Electronic Government is no longer an appropriate framework for innovation in the public sector. The emphasis must shift to Collaborative Governance, and a CitizenVision 2.0 can support that transition

Ambition
Fifteen years ago in the Netherlands the first program started of what later became known as Electronic Government (eGovernment). Public Counter 2000 introduced the one-stop shop model and did so under the motto “Thinking and working from the citizen’s perspective”. Ever since, each eGovernment project has called itself “citizen centric”. However, the past years prove that rhetoric is easier than actual implementation. Citizen centricity not only requires a change in attitude, also necessary are practical methods and tools. What progress has been made since and how did citizens benefit from eGovernment?

Results
In order to determine whether a target has been reached, one needs a benchmark. Surprisingly this was missing from the very beginning. Therefore in 2005 the Citizen@Government Forum devised the eCitizenCharter. It intends to match the ambitions of government with the expectations of citizens. The charter consists of 10 quality standards that can be applied both as design requirements beforehand and evaluation criteria afterwards.

As design requirements, the quality standards have been incorporated in the Dutch Government Reference Architecture (NORA). Unfortunately, this has been no guarantee for systematic application. Thus the neglect of transparency has been a major cause for problems like the premature discontinuation of electronic voting, the failure of the eHealth file, the trouble with the public transportation chip card or the commotion about the smart energy meters.

As evaluation criteria, the quality standards were used to measure citizen satisfaction. From 2008 to 2010, the ICTU Citizen Link program annually measured how citizens appreciate the performance of government. That judgment was rather disappointing, not in the least because it did not focus as usual on the delivery of individual products or services, but at the solution of life events. For citizens these are more meaningful than quick services like a passport renewal, so it‘s unfortunate that this approach has been discontinued recently.

Lessons
Plans for the future which 15 years ago were labelled “2000″, are now called “2.0″ but still concern the same problem: how can government reform be truly citizen centric. The eCitizenCharter was ahead of his time because it not only sees the citizen as a passive customer but also as an active participant.

Subsequently, other checklists have become in vogue, such as the Ten Problems of the Ministry of the Interior, the Five promises of the Union of Local Municipalities and the Six Principles for Government-wide Services. The good news is that they do (partially) overlap. The bad news is that they are one-sided propositions by government to improve its own performance. These restrictions are also substantiated in a 2011 critical analysis on the feasibility of the government-wide eServices. This calls for reconsideration whether we are on the right track.

Vision
Because the conceptual framework of eGovernment focuses on services and internal procedures, it cannot cope with two recent trends: interaction and transparency.
With the advent of Web 2.0 new forms of interaction became available, resulting in networks and platforms as organizational models. Methodologies and approaches such as crowd sourcing, open data, co-creation, cloud computing, apps, social media should be embedded in business processes for political policy development and public service delivery.
Since the 2011 “iGovernment” report of the Dutch Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) awareness has grown that eGovernment paradigm is no longer suitable and that unhindered flows of data compel for better privacy protection.

According to the present cabinet, citizens are supposed to defend their own interests. Transparency is the key to this. For citizens to be able to act like this, they should possess tools and skills. Therefore we don’t need (yet another) government vision, but a citizen vision that  can support the transition from Electronic Government to Collaborative Governance.  This “Citizen Vision 2.0″ should stipulate the new rules of engagement between citizen and government.

The eCitizen Charter is an excellent starting point. Here are some considerations of how the development of the building blocks of Electronic Government should be adjusted in the direction of Collaborative Goverment.

Accessibility
The website as the default channel for eGovernment is still inadequate as far as accessibility and customer focus is concerned, especially on the local level. Following the example on the national level, on the local level too a standardized website is required. Moreover, this standard should provide for integration in the multichannel platform that citizens themselves use for information sources, contacts and interventions.

Identity
DigiD was a clever intermediate step towards a reliable digital identity, but is no longer suited now that increasingly sensitive information is stored digitally. Besides offering higher security levels in the public sector, government should provide its citizens with a digital identifier (as successor of the paper passport) to remedy the chaos of user names, passwords and PIN codes.

Usefulness
The public is bombarded with “myFiles”, also outside government proper. There is an urgent need for a standardized interface for digital transactions. In redesigning service delivery processes, the nature of the products should not be leading. On the contrary, it’s skils, experience and various citizen profiles that must be taken into  account.

