One of the concepts we’ve been talking about for a long time now is “Government as Platform”, the concept of breaking government services up into a number of digital building blocks that can be assembled in different combinations to provide compelling new services to citizens.

Government as Platform has many advantages, done correctly, it is not just a cost effective way of delivering relevant and rich services to citizens, but more importantly it changes the overall dynamic of how citizens gain access to crucial government information and services, ensuring that government services are federated out to the places where citizens live, work and play (rather than forcing citizens to have to come to government every time they want access to the service).

Today, I’m really pleased to be able to announce the availability of Travel Advisor – a new example of this approach, taking a core government service – The Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s Travel Advisory service, federating it out through an open data api and blending that data with a great social networking platform for gap year travellers – the brilliant GapYear.com. (Not to mention bringing with it core functionality from the internet like Bing’s currency exchange, weather and translation) All of this comes together to provide a beautiful, well informed, socially connected travel companion for gap year travellers.

Although a great application in its own right, it is also an excellent demonstration of what can be done to deliver beautiful, relevant services to citizens, by blending the diverse sources with relatively little effort and investment. Let me tell you a bit more about how it works.

The FCO is a switched on, digitally focused organisation, thanks in part to the wit and wisdom of their Head of Digital Engagement – Jimmy Leach. They already publish an RSS feed of the Travel Advisory service – a data stream of important content on all of the locations that the UK government has presence, with data ranging from what to do if your passport is lost/stolen through to up to date advice for travellers based on local conditions (extreme weather, civil unrest, significant local events etc). We contacted one of our partners – AWS, to help take that data and publish it in the cloud as an open data api that enables any developer on any platform to consume and make use of it. AWS then worked with GapYear.com to deliver a beautiful mobile application that would combine their socially connected services, with this authoritative information from the FCO to deliver a location aware, traveller’s resource.

The cost of developing the api and the app was actually pretty small, but the net benefit and overall experience for the citizen is immense, plus by taking this two phase approach – phase one = publish an open data api, phase two = do something beautiful with it, you create a solution that actually exponentially increases the potential value for both citizens and developers as you effectively create the opportunity for further innovation by developers to create new and interesting applications.

The Travel Advisor application is now available as a free download in the Windows Phone Marketplace.

Click here to view the embedded video.

A few months back we were approached by the Society of Chief Librarians to provide some insight on how changes in society and technology may offer some opportunities for us to radically change the way in which we live, work and play – a topic regular viewers will know we enjoy and have some opinion on .

Fundamentally – I am convinced that the library is one of the primary pillars of community and as such it’s role in developing and nurturing that community is absolutely essential – however, my view is that some things need to change if we are to make the most of the opportunity (and the challenging circumstances in which we find ourselves today).

I was captivated by Alberto Manguel’s concept of the library as a "pleasantly mad place" – it struck a chord with me and re-enforced my opinion that the library needs to be many different things if it is to survive in the current environment – but whatever those things are they need to be built on the principles that have made libraries successful for thousands of years.

You can find highlights of the key recommendations I made to the SCL in this episode of the Envisioners:

Download the webcast here –

The Envisioners Episode 6

You can also download the slides I used here –

Open Government and the Future of Public Libraries

If you’re a sucker for punishment, a webcast of the full presentation is also available here for download:

• Download the Hi-res (640×480) version here:
  

  Open Government and the Future of Public Libraries (Hi-Res)

• Download the Low-Res (320×240) version here:
  

  Open Government and the Future of Public Libraries (Low-Res)

Yesterday, we launched HealthVault in the UK, in some ways I think it is one of the most interesting (and perhaps, significant) products we’ve had for some time. 

Not just interesting and significant in the context of the product itself, but more because of the approach to privacy that has been taken throughout the development of the platform.

For the uninitiated, HealthVault is simply a cloud based application platform, that allows people to develop rich UI based applications that feed off an individual’s secure and private datastore (in this context for applications that focus on “wellness”). 

HealthVault is unique because it puts the individual in control of their health information, they have full visibility of what data is being consumed, by whom, which applications they use and more importantly, in every decision they make about which apps to use, or who to share their data with, the user is made explicitly aware of what data is required.

