Desde Web Analytics hasta OpenData // From WebAnalytics to OpenData

Desde mi adolescencia que me intereso por la tecnología informática, si bien no desde la arquetípica visión de un programador informático sino desde una óptica de utilidad, de tremenda utilidad.

Recuerdo que en mis primeras clases de informática (mediados de los 80) el profesor nos obligaba a realizar programas “estúpidos” como contar apariciones de palabras en un texto, era desalentador.

A la que tuve un mínimo nivel de conocimiento informático pedí cambiar los ejercicios preestablecidos y realizar un sistema de gestión de un fichero con información musical. Por aquel entonces ya tenía muchísimos discos (aún sólo eran vinilos) y necesitaba gestionarlos de alguna manera.

Estudiando la carrera informática realizé mi primer trabajo público como becario en la Facultad de Informática de Barcelona. Este fue mi primer trabajo en el sector público, concretamente en el sector educativo.

Después pasé a ser consultor e-business en el sector web, especialmente en el ámbito de las estadísticas web: web analytics.

Gracias a esta especialización entré - en calidad de asesor externo - en el Ayuntamiento de Barcelona.

Han pasado casi 10 años trabajando para el Ayuntamiento, en este tiempo las tecnologías de la información y comunicación, las TIC, lo han revolucionado todo, han hecho tal revolución que soy de los que afirma que ya no estamos en la Sociedad Industrial, ahora estamos en la Sociedad del Conocimiento (o también llamada Sociedad en Red o también Sociedad Digital).

Esta nueva Sociedad del Conocimiento tiene sus propias “reglas del juego”, cuando antes nos demos cuenta y nos adaptemos adecuadamente será mucho mejor para nosotros.

Una de las nuevas “reglas del juego” es la gran complejidad que tiene gobernar una ciudad/región/estado.

Cada vez es más difícil que un grupo de personas (políticos y técnicos) tengan capacidad para llevar a cabo unas políticas positivas para la ciudadanía a quién rinden cuentas.

Además, la crisis económica y, en el fondo, la crisis de valores han agudizado aún más esta incapacidad.

Movimientos como el del 15M (también conocido como el Movimiento de los Indignados) son un claro reflejo de este callejón sin salida.

Todo ello redunda en un claro rechazo para con nuestros dirigentes políticos.

Por ejemplo en una encuesta del The Guardian (con la participación de El País), de marzo 2011, entre varios estados europeos queda claro que la confianza para con los líderes políticos estaba en cotas bajísimas. Por ejemplo, en la pregunta “¿en qué medida confía en el Gobierno para afrontar los problemas que atraviesa su país?”, 8 de cada 10 españoles – concretamente un 78% – opina no tener ninguna o muy poca confianza con el ejecutivo. Este resultado es parecido al obtenido en Alemania (80%), Francia (82%) y Polonia (82%), sólo Gran Bretaña ofrece un resultado que difiere un poco (un 66%).

En la misma encuesta también se pregunta por la honestidad e integridad de los políticos, ya sean del Gobierno o de la oposición. El resultado es demoledor, un 91% de los españoles opina que no confía – o confía muy poco – que sus políticos actúen con honestidad e integridad. El resto de los países encuestados ofrecen unos datos similares, destaca el caso de Polonia, un 96%, ello implica que casi todos los políticos polacos son considerados no honestos o no íntegros, sólo 1 de cada 20 políticos se salva. (También es cierto que en otros países europeos esta situación es muy diferente).

Por todo ello, es evidente que hemos llegado a un punto donde conviene utilizar un nuevo paradigma político, un paradigma dónde todos puedan participar de una forma efectiva, o sea, no sólo cada 4 años mediante una urna.

Este nuevo paradigma es el Gobierno Abierto.

Un Gobierno Abierto es una nueva manera de entender la relación de la Administración hacia la ciudadanía, el resto de administraciones públicas y las otras organizaciones de la sociedad (incluyendo las empresas).