Openness
If openness is the norm, processes should be transparent from the outset. This is a requirement for monitoring (through access and correction rights) and promoting social accountability (fighting corruption). Public Sector Information (PSI) not only supposes releasing datasets, but also calls for a fundamental reconsideration of the character of public service provision (what the government should do and what they can leave the private sector). Citizen’s self-reliance and self-determination call for wider variety in the nature of the services to be provided.

Involvement
Citizens who want to represent their own interests or who want to act for the common good should get the chance. The administration’s reflex to install a committee to solve a problem should be redirected towards setting up of a platform for interaction. From the perspective of a citizen there is no difference between public service delivery and political participation. Standardised prototypes for participation services are to be developed in the field of information, monitoring, evaluation and agenda setting. This should preferably be done through open source standards (like petities.nl) or apps (like ImproveYourNeighbourhood).

Governance
Last year marked the tenth anniversary ICTU, the foundation in which all of Dutch government work together on eGoverment projects. During this period, this foundation contributed to cohesion and cooperation in the establishment of the building blocks of eGovernment. But the trends described above require a fundamental rethinking.

The UN eGovernment Report 2012 ranks the Netherlands secondly worldwide. That’s a boost for everyone working at ICTU and involved in its strategy (iNUP). But like many other rankings, it mainly concerns the supply side, not use, let alone satisfaction. No reason to sit back and relax.

Although during the past decade great progress has been made in the digitization of government, the final conclusion must be that the potential for citizen centricity is still under-exploited. Since many eGoverment targets have been postponed to 2015-2020, eventual success depends on the development of a CitizenVision 2.0 as an updated benchmark.

Matt Poelmans was director of several eGovernment programs at ICTU and is currently senior advisor at HEC

This Workshop explored how the engagement of citizens—and their organizations in civil society and the private sector—can contribute to improve public accountability in public service delivery and spending. The Workshop enhanced knowledge and built a shared understanding of what participatory institutions, approaches and tools can be adopted by countries to make public service delivery more effective, equitable, transparent, responsive and citizen-centric. This is of particular importance at this time, as the United Nations Members States have identified participatory approaches to the provision of public services as a useful course of action for countries in achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

The meeting was held from 12-13 July 2011 in the UN Headquarters in Vienna. I attended on special invitation by Roberto Vilarreal, chief of Management Development at UNDESA/UNPAN  and presented the eCitizenCharter as a tool for stimulating citizen engagement. His endorsement: “I reiterate my highest professional regard to you as an expert and consultant on eParticipation. I am of the opinion that your leadership and work in the Netherlands about the eCitizen Charter is the most refined and advanced experience with a practical empowering and results-oriented spirit that I have seen around the world in recent times, and that is why I hope that experience can be brought closer to the UN to assist other countries in expanding similarly the rights of their citizens to benefit from the rapid ongoing expansion of eGovernment services.”

Agenda

Presentation

FutureGovForum Taiwan 2010: Cloud computing & crowd computing

Taipei 1-2 december 2010
Having presented the “Citizenlink” approach to citizen centred government earlier this year in Singapore and Australia, I was invited to do so too in Taiwan. The conference was held in Shangri La’s Far Eastern Plaza Hotel in the capital Taipei. Taipei City is dominated by “101”, the name given to the second tallest building in the world because of its number of floors. As a building it combines the characteristics of a western style skyscraper with a distinct eastern bamboo look.

In his opening address Kuan Chung, President of the Examination Yuan explained the strategy to reform Government. Whereas most democracies have three powers (Legislative, Executive and Judiciary) Taiwan has five institutions, so called “Yuans”: also Control and Examination. Control is responsible for Audits and Examination is for the Civil Service. Chung stressed that quality is not about efficiency, but about performance, so training and evaluation of the civil service are core pillars for government reform aimed at transparency and competence. eGovernment is integral part of this.

