

In the 1920s Russian economist Nikolai Kondratiev described 1920s, the regular “S-shaped” cycles of technological innovation (each lasting 50 to 60 years) that drive the world economy – In 2003 Carlota Perez in 2004 produced “Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital” and built upon Kondratiev’s model and introduced 4 stages:

1. eruption
2. frenzy
   (1 & 2 are supply side innovation)
3. synergy
4. maturity
   (3 & 4 are demand side innovation)

Some key dates of our current revolution:

• 15th November 1971 – Intel launches 4004 microprocessor
• 12th August 1981 – IBM introduce the 5150 the IBM PC
• 6 August 1991 – Web made available to the public
• 10th January 2001  – wikipedia is created
• August 2003 – Myspace goes live
• 4 February 2004  – Facebook goes live
• August 2004 – Google goes live with expanded offering
• 23 April 2005 – you tube goes live
• 21 March 2006 – twitter goes live

Projection – We won’t see any new technologies over the next 15 years – but we will see an increase in applications built upon existing technology that enable people to consume information and engage with stuff better and more efficiently

More stats

• global ip traffic is doubling every 2 years
• mobile traffic is doubling every year (games consoles, digital photo frames, tv’s fridges etc)
• currently 60 billion smart devices

The internet is big and getting bigger – It is very hard to explain to people how big the web is – a trillion web pages – 250 million websites

Projection – It will take 8 years to get the remaining population of the world connected to the internet.  This is SO SIGNIFICANT you need to pause and consider your business model in this new context?

Device and Data Proliferation will be significant

15 petabytes of information every day – This is huge, in fact i can’t really imagine what all this data looks like, however some common references say that we produce more information in a day 1500 time greater than the contents of the library of congress which has 32 million books on 650 miles of bookshelves. again we produce more than that every day?

Just to give some context Steve said:

A book is a printed kindle  -  A library is a like a physical media centre

This did put a smile on my face, but also made me think that one day i’m sure we will actually have to explain stuff in this way!!

To get a sense of where we are going we need to understand the drivers:

Social
Simply put we are naturally social creatures:

• 74% of people visit social networking site and remain on their for an average of 6 hours a month
• 50% of facebook users logon everyday
• 22% of online time is in social networks
• 1 billion users across all social media

Practically no one makes a purchase decision without referencing either google or social networks very pervasive

We can now, as individuals build our own infrastructure online and pretty much for free.

Knowledge
The younger minded people of today (notice i write “minded”) often say “why do i need to know something if i can just ask google”  – however people have a naive assumption that what appears in google is the “truth”. Search results are also available in “klingon”!!

Entertainment and Recreation
Gaming is bigger than the movie industry
Average online gamers are 34 years old and core gamers play 48 hours per week?
Social gaming – farmville has more than 60 million active users – 100 million dollar business

What is interesting about this is almost at the same time i was in this session Gartner analyst Andrea DiMaio tweeted the following:

Are Games the Future of Government 2.0? – http://bit.ly/bpVrRm #gov20 #GartnerSym—
Andrea DiMaio (@AndreaDiMaio) November 10, 2010

It is already starting to show in people’s thinking about Government and I’ve already posted some thoughts on gaming and government in my World of Govcraft posts:

• World of Govcraft
• Moving from Attention to Engagement to Participation – More World of GovCraft

Mobile

• SMS 6.3 billion messages a day
• 150 million mobile facebook users
• more than 100% penetration in some countries
• “to text” is now a verb
• mobile data traffic is rising
• for the first time in september 2010 mobile data traffic exceeded mobile voice traffic

Commerce
online transactions are growing
social gaming is a huge industry

is access to the web a basic human right and should it be free?

Net neutrality (wikipedia definition)
the power to control what a user can do on the internet

Interestingly Hollywood and China had shared agendas about controlling the web?

Looking forward – the dark side
The web is full of opinion, not facts
Can you distinguish the fact from fiction (if users are influenced by peers, maybe this will be an important issue to consider)
Do a search of your “company name” and the word “I hate” and see the results?

