Exponential Government
A primer on the new exponential landscape impacting government — and how government agencies can keep up.
Co-developed with Paul W. Taylor.
When you look at companies like Airbnb, Uber, and Facebook — there is no denying that these companies are different from those that came before them. Uber is the largest taxi company, but they own no vehicles; Airbnb is one of the largest accommodation providers, but they own no physical buildings; and Facebook has become a media empire, but relies on end-users to create most of their content. Tom Goodwin said it best when he added to these observations that “something interesting is happening.” And something interesting is indeed happening.
Each of these companies represent a new class of business that is embracing exponential technologies and new models of doing work in order to leapfrog industry incumbents. The disruptive business models each company leverages further brushes up against existing ways of doing things — including the regulatory structures that govern them. But rather than fighting the inevitability of change, what would it look like if government embraced it? This is the question we seek to answer in looking at what it means to be an exponential government agency. In order to properly understand where we are going, it is also important to look back and understand what has changed.
The Past
In the not too distant past, the government technology landscape was composed of manual & mechanical processes, closed expert systems and outsourced change.
- Manual & Mechanical — The technology systems implemented by government agencies were traditionally on-premise and only scaled manually (by physically adding new racks) to changing needs. Today, systems scale virtually to meet immediate changes in needs.
- Closed Expert Systems — Each system implemented by government required a set of experts on the unique programming languages or hardware components. Employees were hired based on the specialization in a certain technology. Today, specializations still exists but now teams are cross-functional and learning new skills has significantly reduced barriers.
- Outsourced Change — Change in government was primarily ushered through the private sector in the form of a Request for Information (RFI) or Request for Proposals (RFP). Today, government agencies still use RFIs and RFPs to engage the private sector but now the relationship functions more so as a public-private partnership to implement a strategic vision of a government technology leader.
The Shift
At this unique moment in time, we must ask ourselves — what has changed? In our research we found the following trends:
Individual Changes
Our research has found that a citizen’s experience with private sector companies shapes their expectation for their government experience. Many government agencies design mobile-first — but mobile is only one of many channels — citizens expect to be available everywhere at any time (and to anticipate their needs similar to Google Now does).
Organizational
Many technological disruptions are driven by organizations that are the structures, which introduce them to the wider market. It requires a significant amount of capital to research, develop and introduce a new technology to market — and it used to take a long time for companies to have enough capital to do so (20 years on average to reach a billion dollars in market capitalization). Today, a startup can reach the same values in a matter of months.
Societal Changes
The time it takes for society to adopt new technologies continues to exponentially decrease, which means government agencies no longer have years to anticipate a new technology, mainstream adoption happens in months.
The Future
The shifts we described will undeniably usher in radical changes for every industry, and here’s a glimpse at what it means for the future:
Smarter Technology
The processing power of our machines continues to increase at an exponential scale, and new advances in quantum computing and the rise of decentralized systems of computing (i.e. blockchain) will unlock new capabilities we cannot begin to imagine today. It is also important to remember that this increase in capability will continue to reshape consumer technologies and thus their expectations in government.
A New Workforce & Workplace
We are seeing massive changes in the workforce today and the changes are just beginning — Millennials will makeup over 75% of the global workforce by 2025, but are currently the smallest segment of the government workforce. This problem is compounded by the rise of new models of doing work — the ‘gig’ or freelancing economy. Intuit estimates that 34% of the current US workforce is freelancing and the Freelancers Union projects that number to rise to 50% in the next 3 years. This could lead us to a time when your best employee in government, may not work directly for you.
The Rise of Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a real thing for government agencies — from virtual assistants to helping computer-less immigrants access city services — the rise of AI is inevitable (check out the graphic below) but it’s not a bad thing. Using AI to automate certain government systems can unlock new levels of productivity for agencies that embrace it by freeing up valuable employee time spent on repetitive tasks — such as IT helpdesk tickets. No one likes those.
A New Risk Landscape
The increased utilization of technology in government will also lead to a new risk landscape — one that will continue to exponentially increase in frequency and liability regardless of your agency size. These new threats will lead to changes in how and, ultimately, who is responsible for securing government infrastructure.
Government-as-an-Experience
There are 80,000+ local government agencies that exist in the United States. Add to that 6,919 state and approximately 420 federal agencies — and you have 87,339+ government agencies that each citizen has the potential to interact with. When you look up information on Wikipedia, you do not go to a separate site for each piece of information you query — it’s all in one place available through Wikipedia.com or even a request to Siri on your iPhone. In the future, we see government services being less about having 87,339+ different websites; rather each of these agencies will leverage an application programming interface (APIs) to deliver services. These APIs will enable government information and services to be accessible from a wide variety of potential applications or virtual assistants. We are seeing early examples of this with the State of Utah and Mississippi using Amazon’s Alexa as a new way for citizens to access information.
Exponential Government
How should government agencies keep up and prepare for the future? They must become an exponential government agency — which is a government agency that embraces exponential technologies and models of doing work. As a starting point, we have identified the key characteristics of an exponential government agency in the following three layers: infrastructure, people and intelligence.
Infrastructure
Exponential government agencies will leverage the following infrastructure components:
- Scalable Infrastructure — Agencies leverage virtual infrastructure, such as the cloud, in order to scale their infrastructure to the immediate needs of their populations.
- Leveraged Ecosystem — Agencies leverage the wider gov tech ecosystem rather than trying to invent their own solutions for each problem they face.
- Leveraged Internet-Connected Devices — Rather than deploying sensors, all of their community agencies find ways to leverage the sensors of existing devices (i.e. Think about how Waze uses each user cell phone as a sensors for the wider network).
- Open Data — Agencies design and use open data experiences for both internal (i.e. employees and elected) and external (i.e. citizens) consumption of information and performance.
- Data Standards — Agencies focus on collaborating and adopting shared data standards for government data.
- Exponential Planning — Agencies focus on planning capital projects and infrastructure with an exponential mindset, we call it Exponential Planning.
People
Exponential government agencies will leverage the following people components:
- Crowdsourced Work & Microtasking — Agencies leverage crowdsourcing to source problems, solutions, funding, implementation and validation in projects.
- On-Demand or Hybrid Labor Pools — Agencies plug into the freelancer economy through sites like Upwork to incubate new labor pools or fill workforce gaps.
- Adaptive Organizational Structures — Agencies leverage new models of organizational management such as agile to be more adaptive to change.
- Engaged Communities — Agencies focus on building engaged communities of employees and citizens to leverage for insights and validation. You cannot crowdsource without an engaged crowd.
Intelligence
Exponential government agencies will leverage the following intelligence components:
- Third-Party Data Integrations — Agencies find ways to take their data and services to where the people are. No one goes to a city’s website to look up food inspections, but they do use Yelp. Here’s what happens when you combine the two.
- Performance & Innovation Metrics — Agencies set key performance indicators (KPIs) and regularly benchmark, review, and adapt their services to be more effective.
- Predictive & Contextual User Experiences — Agencies build predictive and contextual user experiences like Gov2Go that let users customize the experience they have with government.
- Human-Centered Design — Agencies design technology processes and the overall experience around their citizen needs.
Where We Go From Here
Being an exponential government agency won’t be easy — but for agencies that look at embracing exponential in all things — it will create a more efficient, effective and citizen-oriented government. What everyone has learned about city management and planning has also been disrupted, giving public servants today a unique opportunity to help write the new chapters. Are you up for the challenge?
We will continue to unpack Exponential Government in future posts, please let us know what you think and how you are embracing exponential technologies and ways of work in your government agency.
To view or download the full Exponential Government research, please check out our Slideshare.