The two day FGT Taiwan 2010 Programme covered hot topics in the field of both government technology and organisation. Delegates were mostly from Taiwan national and local government. Apart from Taiwan speakers, international speakers came from Korea, Japan, Singapore, Australia, me being the only one form Europe. Several speakers dealt with cloud computing and the issue of green IT was also high on the agenda. The Netherlands’ policy to innovate the public sector by tackling quality standards, satisfaction measurement and citizen involvement in one integrated impulse, proved again to be attractive for the audience. Patrick McCormick whom I met before as a fellow speaker on conferences in in Australia, convincingly presented the opportunities and challenges of social media and the use of public sector information (PSI) based on his experience in Victoria. Jeremy Shen of the Taiwan ministry of the Interior showed the progress results that has been made in customising services to the needs of the citizens of Taiwan.

The panel discussion was devoted to the risks of cloud computing, social networks and and cybercrime. The head of IT of the Taiwan Police showed himself to be a strong advocate of limited use of the internet. My position was that life is dangerous and so is the internet. There is no way back to closed information exchange, networks will prevail and social media constitute a new access channel. The creation of a secure digital environment is necessary as is the raising of awareness of the user. People should be educated to deal with new types of risk. We probably need a new version of Don Tapscott’s famous book: “Growing Up Digital (Revisited)”.

Of the two themes on the conference one is technical in nature and the other organisational, but they have in common that both require an innovative culture which facilitates crossing organisational borders. The processing of data is no longer limited to one organization, nor is the creation of value restricted to insiders. Cloud computing as well as crowd computing require very much the same attitude of openness.

Taiwan having roughly the same size as The Netherlands but a population of 23 million, is actually more densely populated than The Netherlands. Both countries share a short period in history when in the 17the century Dutch sailors stayed on the island then called Formosa.

To get off my jet lag I took a trip to Hualien and the Taroko Gorge Road, which is cut trough marble rock and connects the eastern en western coast in the middle of the island.
The last day Jeremy Shen, whose ministry is responsible for national parks, was an great host for a visit to Yangmingshan park in the hills overlooking Taipei, smelling the volcanic springs and watching the Formosan blue magpie.
Thanks to conference organiser Winnie Lin and conference chairman Jianggan Li this edition of FutureGovForum was again a well organised, high level meeting that provided an excellent opportunity to share ideas and meet interesting people.

Translation of Dutch eCitizen Charter in Mandarin Chinese eCitizen Charter Chinese

For the third time in less than a year I visited Australia as an international key note speaker. This time on invitation by Terrapin for Smart Government Australia 2010, held in Melbourne 14-15 September 2010.

Being invited “Down Under” to talk about eGovernment actually is an honor, since Australia is widely acclaimed to be in the forefront of Gov 2.0 development. It was indeed stimulating to have Nicholas Gruen, who headed Australia’s the Gov 2.0 Taskforce, as a conference chair. In his opening speech he stressed the importance of open networks that grow without access fee. The increase in public value is far greater than the profits private the companies who run these gain (Google’s “crumbs”). As far as platforms are concerned, in his view government should not act as a wholesaler but as a retailer. By providing open data, government can trigger applications. He gave examples of predicting crime, social security fraud, identifying peer schools. In case some of these infringe privacy, the role of government could be building integrity by creating public private partnerships. Gruen urged civil servants to blog and tweet, however of those present only a minority did. He reminded them that only by participating in social networks, you’ll get response. Being an advocate for equity of access, he conceded that the Digital Divide might not go away, and could resurface as the Participation Partition.

The parallell sessions showcased several projects and developments in the Australian public sector. John Wadeson of Centrelink, the Australian Government Agency that delivers payments and services for a number of departments, explained the customer strategy. At present social media tools are not much used, e-forms take the load of communication. However, log ins on websites are now far higher than phone calls.

Patrick McCormick of Victoria’s Justice Department talked about their Digital Engagement programme. Yammer is used for sharing of information, social media for identifying trends and impact. In fighting the recent bush fires, twitter, widgets and geospatial apps for fire protection helped to manage information ans support volunteers in the field. The @VictoriaPolice is an active user of social media tools.

The conference took place in Melbourne, capital of the state of Victoria. Maria Katsonis of the Department of the Premier explained their new Gov2.0 Action Plan. Aim is to shift from the citizen as a spectator to the citizen as a participant. It deals with 4 focus areas: Leadership, Participation, Transparency and Performance. Like in the federal action plan, much attention is given to releasing open data. Unlocking public sector information is seen as a way to improve services. A Public Competition called apps4nsw attracted quite a number of initiatives. One of the winners actually deals with evaluating school performance, an issue at present in The Netherlands.

