A Chatham House Party for Blueprint 2020?

Posted on June 17, 2013 by ThomK

This post is about a getting an idea out there.

Last week the Clerk announced Blueprint 2020, this is an exciting initiative that invites Public Servants to participate in shaping the future of a “capable and high performing” Public Service that embraces “innovation, transformation and continuous renewal”. The vision is based on the following guiding principles:

An open and networked environment that engages citizens and partners for the public good;
A whole-of-government approach that enhances service delivery and value for money;
A modern workplace that makes smart use of new technologies to improve networking, access to data and customer service; and,
A capable, confident and high-performing workforce that embraces new ways of working and mobilizing the diversity of talent to serve the country’s evolving needs.

I was with a group of indeterminate public servants during the Blueprint202 webcast and more than once heard hesitation to making a frank comment because it might be a CLM (Career Limiting Move). Over the years I have heard that term many times and it seems to me that we need to get those frank comments out in the open. This made me think that maybe there is a place for responsible anonymous input into the vision something like a Chatham House event perhaps?

“When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed.”

The Chatham House Rule may be invoked at meetings to encourage openness and the sharing of information.

I like the sound of Chatham House Party, but that is probably because I have teenagers. For a more politically correct approach you could also hold a Chatham House Workshop. A few of the things you might need

5-100 people who care about the future of the public service and are willing to abide by the Rule.
A physical/virtual location that can accommodate everyone
A facility licenced to serve social lubricant if you are doing the “party” version
Facilitator (s) to get the conversation going
Recorders who will capture the main ideas without attribution
Tweeting from an anonymous account such as @chgc2020 is an opiton

What do you think, would you like to organize or participate?

UPDATE:
Please see the new post on this topic

PS Engage Resources

Posted on January 18, 2013 by ThomK

psengage-overview-600ppg

This post is to document all the resources produced as part of PS Engage 2011 and 2012

Potential

Posted on June 3, 2012 by ThomK

This was written and performed as slam poetry by my son for his grade 12 English class. I thought it was pretty insightful and ultimately a positive message.

By Sam Kearney

We start off in life with the world at our fingertips,
with the words: “You can do anything” coming out of our parents very lips
And for years these words of motivation stick with you
fueling dreams of being celebrities, astronauts and rock stars too
The World seemed so big, so vast so full of adventure
Those in dentures would give us such a lecture
And so we believe with all our hearts and happy thoughts
That life is a happy place where only in movies are battles fought

But then comes adolescence, and with it comes the many doubts
For many once seemingly perfect family lives become full of arguments and shouts
You see atrocities every day on the television
at first these stories hurt you, on your heart they make an incision
But with this reality creates an invisible division
Your idea of the world has toppled like a house of cards
And with this destruction of an old understanding
sprouts a negative ideology against which we should guard

With this newfound negativity come new thoughts and mindsets
we make bets with ourselves, putting money against us
We kill that old saying “You can do anything”
Thinking “I could never do this, i’m not good enough, i’m not good at anything”
When really these are just excuses to take the easy path
I mean if we’ve already given up then why put in the effort and try
It’s on that cheesy poster it’s simple math
“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take” It’s true, in life you either take a shot, or sit and wait to die.

It’s what many of us do, we’re all addicted to it, an entire nation
strangled by what we joke about – procrastination
We need to release from the shackles, locked up by ourselves
Take OUR selves off of the shelves
Stop skimming on the top of the waters of life and delve
deep into the depths of it and discover our full potential
Unleash our inner thoughts and dreams and stop keeping them confidential.

Report from #PSE2011 – Five things you can do today

Posted on November 25, 2011 by ThomK

At the recent PS Engage Conference I had the honour of channelling ideas from participants into 5 things you can do tomorrow. With the flip chart paper spread out in my office, here is my report:

1. Read the Social Media guidelinesannounced by the Minister and take advantage of whatever authority they give you. Hold your department accountable for applying the guidelines in an effective way.

