GTEC: Government as a Platform

Government as a
Platform
Tim O’Reilly

O’Reilly Media, Inc.
www.oreilly.com

GTEC
Ottawa, Canada
October 7, 2009

Saturday, October 10, 2009

I’m perhaps best known as a
computer book publisher

covering topics
from the frontiers
of emerging
technologies.


What We Really Do at O’Reilly

•Find interesting technologies and people
innovating from the edge
•Amplify their effectiveness by spreading the
information needed for others to follow
them.
•Books, Conferences, Online Publishing,
Investing, Research and Consulting


Watch the Alpha Geeks

• New technologies first exploited by enthusiasts,
then entrepreneurs, then platform players
• Two examples
– Wireless community networks
predict universal Wi-Fi
– Screen scraping predicts
web services and the internet
as platform

Rob Flickenger and his potato chip can antenna

4

"The future is here. It's just not
evenly distributed yet."

--William Gibson


The "Killer Apps” of the New Millennium


The network as platform

•Software delivered as an online service
•Driven by huge databases that literally get better
the more people use them
•“Harnessing collective intelligence”
•“Data is the Intel Inside”


The smart phone plus local search.
Today pizza, tomorrow news?


Now hold that thought.


Remember What I Said Earlier?

Hackers are “lead users”
who tell us where the
future is going.

Companies apply their
insights in new contexts
to build next-generation
products.

11

Making government data accessible
to ordinary citizens?


There’s got to be more to it than that.


theyworkforyou.com


New tools for government transparency
and accountability?


A vision of technology in government
"We need to connect citizens
with each other to engage
them more fully and directly
in solving the problems that
face us. We must use all
available technologies and
methods to open up the
federal government, creating
a new level of transparency
to change the way business
is conducted in Washington
and giving Americans the
chance to participate in
government deliberations
and decision-making in ways
that were not possible only a
few years ago."
– From Barack Obama's
campaign platform on
technology


Use of Social Media by Government?


Use of Mashups by Government?


Gov 2.0

•Citizen contribution and collaboration
•Use of social media
•Transparency
•Rapid application development
•New methods of procurement
•Cloud computing


Gov 2.0

•Citizen contribution and collaboration
•Use of social media
•Transparency
•Rapid application development
•New methods of procurement
•Cloud computing

•Government as a platform


Government is a vehicle for collective
action
Frank DiGiammarino,
recovery.gov:

–Convener first, problem solver
second
–Pull the right people together
–Enable action through knowledge,
resources and visibility


This is not a new idea

“We must all hang together
or we will assuredly all hang
separately.”

—Ben Franklin


The most important lesson of Web 2.0


Build a platform. Let users add value.


Customer self-service


Let your citizens help you
to do more with less


Top Sites on the Internet - 2005
Rank Company # Employees

1 Yahoo 9,000

2 TimeWarner 85,000

3 Microsoft 61,000

4 Google 5,000

5 eBay 11,000

6 News Corp 38,000

7 Craigslist 18

8 Disney 129,000

9 BBC 60,000

10 IAC 26,000

The Craigslist Philosophy

“If most people are good and their needs are
simple, all you have to do to serve them well is
build a minimal infrastructure allowing them to get
together and work things out for themselves. Any
additional features are almost certainly
superfluous and could even be damaging.”
--Gary Wolf, Wired Magazine, Sept 2009


Vending Machine Government

Vending Machine Gov concept from Donald Kettl:
The Next Government of the United States


The consequence


An alternative model - throw open the
doors to partners

More than 50,000 iPhone
applications in less than a
year!


“Cities today are like an Amazon that
only allows in the #1 best-seller from
each category”


Preferred application partners

•Struggling to catch up in the application
marketplace


So why do governments still make deals
like these?
•No bid contracts
•Preferred providers
•Earmarks
•Sole source licensing
of government data to
single-source
providers


Government as a platform means an
end to the design of only complete,
closed “applications.” Instead the
government should provide
fundamental services on which we,
the people, (also known as “the
market”) build the applications.


The Three Laws of Open Government Data

1. If it can’t be spidered or indexed, it doesn’t exist.
2. If it isn’t available in open and machine readable
format, it can’t engage.
3. If a legal framework doesn’t allow it to be
repurposed, it doesn’t empower


•Government to Citizen (G2C)
•Citizen to Government (C2G)
•Citizen to Citizen (C2C)
•Government to Government (G2G)


Citizens, Give Us Your Hands,
Not Just Your Voices!


We Need to Do More Than Shake
the Vending Machine!

http://image06.webshots.com/6/2/57/50/190125750NgQXwu_ph.jpg


civic meetups - 19000 cleanups


“When the best leader leads, the people
say ‘we did it ourselves.’”

--Lao Tzu


GTEC: Government as a Platform

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