Senator Kate Lundy who was speaking before me, outlined the plan for a National Broadband Network. Just the day before, the new minority Labor government was installed. The 2 independent MP’s who are necessary for the majority, got a commitment to secure fast internet for each Australian wherever he or she lives. She also stressed the choice for data availability, by default open. Government will facilitate the use of social networks, by choice of the citizen. Citizen centricity means that government should better cope with the 3 levels of jurisdiction. The Australian strategy to align eGovernment Policy and Public Sector Reform results in a strong combination.

The Dutch Citizenlink approach to foster citizen centricity was received favorably. It addresses in an integrated way quality requirements, satisfaction measurement and citizen engagement. The eCitizen Charter is the cornerstone of this approach. It is also used outside The Netherlands in the EU and has been recommended by UN and OECD. The state of Victoria “discovered” this charter already several years ago and published it. As far as Gov 2.0 is concerned, Citizenlink focusses on upgrading promising civic initiatives. An example is the existing Petitions website which was completely “2.0 restyled” and now services local petitions counters for municipalities. A national pilot WeEvaluate offers citizens an independent, easy and standardized way to comment on public services. The winner of the 2009 eParticipation Award ImproveMyNeighborhood (an extended version of FixMyStreet) provides feeds on complaints or suggestions by citizens in a way that municipalities can manage.

Australia being a continent rather than a country, is not as homogenous as a nation state. Compared to the Netherlands which has almost the same population but is much smaller in size, collaboration between levels of Australian government is less easy. The 8 states e.g. each have their own car registration, which means red tape when moving, even if is digitized. A presentation by the Electoral Commissioner of Victoria about e-voting showed that for an inhabitant of a city like Melbourne, there will be polling situations differing per level of government.

The presentations over the two days either dealt with back office reform or front office change. In Australia too, projects in the field of Government 1.0 and Government 2.0 seem somewhat disconnected. An exception was CIO Peter Nikoletatos of Curtin University, who presented a strategy for major organizational restructuring. In order to attract the Millennium Generation, who will be students in 5 years time, they are redesigning the administrative and the educational processes. As all consumer driven technologies (social media, mobile phones) are cloud based, cloud computing is not a choice but a fact.

So during the concluding panel discussion I stressed my point that the real challenge for the next few years will be to bridge the gap between Gov 1.0 and Gov 2.0. It is absolutely necessary for government to play an active role to accommodate input form social media into the back end processes of government. In order to prevent government in the cloud becoming government in the fog, leadership is inescapable. The Australian Open Government strategy rightly mentions this as the first of the four focus areas.

Australia is definitely in the lead as far as a Government 2.0 strategy is concerned. The Netherlands may have a lack of policy, but there is a lot of activity. Both countries face the challenge of implementing cross organisational collaboration. Because of its size, Australia may find it harder to reach consensus about implementation.

On invitation by FutureGovMagazine, I attended as an international guest speaker this conference held 26-27 July at the National Convention Centre in Canberra. The format was different from traditional conferences. Apart from three plenary speeches and two panel discussions, there where 12 round tables where delegates rotated every 40 minutes. The topics on the tables covered the whole range of technical and organizational matters in ICT and the public sector, from cloud computing to Gov2.0. I was asked to be international discussion leader for the table on Citizen Service Delivery. Participants were senior civil servants in Australian federal and state government.

Peter Harper, head of the Australian Bureau of Statistics gave the kick off with a strong plea for open government data, which means that these should be available, accessible and freely shared. Since the fixed cost of collecting the data is already paid for during the original process, the price of data depends on the marginal costs for distributing. In the internet age these are negligible. However, serious barriers do exist because data should be readable and understandable, and metadata has to be added. Moreover agencies that depend on selling data for their budget will experience a loss of revenue. Nevertheless there are sizeable economic and social benefits to be gained. It opens the way for pyramidisation, visploration and mashups of data.

The second plenary speaker was Nicholas Gruen, chairman of the Government 2.0 Taskforce, which presented last year a strategy that is widely acclaimed to be the world’s best. The basic assumption about open data is that you can’t imagine the difference between the reason for collecting data and the use that can be made of it. He gave examples of API’s developed on the basis of released data on public transport. The game changer is the idea that is behind the old suggestion box. For any organisation, the best minds are outside, so provide opportunities for engagement and feedback. This means that government should strictly act as a wholesaler of data, not as a retailer of information. As far as government blogging is concerned, the code of conduct for Australian civil servants advises that the focus should be on the area in between official and private conversation, i.e. professional views.

