Keynote: Networks, participation and Open Government
Juan Ignacio Criado Grande, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Social technologies are the new engine of the Network Society.
What recent global revolutions had in common is the possibility that anonymous citizens, people that had never met each other, can communicate among themselves and can take action after that. This is the potential of the Web 2.0.
But if the hype of the Web 2.0 is smoothly down, Open Government has been a common topic for ages. This is especially true in Anglo-Saxon countries, but not in Latin countries, where gobierno abierto is a new thing: there’s much work to do in this field in certain economies (e.g. Spain).
Open data, if well structured and linked, can become rich data and be much more useful.
Open Government: towards a new paradigm of public adminitration?
But open government is not only opening, or technology, but a new paradigm of public administration, based on transparency and accountability, dialogue and participation, to enbale a collaboration between citizens and the government.
- Transparency: end of the monopoly of the state on information.
- Participation: citizens have to be engaged.
- Collaboration: the more actors the better to solve a problem.
This approach has to be put into practice, with real policies, and policies that can be measured and evaluated.
But is openness good for everyone? What about privacy? Openness can have its drawbacks and we have to be aware of them.
What are public administrations doing in social networking sites?
What do social networking sites allow governments to do?
- Constant conversation.
- Collaborative content.
- Constant evaluation.
- Remix.
- Disintermediation.
- Empowerment.
5 participation levels:
- Inform.
- Consult.
- Engage.
- Collaborate.
- Empower.
Social media allow governments to build a community, build a network.
With open government we are trying to install a new software on an obsolete hardware
. So, the management of change becomes key for success.
An important caveat: are we using new technologies to achieve our goals? Or just for the sake of using them and look cool?
The importance of the perpetual beta: organizations have to learn to learn, to be in the logic of constant learning. We have to quickly evolve from open government towards intelligent government.
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