2. Reach out to a colleague, it may be someone you know but have not spoken to lately, or it might be someone you know by reputation. Ask them what they are up to, tell them what you are doing. Just a quick 15 minute status check. You never know…

3. When you find a solution to a problem, SHARE IT! Take the time to quickly document the problem and solution and put it in a place where others that might have that problem can find it. A good default location for Federal Public Servants is GCPedia, but any place where those that need it will find it is good.

4. High Five!
When you see something good, even just a little good thing – celebrate it! Let the individuals involved know you noticed, and let others know who the good guys are.

5. Connect – access Federal Youth Network, govloop, linkedin, gcconnex, yammer, or whatever network is appropriate for you to extend your connections and learn new stuff.

6. Rewrite your job description. Hell, re-write your team’s job descriptions. Make learning and adaptability an important part of it.

7. Narrate your work. By keeping a log of your work as you do it, you are creating a recorded history that can be invaluable for those that come after you. If you do it publicly though status reports to your network you are also contributing to 2, 3 and 5 above.

8. Add conferences like PS Engage to your learning plan. Make sure they are in your team’s learning plan. Make learning to learn a priority.

So there are eight ideas not five, what can I say? You are a productive bunch.

See you again soon.

Thom

Q&A with Ina Parvanova

Posted on November 17, 2011 by Thom Kearney

This is the third installment in our series of highlighting PSEngage Speakers.

Ina Parvanova Public Affairs Director, at Mayo Clinic has extensive experience working in a fast paced environment. Ina started her career as a reporter, working for Reuters and Canadian Press. In 1998, Ina joined the Public Service and spent a number of years at Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada before joining the Privy Council Office where she was responsible for the international communications files.

In 2008, Mayo Clinic recruited Ina to establish its Research Communications function to support $540 million in research operations at Mayo Clinic. Ina is currently part of two leadership teams. One is a reflection of Mayo’s new strategy to make a global impact in healthcare called Global Bridges – a Healthcare Alliance for Tobacco Dependence Treatment. The other is statewide effort called Decade of Discovery: A Minnesota Partnership to Defeat Diabetes.

At this year’s event, Ina will be speaking on innovation at the Mayo Clinic and how Mayo is adapting to current challenges while staying true to its nearly 150-year old mission and values.

We asked Ina about innovation, adaptation and managing when you aren’t a subject matter expert. Here are Ina’s very thoughtful replies.

1. You’ve had a varied career that has covered a wide area of subject matter. What do you do to be confident about the decisions you make, even though you may not be the subject-matter expert?

In Communications, you’re as good as your knowledge and understanding of the audience. If you know your audience, you know what questions to ask the subject matter experts (because you know what questions your audience would ask) and you know how to deliver the message to your audience so it has the desired effect.

I think that’s where my varied career and diverse background come in – as a journalist, I’ve been fortunate to talk to people from all walks of life, to understand how they think. Having lived on two continents/three countries broadened that experience and allowed me to relate to allophones, to immigrants, to single parents – a multitude of audiences. I’ve always been a student of human nature and that’s what gives me confidence as a communicator – along with the belief that with an open mind and empathy one can identify with any audience and then build a bridge between them and the subject matter experts.

2. How much of the innovative process is creative and how much is about defining the business case and making the concept tangible?

You are right that you cannot have one without the other. But in what proportion? I think that depends on the stage you’re in. In the beginning, an idea is just that – an idea, a spark, and the process of implementation seems to take a backseat. But as you go forward, the ratio changes, and no matter how brilliant the idea, it needs a solid rationale and institutional buy-in in order to get implemented. And the more innovative the idea, the more creative you need to be in defining the business case and making the concept tangible.

3. What are the qualities you look for in people to work on innovative files?

Natural curiosity, open mind and tenacity.

4. Resilience is often identified as a key element in one’s ability to accept change. How does one develop resiliency?

Interesting question!

You know, to the extent that experience can teach us, the more changes you’ve lived through, the more resilient you should be. Think of someone who has lived their entire life in their hometown, worked at the same workplace for over 30 years (yes, there are still people like that) – if they are forced to go through a significant change, it can be a traumatizing experience.

On the other hand, if change has been a regular part of your life, you know what to expect and you know you will survive and will be fine.

