1. U.S. General Services Administration From Stovepipes to Wind-chimes: Networking among Intergovernmental Communities of Practice and Project Teams Susan Turnbull, GSA, Senior Program Advisor, Intergovernmental Solutions Division, Office of Citizen Services and Communications, Co-chair, Emerging Technology Subcommittee and Co-chair, Social Economic and Workforce Implications of IT and IT Development, Subcommittee on Networking and IT R&D

2. 2 From Stovepipes to Wind-chimes Background: Creating Conducive Environment to Transcend Insularity Toward High Performance Collaboration: Three Information-Sharing communities –1. 18 days – Tsunami response –2. 180 days – Federal Data Reference Model V2.0 –3. 1800 days – Global Ontology Community Invitation to participate in upcoming Expedition workshop to advance common understanding across these communities

3. 3 From Stovepipes to Wind-chimes Expedition Workshops and Networking Among Intergovernmental CoPs using Distributed Collaboration Space –Collaborative Expedition Workshops began March, 2001 –GSA's USA Services - Intergovernmental –Architecture and Infrastructure and Best Practices Committees, CIOC –National Coordination Office of the Subcommittee on Networking and Information Technology R & D (NITRD) and Social, Economic and Workforce Implications of IT and IT Workforce Development (SEW) Coordinating Group, NITRD –http://www.gsa.gov/collaborate

4. 4 Emerging Technology Subcommittee, AIC Tuning ET Together - From Stovepipes to Wind Chimes Purpose: This subcommittee provides an “incubator” organizing process to accelerate discovery, maturation, and validation of capabilities that leverage FEA principles and priorities. The key components of our charter are: Greater foresight and discernment as established and emerging technologies compete and converge Longer life-cycles through market-based, open standards technologies Common understanding of business scenarios to anticipate performance outcomes and mitigate risks. Participation in this subcommittee will help you improve your agencies’ strategic foresight and collaboration capacity around strategic IT assets. Key FY06/FY07 Activities/Deliverables 1. Forging effective IPv6 strategies together (example in FY06) 2. Life-cycle process for ET discovery and collaborative action – http://ET.gov http://ET.gov 3. Strategic Dialogue Among Communities at Open Forums – Collaborative Expedition Workshops Co-Chair Contact Information Susan TurnbullJohn McManus Susan.turnbull@gsa.govjmcmanus@doc.gov 202-501-6214

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6. 6 Expedition Workshop Purpose: Transcend Insularity Organize around common purpose, larger than any institution, to appreciate potentials and realities Improve quality of dialogue and collaborative prototyping at intergovernmental crossroads Participants, representing many forms of expertise, return to their settings with a larger perspective of the “whole” –De Tocqueville “Americans of all ages, all conditions, and all dispositions form associations. …In democratic countries the science of association is the mother of science; the progress of all the rest depends on the progress it has made.”

7. 7 Expedition Workshops: Building Sustainable KM and EA Stewardship Practices Across CoPs Create conducive conditions for “Breakthrough” Innovations – from “Need to Know” -> “Need to Share” -> “Build to Share” –To be Informed (not Overwhelmed) by the Combined Complexity of our Multiple Forms of Expertise –Authoritative Communities of Interest/ Practice around Common Business Lines –Agile Framework for Building Intergovernmental Services –Emergence of Open Standards, Semantic Technology “In design, we either hobble or support people’s natural ability to express forms of expertise.” Prof. David D. Woods

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9. 9 Expedition Workshops: Building Sustainable KM and EA Stewardship Practices Across CoPs How can multiple Communities of Practice discover and organize around common mission needs to build shared understanding? How can shared understanding around several select, urgent cross-boundary scenarios be accelerated? What is the role of collaborative prototyping around emerging technology potential, in light of the Federal Enterprise Architecture's Reference Models?

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11. 11 Expedition Workshops: Building Sustainable KM and EA Stewardship Practices Across CoPs Key Findings: FY03 - Agile business components in innovative settings not easily discovered by e-government managers, resulting in lost or delayed opportunities for all parties. FY04 - Growing Opportunity to apply Emerging Technologies (web services, grid computing, and semantic web) to tune up Innovation Pipeline with better linkages. FY05 - Collaborative Work Environment expands effective networking across intergovernmental communities and complements monthly Collaborative Expedition Workshops; validated efficacy with Data Reference Model Working Group FY06 – Networking Among Communities of Practice with Communities co-organizing the workshops, provides conducive environment to build shared understanding toward joint action around promising technology potentials

12. 12 Sample Expedition Workshops 2001 - 2002 Introduction to Online Communities and New Online Conferencing Places How can Intergovernmental CoPs Foster Breakthrough Capabilities that Matter Most to the Public? How can On-line Communities Help us Advance Citizen- Centric Government and Multi-stakeholder Collaborative Partnerships? Multi-channel Delivery of Health Information: How Can We Improve the Flow of Health Information by Structuring it in Two-way, Interactive, XML/based channels (web, phone, and audio ebooks) An Innovation Diffusion Commons: How Can Innovators Use Digital Production Technologies to Accelerate Learning Exchange?

