[Part one of this blog gave you a flavour of what was said from the front during presentations at the GovWeb wish list get together held at NESTA on December 15th 2008. In part two I'll be filling you in on edited highlights of what the audience had to say in response to the speakers]

An idea is set in motion by being shared… Ideas grow by being articulated, tested, refined, borrowed, amended, adapted and extended, activities that can rarely take place entirely in the head of a single individual; invariably they involve many people sharing different insights and criticisms.

Charles Leadbeater, We-Think

Despite kicking off with a few of short presentations to stimulate debate, this was certainly not a session dominated by speakers from the front. The audience didn’t waste a second in getting stuck into the speakers, with William Heath of Ideal Government setting the pace. No sooner had the last breath left Derek Wyatt’s mouth that William disagreed “with almost everything” he had to say!

Of all the sessions I’ve facilitated in my time, this one was undoubtedly the liveliest keeping me on my toes throughout with people eager to jump in and an unusual degrees of ‘honesty in front of an adult’ as one attendee put it. And looking back back at the conversations that were had on Twitter during the session, the face to face discussion won hands down at an event for once!

Looking back now on the session, I think we may have come to an understanding on some of the issues at hand, although somewhat reassuringly even a room of public policy and Internet brains didn’t manage to settle on simple solutions to what are complex problems. Instead a number of fundamental challenges to government were put to Derek and some of the key issues exposed. So it seems that:

• We care too much about the technology and not enough about the people
• The government itself has a long way to go in terms of reforming itself to be able to deal with the challenges posed by the networked economy
• And even then the government may not have all the answers nor be best placed to tackle the issues at hand, but have to relinquish a degree of control to civil society, supporting it to make best use of its own energies and skills to overcome these challenges

“Let them eat cake!” The digidivide

Much of the conversation revolved around the long standing debate on the freedom of the markets versus state intervention in ensuring the supply of broadband to all. On the one hand waving the flag for stronger state intervention were Johnnie Moore and Derek Wyatt:

Let them eat cake! from Dominic Campbell on Vimeo.

Supporting this position, Tom Hamilton of BT quoted figures in “the billions of pounds” to resolve the issue through state subsidised private sector-led broadband provision.

While ultimately few doubted the need for more or better pipes in the ground, the means by which to achieve this remains very much contested it seems, be it a market only led approach, government subsidy or even some form of self-organisation by citizens through technology such as Meraki for instance.

People make the web

If we can design more service provision which starts from the person perspective rather than that of the legislator, systems integrator or ISP then we’ll at least know we’re addressing the right needs.

Rohan Gunatillake, It’s not about the technology

In this debate of pipes versus people, making a strong case to government for a citizen centred (led even) approach to the future of the web were the likes of Anna Maybank of the Social Innovation Camp, Lee Bryant of Headshift and others. For them there is little doubting that the crowd is in control. No matter what we as a group, companies like BT or the government decide, the masses own the web and make of it what they will as they do already, using its power to meet self-defined and self-evident social need.

As Jon Lister’s colleague Martin Budden would put it, “the best thing the Government can do is get out of the way and regulate to protect the innocent”. Beyond that, many believed that need looks after itself given the resourcefulness of the crowd.

Anna Maybank at GovWeb event (NESTA/FutureGov 15-12-08) from Rohan Gunatillake on Vimeo.

As Anna says, the conversation veered towards the issue of digital exclusion based on hard infrastructural failings, perhaps because it is an easier topic to debate. On the other hand, the real sticking point many would believe is in engaging people, making the benefits of involvement relevant to them and getting them on board, a point too easily ducked.

After all, the public is a lot smarter than anyone gives it credit for and may only need minimal support and basic infrastructure to deliver better solutions to social problems themselves. All too often people can be marked out as the ‘worthy digital poor’ in an overly paternalistic way, treating people as if they are the ‘digital stupid’.

Digital stupid from Dominic Campbell on Vimeo.

Is government (or even the market for that matter) best placed to provide or even support solutions in this field, or as Dom Whitehurst put it, will all positives derived from social innovtion be swallowed by bureaucracy once adopted? Reconciling this tension between heavy handed top down government intervention and targeting those places where it can play a role in supporting, nurturing and getting out the way certainly was central to this and other debates currently.

We need to value world class institutions

While much of the discussion related to the respective roles of and power relationships between the state, markets and citizens, one point that stood out as a specific policy recommendation related the role of institutions such as the BBC in taking forward the web as a force for social and economic good. While recognising their imperfections, James Governor of Redmonk was keen to push their cause as anchor institutions that should be nurtured as centres of web excellence.

World class organisations from Dominic Campbell on Vimeo.

The government isn’t ready

Another specific challenge that came out loud and clear was the view that government needs to change the way in which is procures and implements technology (web technology in particular) if it is to gain maximum benefit from the power of the web. Many in the audience believe current project management practice within government IT stifles innovation, slavishly following risk averse and cumbersome frameworks to the letter. It was clear that perhaps PRINCE 2 does not have all the answers. Or, as Jeremy Gould put it, “Prince2 is pond life”.

Instead many felt a more iterative, ‘learning as you go along’ and prototyping led approach as opposed one that relies on sterile tender documents and unrealistic big bang implementations (naming no names, *cough* National Programme for IT) alone would make a step change in IT performance in government.  Time to show them a better way perhaps…

Photo: Josie Fraser

Aside from these more direct points made above, there were a couple of other learnings that struck me listening to the session:

Lesson in (representative) democracy

What quickly became clear was that there are no easy answers residing in the heads of an expert few. On the one hand perhaps we the people need greater patience and understanding, encouraging and supporting politicians to listen better, collaborate more and admit (even if only now and again) when they don’t have all the answers. What this session showed up was the stark contradiction of the crowd, on the one hand incredulous that a politician doesn’t have all the answers (and if the politician said they did we’d cut them down for their sheer arrogance) while on the other ourselves as practitioner experts not having those answers either. Perhaps representative democracy isn’t as easy as it looks after all…

Influencing government remains complex

Perhaps an obvious point but it is clear that while Derek has his area of expertise, responsibility and networks in which he operates and can directly influence, it is not enough to only have this conversation with Derek (or anoy other politician) alone. We must also reach out to ministers in the departments and leaders in local government and work with them to help them understand the issues at hand in relation to the web and work with them to tackle them. Portfolio by portfolio, place by place. Only then can we start to encourage government to see what the Internet can offer, or as one delegate put it:

its limitless possibility in every direction…

So where next?

The key for me now is how we best continue the debate, widening the circle and widening the topics discussed addressing specific policy areas, again bringing movers and shakers in government into contact with diverse and thought provoking crowds?

For a start, I’d certainly like to take Derek up on his offer of helping us to continue the conversation, taking it out a wider selection of ministers such as Stephen Carter (given his role with the upcoming ‘Digital Britain’ paper due out shortly), John Denham and Tom Watson. As part of this, we also need to ensure that we bring together the ‘right people’ (or at least an even more diverse group relevant to each policy area) to contribute to the debate.

If you have any thoughts, suggestions or offers of help, please get in touch (either by leaving a comment below or dropping me an email) and let’s see where next time takes us.

Photo: Derek Baird