But experience is only part of the answer, because many would argue that there is a limit to how many changes one can go through without burning out. So can we develop resiliency to prevent that? Is it like a muscle, that as long as you exercise it, it will serve you?

I think so. Especially because it is already in us. We are born with it, it’s a basic survival skill. Kids are resilient. The question is how to maintain it and not lose it after life has dealt us a few blows.

As we go through various experiences – especially hardship – some of us lose that resiliency and start dreading change. Perhaps the key to accepting change in stride is having a healthy self-esteem. As children, we all start with a healthy self-esteem. Along the way, some of us become more fragile, more insecure, and end up finding solace in the past – the old way of doing things, the previous workplace or the last relationship. But if you have a healthy self-esteem, you know who you are, and the past – while it may have enriched you – does not define you. Even when you mourn something that is no longer there, you know that you will survive and the new circumstances are simply a new opportunity. In that sense, to me, self-esteem is the source of our resiliency, the magic ingredient to accepting change.

See Ina live and in person at PS Engage, November 22, 2011 in Ottawa.

Weaving a tapestry of ideas and people

Posted on September 26, 2011 by ThomK

Update: For results from the 2011 and 2012 conferences please see the PS Engage Resources post.

As many of you know I am helping to put together a networking and learning event as part of the @PSLeader initiative started by Jeff Ashcroft, Jeff is the same guy that got me into doing the #GovChat series of twitter chats, it all started with a comment on a blog post here.

Anyway, when I was part of the Public Service I was involved in the first Collaborative Management day and was excited about it, basically I think the whole #w2p #goc3 thing is awesome. Sadly, now that I am Private Sector I can’t participate in the same way, so that got me to thinking and…

…a while ago, a group of us in the shadow public service were chatting and felt that it might be a good idea to create an event that builds on the #goc3 momentum for collaborative management. Of course if we were going to do something it had to have value over and above what an internal conference could provide. The logic we came up with goes something like this:

If the focus of the Collaborative Management events is learning from others inside the Public Service, (and there’s lots to learn), then PS Engage distinguishes itself by emphasizing relevant ideas from outside the Government of Canada. Strategically this makes sense because exposing yourself to ideas outside of your norm is an essential ingredient for innovation. So the focus for us became about bringing new and relevant ideas to the table.

When we started to reach out for speakers, the response was overwhelming with the likes of Mr. GovLoop, Steve Ressler and Ina Parvanova, Director of Public Affairs for the Mayo Clinic, among the luminaries agreeing to share their stories with us. Just recently, TBS President, Tony Clement’s office confirmed that he will be giving the opening address—for a conference focused on bringing lessons of change to Ottawa, I can’t think of a more relevant opening speaker.

Speaking of fiscal restraint, lets not panic about cut backs and such. To my way of thinking, financial pressure is a tremendous opportunity when it forces us to look for new ways of doing things. After all, necessity is the mother of invention, or at least that is what my mother used to say—so come to PS Engage and help invent something great.

As a privately funded event we have to charge, the cost of bringing speaker’s in from out-of-town is significant, however we have managed to keep the price reasonable at $499.00. Any profit from the event will go towards funding further exploration of the Virtual Government Network Concept.

Group discounts are available, (5 for the price of 4), and if you are student who really wants to go, tell me why you need to attend and how much you can afford, and I will see what we can do.

As an educator, it is great to be part of putting this together, and between the speakers and the networking opportunities I am pretty confident that the conference will be a high impact/low-cost learning event. PS Engage, a tapestry of ideas and people, the perfect complement to Collaborative Management Day and a great way to get ready for change—what do you think?

Registration is open now, so get out your corporate credit card and go to www.psengage.org, if you need to put it in your learning plan you will find some learning objectives on the site to help you out with the words.

Hope to see you there, if you have any thoughts about this event or ideas for a future one, please share.

Thom

Of course you can follow along on twitter @psengage and #pse2011

Framework for the Virtual Government Network

Posted on January 5, 2011 by ThomK

Update

Here is a video of me talking about the VGN at the PS Engage conference.

