Tag Archives: e-government 2.0

Introducing: the book (with a little help from my friends)

In 2010 I’ll release a book on user generated policies. I am passionate about this subject: I think that the web 2.0 wind blowing on public authorities is a great chance to bring about a profound change in the way citizens concern themselves about public policies, making it more informed, effective, and even fun.

The book is called Wikicrazia – Government at the time of the Internet: understanding it, designing it, participating as a leader, and will be released on September 15th by Navarra Editore. It aims at reporting from the frontier of the subject (certainly I put the best of my knowledge into it), dealing with complex issues while staying reader-friendly and engaging. I worked on it for a year, and have now gotten to a draft we think is good enough for printing.

But we are not going to print it just yet. We are going to do something different: this is a book on collaboration on the Internet, and it makes sense to open it to collaboration on the Internet. No one is smarter than everyone, least of all I. So I’d ask you, if you have a little time to spare and you are intrigued, to help me write a final, improved version, the one that will get printed. You stand to gain my everlasting gratitude and a public recognition of your work on the book. To take part, or just to have a look at the draft, start here.

The Kublai files: imbrigliare l’inaspettato

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David Osimo mi ha chiesto un contributo per il numero dell’European Journal of E-Practice da lui editato, significativamente intitolato “E-government 2.0: hype, hope or reality?”. Ho unito le forze a quelle di Tito Bianchi, e insieme abbiamo prodotto un articolo che fa il punto di due anni di Kublai. Il succo è: le logiche web 2.0 applicate alle politiche pubbliche sembrano funzionare. Ma sono molto, molto lontane dalla cultura amministrativa dominante, che è basata ancora sull’idea weberiana di procedure impersonali, sottoposte a controlli tesi a verificarne la correttezza formale più che i risultati. Se fa 2.0, lo Stato deve presidiare l’interesse pubblico, ma incoraggiare i cittadini a provare a perseguirlo a modo loro. Il paper completo (in inglese) si chiama “Imbrigliare l’inaspettato” e si può leggere e scaricare qui; qui, invece, l’editoriale di David.

The Kublai files: harnessing the unexpected

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David Osimo has been guest editing an issue of the European Journal of E-Practice bearing the significant title asked me to contribute to the “E-government 2.0: hype, hope or reality?”, and he asked me to contribute to it. I joined forces with Tito Bianchi, and together we produced a paper that summarizes two years of Kublai. The executive summary is this: web 2.0 can be quite a powerful tool fo public policy. But it is very, very much at odds with the prevailing administrative culture, which is still based on Weber’s idea of impersonal procedures, subject to controls that are aimed at verifying formal correctness rather than performance. If it is to go 2.0 at all, the State should guard the public interest while allowing and encouraging people to trythings out their own way. The full paper is called “Harnessing the unexpected” and can be read and downloaded here; David’ editorial is here.