Social Networking in Government

© 2007 Her Majesty the Queen in right of Canada (Canadian Food Inspection Agency), all rights reserved. Use without permission is prohibited.

Dr. Albert SimardPresented to

AAFC - Nov. 4, 2008, Ottawa, ON

Social Networking in Government

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Outline

Collaboration

Networks

Implementation

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Strategy

“We must aggressively break down the barriers that stand in the way of more strategic S&T collaborations among federal departments and agencies and between the federal S&T Community and universities, industry, and the non-profit sector.”

(Mobilizing Science and Technology to Canada’s Advantage, in: Neish, 2007)

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Formal Agreement

Charter - Legal agreement to jointly achieve common objectives, within a management framework, with duplicate records and accountability and joint rights and responsibilities.

Nature: Clearly specified roles, rights, responsibilities, authorities, accountabilities, and reporting. (structured, bureaucratic, minimizes risk).

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Types of Formal AgreementsContractors: One-on-one;

superior/ subordinate; single ownership of IP

Partnerships: Two or more; among equals; joint ownership of IP

Consortiums: Multiple members; apportioned membership; common ownership of IP

A B

A B

A BC

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Benefits of Formal Agreements

Contractors: Using external expertise for one-time applications; no staffing, rapid delivery, no program.

Partners: Mutually leveraging external expertise for ongoing activities; augment core capacity with partner’s capacity.

Consortiums: Creating value through synergy across all member’s expertise; accessing broad knowledge base.

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Informal Agreements

Charter - Mutual agreement to participate in achieving common objectives, within a network structure, with participant records and accountability and common rights and responsibilities.

Nature: Flexible, dynamic, opportunistic, synergistic, unpredictable. (unstructured, self-organized, maximizes reward)

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Types of Informal AgreementsGroup: few participants; elicit knowledge;

unstructured; aggregating knowledge (CFIA Modeling Framework Group)

Communities: many participants; share knowledge; self-directed; common interest (departmental IM community)

Networks: massive participants; peer production; emergent processes; common ownership (Linux developers)

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Agricultural Innovation Value Chain

Idea

scientists

AAFC

Innovation

IC

company

Commercialized

CFIA

farmers

Adopted

Food product

HCproducers

retailers

CFIA

Market

consumers

HC

Consumption

Waste

EC

municipalities

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Outline

Collaboration

Networks

Implementation

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Group Dialogue

Dialogue is NOT:• Discussion, deliberation, negotiation• Committee, team, task or working

group• Majority wins, minority dominance,

groupthink

Dialogue IS: • Free-flowing exchange of ideas among

equals• All ideas are solicited and are

considered• Best ideas rise to the top( Sunstein, 2006)

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Network Relationships

Department

Businesses

Governments

Canadians

Practitioners

NGOs

Educators

Agreements, Outputs, Inputs

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Network Structure

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Sharing Knowledge

The value of a network is proportional to the number of users squared.

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Social Network Principles

Openness – collaboration based on candor, transparency, freedom, flexibility, and accessibility.

Peering – horizontal voluntary meritocracy, based on fun, altruism, or personal values.

Sharing – increased value of common products benefits all participants.

Acting Globally – value is created through planetary knowledge ecosystems.

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Social Networks – SWOT Analysis

Strengths – rapid development, world-class solutions, emergent properties, creative synergies, vibrant collaboration, openness

Weaknesses – constant change, unknown quality, less used by mature individuals, need to motivate participants, cannot be forced

Opportunities – leverage internal capacity, provides creative solutions, easy to implement, low cost, can monitor emerging trends

Threats – undesirable knowledge leaks, free expression poses risk, is the crowd wise, documents subject to ATIP, compatibility with mandate

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Social Network - Examples

• Blogs – Individuals can easily publish anything on the Web without specialized knowledge.

• Innocentive – A global “Ideagora” in which those who need and those who have solutions can meet.

• You Tube – enables easy publishing and viewing of video clips on the Web.

• Slide Share – Enables easy publishing and sharing of PowerPoint presentations on the Web.

• Wikis – Rapid collaborative development of products; anyone can revise anything

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Social Network Successes

Wikipedia –2 Million English entries; 165 Languages; 10 times larger then Encyclopedia Britannica

Linux – open-source operating system developed by thousands of programmers around the world

GoldCorp – released geological data in an open contest to find gold; increased reserves by factor of 4.

Procter & Gamble – uses network of 90,000 external scientists to leverage internal research capacity.

Leggo – uses imagination and creativity of worldwide toy owners to create new products.

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Outline

Collaboration

Networks

Implementation

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Challenges

Legislative

Policy

Regulatory

Financial

Infrastructure

Human resources

Cultural factors

Intellectual Property

(Neish, 2007)

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Road to Success

Support from senior management

Clear understandable statement of what you want to do and why

Good working relationships with corporate and legal enablers

Willingness to compromise on issues that are not mission critical

Perseverance and persistence (Neish, 2007)

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Capturing ValueBring it inside the organization

Stabilize it; make it work

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Conclusions

• Social networks have both promise and peril

• Consider both strengths and weaknesses

• Analyze both opportunities and threats

• Is it a tool in search of a problem, or does it solve a recognized problem?

• What will it do (or do better) that we can’t do now (or do well)?

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Thanks for your attention…

http://www.slideshare.net/Al.Simard

Can I shed more light on the subject?