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/32839611 w=400&h=225]

————— Original post with a link to the paper. —————

The following material comes from a paper I recently finished as part of my studies. I took the opportunity to combine what I have learned about Information Management and Collaboration and then apply that knowledge to something that might be practical. If you want the paper you can find it on the Articles page, here is a somewhat abridged version for your perusal and comment. By the way, if you do comment I promise to get back to you, however my response may not be immediate.

Virtual Government Network Collaboration Framework

The framework elements are generic in the sense that they could apply to any large-scale collaboration network; in this example they have been populated with the Virtual Government Network in mind.

The common goal

Successful communities share a common goal. Sometimes the goal is urgent and short-lived like when responding to a crisis, other times it is more subtle and long-term, like creating a high quality of life.

In terms of government interests in supporting their jurisdictional economy, most would agree with Velez when he says that the ability to create, access and apply knowledge is a fundamental determinant of global competitiveness (Valez E., 2008, as cited by MacDonald, 2010).

From the knowledge perspective, the goal of the network might be one of conceptual integration. Citing Cosmides et al. 1992, Bates states that conceptual integration across knowledge boundaries generates a powerful growth in knowledge because it allows investigators to use knowledge developed in other disciplines to solve problems in their own (Bates, 2005), she continues to quote Cosmides:

“At present, crossing such boundaries is often met with xenophobia, packaged in the form of such familiar accusations as ‘intellectual imperialism’ or ‘reductionism.”

Although she was talking about how the disciplines within behavioral and social sciences should make themselves mutually consistent I think this principle applies to government as a whole and the Virtual Government Network is for people that want to reduce xenophobia.

From a more practical perspective the Virtual Government Network is about sharing and learning, saving time and money by reusing good work rather than reinventing. The underlying assumption is that more effective and sustainable government is more likely if we work together. This becomes the stated goal because it is the easiest to understand and likely the most relevant to potential users of the network.

Business Model

The network would initially be provided free of charge, paid for by profits that would be generated from the sale of training and associated professional services. As the network evolves the intention would be to acquire funding from governments, perhaps via the Public Service Chief Information Officer Council (PSCIOC) or a Public Private Partnership. The sustainable model will depend on reaction to the proposal and community interest.

Communication

Communication is consistently identified as one of the key ingredients for successful collaboration and an important part of any successful network. In this framework I identify two key characteristics of the communication infrastructure as being in near real-time and transparent and open.

For the network to be effective in responding to real-time events, communication from operators of the network and between network members themselves needs to be fast and accurate. Messages between members and groups are completely driven by user content and the system simply needs to provide mechanisms for delivering the messages in a timely and reliable manner. For messages from the operators to the members some crafting of messages and agreement on those messages may be required. This communications process interacts with governance processes and impedes the free flow of information. Careful attention to process design will be necessary to ensure that this kind of messaging can occur quickly. Fortunately the principles of open and transparent will minimize the amount of messaging that requires “crafting”.

By operating in a transparent fashion and building in opportunities for any interested member to participate in the governance of the network, the number of messages that need explicit approval of a governance group should be kept to a few per year.

Principles

Statutory responsibilities

Governments share similar responsibilities around issues like providing for freedom of information while protecting privacy or ensuring that information is archived for future generations. Intellectual property needs to be protected and disposition authorities applied. The framework needs to respect these in a way that is acceptable to all parties.

Value statements:

Three broad value statements provided as examples:

Transparency
Neutral space
Learning

1. The need for transparency

This idea is not new, in 1948 Urguhart called for government confidential reports to be reviewed periodically to see what scientific and technical information could be released into the general pool of knowledge (Duff, 1997). Reviewing confidential information is of course an added cost, and as the body of confidential knowledge increases the sustainability of that review decreases. By keeping the body of confidential knowledge as small as possible the system will be more efficient. Assuming that we believe that the value of information to society increases with access, shifting our mindset from one of “need to know” to “need to share” should be a top priority.

The concept of transparency is considered by some to be so critical to the evolution of democracy that it has been enshrined in legislation. Canada’s Access to Information Act is an early example while the Open Government Directive from the United States Federal government is a more recent and dramatically more complete example of the transparency principle being applied.

Finally, I believe that transparency is essential for establishing and maintaining the trust between members that leads to a willingness to share.

