Next Gen Government - Day 2 Takeaways

A small edit to the Waterforms International Water Vortex while waiting for departure at Canberra Airport. Somehow it feels appropriate for this post... See quote at the end.

These are some random thoughts I'm taking away from the second day of sessions at #NexGenGov in Canberra. These mostly relate to our current Department issues/projects rather than a comprehensive report on what was said - or who said it.

Innovate on service delivery not technology. 

Focus on customer events, circumstances, their journey...

Identify services with the highest impact. 

For many external clients (and even staff) your website 'landing page' is the Google search results page. 

The Department has Google+ pages for all schools and this has been very effective.

How might we influence/customise Google search results for the Department's main public online web and other online spaces? How could we use Google Ads and APIs?

Does current navigation make sense to the user when they drop deep within our website/CMS from an external search engine?

Need for a rethink...

The 'Internet of Your Things' offer opportunities to rethink aspects of service delivery.

Microsoft view.

Young people (including young adults) do not generally go to a government website for help.

How do we reach out to this group? Go to the platforms and places used by your intended audience.

Social media? Which platforms are being used by your intended audience? What value can you bring?

Gamification? Mobile Apps?  See Party for Your Rights.

The notion of a 'one stop shop' may become the 'one stop pop-up shop'.

Proactive Organisation - provides a product or service when it is needed rather then after it has been requested... 

Innovation SPRINT - 10 days - Discover, Define, Develop Ideas, Deliver Alpha.

Trans-departmental teams, design thinking, blue-sky thinking by 'digital natives'.

Leave space in thinking, processes and solutions/products for innovation.

Drive rapid iteration.

Overcome the fear of failure - "fail fast, fail cheaply".

3 steps to making 'good mistakes'

1. making mistakes after due care and attention

2. acknowledging mistakes

3. not repeating mistakes

Common current drivers are fear and hope - fear of disruption/disconnection/disengagement - hope for transformation.

Launch Alpha to selected audiences - even public- and then move to 'perpetual beta' or launch Beta and then move to ongoing interative development.

Gartner predicts 75% of digital organisations will 'build' not 'buy' by 2020.

See the US Digital Services Playbook - "Today, too many of our digital services projects do not work well, are delivered late, or are over budget. To increase the success rate of these projects, the U.S. Government needs a new approach. We created a playbook of 13 key “plays”...  "

Social Media

Think about archiving social media - have information management policy/procedures for social media. Think about minimum meta tags for social media.

See Tasmanian Government Information Strategy Unit and  guidelines.

See national Digital Continuity 2020 Policy and actions/dates.

Open Source, Open Data, Open Culture, Open Government

Open source is about much more than software. 

Tasmania has a new Open Data Policy. 

In what ways are we benefitting from and contributing to the staten national and globalopen agenda?

During 2016 the Department will be seeping its adoption of Creative Commons Licensing. How might this facilitate a more open culture and enable changes in service delivery?

AI, natural language and the user interface

How far away is a Siri/Cortana user interface for organisations?

"What can I help you with?"

Digital Identity and Authentication

Biometrics is delivering higher confidence authentication

eg RealMe photo/video, Australian Tax Office voice

One identity and login for multiple government services...

Watch MyGov, MyTax, My Health Record over the next few months and years...

Google ID, Apple ID, Facebook Connect... are already international IDs and logins.

Blocks to innovation and faster development.

A focus on fully tested perfect solutions delivered years into the future.

A focus on how to monetise assets rather than what we can do that's best for citizens/clients.

Being risk averse about privacy and security issues rather than using 'Privacy by Design' principles, getting it right, and then moving on. 

"Silicon Valley is a state of mind not a place."

“If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near.” ― Jack Welch

NextGen Government 2016 – My Day 1 Highlights

I’m attending the NextGen Government 2016 sessions at a time when our state Education Department is taking a step back and reviewing online services before moving forward.

This review is shaping up to be a little different from those in the past for a number of reasons:

1. There is general acceptance that a review is necessary
2. There is an enthusiasm for participating in the review
3. There is some appetite to do things differently
4. The review is a collaborative project involving IT services, marketing, communications and digital media, and an external consultant.

Within this local context my takeaways from day 1 of #nexgengov were as follows.

• User expectations have changed – largely driven by the commercial sector.
• Users want online services to be simple, accessible on mobiles and satisfying.
• Use client language  - not the language of compliance.
• 55% of users can’t find what they are looking for.
• Users want search to work, easy navigation and click-to-chat.
• Most users enter websites deeply via Google – not via your front page.

• Technology disruption is now largely seen as a positive thing – this is a big change and an opportunity to create the future.
• Move focus from procurement to servicing user needs. User-centred design.
• Spend twice as long talking to users as other activities when preparing business case.
• Start by telling the user story – then expand the story and join the dots. Explain the level of pain.
• What is it really like as a user? Follow the human experience. Get on the ground and see how things work.

• Agile. Agile. Agile. Smaller projects with rapid iterative development. Larger projects should not take such a long time to get to launch – if they do you are too late because things have moved on.
• Public access and testing of Alpha, ongoing Beta iterative update.
• Iterative design and iterative development is an explosive combination.
• Culture. Culture. Culture. Culture eats strategy for breakfast. Eliminate blame culture.
• Service to others is a key driver for staff.
• Keep good people by doing interesting work, creating things that make a practical difference.
• Collaborate. Collaborate. Collaborate. Collaboration is about giving up something to make someone else successful. Consider In-sourcing AND Out-sourcing.
• Talk about values, needs, courage to take risks.
• Openness, honesty, transparency generates trust and respect.

• Benchmark what happens now.
• Think through intended and unintended consequences.
• Create once publish everywhere.
• Citizen design – get users involved in design.
• Gov 3.0 – customisable services
• AI and data layers
• If your data isn’t being openly shared you are missing out on opportunities - and soon the future of online services
• Innovate. Innovate. Innovate.

While much of this isn't new to our organisation I'm not sure it's deeply understood.

Much of what was discussed today fits within a simple 4 quadrant model from Integral Theory from a few yeas ago. The key message is that the left hand side cannot be ignored.

Image: Dr Sue Stack

Looking forward to day 2...