Es un cambio cultural, seguramente el cambio más importante que han experimentado los gobiernos (las administraciones públicas) en toda su historia.

En el fondo, el objetivo último de un Gobierno Abierto es posibilitar la finalidad máxima de una democracia: un gobierno hecho por todos y para todos.

¿Cómo se implementa un Gobierno Abierto?

Pues, como siempre, pasito a pasito.

Por ejemplo: A finales del 2009 propuse al Ayuntamiento de Barcelona la realización de un servicio de datos abiertos (OpenData) como un primer paso hacia el Gobierno Abierto.

Se define un proceso de apertura de datos públicos (OpenData) como aquel proceso que ofrece los datos públicos, de los que dispone la Administración Púbicas al alcance de la sociedad en formatos digitales, estandarizados y abiertos, siguiendo una estructura clara que permita su comprensión y fomentando su reutilización para cualquier uso.

Después de no pocos contratiempos, finalmente a principios del 2011 salió el OpenData BCN, el Portal de Datos Abiertos del Ayuntamiento de Barcelona, (actualmente estamos inmersos en la primera gran revisión de este servicio).

También desde finales de 2009 que participo en numerosas iniciativas para dar a conocer el movimiento OpenData… pero siempre postulándome desde la óptica de la utilidad, de la tremenda utilidad que os comentaba al principio, los movimientos, las plataformas, las ideas no sirven de nada si no son útiles para la sociedad.

Y no serán útiles si no mejoran la calidad de vida de los ciudadanos, que en el fondo es de lo que se trata.

Useful

In your mission report, I find a similar vision to that of Jean-François Gauthier (Edgeryders participant http://edgeryders.ppa.coe.int/users/jeff00720). Quebecois ex-civil servant, he has been employed by the government for many years. Like you, he worries about the loss of public confidence in political leaders and government institutions. I am sure you would get along well.

As for the honesty and integrity of politicians, there must be many citizens who believe in these values, and who feel like… vomiting when they follow the political news.

Honesty and integrity concern me so much that I try to understand what motivates decision makers to act as they do. I would like to contribute to define new models of leadership that are not based on greed and lies.

Open data and open government, do they mean the same thing to you?

Do you see an improved level of public confidence, with the open data initiative in Barcelona? Is the city planning to become an open government? What are the biggest risk aversion reactions you have encountered in your job?

How does it feel, what effect does it have, to work in an open data environment? Do you see an impact on the relationship with citizens? Is your expertise seen as an asset?

You seem to attach much importance to make something useful, to do something that makes you feel useful. How do your qualities of care and attention to the Other help you collaborate with citizens? Does this differentiate you from the rest of government employees?

The answers of your questions…

Hi Lyne, thanks for your comment.

I try to answer your questions:

> Open data and open government, do they mean the same thing to you?

No, they aren’t the same thing.

OpenGov is “bigger” than OpenData.

OpenGov has three main axes: transparency, participation and collaboration.

I think OpenData is the first step to OpenGov because it’s necessary in order to achieve a real participation of citizen.

If you don’t give information to citizen it’s impossible to believe that citizen can make a real valued participation.

Moreover, OpenData is a good tool to show that the government is transparent.

> Do you see an improved level of public confidence, with the open data initiative in Barcelona?

To be honest, the answer is no, but I want to believe that the correct answer is “not yet” :slight_smile:

> Is the city planning to become an open government?

The same answer of the above question.

> What are the biggest risk aversion reactions you have encountered in your job?

I think the big problem is the ignorance of these concepts, the other problems come from the ignorance.

> How does it feel, what effect does it have, to work in an open data environment?

The Open Data Movement is very incipient, so it’s difficult for me to explain my feelings in this theme. I think I’m in the correct way, I hope so! :slight_smile:

> Do you see an impact on the relationship with citizens?

Not yet, but I think this will change in a short period.

> Yes.

How do your qualities of care and attention to the Other help you collaborate with citizens?

My qualities are essential for me, without them my work in public area hasn’t any sense.