2. Neutral Space

To mitigate the potential for political dispute the virtual government network should be a neutral space. Not a place for advocating particular political viewpoints, but rather a safe common ground, where the focus is on sharing knowledge and making government more effective.

3. Learning

The network supports shared learning and sharing of information and knowledge. As such the values associated with learning must be respected. For the purposes of this paper these values are:

Shared Knowledge
Respect for diversity (promotion of diversity)
Collective responsibility
That individuals are best motivated by autonomy, mastery and purpose (Pink, 2009)

The articulation of the broad community values is something that should be undertaken in consultation with the community, so I am not going to try and develop these any further at this time.

Information Architecture

The framework breaks down the information architecture into three categories that might be useful in terms of figuring out the types of information a virtual government network would contain. One of the pre-development tasks is to prepare detailed views for each of the categories. Brief outlines of each type are provided:

Information about people

Basic directory information
Enhanced profile information (interests, resume, etc)
Activity history (contributions, other)
Relationships
Group memberships

Information about people might be considered private and as such users need to be able to easily understand and control the release of information about themselves. At its simplest this would mean users agree to a terms of use and simply not provide any personal information. A more sophisticated approach would be to allow users to complete a profile and control who could access various parts of it. In either case, a clear privacy policy and excellent user experience design is required.

Information about topics

Sources of information (libraries, collections, other…)
Bibliographies and searchable databases
Groups and individuals working in topic areas
Documents and user-created content organized by themes of interest to all jurisdictions such as: Coordination, protection, resilience, social progress. (Wilson, 2010?)

Information about topics represents the explicit knowledge content of the VGN. The intention is to build a repository of shareable stuff. Any information that could help another jurisdiction or links to such information would be valid. Intellectual property is an issue to watch here, if protected work is posted the rights to that work will have to be managed. The simple approach is telling users they are expected to only post unprotected work. In this scenario the VGN will need processes for monitoring for protected material and quickly resolving any complaints. A more sophisticated approach would be to build some kind of digital rights management into the network, perhaps based on the creative commons licenses.

Information about information (meta-data)

Dublin core
Rankings (votes, links, citations, source value, etc)
State (draft, final, archive, etc)

This part of the information architecture is dedicated to developing a sustainable meta data strategy that will support the finding and managing of the topic based information. An important consideration is that the user not be required to add much meta data-the system needs to do as much of it as possible to ensure data integrity and user satisfaction. A second consideration would be that if the meta-data collected includes personal information that it be subject to the privacy policy. For instance visits or downloads of a document traceable to a particular user.

People

Users

The primary users of the network are government employees at any jurisdiction in Canada. These users are authenticated and agree to a terms of reference that is acceptable to their employer. The community is broadly defined by the term Public Servant. An issue arises with the inclusion of consultants, contractors and other suppliers of services; this shadow government is estimated to be worth $25B at the Federal level alone (Ottawa Citizen, 2010). It may be that there will have to be two types of users and two different entry levels of user. Another consideration is whether to permit users from jurisdictions outside of Canada.

Roles

Types of users will have to be defined along with various roles that each type can perform. The following is a preliminary list of potential user access levels.

L1 Members are permanent government employees
L2 Members are consultants and contractors under contract
L3 Members are the general public
L1 Operators are god
L2 Operators are like captains
L3 Operators have some additional edit privileges and can approve certain events like group creation.

In addition to Members and Operators other relevant people are those providing funds and other stakeholders that identify themselves, i.e. Unions, political parties, governing parties, etc.

Processes

Operation of the VGN will involve many processes. For the purposes of this paper I have identified two broad categories that I believe are particularly important.

Onboarding

Onboarding is generally concerned with attracting people to the network and ensuring that their early experiences are positive. Processes might include:

Outreach and promotion
Registration authentication and security
Skills development & support
Solutions matching

Gardening

The gardening processes are intended to maintain quality in the network, ensure that terms of use are complied with and generally support users in their efforts to share and collaborate. Examples include:

Content reporting quality (user reports on content)
Activity monitoring (looking for irregular behavior, new content requiring meta-data, etc)
User communications (personalized based on activity, role or other options, multiple channels)
Tension management (see Donnelly, 2009)

The general concept of information value within the VGN is that users decide what is important. Content value could be some mix of attributes such as: source value, user votes, user links to the information, # citations, comments and other empirical and subjective characteristics that can be measured over time. These ideas should be reflected in the non-functional requirements for the supporting platform.