Ann Stewart, Australia’s CIO, whom I recently met at de WCIT2010 in Amsterdam, was the third speaker. Just last week the Australian government adopted the proposals of the taskforce and presented a Declaration of Open Government with three key principles: informing, engaging and participating. It urges agencies to develop an “action agenda” not only for themselves, but for collaboration with other agencies on common service areas and the Australian public. Public sector information (PSI) is central to public sector reform. A number of lead agencies are going to take responsibility for specific projects to overcome individual jurisdictions. When she asked the audience who was already involved in social media, just a small number of fingers were raised (including mine). Her reaction: civil servants should become “activists”.

My brief introduction at the round table sessions focussed on the 3-step Citizenlink approach for citizen centricity: standardising quality requirements, measuring customer satisfaction and promoting citizen engagement. Web 2.0 creates a whole new set of opportunities to practice this. The Netherlands and Australia having a population which is roughly comparable in numbers, but a surface that is certainly not in size (Australia being a continent rather than a country), creates a quite different environment. The general feeling of the Australian participants was that this makes collaboration between tiers of government harder to reach than in a relatively more compact society as the Netherlands. Just one example: Australia has 8 state car licence jurisdictions, a single federal licence plate is not foreseeable in the near future.

The panel on European Perspectives was composed of Austria’s CIO Reinhard Posch, Glyn Evans of the Birmingham City Council and myself. In reply to the question whether Europe, with the exception of UK, lags behind in PSI, I answered that it might look indeed as if less priority is given to open data. However that does not mean that nothing happens, on the contrary. First there is a long standing policy for creating basic registers in order to share government data. Unfortunately in their present form most are no reusable, for they don’t meet the requirements that Peter Harper stipulated. So that will take time. Not surprisingly many examples of reused data are in the field of public transport, parking reservations and the like, which are not the core business of government. But more importantly, whereas the Australian strategy seems to advocate releasing data and then “wait and see what happens”, in the Netherlands there is more focus on using the opportunities of Web 2.0 in the actual redesigning of public services. I gave examples of collecting data (e.g. feedback on public services), harmonising data (voting on decisions of city councils) and distributing data (performance and quality comparisons) to that end. So there might be a lack of policy, but there is a lot of activity.
The possibilities to create conditions for cross government collaboration differ in Australia and Europe. As a federal state, Australia has integration mechanisms which European Union lacks. On the other hand, European integration policy and law helps to set standards, such as the interoperability framewordk and the mandatory Service Directive.

The advantage of the conference’s format is a more personal conversation and interaction. At the same time it was challenging for the speakers to adapt their story to the different interest of 12 rotations. The groups of participants got to know one another so well that the second day I asked them to introduce a colleague in stead of themselves. It was a well organised event with high level participation, the sharing of knowledge and the awareness it created surely very helpful for Australian public sector reform.

Several of my fellow speakers I met on conferences before. During the speakers dinner I got to talk with Gerrit Bahlman, who was born in Rotterdam and emigrated to New Zealand at the age of 13. Presently he works as Director of Information Technology at the HongKong University. He and others are highly impressed by the rapid economic developments in the Asian and Pacific region, and at the same time wonder whether Europe and the US can adapt their societies in order to catch up.

Australia is due for general elections next August. There was quite some coverage in the press. But on television there was just one debate between the contenders for prime minister: Labour’s Julia Gillard and the Liberals’ Tony Abbott. Only journalists were present to ask questions, no audience. Quite different form the latest general elections in the Netherlands, with a preceding two week’s period of lively debates, daily polling and heavy use of social media.

Travel from Europe to Australia generally takes one and a half day. As there is no direct connection between Amsterdam and Canberra, the first leg in Europe is flying to Paris or London. As place of arrival in Australia one can choose any one of the larger cities: Melbourne, Sydney or Brisbane. For a change a took the express train from Amsterdam to Frankfurt to board the plane to Singapore, with a connecting intercontinental flight to Brisbane. There I made a stopover to get rid of my jet lag and to visit the Great Barrier Reef. Was a very interesting trip by propeller plane and glass bottom boat, followed by snorkelling around a coral clay and swimming with turtles.