What is important in this approach is that the platform was developed using a series of key principles that were there when we started – we didn’t create the code and then “bolt” privacy on as so often happens.

Those principles were simply:

1. The record you create is controlled by you.
2. You decide what goes into your record.
3. You decide who can see and use your information on a case-by-case basis.
4. Your information cannot be used for commercial purposes unless you are explicitly asked you clearly tell us we may.

Privacy isn’t a binary problem, there is no single answer, but we can’t afford to ignore this key area, we need to listen to (and engage with) the experts – organisations like BigBrotherWatch, Privacy International, and NO2ID are excellent examples of people who are actively engaged in Privacy discussions across the board in an attempt to help us all do a better job of getting this right.

Sure, there’s more to it than this, but the point I’m trying to make is Privacy is going to be the “killer” topic in IT for the next few years (if you don’t believe me, ask Mark Zuckerberg )  Our collective success in addressing it properly will only come if we work together to understand the issues and build on the above principles to make it stick. 

Chris Taggart, the UK’s pre-eminant Local Gov Open Data champion and the mastermind behind OpenlyLocal has just published a superb presentation on the opportunities and challenges around Open Data.

It’s a great deck that does a really good job of articulating both the potential and the challenges faced by those involved in trying to open up local government data.

Take some time with this, it gives some great hooks to tell what is ultimately a difficult story for those that are less close to this.

Chris has also just blogged this with a little more context.

A few months back, I was approached by a colleague that had been thinking about the collision of a number of key events: the turbulent economic environment, political uncertainty, changing workplace dynamics and the consumerisation of IT – individually, these topics have all been visited here at the Envisioners and yet the bleedin’ obvious had, until now, escaped us – what happens when you bring all of these events together at once?

We know that each one of these topics is enough on it’s own to start a conversation around how the business world needs to change (in both public and private sector) and yet here we are, presented with a once in a lifetime opportunity (I hope) where the convergence of compelling events in each of these areas create the mother of all incentives to become more agile and effective in the way we live work and play.

The Hybrid Organisation work comprises of three studies by distinguished thought leaders in their field; Prof Michael Hulme on the impact of current social change, Philip Ross on the opportunity provided by changes in the “built environment” and finally Ken Wood from MSR and myself on both the current and future potential offered by technology.

Alone, each one of these studies mark an incredible insight into each specific area, yet combined they create an incredibly compelling view of how organisations, leaders and individuals need to change in order to take advantage of the opportunities being offered and more importantly, how to stay relevant and competitive in our changing world.

To help organisations and individuals understand how to make these changes happen, we’ve created a final summary report which outlines the key themes from each of the papers and outlines 20 things every organisation should do on it’s journey to becoming hybrid.

I know all the cynics out there will be rolling your eyes and saying, “we’ve heard all this before” and that it doesn’t matter – well two things spring to my mind:

1. The unprecedented convergence of the recession, the election, workplace demographics and IT consumerisation is something that _cannot_ be ignored.
2. Read the reports and judge for yourself – Look at the 20 point plan and ask yourself (honestly) where you and your organisation stand…

Click here to view the embedded video.

The power of OpenGovernment lies both in the outcomes it will bring, and the journeys we will all have to take in order to make it happen (many of which are already underway today).  In itself, it is neither a technology or a philosophy and it certainly isn’t manifesto hyperbole – here in the UK (as it is right across this world) Open Government represents the true potential of technology in a modern society.

There is an incredible pool of passionate and talented individuals (and organisations) that are all working hard on their respective corners of the cause.  I have had the privilege of meeting and working with many of them over the past few months and this podcast, presented as a keynote (and recorded live) to the 2010 Architect Insight Conference, is the best I can do to try and articulate both the potential and the challenges that the path to Open Government will bring.

You can download the webcast here (right click and “save as”) or click here to subscribe to the Envisioners podcasts on iTunes.

A word of warning however, I’m afraid I get a bit carried away at around 29:40 and use the term “b*ll*cks” a couple of times, you’ll see it’s entirely justified, but I wanted to warn you upfront in case you have sensitive ears, or are playing this in earshot of those that do. (Although frankly in the latter case, if you’re subjecting others to this stuff, I think my profanity is the least of your worries…)

Finally, you can also download the slides I used here – like everything on this site, they’re available for use under Creative Commons license, so feel free use them if they’re helpful to you, but please respect the copyright of the image authors (see speakers notes in each slide) and ensure you are licensed properly for their use.