Technology

This paper is not about the technology, however several characteristics have been defined that will provide some guidance when technology choices must be made. These include:

Browser based
Mobile enabled
Open with lots of connectors
Both open and secure (how secure?)
Acreditable by government agencies (meets whatever standards are most common)

Governance

Governance of the network covers three areas:

Decision making

o Conflict resolution & resource allocation

o Permission allocations (granting power to users)

Performance measurement
Strategic direction

Governance mechanisms should be as inclusive as possible and follow the principle of transparency. Provide a forum and guidelines for funders, operators, users and stakeholders.

Conclusion

The framework is intended to be a fairly holistic, top level conceptual architecture that might be used to guide the creation of a Virtual Government Network. It is a broad brush, high level view; there are improvements to be made, both in the generic framework and in the details. To move forward each element needs much more detail and discussion. Maybe we can build something like this, maybe not, either way; I hope the framework is of use to others. Please comment and build on it.

Letting go for high performance leadership

Posted on October 4, 2010 by ThomK

In Gov 2.0 circles I often hear that organizational culture needs to change. If you think about that you will realize that people need to change. If you think about that you will realize that you have to change. Last year I heard the story of a public servant leader who discovered that sometimes by letting go, you get better results. I think it is a good example of the transformation many of us need to consider for ourselves.

Two years ago, Angelina Munaretto took leadership of the Applying Leading Edge Technologies (ALET) working group within the Canadian government. This horizontal, mostly voluntary group was established to explore ideas around the use of social media and Web 2.0 tools for the government communications community.

At the outset, the group was structured in a traditional way and using government hierarchy: a Project Manager, two sub-working groups with co-chairs, and an advisory committee. Work began on defining the deliverables, finding members for the working groups and then working towards meeting the needs of this defined structure.

What nobody counted on, but in retrospect is not surprising, is the level of interest, passion and commitment exhibited by the entire government community in response to the global trend towards Web 2.0. All areas — not just communications, but programs, IM, IT and human resources — wanted to participate in some way. Those who were involved in applying the tools on a day-to-day basis started suggesting new projects that would help advance their programs, communications and use of Web 2.0 tools. The community grew into 150 people and 36 departments and agencies represented. Five departments seconded employees to work on deliverables for the community at no cost to the project.

Says Angelina: “We moved from being a community of practice who met to deliver pieces of work, to a group of professionals who wanted to make a difference.”

I know which one of those scenarios I would prefer, what about you?

Resources were needed and community members were stepping up to volunteer to help the ALET group meet the needs of the community. More people and more resources called for more management capacity, but there was simply no additional capacity. The working groups could no longer be managed within the traditional project structure. More management capacity was required but was simply unavailable. Angelina soon found herself in a position where a shift was required.

What this meant for Angelina was that she had to adjust her leadership style. No longer would she define tasks and delegate responsibilities – she could suggest broad areas of work or needs that the community was articulating, but this was highly different. When community leaders stepped up and offered their expertise and leadership, Angelina moved to providing secretariat support and broad guidance on the overall outcomes sought by ALET. Members of the group were given autonomy to shape the products they were producing. It became less about leading the group towards the completion of a deliverable to more about facilitating the collaboration and contributing where help was needed . The deliverables were defined by the needs of those working on them, instead of the project leader. In personal terms, Angelina had to relax her expectation of control. She also had to learn to trust people to do the right thing, sometimes with very little direction – and learned when to offer help or check in to ensure that people had what was needed to complete a deliverable.

What she found was that when a group of people are motivated and given the autonomy to take direct action, the results can be impressive. What had started as a management team…led by Angelina became a relatively self-sufficient group that produced impressive results including an extensive research document which provided essential input into policy development, a social media toolkit and numerous guides to using a wide variety of social media. The most tangible result though was getting Departments to share key development documents for use of social media so that the community could re-use these for their own campaigns. The work that started with ALET planted the seeds for a vibrant communications community that continues to grow, share best practices and build guidelines to help others.