Looking forward- context and cloud

Taking advantage of location and time
Cloud is inevitable but not without risks

Resistance is futile – you WILL be assimilated, i’ve heard this before, but considering this was a future session, it really will be the future.

Enterprises are losing control – the outside is coming in – the walls are tumbling – consumers have choices and they are bringing them with them…wherever they go.

Questions

• what new institutions will arise – what does a company look like?
• what new business models will emerge
• working practices – what does a career look like? portfolio working
• social integration or tribalism
• social innovation or technology innovation – how can we manage this effectively
• does technology free us or enslave us -  we need downtime and we need to disconnect to get balance  “off the web is off life”
• what is the role of government?
• will the internet break apart and become the splinternet

Societal change despite constraints
issues – people, resources, geography
by 2025

• 2.7 billion will face water shortages
• 60% live in urban areas
• 24% is over 65

Question: how will tech best serve a global population that is growing, aging and urbanised to levels never seen before?

People need to understand anthropology, social sciences, behavioural psychology to address the societal changes.

The session ended on a slide which spoke about TRUST,  a number of questions relating to this and how we should be considering these from a personal and business perspective. We all need to think about this question in a future which will clearly be very VERY different to what we see today.


A return to the “old skool” – Social Media challenges in the Public Sector

I have started to realise much more now (better late than never i always say) is that one of the greatest challenges to the public sector engaging in social spaces is “does society as a whole really want us there?” i suspect on face value the answer is No. But if you look at this from the viewpoint of Public Sector Reform and considering the future budget position Local Government needs to consider this as a matter of priority in my eyes.

The recent post by Paul Clarke over at HonestlyReal talks about changing focus and understanding the real purpose of local government.

There is the opportunity if we allow it to happen for the public sector to consider a completely new model of business. One which enables local people to determine how best public, private, voluntary and community resources should be defined to deliver local services.

Now one of the challenges presented here is the concept of “local” (offline and online) becomes slightly more complex and requires us as service providers to think about and acknowledge the complex lives people lead and the way in which they live them.

What we are really talking about is challenging the way society itself works and how it can be supported to provide leadership to its own communities alongside Public Sector organisations. We are in effect challenging society to develop more fruitful and more meaningful relationships to enable them to support themselves. Social Media has started to enable people to reconnect in more convenient and timely ways.

An interesting article in the Guardian a couple of weeks ago Charles Leadbeater which argues that relationships and mutual self-help rather than the reforms, such as those in Government’s “Building Britain’s Future”, are the key to more effective public expenditure.

There is a project called Southwark Circle that does this kind of thing, a quote about this project on the Particle Website states

This is a social reform challenge, not just a public service reform challenge.  The question is not just “What can public services do to improve quality of life and well-being for older people?” but rather “How can a locality mobilise public, private, voluntary and community resources to help all older people define and create quality of life and well-being for themselves?”

For me this just reminds me of what my Nan and other older people i talk to used to say to me about when they were young:

“Communities helped themselves back in the day, neighbours would support each other and would help each other out, we didn’t have or need the same kind of support you lot have today”

Are we seeing social media facilitating a return to traditional and “old skool” values around community and neighbourhood support.  I see the main difference being the “community” and the “neighbourhood” that people relate to is more complex and far reaching (offline and online) than ever before.

If this is the case, then the Pubic Sector truly has a huge task ahead, not only support itself to transform the way we engage with people and our own staff, but to acknowledge those communities who are already engaged but also nurture communities (offline and online) to become part of the wider public service delivery model.

What the web4 is that – Hanging with Mr Cooper

Thanks to @ianjukes for tweeting this to me as it has now made my brain ache with the programming power that must be happening here. Enough said, watch for yourself

Or try it yourself here, (you need a webcam fitted)

a Concept for Devon Online – version 1

This is a work in progress and I welcome any thoughts ideas or references which would help me steer this concept in the right direction.

Overview
A pan Devon website which provides up-to-date information that enriches the experience of people who live in and visit the county. It would aim to be the number one online information resource for the County of Devon!