OK, so I confess that I am currently enduring a relatively significant age related event. Luckily, thanks to the wonder that is the interwebs, I managed to find something that would combine my love of data, info-graphics and good old fashioned common sense to make me feel a little better…

God bless Data Underload… (Thanks Nathan)

Arrrrgghhhhh!!!!!  That doesn’t do my frustration justice, but you get a sense of my emotional state.

It seems that the word of the year is “Open” and isn’t it funny how simply appending it to any other word seems to transcend it’s meaning into something powerful and cool, transformational even.

Don’t get me wrong, I am inspired by the concept of “Open” (and also aware of the irony of a bloke from Microsoft complaining about “Open” anything – just get over it and work with me here, OK?)

In particular, I’m really worried about how Open Source, Open Standards and Open Government have all seemed to become the same thing in the minds of the politicians and the press. 

Bobby Caudill nailed it in his recent blog post in that “Open Government is about people not technology” – I’d go further to say Open Government is about people and Open Standards are the best way of getting us there.

Regardless of your technical or political persuasion, we have to get focus back onto what it is we want to achieve – Open Government is the outcome we all are striving for, we should therefore, not spend all of our time in the weeds focusing on the tools we’ll use to deliver it.

It’s been an interesting few weeks for Open Data in the UK, first the launch of London’s data store, and then, with much fanfare, the unveiling of data.gov.uk. Overall, this is a pretty good time to be a data activist.

But whilst the increasing exposure is beginning to help some people "get it" it sees we are approaching the "end of the beginning" for open data in government, but we are struggling to see where we go from here.

Data.gov.uk is a fantastic achievement and could perhaps be one of the most significant turning points in our relationship as citizens with the state, however it is currently not much more than an experiment – simply, proof that it can be done.

Against the context of the full potential that data.gov.uk offers, the current solution is neither sustainable nor scalable – and both points are well understood by the team that created it. Their challenge now is to take the fantastic work they have done and turn it into something that has it’s own momentum within both government and our society.

The technology side of this story is the easy part, making the platform scalable and sustainable is relatively straightforward and there are many (both within and outside government) that can help with that. The real challenge (and this will be no surprise) is how we change the culture of both ourselves and the government to a) openly share what should be shared, b) consume the data with respect and responsibility.

This is no easy task, but I do think there are some relatively simple steps that we can all take to help ease this journey.

1. More real examples
   Now, more than ever, we need to continue to show shining examples of the power of open data, Sir Tim Berners Lee has made an open appeal for examples – if you have one, he’d like to hear from you. If possible, we need them to come from more than just the "data activist" community, an excellent bunch of people who have already invested so much time and energy just to get us this far but need our support to take the crusade even further.
2. Open by design
   Those of us engaged in providing technology solutions in the Public Sector need to start building in the principles of open data into everything we do, all of our solutions need to at least consider how the data (where appropriate) would be made public and the linkage with data.gov.uk could be made.
3. Learn from others
   The public sector is not the only group grappling with opening up data in this way. There is much we can learn from others (both within IT and outside), we should be seeking to share our experiences for greater collective achievement.
4. Bridging the cultural chasm
   Last but by no means least, we need to be pushing the relevance of sharing data in this way to everyone, there is a big cultural void that we need to span (between those that get it, and those that don’t) it is up to us to create the link, and plant the seed of change across every aspect of our relationship with our government.

These four things alone will not make for an open government but if we are able to work together to drive these core messages, I think we can go a long way to making this a scalable, sustainable part of our relationship with the state.

The Aussies have just announced the winners of their MashupAustralia contest. It’s worth a look, not just because there are some great entries in there, but, seeing as there are a bunch of similar contests here in the UK (and more expected the closer we get to the election) you might find some good ideas to help you with your own submissions.

It’s great to see the global momentum Open Government is gaining and even better that there are more and more _real life_ examples of what can be achieved.