Governments across the globe uphold the same unique set of roles & responsibilities and are expected to meet them at a high level. Unfortunately, most governments opt to meet them using a rigid approach that is depended upon policies and regulations. Instead, governments must employ dynamic tools that will allow them to address the increasingly complex problems faced within their communities.
Governments across may differ drastically in the communities they serve, but they share a commonality which is that they have a unique set of responsibilities and challenges that they are expected to address which range from ensuring education for all, providing a safe environment for families to live in, and to play their part to sustain economic development. The approaches taken to meet these expectations is such that it needs to be continuously evolving in order to keep up with the rapid changes in the way citizens live and interact with one another in order remain competitive. Unfortunately, most governments carry out their roles and responsibilities in a rigid fashion, that is heavily reliant on using policies and regulations. This remains true across the various industries, e.g. governments may put a policy in place for telecommunications companies to expand access if some facets of the community are disconnected, or putting a limit on tuition rates if certain groups in society are struggling to enroll their children in schools. As vital as this approach is for the sustainability and satisfaction of the community, governments must bear in mind that society’s problems are becoming more complex, in a world that is growing increasingly more connected and competitive. Therefore, governments must work to adopt tools that effectively operate within the realm of these local and global changes in order to successfully serve the local citizens, who continue to demand a much more efficient, seamless service experience from the public sector with the passing of time.
Capitalizing on society’s Creativity
Governments must recognize the diverse range of members or society that can offer excellent sources of innovation through co-creations sessions to address a common societal goal through incentivization. Also, hackathons can be hosted for the public to creatively solve a particular problem through analyzing idle data.
Governments need to recognize the accessible diversity, different thought processes, backgrounds, and expertise of members that reside within their community. The diverse range of people can offer excellent sources of innovation and creativity, especially when brought together in a controlled environment for a co-creation session to contribute towards a common goal. Governments can easily source executives from multi national companies, university students, working mothers etc. to participate in solving some of societies’ pressing matters that each member in the session will undoubtedly have something of value to contribute with. Furthermore, they can even decide to incentivize a representative group of society to work in teams to develop the most optimal solution to solving a particular conundrum that the government was unable to solve. Such an approach yields great benefit to the government as it is cost effective, promotes innovation, and potentially gives society members a say in how the government tackles certain issues, thus greatly affecting the level of trust and advocacy citizens have towards the government. In addition to co creation, governments can host what are known as hackathons, which entail bringing together some of the most intelligent developers to make sense of and uncover opportunities from idle data which has been accumulating over time in the governments archive. Governments can benefit greatly from setting the tone of the hackathon to uncover ways to improve the lives of citizens in a particular area by solving a specific problem, to ensure that the experts can focus their efforts around identifying a solution that can make an immediate impact in the experience of citizens.
Tapping into the private sector’s Intellect
Governments must accept the reality that there may be times that they will face challenges that warrant requesting support from the private sector through key partnerships with specialized experts – this way they will be better equipped to tackle bigger obstacles. Furthermore, governments can leverage society’s intellect through opening communication through online platforms to form a continuous feedback loop.
There will be times where governments may come across a challenge that is simply too much for them to handle on their own. This could be due to a lack of specialized personnel needed to address the issue, or insufficient resources, or perhaps even a lack of clear direction. During such circumstances, a government may want to exercise the option of reaching out to key private sector entities to form a legal agreement in order to solve a specific societal problem that is too great for either of them to solve individually. Public/Private Partnerships can come in the form of the public sector partnering up with a single private sector entity, or the government may decide to form a diverse board which includes representatives in the relevant industry to tackle the problem holistically e.g. not for profit companies, institutions, multi-national companies, locally established companies all make for valuable contributors. An exemplary application of this approach can be seen with the government of Seattle when they partnered with private company Gigabit Squared to provide ultra-high speed fiber connections to residential and commercial customers, which is considered by the mayor of Seattle an instrumental move in solidifying the city’s place as a technologically competitive city. This notion also applies to reaching out to members in society individually through what is known as “Citizen Sourcing”. This is done with the intention of tapping into the collective intelligence of society in an attempt to gather insights and ideas in a much more efficient way vs. the governments’ traditional offline approach, as governments that manage to do so would have achieved a continuous feedback loop with society through online platforms that are not only convenient for citizens, but also maximizes the governments reach exponentially – a truly effective way to capitalize on the possibilities that the latest technology has unlocked.
Tapping into the private sectors willingness to make a change
More governments need to be conscious of the high willingness many community members have to support with efforts in the name of social good. Often, such efforts can be carried out through signing pledges, as well as through government facilitation of creating effective partnerships between private entities that can leverage each other’s expertise.
Occasionally the government may find that change can come about in much easier ways via the community’s willingness to lend a helping hand. In order to tap into this support system, governments will simply invite members of the public to ask who would like to volunteer to make a contribution in the name of social good by making a pledge to make a difference. This is effective because governments can highlight some of the most pressing matters in society, and the communities can rally behind them, through signing their names which signifies their pledge to do all they can do to actively make that vision a reality. Through these voluntary efforts, governments will be able to have much quicker responses to getting things done, and would have done so with the added benefit of encouraging a tightly-knit community that is built through the solidarity and cooperation of the community. Another way that governments can leverage community’s willingness to make a difference is through what is known as neutral conveners. The idea behind this is such that the government will facilitate the solving of problems that are currently being worked on by independent members in society by bringing those members together to collaborate with each other so that their efforts are aligned and focused towards reaching their collective goals. There is a great need for this as oftentimes people that should work together don’t know one another, or may find there are barriers to reaching out – an obstacle the government can eliminate. The act of uniting the efforts of the community towards the greater good is not only in line with the perceptions of what many think of as a key responsibility of the government, but will also prove to be a much more efficient use of resources and expertise within the community by encouraging everyone to play their part where if played well, will result in a resilient and sustainable society that has full faith in the government’s ability to put their people first.