Matt Poelmans, July 30th

Recent surveys by the Dutch CFES (Centre for e-Government Studies) about progress in e-government show a wide gap between the availability and the actual use of e-services. Even though the number of e-services increases over time and broadband penetration grows, take up does not accordingly. There remains an unused potential of about 50%. International comparisons show that all countries face this problem. Actually in the top ranking countries in e-government this very gap is even wider.
Although there are indications that getting used to e-services may induce more people to use them, one cannot assume that this will eventually bridge the gap. Real take up will be dependent on a different approach, i.e. the introduction so called user driven services. Burgerlink (Citizenlink) is an example how this done in the Netherlands. It advocates an integrated 3 step approach for standardization of quality requirements, measurement of customer satisfaction and stimulating of citizen engagement.

Anyone living in The Netherlands is being served by many more authorities than he or she is aware of. Even though an inhabitant may only infrequently visit the town hall or the city website, that person is dependent on all kinds of authorities for living, care, education, transportation, safety and so on. The same holds for business or civic organizations.

Fortunately each government agency is enthusiastically busy improving its service delivery process. They may perform better, but as yet a breakthrough has not come about. The reason being that they usually operate separately, mostly supply driven and seldom customer centred. In order to remedy this situation, a common vision and a concerted action is necessary in three areas: quality requirements, satisfaction measurement and citizen involvement

First government agencies should apply common service quality requirements. Not only because a citizen is entitled to an identical level from all agencies serving the general public, but also since it is a prerequisite for intergovernmental cooperation. That’s why the e-Citizen Charter has been conceived as a common standard that from the citizen’s perspective summarizes 10 basic principles. These cover all kinds roles and address information provision, service delivery and citizen participation. Individual government agencies can convert these into specific departmental quality norms.

Secondly government agencies should practice satisfaction measurement. In order to ascertain whether citizens actually profit from all changes, satisfaction measurement should not be restricted to separate products or services. So a national survey is conducted about citizen satisfaction on the basis of life events, taking into account the e-Citizen Charter criteria. The results of the survey show that the necessary chain cooperation is lacking in the field of coordination, communication and treatment. Chain partners can use the data from the annual survey for business process redesign.

Finally improvement of public service delivery can only come about when citizen involvement is embedded. In stead of consulting citizens when and where government deems fit, it is much more rewarding if forums for interaction are created that stimulate and facilitate open discussion. Web 2.0 (social media, open data, co creation) supports e-participation that contributes to business process redesign. In order to satisfy both government and citizen, this should be part and parcel of everyday operations. At present e-participation is still in its infancy, but there are promising examples.

Modern government should be prepared for empowered citizens. The ABC for improved government is: Always Burger Centric. A successful performance incentive for better government requires that politicians and managers implement this triple approach.

Interview about Europe 2.0 in Singapore for FutureGov TV

On invitation by two conference organizers, I spent 25-30 January in Singapore to deliver two speeches and a workshop. Since last year’s speech at GovTechAsia 2009 about citizen centricity was received favourably, IQPC asked me to give not only a presentation at GovTechAsia 2010 but also a preconference workshop. This workshop devoted to the eCitizen Charter was attended by participants from Singapore, Hong Kong, Brunei and Dubai. FutureGovForum 2010 organised by Alphabet Media focussed on hot issues like Government 2.0 and cloud computing. During my speech, which dealt especially with citizen involvement, I showed the newest explanimations on petitions and transparency. In his concluding remarks the conference chair (Laurence Millar, former GCIO of New Zealand) reminded the audience to the eCitizen Charter as one of the lessens learned.

Van 25 tot 30 januari op uitnodiging naar Singapore voor twee lezingen en een workshop. Geef net als vorig jaar op de door IQPC georganiseerde conferentie GovTechAsia in het Amara hotel een key note over citizen centricity. Ben de enige niet-Aziatische spreker.

Wegens de belangstelling vorig jaar voor de Dutch eCitizen Charter ben ik gevraagd ook een preconference workshop te verzorgen. De geheel daaraan gewijde sessie van 3 uur wordt bezocht door deelnemers uit Singapore, Hong Kong, Brunei en Dubai.

