Paul Johnston di theconnectedrepublic (è l’iniziativa di Cisco sui servizi pubblici in rete) ha fatto questo video, che secondo me è straordinario. Le persone che vedete stanno tutte leggendo la Open Declaration sui servizi pubblici europei. Lo trovo emozionante, anche a prescindere dal gioco a riconoscere chi è chi (ehi, aspetta quello non è Lee Bryant?). Potete contribuire anche voi: basta riprendersi mentre si legge ad alta voce la propria parte preferita della dichiarazione (testo qui) e postare il video come commento video a quello di Paul.

Però a me piacerebbe di più fare un’altra cosa, e cioè fare una versione italiana. La traduzione esiste già (qui: grazie a Francesco e a Gianluca che ha lanciato l’idea). Qualcuno, oltre a me, avrebbe voglia di riprendersi mentre ne legge un pezzo?

UPD – Il gruppo Facebook della Open Declaration è diventato molto vivace, 100 iscrizioni da ieri sera (sono le 11 del 3 novembre). Se avete un po’ di tempo, questo è un buon momento per visitarlo e partecipare.

UPD 4 novembre – David Weinberger parla della dichiarazione sul suo blog – e l’ha firmata. Suvvia, potete farlo anche voi, no?

On November 19-20, 2009, the EU ministerial conference will define the main priorities of e-government in the next three years.

David Osimo, whom I hold in high esteem, is coordinating an effort to bring to Malmö the voice of citizens 2.0. I think he has the traction to do that, especially since his Public Services 2.0 – with a highly successful workshop held in March in Brussels – showed the European Commission that there is a new generation of state-of-the art European e-gov projects, and that the people who run them are connected in a scene. As I’m writing this and only for a few more days – a very international group of people who care about this issue are collaborating in writing a European civic hackers manifesto. If you care too, join us: just go here and get busy.

For some time now I have been designing and deploying interfaces between public authorities and citizens (in particular between authorities and creative people/creative firms). The strategy behind them all is very simple: connect people – those who work for public authorities and those who work in the creative industries – in a many-many-interaction environment with very transparent information. Web 2.0 tools and an appropriate value system – that David maintains coincide with hacker ethics – have so far brilliantly solved the filtering problem: civil servants in these networks are not clogged by people asking for favours. On the contrary, they give every sign of enjoying their proximity to citizens and what they do.

These interfaces allow a strong reduction of the distance between administrators and constituencies. The Ministry of economic development is a central authorities, but to the creatives populating Kublai it is just one click away. It is pretty obvious that Kublaians have a much, much closer relationship with it than with their local authorities, closed within their palaces (and almost always locked behind firewalls that inhibit their access to social networks).

I wonder if, in this situation, we should not rethink the subsidiarity principle. As far as I can see it says that public policy should be managed by the most local public authority which has the means to address the problem in discussion: so, in Europe, the European Union deals with global environmental planning, while urban planning in the smalltown of Pisticci is dealt with by the Pisticci municipality. This sounds simple; unfortunately, in a globalized world almost every local problem is inextricably linked to some broader context. Urban planning in metropolitan areas is a perfect example: it does not make sense to plan according to administrative borders if the economy and the society are integrated beyond it. So, it is not always easy to understand in the abstract which authority is closest to any particular problem. In practice, on the other hand, it is very simple: the closest authority is the one the least clicks away, the most accessible, the one with the best interface. For Kublai’s creatives it is a lot easier – not to mention more rewarding ad even fun – to talk to the Ministry of economic development than to their municipal governments, so they will tend to strentghen their ties with the former and ignore the latter. Old style subsidiarity is unsustainable.

It may be worth it to study the British setup (I have done it here). Policy competences are allocated not geographically, but by issues. Funding is centralized, so the central government has a lot of traction: when a strategy is adopted (like the first Blair government’s stance on the creative industries) things happen fast. But strategies are in general implemented locally, by small semipublic organizations who try out solutions competing with one another for funding from Whitehall. The system – at least for policies on creativity – works fairly well. It is no chance that the English – in a 2004 referendum – have decided that they do NOT want democratically elected regional authorities. A certain distance from the problem sometimes guarantees a broader perspective (and local politics can be toxic). All the more so since, with a little effort, central authorities can be just one click away.