communitybuilders.nsw and E-Public Work

In a recent paper written for the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development E-Government Project, communitybuilders.nsw is discussed as an outstanding international example of E-Public Work.

World acclaim for communitybuilders.nsw

Steven Clift is editor of Democracies Online and a Member, Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) E-Government Project Advisory Group. In a recent paper E-Public Work: Online Information Exchange in the Pursuit of Public Service Goals, he makes several references to communitybuilders.nsw which include:

• ‘This initiative is likely the world’s most comprehensive government-hosted E-Public Work project tied closely to direct policy implementation. Along with a portal to quality information resources, they have developed a thriving hybrid web forum/e-mail list with over 1000 participants.’
• ‘A deep investigation of their site, including their discussion archives is advised. Their model also demonstrates the importance of political leadership. Positioning the government as an information facilitator, not just a sole provider of service, requires management support with clear political direction’

What is E-Public Work?

Summary

‘E-Public Work is a new concept. It represents the strategic use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to better implement established public policy goals and programs through direct and diverse stakeholder online involvement. The governments that are hosting E-Public Work initiatives are shifting from their role as “sole providers” of public services to facilitators of those working to solve similar public problems.

Stakeholders include other government agencies, local governments, non-governmental organizations, and interested citizens. Essentially any individual or group willing to work with the government to meet public challenges may be included. In a time of scare resources, E-Public Work is designed to help governments more effectively pursue their established missions in a collaborative and sustainable manner.

E-Public Work also moves beyond “one-way” information and service delivery toward “two-way” and “many-to-many” exchange of information, knowledge, and experience. E-Public Work is a public, yet selective approach that uses this two-way online information exchange to carry out previously determined government policy.

E-Public Work is not an inter-governmental Intranet or an Extranet that tend to be limited to select government offices or contractors. E-Public Work is also not about general online public consultations often positioned early in the decision-making process.

E-Public Work may provide cost efficiency because e-democracy tools initially developed for the input side of government decision-making can now be applied to the output side of public administration. Moving beyond inter-governmental e-mail lists, policy information portal initiatives geared to multiple levels of government, non-governmental/non-profit organizations (NGOs) and citizens as a whole are emerging.

At the moment, publicly accessible E-Public Work projects are rare. The embryonic few only use a small set of the current ICT tools available. To succeed, these projects must adapt emerging models of distributed information input and information sharing for appropriate use on multiple sites (syndication), develop models for sustained information exchange/discussion, and build from the existing knowledge about Communities of Practice and computer-mediated communication.

Developing the “neutral host” facilitation role, along with sustained funding, is important. The host must generate trust and establish a sense of momentum and relevancy. Individuals and organizations are keenly aware of the institutional disincentives related to more open information exchange. The value of information exchange must be demonstrated over time to overcome natural resistance to new ways of working and collaboration.

Government partnerships, with their public missions and resources, often make ideal hosts for broad, horizontal information exchange. Government departments that feel their status/purpose will be threatened by shifting from an expert gatekeeper to an involved facilitator are not ideal hosts. Facilitation models involving NGOs and academic consortiums have potential and should also be developed and leveraged for better implementation of public policy.

What is the context?

'The first decade of Internet-era e-government has focused on the provision of service information and transactions. This development has been essentially one-way. The government provides - and the citizen, business, or the community organization receives.

While obvious, government offices also established shared internal file servers to allow easier information exchange within a government office. The adoption of e-mail is also fostering greater, albeit informal and highly unstructured, information exchange across government departments and with the public as a whole. Most of this communication is neither captured in a way that encourages lasting knowledge exchange nor is it easily accessible at a later point internally or externally.

With significant management support and the adoption of knowledge management and “groupware” tools, some governments are becoming learning organizations that both import and export their knowledge in pursuit of their public missions. Their power and impact is amplified by generating new knowledge that is more widely accessible. However, most online information exchange to date has remained within government – often within specific government offices. This relates in large part to the use of online tools that were built based on the assumptions of a tightly controlled corporate environment. Pre-web browser tools were not designed or licensed to make broad external collaboration among extremely disparate individuals and groups easy or affordable to implement. Even today, many of the commercial web-based collaborative tools are priced assuming a per-person fee and require extensive motivation in order to learn.

Despite horizontal communication opportunities across agencies using Internet-based tools (e.g. an e-mail list for webmasters in different departments), the potential benefit of online tool adoption must overcome institutional and cultural barriers to more open sharing of information, knowledge, and experience. This problem is more about human nature and large organizations than something unique to governments. In short, most people don’t like to share, but they love to gather. So in an online environment, something must connect information gathering to the explicit purpose of sharing.'

Extract from:

E-Public Work: Online Information Exchange in the Pursuit of Public Service Goals. An early concept paper written for the OECD E-Government Project
By Steven Clift, Member, OECD E-Government Project Advisory Group
Copyright 2003 Steven Clift
Author information: http://www.publicus.net
Comments: clift@publicus.net

For further information

Contact	:	Carolyn Leigh, Senior Project Manager, communitybuilders.nsw
Address	:	NSW Premier's Department
Phone	:	02 9228 3051
Email	:	carolyn.leigh@premiers.nsw.gov.au