It would deliver value through:

• Facilitating information exchange – Devon to Devon, Devon to the world
• Supporting and encouraging online participation and e-democracy
• Being demand and service focused – one stop shop to local and national public services
• Encouraging Trust – Brand recognition, validity and reliability of content
• Ensuring aggregation – reusing existing content and services where practical and possible

The site will be focus around 4 broad customer groups:

1. Resident – Access to services and information
2. Business – Economy and enterprise, services and information
3. Community – Engagement and participation, connecting people and communities
4. Visitor – Showcasing and Discovering Devon

It is important to note that these areas are to guide the development and to focus the information and service provision, however the site will be fully customiseable and therefore this “structure” is to assist with an organisational content repository.

Resident – Access to local council services 24/7
It would;

• give access to all council services in Devon, with relevant links to national services such as TV licensing and Car Tax via directgov (Web services)
• be reliable, trusted and contain up to date local information
• provide useful features for residents, such as entertainment and activities, things to see and do, maps, driving directions, local news and weather
• focus on fresh information such as cultural activities, TV and movie guides and local events, all updated daily (links with Existing TV listings)
• ensure it provided an easy to use and simple layout and navigation
• provide access to in-depth information and statistics about Devon and it’s market and coastal towns
• Foster and support a user, customer, and commercially focussed culture within ourdevon and its partners
• Use tagging and Mashups to aggregate local content and links

Business – Local economy, enterprise and advice
It would provide and support:

• advertising space for local Devon based businesses, complimented by various emarketing activities and services
• opportunities through the Devon Community Directory to promote groups and businesses in Devon with free community webpages facility
• give access to all council business services and provide links to businesslink.gov services
• provide a gateway to the countywide procurement portal for tenders
• provide a gateway for investors to obtain key information and statistics
• provide a gateway for employment and job opportunities in the county

Community – Engagement , participation and connecting people
It would provide and support

• a local consultation and engagement portal supporting eDemocracy
• opportunities to submit ePetitions
• Participation through Issues Forums: Next generation online forums and facilitation
• Promote communities in action
• “Citizen” and Community Life Blogging
• Promote pride of place through
• Digital photography
• Placeblogging and Community Blogospheres
• Podcasting
• Video Blogging
• Community and group collaboration
• Online Social Spaces
• Online Community Calendars
• Online Council events and webcasting of local meetings
• Online engagement tools for community groups and local government

Visitor – Showcasing and Discovering Devon
It would

• provide tourism information such as events, things to see and do and accommodation
• support the existing Discover Devon theme based approach for example, cycling, walking, food, natural Devon etc
• provide opportunities for Devon people to show what they do
• promote the extraordinary wealth of culture and diversity within the county
• support the Devon brand – shifting perceptions concept

Outline Architecture

The architecture needs to support the separation of the “backoffice” and the “presentation layer”. This enables the delivery of widgets/mash-ups etc from locations outside of the main council platform to be integrated more effectively and within the overall style and design of the main site.

The basic principle is that the site is a hybrid mix of mash-ups and standard text and services.

The following represents the broad tools that are shaping my thinking in terms of functionality and user interaction:

• Blogs—each member can have their own blog, and blog entries can be aggregated into collective views (e.g., most recent posts, most active contributors, highest rated posts, etc.)
• Microblogging—users will be able to share there thoughts and ideas, as well as receiving updates from others about important information linked via SMS
• Discussions—create threaded discussion forums where members reply to posts from other members
• Wikis—a post from one member can be edited by another member, maintaining version and author history
• Videos—upload and share videos
• Photos—upload photos, embed images in posts, create photo albums
• Calendars—mark events and posts on a personal or group calendar
• Tagging—members can “tag” content to allow other members to find that content via “tag clouds.”
• Mapping—apply “geo tags” to display content or member location on a map
• RSS feeds—use RSS to incorporate content from external sources, or create RSS feeds to syndicate content to other sources and users
• Podcasts—upload and syndicate podcasts
• Bookmarks—mark and share URLS with other members
• Voting & Rating—vote on content and aggregate the results
• Status-members can update the community and their friends on what they are doing

Any thoughts or comments welcome