Democracy needs a reboot, or as the founders of Democracy Os, an open source platform for political debate say, "a serious upgrade". They are not alone in trying to change the way citizens and governments communicate with each other. Not long ago, I covered on this blog a Greek platform, VouliWatch, which aims at boosting civic engagement following the model of other similar initiatives in countries like Germany, France and Austria, all running thanks to a software called Parliament Watch.
Other decision making tools, used by activists and organizations that try to reduce the distance between the people and their representatives include Liquid Feedback, and Airesis. But the quest for disintermediation doesn't regard only the relationship between governments and citizens: it's changing the way public organisations work internally as well. Civil servants are starting to develop and use their internal "social networks", to exchange ideas, discussing issues and collaborate on projects.
One such thing is happening in the Netherlands: thousands of civil servants belonging to all government organizations have built their own "intranet" using Pleio ("government square", in Dutch) a platform that runs on the open source networking engine Elgg.
It all started in 2010, thanks to the work of a group of four founders, Davied van Berlo, Harrie Custers, Wim Essers and Marcel Ziemerink. Growth has been steady and now Pleio can count on some 75.000 users spread in about 800 subsites. The nice thing about the platform, in fact, is that it is modular: subscribers can collaborate on a group and then start a sub group to get in more depth with a smaller team. To learn a little more about this unique experience, I reached out for van Berlo, who kindly answered a few questions. Check the interview below.
Where did the Pleio idea come from?Were you inspired by other experiences?
The idea came mainly from the developments around us: the whole web 2.0 movement at the time. This has shown us the power of platforms to connect people, bring them together and let them cooperate. I noticed that civil servants were looking for ways of collaborating across organisational borders and many were using the new online tools. That's why I started the Civil Servant 2.0 network, so they could exchange ideas and experiences in this new way of working.
However, these tools are not always the ideal solution. They're commercial for one, which can get in the way of the public goals we work for. They're often American, where other laws and practices apply. You can't change them or add to them. Usually you have to get another tool (and login) for different functionalities. And they were outright forbidden by some government agencies. I noticed there was a need for a platform where different tools were integrated, where people from different organisations and outside government could work together and where all information would remain in the Netherlands and in the hands of the original owner.
Since there was no such platform we started one of our own.
How has the platform evolved over time?
We are a network of public servants and hardly funded, so we didn't start by building up a technical team, etc. At the Tax Office I met a few innovative colleagues who had hired two technical interns to investigate how to put up a collaborative online platform for their own organisation. After a brief talk, we decided to use that platform for all of government. They were using Elgg, an open source platform. With Elgg you can set up different sites, so we made a general platform for everyone to use and a "subsite" for the Tax Office.
And it worked: immediately a lot of public servants started using the platform to collaborate with colleagues from other local councils in the region, or in projects with people from outside the government. What I learned was that although we have the notion of government agencies as hierarchical top down structures, this is less and less true and they need to collaborate "horizontally" as well, with other government agencies, with companies and citizen groups. Government is becoming more and more a network of people collaborating to solve complex societal problems and to be able to do this, they need pervacive ICT platforms to empower them. This insight led to my "We, the government" book (not translated yet, I'm afraid).
Coming back to your question. Since we started out, we have been able to set up a reliable platform that's managed and paid for by donations from government agencies that use it most (as an intranet, an extranet or a participation platform), there's a government foundation with a board and the number of tools has been expanding, so more functionalities have been added, either because Elgg added them (the community) of because a government organisation wanted them, paid for them and we added them to Elgg. This way new tools only have to be developed and paid for once and all of government (and the rest of the world) can use them. That's how government should work, don't you think ;-)
What kind of topics are discussed on the platform?
Anything! I always compare Pleio to a building (or a digital meeting room). You can decide how to use it and how you want to furnish it. It's up to you and the people you invited how you use it. It is used within organisations (as an intranet ... using Pleio is a lot cheaper than building and maintaining your own), between organisations (e.g. there's a national water management program where central government, provinces, water boards and local governments need to work together) and with society (ministries engaging the public in making new laws, provincies in designing public spaces, etc.).
One of the major issues in the Netherlands currently is the decentralisation of a lot of social services, e.g. youth protection. This was organised centrally but by January 1 it's the local governments' responsibility. It's a huge operation, for governments, for professionals and for citizens. In the south, in the East and in Amsterdam people are using Pleio to bring people together, exchange information and engage.
Could you make an example of how Pleio improves the relationship among different bodies of the government, or among the gov and the citizens?
See above (laughing). Seriously, there's a huge impact. 75.000 people now have an account and there are about 800 different sites (subsites). Firstly: Pleio is saving government a lot of money, e.g. because it's a lot cheaper to (re)use our central tool box than to build a new site or intranet all the time (remember there are about 1000 government agencies in the Netherlands). Secondly, a more networked and connected government is taking shape, not just through Pleio of course, but it is a visualisation of it. Thirdly, it empowers a lot of civil servants to work in new ways, connect with people outside their own organisation and exchange ideas.
And this is just the beginning. We're still in our start up phase, so to say. We are now trying to get all the big government players (Home Office, the local government society, big agencies) together to get structural funding and get them (and their ict clubs) involved, in a shareholder kind of way. By getting more organisations to add to Pleio, we build a better platform and we can stop wasting a lot of ICT money in government.