Angelina has now moved to Library and Archives Canada, where she is the Manager, Digital Engagement and Social Media. ALET continues to thrive under new leadership and the resource pages on GCPEDIA continue to be some of the most visited.

When I look at this case, I see a perfect example of intrinsic motivation as described by author Dan Pink, there is a wonderful RSA animate video that captures the essence of his message on You Tube. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc]

The project, in spite of being run differently than a traditional government project, was highly successful – mostly due to Angelina’s ability to stop trying to control the project and instead to facilitate the collaboration and articulate the greater purpose. She gave the members of the working group the autonomy to make progress on something that would make a real difference.

In my mind, this shift is an example of what needs to happen with leaders across the public service; from a mentality of command-and-control to one of creating a collaborative culture. Angelina’s example demonstrates that when people are given the autonomy to work on something that motivates them and is in service to something larger, whole communities can benefit. And really, isn’t that what being in the public service is all about?

I would like to thank Avra Gibbs Lamey, a communications professional and contributor to two of the sub-working groups under ALET, for co-authoring this post. Avra can be found on twitter @gibbslamey. Angelina can be found @AngelinaMunaret .

The biology of business

Posted on September 16, 2010 by ThomK

Found this today on twitter and have to share it. For me, it has the” ring of truth” to it.

[slideshare id=2778948&doc=cdocumentsandsettingssharondesktopbiologyofbusiness7-091226113330-phpapp02]

To stimulate adoption, just say no.

Posted on August 16, 2010 by ThomK

This post originally appeared on the Senior Fellows and Friends blog in June, 2010.

About mid way into the pilot phase of the open collaborative workplace project, we added Karl to the team. This is the story of his adoption of a wiki approach to preparing a large document. Karl had joined the Canadian Revenue Agency , (CRA) 6 years before, coming from the Nortel Networks meltdown. He had a background in large-scale learning, development and management and he knew this web 2. stuff was probably a good thing, he just did not know exactly how. This is the story of his initiation to a wiki, specifically the MediWiki install known as GCPEDIA. It is a story you may be able to repeat.

One of Karl’s first tasks was to prepare a formal project charter that would begin the process of taking us from pilot to enterprise solution. As you can imagine preparing a project charter in a government central agency is a significant task. There was a prescribed outline to follow, four primary authors and an executive level steering committee of 20 or so to be consulted. In addition to the immediate circle there were perhaps 100 or so interested parties.

After obtaining the requisite word processing template from the project management office, Karl came to me to discuss the approach for developing the charter. We had a tight deadline and I told Karl that we should use the wiki to create the document.

Two days later Karl showed up with a draft. As a word processing document. He was in a hurry he said and did not have time to learn how to use a new tool. He would put it on the wiki later he said. I was keen to see the document, but refused to look at it, telling him to “do it on the wiki”. Apparently he did not believe me because a day later he was back with another word processed document, this time printed! I rejected it outright. He left in a bit of a huff, probably thinking I was being unreasonable.

After a few minutes of instruction he was working away in the new tool. Some copy and paste and a little formatting and he had a rough wiki version. Commenting that maybe that was not so bad he sent a link to the small group of original authors.

Over the next few days we all contributed to the document and Karl began to smile as the benefits of writing on the wiki became obvious. No emails with attachments. No confusion over what version was the most recent. A consolidated revision history and immediate notification of changes. We worked on it when we could, in the early morning or late at night, from the office or from home, I even made an edit from my BlackBerry.

In a few days we had created a version that we were happy with as a first draft and invited the larger group of executives to take part. A couple of them did, and we also had comments from interested bystanders. By the time we got to the committee meeting everyone had had their opportunity to contribute and the document was quickly approved.

Lessons:
Most people will naturally resist change, even when they know it good for them. If there is a familiar alternative they will use it, particularly when they are under pressure. By removing the familiar, users have no choice but to try the new way.

If it is possible to make your collaboration space the only way to do something important, make it so. It will force that critical first step.

What do you think?

Do you have any adoption stories you would like to share?