In Parts
COVER STORY/TECHNOLOGY
Working in Wiki
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How to assemble real ideas in a virtual world
The Web site names swirl around like sand in the Sahara: Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Second Life, Flickr, Wikipedia. Most of us know a little bit about one or two of them; some of us know a lot about — and even have a password to — all of them. What they have in common is that they're part of Web 2.0 — the new generation of Internet applications. And they all are tied into sociability — the meeting and greeting of people and the sharing and spreading of information. They offer anyone with the fortitude to log on to them entry into a unique and very different world of communication, one that can be literal, figurative and virtual at the same time.
What's that got to do with state and local governments and how managers and employees work together? Plenty. People who learn how to harness wikis and other new tools to the benefit of government, notes Mark Forman, a partner and IT adviser at KPMG, "will be hailed as the next great visionaries." His underlying point: Governments can either play an active role in transforming themselves or wait and let change hit them. Either way, it's coming.
A recent report by Forrester Research made similar predictions for the technology behind three-dimensional Internet tools. Virtual worlds such as Second Life and There.com are becoming valuable work tools for both public- and private-sector organizations. But of all the Web 2.0 innovations, it is wikis that promise to have the most dramatic effect on government.
The wiki world is all about making government more effective by enlarging the idea bank and making it possible to tap into the minds of those all along the job line — from workers in the field to middle managers to top brass. It's like the old Suggestion Box, only more specific, immediate and rewarding. And more challenging. The adjustments needed in terms of mindset and operations can be huge, even for the chief information officers of government agencies. They have to master the new tools, then persuade their agencies to experiment with the technologies, and then support them as they do.
Many CIOs are uncomfortable with these social networking tools and don't see how they apply to the internal workings of government. That's not surprising. Wiki-enhanced government is in its early stages. The early adapters are just beginning to showcase the possibilities.
The Basic Tool Kit
The wiki world, in this context, refers not to one Web site or program but to the technologies and attitudes that allow mass collaboration, whether that group effort happens through wikis, blogs, listservs, social networks or the avatars of Second Life. Some of the better-known social networking and participatory sites invite people with knowledge and information to share what they know, via a Web site.
The programs do not sit on a government computer. They are in the ether and accessible from wherever an employee happens to be. The technologies, processes and culture are developed by a community of employees who are focused on a particular project or service — and that community can change and evolve over time. The core of the Internet was developed through this sort of collaboration, through self-organization and participation by interested parties who chose to be involved.
While teenagers and twenty-somethings may lay claim to many of these sites and use them in their daily lives, they nonetheless are tools that can be adapted for use by governments. Just like a text-messaging teenager, states and localities — and the people who work for them — have a need to share information and hear from colleagues.
Government managers talk about teamwork, collaboration and sharing ideas. Most of the time, that means setting up in-person meetings or sending around e-mails. Web 2.0 changes all that. Setting up a Facebook page may not be the right electronic venue for a state or local government to communicate within its ranks or with the public — would you "friend" an irate taxpayer? — but other tools are proving to be valuable for getting government managers, employees and vendors to work together online and within the immediacy of real time. And this can be done with a healthy degree of privacy. The sites can be closed to outsiders; departments can give project access to specific individuals through invitations and passwords.
These sites are not just a means of taking usual routines — in-person meetings, conferences, briefings — and turning them into electronic equivalents. What marks Web 2.0 and makes it potentially transformative is that the tools pull the legs out from under the typical management structure, practically flattening it. A wiki is a collaboratively edited Web page that allows users to edit or add content. Within a government agency, it can be used to allow information to bubble up from all corners, and from people who might never have been invited to attend a meeting but who might have ideas about how to proceed or where to exercise caution — whether it's on a construction project, the delivery of a service or a means of raising revenue.
Similarly, with a computer-based simulated environment such as Second Life, employees involved in a project or service can move through a virtual model of reality and communicate with each other. Second Life and other virtual worlds also hold possibility as an alternative to conference calls: They create a more immersive, interactive experience. "For people who are geographically distributed," says Erika Driver, a principal analyst at Forrester Research, "virtual worlds give them the potential to feel like they're together." Avatars can sit around a virtual conference table while talking and gesticulating, watching presentations such as videos, and collaborating on documents. And, because attendance is virtual and from the comfort of a visitor's own computer, the virtual conference dramatically reduces travel costs. Experts predict that meetings in virtual worlds will be to today's phone and Web conferences what a sleek 24-speed racing bike is to a one-speed, banana-seat model.
