I will try and make this sound positive, promise. That being said, it will be hard as there are many challenges ahead of us if we are truly to make government an open government, one that embraces citizen - institution mass collaboration in a connected digital nation; and if we are to succeed in this quest, we need to point out the elephants in the room. I won’t sugar coat anything by saying “this is an opportunity” when really it is just a plain simple barrier to progress… and I will try to not turn this into a rant

Here are the top 5 reasons why 2.0 collaboration will not easily be accepted by government:

1. Open Government is Scary
Public sector employees, at all levels, are simply ill equipped to interact with citizens and businesses in such an open forum. Providing citizens and businesses with online collaborative means and access to government isn’t as easy as it sounds. This is a new frontier for our public sector, one that has not been adopted anywhere else in Canada. Imagine a world where employment insurance discussions could be settled online via instant messaging, where blogs of the latest policy surrounding the government’s foreign aid policies was readily available for critique by citizens from Iqaluit to Vancouver? This type of openness shakes the very core of the public sector as we know it today and it instils fear in most employees to think they could be called upon to collaborate en mass with Canadians throughout the country; and rightfully so. Something like this calls for new ways of designing programs, outreach strategies, technologies, new outlooks on the role of government, etc. No one has started to plan for these types of processes and new-age programs and actually began delivering on a modernized public sector program delivery strategy, yet we now have the tools to do so… just not the framework to proceed.

2. Hierarchy still prevails
True story… someone I recently met (let’s call him John) outlined how they were asked to put together a blogging forum for their department. They did so with great anticipation and were even aloud to post the first comment on this great new collaborative tool. So off John goes and posts a blog on a topic of great interest to him within his organisation, a process he sees as needing modernization, John wants to highlight this to all who wish to read his blog… this process sucks. Off he posts. The next day, his supervisor instructs him that this particular process isn’t really that bad, but that it is a challenge and the wording should have read as such. John is perplexed and confused, but leaves it at that. Now the following day after that, John’s CIO crosses him in the hall and informs him to change the tone to reflect the fact that this particular process he outlined, really is not a challenge, but rather is an opportunity… ??? … Now John is lost and simply does not understand … thought this was supposed to be MY blog page?

This outlines a critical paradigm conflict of web 2.0 in a public sector setting… 2.0 crushes typical government hierarchies that have been in place for centuries… are we ready for this? Because the newer generations of employees coming in, they will not be shy about posting things on a blog or wiki that do not make sense to them within their institution, they will be digital natives used to the Facebook and Twitter phenomenon… CIOs and ADMs out there…. are you ready to hear what the team has to say? Every day of the week? And is this new professional generation ready to accept a combination of ‘old world’ rules and dilute their appetite for mass collaboration? Tough questions… no clear answers yet…

3. Youth not Engaged
I am 29, left government at 27 because I was lucky in reaching a Director position at 24 but got disenfranchised very quickly. When I was in government and complaining (yes complaining I will admit it :)) about how it simply is not fair to have competitions outline requirements such as ‘15 years of experience in this’ and ‘need 20 years of experience in that’… I simply did not have a forum to be heard. When we wanted to do projects well but trim down on the timelines, I was told there were processes to follow; again no one to turn to that would act. So I left. But now that I am outside of the public sector, I can blog more freely, tweet more freely and participate in conferences and speak my mind, people actually want to hear what I have to say… how twisted… and sad really. All you senior Deputy Ministers out there please take notice, you have thousands of bright young minds within the public sector today who get this Facebook thing, please include them when possible in how you design your programs, how you integrate 2.0 technologies into the workplace and how you can expand the reach of your activities outside of Ottawa, Toronto, Québec City and other traditional centres of power; and please do so before they do what I did, and leave government all together. This new generation is a digital-native one, they are used to this type of environment and could bring much value to the discussion… reversely, this new generation also needs leadership and guidance as to why these public sector rules exist and why they must be respected… both parties could gain so much from such an exchange, yet they rarely happen because today’s government focusses too much on hierarchy and rank, not on innovation.

4. Processes not suited for mass collaboration
Government processes are linear, and they are designed this way for transparency and reporting reasons, please do not argue that they are for efficiency’s sake Collaboration on the other hand, creates more of a ‘bubble’ environment, where processes are not as linear and do not necessarily require such rigour, as a result of the fact that collaboration environments rely on the intellect and power of a large community as opposed to relying on a linear process and a typical industrial age production line system. Now there are good reasons why government processes must be linear, but again we introduce online collaboration to the equation and it begins to pose a paradigm conflict, yet again, as both of these worlds are conflicting in many ways. How to maintain transparency and reporting capacities while introducing more ‘free wielding’ mass collaboration platforms to the public sector workplace in order to drive efficiency? That is the challenge in today’s 1.75 public sector world.

5. Unclear path
One of the biggest issues we face in modernizing our public sector and introducing more 2.0 technologies, is that no one has had the leadership to do it. GC Pedia is a first step, a humble one, but a first one. However there is no policy rigour against GCPedia (IM, Security, etc.), but at least it can start to connect federal government employees. What is missing is how we introduce more robust and enterprise scalable collaboration concepts and platforms into government program delivery framework that encourages collaboration with its citizens; how do we use Facebook as government entities? How do we leverage blogs and wikis within a program delivery framework designed to reach out from Vancouver to St-John’s? If the US could elect its first black President on the strength of Facebook and Barrackobama.org, certainly the Canadian government can renew its program delivery approach to citizens using 2.0 technologies? We just need our own Canadian Barrack to stand up and be heard.

Ok…I am done what has turned into a rant and I do apologize for this. However there are many roadblocks ahead - not opportunities… but roadblocks - and we must face them head on if we are to modernize our public sector program delivery approach to leverage the 2.0 technologies being used around the world. If ISO was able to modernize its voting system to reduce its standards adoption period from years to weeks, by using the web, Canada, as the world’s once #1 rated digital country, should embrace this challenge head on and lead. I would go as far as it is our role to do so and lead the way… just have to find that Canadian Obama somewhere, if you see him or her, please let me know.