Daarnaast heeft uitgever Alphabet Media mij uitgenodigd voor hun FutureGovForum dat ook deze week in Singapore wordt gehouden. De ruim 250 deelnemers afkomstig uit Azie zijn zeer geinteresseerd in de Nederlandse aanpak voor citizen involvement. Conferentievoorzitter is Laurence Millar, de net teruggetreden GCIO van Nieuw Zeeland. In het technische deel van het programma veel aandacht voor cloud computing en beveiliging. De enige andere Europese spreker, de Deen Flemming Faber, spreekt in dat kader. De meeste presentaties op deze tweedaagse conferentie in het Regent hotel gaan over Web 2.0 en de betekenis van sociale netwerken. Er is veel belangstelling voor de Nederlandse aanpak van eParticipatie en de BurgerServiceCode. De Engelse video’s van Burgerlink-projecten deden het goed. Zie verder verslag op de website van FutureGovMag.

Had nog onverwacht succes met een grapje dat ik ter plekke verzon. De spreker voor mij vertelde over de digitalisering van ziekenhuizen, waardoor alle patienteninformatie op verrijdbare computers staat: computers on wheels genaamd, afgekort als COWs. Het personeel klaagde echter dat deze trolleys lastig verrijdbaar waren. Verwijzend naar de opmerking van diverse sprekers dat er in hun land meer mobiele telefoons dan mensen zijn, zei ik in mijn introductie dat Nederland meer koeien dan mensen telt. Maar wij hebben geen probleem met het verplaatsen van die cows: je gaat erachter staan en trekt aan de staart. De conferentievoorzitter vond het de moeite waard om bij zijn afsluiting als laatste van de lessons learned te noemen, dat iedereen nu weet hoe je Dutch cows in beweging krijgt. De voorlaatste les was zijn advies om de BurgerServiceCode in te voeren.

Woon nog een postconference workshop bij van SAS over tekstanalyse van ongestructureerde data. Met de enorme groei van Web 2.0 een vakgebied in opkomst. Ze maken onder meer gebruik van Nederlandse universitaire kennis.

Had bij vertrek van Schiphol 1 uur vertraging omdat het vliegtuig sneeuwvrij moest worden gemaakt. Na 13 uur reistijd en 7 uur tijdverschil was de temperatuur bij aankomst in Singapore 33 graden. Gelukkig is het regenseizoen over en waait er een stevige bries. Desondanks vlucht je gauw naar binnen.

Singapore blijft verrassen. Met 5 miljoen inwoners is het in bevolkingsomvang vergelijkbaar met kleineEuropese staten. Het straalt ambitie en efficiency uit, en presenteert zich als voorbeeld van het moderne Azie. Electronic Road Pricing werkt, het openbaar gebied en de metro zijn smetteloos schoon, taxi’s in overvloed en goedkoop, veel luxe winkels en lage prijzen. Aan de andere kant een debat in de media over de Ethnic Integration Policy, die quota voor woningen toewijst aan verschillende groepen. Koopwoningen zijn voor starters onbetaalbaar. De voormalige sterke man, nu minister mentor Lee, mengt zich in de discussie met verzet tegen bouw van goedkope huurwoningen, omdat huur verwaarlozing in de hand werkt. Een koophuis kan ook dienen als onderpand voor het starten van een eigen bedrijf.

Reizen is tegenwoordig veel wachten en in de rij staan, dus biedt lezen uitkomst. De onlangs aangeschafte Amazon Kindle e-book reader bevalt goed. Synchroniseert trouwens automatisch met de Amazon iPhone app, zodat je op het andere apparaat gewoon kan doorlezen. Ook uitstekend leesbaar in de volle zon. Moet nog zien dat de nieuw iPad van Apple beter is.

Invited by AustralianPublic Service Commissioner Lynelle Briggs, I attended the CAPAM (Commonwealth Association for Public Administration and Management) Conference “Citizens First” held at the NCC (National Convention Centre) in Canberra on 26-27 October 2009, and presented the Dutch Citizenlink programme for citizen engagement.

CAPAM 2009

Dutch Citizenlink Director Matt Poelmans presents e-Citizen Charter to Australian Public Service Commissoner Lynelle Briggs