1. 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,

2. 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

3. 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.

4. 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 and

5. 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.

6. Sponsors Year Two Language
Architecture and Infrastructure Committee of the CIO Council (
Governance, Emerging Technology, and Components Subcommittees:
Social, Economic, and Workforce Implications of IT and IT Workforce Development Coordinating Group, (SEW), Interagency Working Group for Information Technology Research and Development

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

8. 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.

9. 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

10. 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.

11. 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
- Census
VoiceXML – EPA, led by Brand Niemann
ET/Standards Leadership Award to Brand Niemann

12. 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.

13. 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
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.

14. 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

16. 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?

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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

20. 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

21. 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.