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“You’re asking ME to Cut Down the Red Tape?” – Part II
Friday, April 20th, 2012

In a previous blog, I wrote about the U.K. Government’s Red Tape Challenge (RTC), a national crowdsourcing initiative aimed at reducing the overall burden of regulations for businesses and individuals. I want to outline a few of the public involvement best practices that the RTC follows.

Demonstrate support from senior leadership: It’s useful for participants to see real decision-makers standing behind an engagement process, as it can help reinforce the significance of the whole thing. In this case, the RTC is actively supported by the most senior leadership in the UK government. Check out this intro video, where Prime Minister David Cameron speaks rather candidly about why citizens should participate in this initiative (i.e. we need to reduce regulations “that frankly, treat all of you like idiots”). He remarks on how the RTC will succeed “where so many other governments have failed” by focusing on “changing the default setting” for regulations. This means a shift towards regulations being scrapped “unless someone has a good reason for them to stay” (rather than the other way around). He also explains how pressure will be applied at the ministerial level, which reflects his own rationale for seeking citizen input. He says, “If ministerscome back with arguments for keeping red tape that we really ought to scrap, I need the evidence on my side Evidence from the real world.” Very well said!
Be transparent about the impact of participant feedback: Participants want to know why their contributions matter and that their time and efforts haven’t been wasted. However, in a lot of cases this isn’t done – sometimes participants never hear back after they’ve contributed! Fortunately, the RTC outlines how feedback will be used to inform decisions, how long the consultation process will take, and how ‘high’ the feedback will go. It also closes the ‘feedback loop’ by announcing any regulatory proposals/ decisions that have been made.
Make connections to related initiatives/ processes: Participants should know how the initiative fits into the ‘bigger picture,’ which will make it seem less of an isolated, one-off process. The RTC makes a specific reference to the related Focus on Enforcement initiative, which is less about any specific regulations and more about the “inconsistent or inappropriate enforcement” of them (which could be the more significant issue in some cases). The RTC is also placed within the parameters of a broader, long term Government commitment, which “signifies a dramatic shift in the culture of Whitehall, as we work together collaboratively to turn the regulatory default on its head.”

It’s great to see meaningful public engagement initiatives like this being carried out across the pond!

-Tristan Eclarin-

Tags: Crowdsourcing, leadership buy-in, Public Involvement, Red Tape, UK
Posted in Commentary and Opinion | No Comments »

“You’re asking ME to Cut Down the Red Tape?” – Part I
Monday, April 2nd, 2012

Isn’t it great when you come across something in your line of work that is so impressive that you feel the need to tell others about it? This is what I felt when I came across the U.K. Government’s Red Tape Challenge (RTC), a national crowdsourcing initiative aimed at reducing the overall burden of regulations for businesses and individuals. Some of you may be asking, “What does the public know about this kind of stuff?” Consider your own experiences, and you’ll realize that the ‘everyday citizen’ knows a lot about regulations! You can learn more about how the process works here.

In today’s world, the word regulation is often maligned (for example, look south). But it’s important to remember that there is an entire range of necessary regulations out there – the point of the RTC is to identify those that are “unnecessary and inappropriate.” As the RTC points out, “good regulation is a good thing… [but it’s] when people are confronted by a raft of regulations whenever they try to volunteer or play a bigger part in their neighbourhood, they begin to think they shouldn’t bother.” Ultimately, feedback from the process will be used to develop a set of proposals on how regulations can be reformed, “with the presumption that all burdensome regulations will go unless Departments can justify why they are needed.”

I find two things particularly striking about this initiative:

It reflects so many of the best practices for public involvement that it could be a “how-to” for crowdsourcing and government in general. This is what I’ll be writing about in Part II of this blog…
There have been real impacts! The UK government doesn’t just thank people and tell them their input has been “duly noted”; they actually made changes based on the feedback they received and show people how they’ve helped make a difference! Click on the image and you’ll see how.

