National Science Foundation Collaboration Expedition Workshop Series #33: Envisioning Greater Possibilities Organizing Around Networked Communities of Practice to Improve the Dialogue between Government and Citizens to Deliver More Citizen-Centric Services May June 23, 2004 National Science Foundation Room 555, Ballston, VA Susan Turnbull, GSA,

Framing Our Work: Then and Now History of the Effort and Where We Stand Today Year One - Envision Greater Possibilities Purpose, Building Reciprocal Relationships, Community Values Year Two - Build Trust Sponsors, Goals, Highlights Year Three - Commit to Action Advance Understanding, Problem-centered Organizing, and Advance Technology Year Four - Organizing around Networked Communities of Practice

Purpose of Workshops Year One Language Open up communication circles among diverse stakeholders. Accelerate commitments and maturation of open standard components for e-government. Collaborative “incubator” process for our sponsors.

Building Reciprocal Relationships Year One Language Explore common purposes with scope beyond what government can do alone. Participation by innovators/bridge-builders. Contributes to culturally expansive learning among separate communities. Archives and resources at http://ua-exp.gov and http://colab.cim3.net

Workshop Community Values Year One Language Accommodate Difference Greater Diversity of Participation around Shared Purpose. Faster Innovation Diffusion Improved Ability to Appreciate the Whole Picture and Engage in Sustained Dialogue. Better Marketplace Discernment Nexus of common sense and good science.

Sponsors Year Two Language Architecture and Infrastructure Committee of the CIO Council (www.cio.gov): Governance, Emerging Technology, and Components Subcommittees: http://cio.gov/documents/architecture_subcommittee_charters.html Social, Economic, and Workforce Implications of IT and IT Workforce Development Coordinating Group, (SEW), Interagency Working Group for Information Technology Research and Development www.itrd.gov

Sponsors Year Two Language GSA’s Office of Intergovernmental Solutions www.gsa.gov/intergov Best Practices Committee of the CIO Council Knowledge Management WG, Semantic Interoperability Community of Practice (SICoP) KM.gov Web-services.gov

Goal of the Workshop Series Year Two Language To accelerate multi-sector partnerships that advance IT capabilities toward a government that works better to serve citizens.

Highlights Years Two and Three Advance Understanding: Improved Ability to Appreciate the Whole Picture Problem-Centered Organizing: Improved Ability to Engage in Sustained Dialogue that Leads to Action 3. Advance Technology: Improved Collaboration Process for Achieving Results that Multiply Benefits

Perspective from One Sponsor: Emerging Technology Subcommittee Year Two Language Key Messages: Supports Federal Agencies and partners as they assess new technologies because: Organizations have limited capacity of expertise and resources; and Individualized vendors’ marketing to multiple agencies is not cost-effective nor possible for new, small innovative companies. Provide intergovernmental process for pilot projects and technology assessment initiatives in support of: Vendor clearinghouse; Government-wide reusable components; and Federal and intergovernmental lines of business.

1. Advance Understanding: Improved Ability to Appreciate the Whole Picture Greater awareness of emerging citizen-government relationship potential: “Extending Digital Dividends” guide (first talking book) distributed to 1700 Depository libraries, 3500 Senior Executives. Fostered Two CIO Council Award Recognitions http://mapstats.gov/ - Census VoiceXML – EPA, led by Brand Niemann ET/Standards Leadership Award to Brand Niemann

2. Problem-Centered Organizing: Improved Ability to Engage in Sustained Dialogue that Leads to Action Dialogue among societal, business, and technical perspectives leading to numerous “web services pilots” and better shared understanding Developed e-Health and FEA/XML Web Services Tracks of the GWU e-Gov Conference, March 2003 Open Collaboration, Open Standards” invited session (1 of 10) at IRMCO, September 4-6, 2003; Open Source and Egov Conference March 15-17, 2004 Spin-off CoP workshop in June led to “ SBIR for eGov Pilots” Program with quarterly conferences on Emerging Components (Componenttechnology.org) Four quarterly conferences conducted at White House Conference Center, FOSE and MITRE. Next conference on Oct. 25, 2004 at MITRE.

3. Advance Technology: Collaboration Process Toward Results that Multiply Benefits Request to advance alignment among Consolidated Health Informatics, Justice Intergovernmental Partnership, EPA-States Exchange Network. Initial XML Topic Map Web Service of Two eGov Conferences and FEA www.coolheads.com/egov Growing recognition of Communities of Practice as an effective means of tapping high performance potential as people learn to create conducive environments where trust and the “public good” synergies of shared purpose are experienced.

Transforming How We Work Together to Better Serve the Public Use FEA models and workshops to advance: Authoritative Communities of Practice around common business lines Agile Frameworks for building intergovernmental services through repositories Emergence of open standards, semantic technologies to “distill” context aware data and services needed by people and machines to solve problems within complex, adaptive systems. “In design, we either hobble or support people’s natural ability to express forms of expertise.” David D. Woods

Reflections on Emerging Opportunities for Collaboration in 2004 Communities of Practice need to be able to form easily and engage in effective communication and information exchange to solve cross-boundary problems Richer context that emerges leads to more effective action • Expanding Network of CoPs becoming available to leverage and learn from (>10 currently) • How can CoPs practice organizing among themselves and across boundaries?

Looking Back: Evolving Goals of Workshop Series Yr. One - People: To accelerate multi-sector partnerships that advance IT capabilities needed by government to serve citizens Yr. Two - Technology:To accelerate commitments and maturation of open standard components for e-government Yr. Three - Process: To organize around Communities of Practice to improve how we both broaden the context of our understanding and integrate our collective and collaborative actions

Mutual Goal Year Four Language Envision possibilities for developing a sound organizing process to leverage identified Emerging Technologies and Communities of Practice Build trusted relationships among CoPs and stakeholders through the workshops Create conducive conditions for co-development of emerging components in a problem-centered, cross-boundary context with greater potential for re-use and reduced risk

Mutual Goals Explore strategic leadership as citizens engaged in dialogue and collaborations at multiple jurisdictional levels and across multiple communities of practice Facilitate collaborative “incubator” process for Realistic citizen-service scenarios for benchmarking performance Innovation practitioners with multi-lateral organizing skills Faster maturation and transfer of validated capabilities among trusted partners

Lessons Learned Year Four Wisdom from the Trail Broaden Context (Appreciation) Integrate Efforts (Influence) Anticipate Next Action (Control) Repeat Cycle from a place of richer understanding, richer networks (people and technology) and greater openness to possibility

Thank you and Welcome! • Thank you to all who have been a part of this journey! • Welcome to all of you joining us for the first time! • A Special Thank you and Welcome to Bill Smith who has blazed the trail for me with the development of the AIC framework and guided my steps in its use • Today we’ll learn from the past year’s journey of the Strategic Leadership Network and practice over the next seven hours an organizing process, AIC, that subtly provides the growth and development framework for both of these cross-boundary communities.