13. 13 Sample Workshops 2002 2003 People-Centric Computing: What Happens When Individuals Can Work Across Institutional Boundaries to Address Societal Challenges? Multi-lateral Organizing for Public Health Informatics and Preparedness: How do CoPs form the Connected Relationships Needed to Amplify Distributed Intelligence and Sharing in High-Stakes Settings? Multiple Taxonomies: How Can Citizens, Business, and Public Servants Traverse the Repositories and Workings of Government? Achieving Excellence in Public Space: Architecting Forms with Meaning that Stand the Test of Time: How can Collaborative Discovery and Engagement Tools Broaden How Societies Share and Preserve Meaning Over Time?

14. 14 Convener’s web log as workshop archive

15. 15 2002 - Convener used traditional groupware, site license app

16. 16 2004 - Communities began using Collaborative Work Environment (CWE, with wiki)

17. 17 In design we either hobble or support people’s natural ability to express forms of expertise…Self-organizing for Information Sharing in the first hours after the Tsunami – blog, wiki, flickr – 150 global volunteers

18. 18 VASA – 1628 In design we either hobble or support people’s natural ability to express forms of expertise.

19. 19 Now try this – develop Federal Data Reference Model in 180 days using Distributed Collaboration

20. 20 2005 – Closed community, CIO representatives, more than 300 documents, eight teams

21. 21 DRM Public Forum – Open Community

22. 22 Five Expedition Workshops and Public Forums on DRM – 585 people

23. 23 Going Forward: From Stovepipes to Wind-Chimes Value: "Frontier Outpost" to open up quality conversations, augmented by “light-weight” tools, to leverage collaborative capacity of united, but diverse sectors of society, seeking to discover, frame, and act on national potentials. 60 workshops since March, 2001 Results: Multiplicative Returns –60 Expedition workshops, 60-80 participants per workshop – 14 Communities of Practice, >1500 participants –FY06: 1.12 million visits to site/3.88 million file downloads –Data Reference Model WG: 30 agencies represented, 125 participants, DRM v2.0 issued by OMB in Dec. 2005 FY07 Alignment: Networking among Communities of Practice –Putting it all together - Planning upcoming workshops together –Building common understanding of fundamental concepts needed for communities representing diverse forms of expertise, to work together to leverage toward improved citizen service delivery at lower cost.

24. 24 CWE Augments People’s Natural Ability for Quality Dialogue and Sharing in a New Form: Distributed Collaboration Fluid Augments flow of purposeful conversations Sharing is paramount Context advances understanding Supports quality of dialogue, openness and transparency needed to build trust Supports CoP planning and development of events and documents Uses only everyday tools: phone and browser Open or closed communities Community sets the pace Solid Past contributions and conversations always available Content never lost, wiki changes visible/ accountable by name High confidence level in 24/7 availability Hosted on high performance infrastructure Platform independent Any file format in shared repository fine-grained access – “virtual pointer on infinite whiteboard“ Community in control

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27. 27 Build on Recent Workshop: Purpose and Questions To explore the potentials and realities of innovative, Intergovernmental Practices for advancing dialogue between Government and Citizens in Support of Citizen-Centric Services. 1. What are the potentials and realities for Networking among Intergovernmental Communities of Practice and Communities of Interest (CoPs/ CoIs)? What role(s) can these Communities play as Innovation Catalysts in a Services Economy?CoIs 2. How can conversations among CoPs/ CoIs “perturb” current understandings in ways that encourage the creation of new or different possibilities? 3. How can we establish new “norms” for collaborating together across institutional boundaries? 4. How can smarter “work-forms” such as CoPs/ CoIs help mature light-weight, innovative Web 2.0 technologies that offer significant transformational potential?

28. 28 Build on Recent Workshop: Purpose and Questions To explore the potentials and realities of innovative, Intergovernmental Practices for advancing dialogue between Government and Citizens in Support of Citizen-Centric Services. 5. What are the national scenarios where distributed collaboration will be fundamental to national readiness and effective joint action by institutions? 6. How can we draw on strategic leadership communities and "best practices" to move toward more agile cyberinfrastructure that transcends the high costs of insularity? 7. What are the opportunities for leveraging greater transparency and openness to achieve mission agility and greater value from existing and future information assets? 8. What "light-weight" tools are needed to support emergent governance across intergovernmental communities? How can these tools bootstrap open collaborative development with the agility needed by intergovernmental communities and their individual host institutions?

29. 29 Invitation to Upcoming Expedition Workshop DoD, Office of Naval Research – Unclassified Information Sharing and Collaboration to Support Stability, Security, Transition and Reconstruction Operations Tsunami volunteers Data Architecture Subcommittee Ontolog Forum You and your colleagues are invited to join us Contact Susan.Turnbull at gsa.gov 202-5016214 Questions??