So what types of changes have they made? Let’s look at some regulatory areas:

Employment: Over 2200 comments helped inform the UK’s Business Secretary’s decision to simplify 40% of current regulations in this area. The most notable proposed change is simplifying the employment tribunals system to improve hiring, firing and dispute resolution processes, particularly for small businesses. This is “expected to deliver £40 million a year in benefits to employers” (64 million CAD/USD).
Retail: The Business Secretary also announced that over half of the current legislation in this area will be scrapped. A wide range of changes have been proposed, such as replacing a dozen overlapping consumer rights laws with a single piece of legislation; simplifying the poisons licensing system for low-risk products, such as toilet cleaner; and removing antiquated legislation, such as the Trading with the Enemy Act that has been in force since the outbreak of WWII (one participant commented that this is “an embarrassing anachronism that needs to be excised!”).
Hospitality, Food and Drink: With nearly 600 comments, the Tourism Minister announced a package of reforms, including reducing the paperwork for alcohol and entertainment licensing for businesses with minimal alcohol sales/ little or no risk of causing trouble (e.g. bed and breakfasts, small venues); and increasing transparency on charges for water supply inspection (one participant commented that “many local authorities see [it] as a cash cow”).

I couldn’t possibly fit more into this blog, so please click here to learn more about the wide range of changes that have been informed by the RTC. As a citizen, you should be interested in these types of initiatives and ask, “Why isn’t my government asking me these types of things?”

Part II of this blog will be coming soon!

-Tristan Eclarin-

Tags: Crowdsourcing, public engagement, Red Tape, Red Tape Challenge, Regulations, UK
Posted in Commentary and Opinion | No Comments »

Chancellor Merkel crowdsources Germany’s future
Wednesday, February 1st, 2012

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is going online to engage Germans on the future of their country. On February 1 the Chancellor’s office launched a “Dialogue about Germany’s Future”, a project that combines an online crowdsourcing website and a series of in-person, “US-style” town hall meetings. It marks the first time the Chancellor is going directly to citizens using an online tool to engage them in decision making.

Over the next two months, Germans will have a chance to share their views on the Germany they’d like to see in the next 5-10 years, answering three main consultation questions:

How do we want to live together? What holds society together? How can we produce more children and be more family friendly? How can society and government enhance security? How can we engage citizens better?
How do we want to sustain ourselves? What are Germany’s strengths on the world market? How can we stay curious and innovative while making money? What can employers, employees and government do to make employment more secure and appealing?
How do we want to learn? What do practical values look like? How can we all learn to do better – at work and at home? What role does the internet play? How can we improve professional development? Can the society as a whole learn?

Taking Ideas Seriously…and Uncharted Territory

In a weekend interview with the Bild am Sonntag, Merkel emphasized that all suggestions would be taken seriously: “They won’t land in the thin air of the internet. Rather, each one will receive an answer, and the best have the chance to be acted upon”. Pushed further, Merkel explained how ideas could be acted upon, while acknowledging the novelty of the initiative:

I can’t promise anyone that we will immediately implement everything, but I also won’t say what won’t work. Reasonable ideas could be turned into a research project or model project. Examples of best practices, on topics such as “better working conditions for the elderly” or “the city of the future” could achieve more than current political discourse. We will also send good ideas to the responsible ministries. What’s clear to me is this: With this online “Dialogue of the Future” we’re entering new territory. We don’t know 100% how exactly this will work, and how many people will actually take part.

Merkel explained that her team of “120 experts” would be pouring over the results after the online tool closes in April, releasing a book in June, and presenting the most useful ideas in September.

In-person vs. Online

When asked why the main thrust of the project was online, Merkel answered simply, “there’s no other way to reach so many people”.

After the crowdsourcing site has been closed, authors of the ten top-voted ideas will have a chance to meet with Merkel in her office.

The online process is also being complemented by 3 in-person “US-style” town hall meetings in the cities of Erfurt, Heidelberg and Bielefeld with 100 participants each, as well as sessions for children and youth.

So what?

The project has only been live for a few hours, so I can only make general observations. It’s clear that the project has lots of potential. It has buy-in from Merkel herself, who has committed her government to respond to and act upon all “reasonable” ideas within a strict timeline (the timeline below, which appears on every page, explains the process. Click to view larger image). It shows that the federal government in Germany is interested in using novel ways to engage citizens, including both crowdsourcing and “town hall” meetings.

Potential challenges include how to deal with popular suggestions that are beyond the scope of the federal government. A “Citizen’s Forum” project last year in the country, for example, brought together 3,000 interested citizens who suggested that education systems (a state responsibility) be harmonized across the country. The idea was pretty much dead on arrival, as states have clung to that responsibility vehemently. Critical to the collection of useful ideas will be communicating to participants the scope of ideas being solicited (what is up for discussion, and what is not). Another essential step for the Chancellor’s office will be to ensure enough resources to wade through the ideas (6 hours after launching, a total of 123 have been posted).

