Working towards a Web 2.0 govt

By Lezette Engelbrecht, ITWeb online features editor

Johannesburg, 18 Sept 2009

Governments worldwide must leverage Web 2.0 technologies in order to enhance their ability to serve and connect with citizens.

This is according to Lee Naik, senior executive in Accenture's Health and Public Service operating group, and head of Accenture's Strategic IT Effectiveness practice in SA, who spoke at the GovTech conference, in Durban, this week.

Naik says with the coming of Web 2.0, there's been a change in state-citizen engagement, with governments beginning to leverage technology to improve service delivery and citizen interaction.

“Governments have traditionally been conservative adopters of technology,” says Naik, adding they usually wait until a technology capability has been tested before attempting it themselves.

But there's a risk of widening the divide between the state and the citizens who embrace collaborative technology, unless government is willing to use this same technology to enhance citizen services, he adds.

Citing research findings from the latest Accenture 'Leadership in customer service - creating shared responsibility for better outcomes' report, Naik outlines the key elements that high-performing organisations have in place, which can act as enablers for governments to provide better service provisioning.

A major enabling factor of high-performing organisations is a high level of collaboration, on a multi-geographical scale. “This involves engagement from national to provincial to regional level, putting a synergy in place to create a cohesive service model,” explains Naik.

He adds that citizens are becoming more interested in trust-based relationships, and having increased access to information. “They want things to be more transparent. They want to be engaged and have their concerns about service delivery heard and understood and acted upon.”

M is the new e

According to Naik, e-governance involves engaging with citizens on how they should be governed. “Citizens want four things: accountability, engagement, outcomes and balance.

“They want government to deliver on promises, communicate and accept when performance levels are low, and indicate what they are doing about it.”

Citizens also want greater transparency, he adds, and to gain an understanding of what is going on in terms of governance. “Leveraging Web 2.0 technologies can give people insight on how the government is doing in fulfilling its promises, and provide a mechanism for engaging in their own governance.”

Furthermore, says Naik, there's a demand for balance. This involves considering realities like the digital divide, where a government may go to great lengths to include technology in its delivery, but not everyone has access to those services. “If you implement services such as online registration or school placement there's an obvious bias which has to be taken into consideration.”

In SA, for example, government has to cater for a population that is diverse in a myriad of ways. Naik explains that from a technology perspective, not everyone has ADSL or a computer, but the penetration of cellphones in the country has made the Internet and Web 2.0 capabilities more widely available.

“M is the new e. Mobile technology is providing the interface for new advancements and the mobile device is becoming a platform for interfaced service delivery. It provides access to people, data, location-based services, maps, social networks and content such as YouTube, podcasts, and Twitter.”

Naik explains that while Web 2.0 serves as an umbrella term for a range of technologies, a phrase that characterises all of these is 'mass collaboration'. “What's different about Web 2.0 is that social networks like Twitter and Facebook have a high penetration into citizen bases across the world.

“A lot more parties locally are leveraging Web 2.0 capabilities like YouTube, online blogs, wikis, and so forth. These all come together to provide multiple ways to engage and connect citizens with government,” says Naik.

Beta mentality

However, incorporating mass collaboration into government services poses challenges, the first being culture issues. “Obviously Web 2.0 applications have multiple impacts on an organisation's culture. The government has traditional ways of working, and Web 2.0 changes that, the mindset is challenged,” states Naik.

He adds that increased transparency also potentially means loss of control. “If government is engaging with citizens in co-productive way, and people have a good understanding of how it's doing and where it's going, there's inevitably some loss of control.“

With great volumes of data being shared, there are also increased security and data risks, says Naik. He advises governments to think through their strategies and assess how to incorporate Web 2.0. “Some intelligence agencies, for example, make use of communities, wikis and blogs, but put them inside a firewall.

“You have to start with the end in mind, and know what you need to achieve and understand what your citizens need, and then develop a clear plan to drive these outcomes,” says Naik.

He encourages governments that wish to engage with Web 2.0 to adopt a beta mentality, as they may not get it right the first time. “Embrace opportunities for collaboration to improve what you come up with.

“The best way to leverage technology is not to start with the technology, but to develop the strategy for what you want to achieve for improved service delivery outcomes. Think big and develop a vision but start small and understand that it's not about technology for technology's sake, but because it enables delivery outcomes.”