Virtual worlds also provide a comparatively inexpensive and safe way to hold training exercises, especially for first responders. Police officers, medics, fire fighters and other emergency personnel can use them to practice on complex equipment or in hazardous environments. Virtual worlds already have been set up and used for emergency preparedness in the I-95 corridor in the Boston area.
Some obstacles still exist to widespread use of virtual worlds. The technology works best on computers that are faster and more powerful than the usual government model.
That said, a Second Life "island" or a wiki that is customized for use by a government agency can provide instantaneous information, and can speed up an agency's ability to advance projects. It's a little like trying to solve the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle. The clues demand a diversity of knowledge. If that puzzle were online and open to 30 people with different types of expertise — people who could simultaneously fill in the squares on their individual computers from wherever they are — the puzzle would be solved in minutes rather than hours or days.
Information technology departments that shut their eyes to the potential of the new collaboration tools could lose ground. These tools may seem foreign or scary to long-time and older employees — and to those who are not technologically savvy. And the tools are likely to cause discomfort as they are deployed. But departments that have tapped into the wiki world are finding that the sharing capabilities enhance the way governments get their business done and are well worth the effort it takes to introduce people to them.
The Google Gap
"The future is here," says science fiction writer William Gibson. "It's just not evenly distributed yet." That's a line to which Jack Pond, chief information officer in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, can bear witness. He has experienced first hand the disconnect many people have with Web 2.0 tools. On the one hand, he says, managers of government agencies are familiar with Google, Yahoo and Wikipedia and may even use them. But take the concepts behind these leading-edge products and suggest they be applied to a program at, say, the Department of Motor Vehicles, and the response from agency managers is less than positive. "You're treated," Pond says, "like a Martian."
It takes a certain mindset to be a first adapter of the Web 2.0 tools. Governments that have begun working in the wiki world tend to have IT officials or employees who see value in collaborative technologies. The culture where they work is one where there's an eagerness to learn how new technologies can increase the agency's efficiency and responsiveness.
Even if they have not read "Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything," by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, they understand the "powerful" new model the book describes. It is one that is "based on community, collaboration and self-organization rather than on hierarchy and control." The authors talk about employees who are "trapped deep within organizational bureaucracies where the boss told them what to do." Their input and insights are rarely sought.
What the wiki way does is give those buried employees seats at the virtual table. It opens the discussion to those willing to contribute. Good ideas can come from anyone within the organization. The low-level person in administrative services might never be asked to attend a project meeting. But if given access to a sharing Web site, he or she has a way to contribute to the conversation — and possibly the outcome of a project.
Who knows the best way to arrive at answers to government problems? According to Isaac Asimov, the most exciting phrase in science is not Eureka — as in "I've found the answer" — but "That's funny...," as in, there are some interesting possiblities here. And when someone scrawls "that's funny," on a wiki page, it could easily lead to, "You know, I was thinking the same thing" from someone else. At which point two or more minds are looking into why it's funny and where that leads.
Simply put, wikis and other tools are a way to get to a solution with more brain power working on the case. But the wiki mindset can thrive only in an environment open to collaboration. Which is a potential obstacle. "If you have one person who does not want this to succeed," Pond says, "he can be an impediment."
A government has to be "culturally ready" to work in a wiki world. That was the case in Montgomery County. Technology people divided themselves into small groups and started exploring how to turn the Pennsylvania county's court records into an online system — even before they had the technological tools to make it happen. In governments with a less adventurous mindset, shifting to such a method might call into question the whole structured approach of government business. Officials would tend to resist if the wiki culture threatened to unravel the network and power base they have spent years developing.
The sticking point for government is that in a true wiki world, traditional management is turned upside down. When everything is funneled through a project manager, as is typical, people don't have an opportunity to self-select what aspect of the project they'd like to work on. They are assigned tasks. But people handed a responsibility — especially if it's something they don't particularly understand or like — often don't do it well. Government officials who accept that self-selection is a benefit, may turn to Web 2.0 tools to give their departments an edge.
It's not just a feel-good concept. It has implications for the future work force. Young workers, who have grown up with the Internet, are entering the government ranks. They're used to peer-to-peer communication, up-to-the-minute information online and the immediacy of mobile text messaging. They are hooked on social networking sites, such as Facebook and MySpace. They will be looking for a similar experience in the workplace.
The driving force behind these new tools is that information can come from anywhere and help everyone. It may not be precise. It may not be something a manager can plan for. But it happens. And that's the potential and promise of the wiki world.
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