Stay tuned for further updates as we track this exciting project.

All translations are my own.

-Stephan Telka-

Tags: Angela Merkel, Bundeskanzlerin, Chancellor, Crowdsourcing, Germany, Public Involvement, Zukunftsdialog
Posted in Commentary and Opinion, Featured, Latest | 2 Comments »

A short history of crowdsourcing
Friday, June 24th, 2011

You’ve probably heard of “crowdsourcing” – a way for organizations to solve tough challenges by tapping-into the knowledge of their broad communities.While social media and web technologies provide governments, businesses and other organizations with tools to crowdsource more rapidly and collaboratively, crowdsourcing itself isn’t new.

In a great blog, DesignCrowd researched some of the most well known examples of crowdsourcing. They think the first case could date all the way back to 1714 in England. And, of all the examples they describe, it’s this one – the invention of the Marine Pocket Clock – that I find the most interesting. Here’s the story.

1714: The Longitude Prize

In 1714, sailors in the British navy had a problem. The motion of a ship through the waves meant that traditional clocks with a pendulum couldn’t keep accurate time, which they needed to for navigation purposes. If they didn’t know where they were, captains and their unlucky crews could sail right into reefs or other dangers.

The Admiralty couldn’t find a solution so, in perhaps the first example of crowdsourcing, they issued a challenge to the public. For a prize of £20,000 (US $4.7 million in today’s money), everyday citizens were asked for their solutions to this tough problem.

And it worked! The winning response was received from a Mr. John Harrison, the son of a carpenter.

What does this tell us?

I really like this story because it shows some of the fundamental principles behind crowdsourcing:

People outside an organization are willing to help solve a problem
Organizations don’t have all the answers… sometimes they need to leverage the knowledge of people outside
Even the most technical and seemingly impossible problems can be solved, and from the most unlikely sources

While the term “crowdsourcing” is new, the idea that organizations can look outside for help has a long and interesting history.

- Ellis Westwood -

Note: My thanks to DesignCrowd for the original blog that inspired this one.

Tags: Case Study, Crowdsourcing
Posted in Commentary and Opinion | 5 Comments »

“What the?!” Whatever happened to the UK Government’s innovative crowdsourcing project, the “Spending Challenge”?
Friday, July 16th, 2010

Earlier this week, I got really excited! (You should have seen me…)

On July 12, The UK Government launched an innovative crowdsourcing project to gather public ideas for reducing the country’s serious budget deficit. The Spending Challenge used an engaging website where members of the public co u ld submit their ideas for “getting more for less” by making public services less costly and more efficient. Participants could also read each other’s ideas, as well as rate and comment on them.

This was true crowdsourcing, where the community of users provides the engagement sponsor with a ranked list of measures based on what they think is most important to consider.

Before being released for public involvement on July 12, the Spending Challenge was used internally and received over 60,000 ideas from public servants government! And, with their expertise, this response was likely full of golden ideas.

What happened!?

So, I was surprised today when I returned to the engagement site, only to see that it had completely changed….

Gone is the ability to read other people’s ideas, to comment and to rate! You can still submit ideas – but that’s about all. Have a look for yourself: http://spendingchallenge.hm-treasury.gov.uk/

Less engaging + less effective

I think this new process design change is less innovative and, ultimately, less effective for several reasons:

No Interaction: There’s no dialogue or interaction between participants. People cannot engage in dialogue on the subject matter, exchange insights or perspectives.
No Community: The community of participants cannot collaborate together to co-create or improve ideas posted.
No Priorities Identified: Now, the UK Government will not generate a rated set of suggestions, showing which measures participants thought were most important to consider or implement. Instead, the results will be more of a “laundry list” than more a useful, publicly generated set of priorities

I still think the UK Government should be applauded for involving the public in tough, values-based discussions about government services.

That said, I think the redesign of the site and whole engagement process had made it less engaging for users and less effective as a tool to inform government decisions.

- Ellis Westwood -

Tags: Crowdsourcing, Spending Challenge, UK
Posted in Commentary and Opinion | No Comments »

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Posts Tagged ‘Crowdsourcing’

Taking Ideas Seriously…and Uncharted Territory

In-person vs. Online

So what?