> Does this differentiate you from the rest of government employees?

I think no, most of government employees have these qualities, I insist, without them any of our work has sense.

Thanks for your comment.

Fantastic!

Marc, you continue to inspire, as does the efforts in Barcelona and within Spain more broadly.

I am looking forward to working with you more, trying to engage more youth within Spain to participate in open government efforts to create meaningful and measurable change.

Together we can!

Thanks!

Thanks John,

Now I have a better vision of Spanish youth (in political area).

The Indignados Movement has shown that Spanish youth have political interest, an interest in order to improve our society.

So, I think OpenGov concept has a good future.

I hope see you in this future :slight_smile:

Regards.

PS: We need to (re)start the “Gobierno Abierto” group in GovInTheLab.

Excellent and Yes

Looking forward to where 2012 will take us all.  This is the year where talk is replaced, is supplemented by, action.  Lets get it done.

Ok.

Ok, it will be a pleasure to work with you :slight_smile:

Un proyecto tecno-reformista

Marc, me encantò leer tu historia, que incluso tiene algo que ver con la mi propia. En general, me parece que tu intiendes el gobierno abierto como una reforma: emplear medidas y saber tècnicos para abilizar los ciudadanos a hacer politica. Por cierto, esta es la forma de que yo lo intiendo. No es revoluciòn: no tiene prefencias sobre los resultados ultimos; lo que importa es que todos sean abilizados a contribuir, y che todos contribuyen en plena luz.

Te parece razonable?

Los cambios si no son útiles acaban desapareciendo

Alberto,

Sí, yo entiendo el Gobierno Abierto como una necesidad para salir del callejón sin salida actual.

¿Qué legitimidad tiene la clase política cuando más del 90% de los políticos son vistos como no honestos ni íntegros?

Incluso el último barómetro del Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (el Instituto Oficial de Encuestas del Gobierno Español) indica que el 62% de los españoles opinan que la situación política es mala o muy mala.

Incluso en el barómetro de opinión de primavera de El Periódico de Catalunya del 2010 a la pregunta (con respuesta libre) “¿qué le sugiera la palabra política?” más de un 70% de los resultados eran respuestas negativas: mentiras, corrupción, intereses personales, etc.

Es difícil que la clase política solucione los problemas de la sociedad cuando la propia ciudadanía los percibe como parte de dichos problemas.

A mi entender la única solución es abrir los gobiernos, abrirlos a la sociedad, que ésta se implique en las cuestiones públicas.

Esta muy bien quejarse y ser exigente, pero también es ser muy cobarde sólo hacer esto. Si realmente nos interesan las cuestiones públicas (y en el fondo ello implica nuestros derechos, nuestro Estado del Bienestar) todos DEBEMOS implicarnos en nuestros gobiernos.

Además las nuevas tecnologías de la información (TIC) nos han facilitado esta implicación de la ciudadanía, ahora es técnicamente factible.

Siempre defenderé que la inmensa mayoría de los políticos son ciudadanos que se preocupan por el bien público, sin embargo hoy en día hay que ir más allá, hay que implicar a toda la sociedad para, conjuntamente, llegar nuestros gobiernos a un estado superior al actual.

¿Qué perdemos en probarlo?, es difícil estar en una percepción política peor que la actual.

Gracias por el comentario, Alberto :slight_smile:

Toda la sociedad

Marc, reading your answers raised a lot of questions in my mind.

You asked: “¿Qué legitimidad tiene la clase política cuando más del 90% de los políticos son vistos como no honestos ni íntegros?”

How do you see it possible to transmute into an open government, if virtually all of the government decision-makers lack integrity? Would you replace them all? Can they be ‘trained’ in some ways, to become aware of their behaviours, can they change and improve themselves? Are there opposition parties in favor of open government? What are their chances of replacing the current government? What guarantees that the next decision-makers to take power will not fail also to integrity? In this case, should we instead review models of leadership, and look for people, parties, who correspond to different values?

You mentioned in your mission statement that citizens no longer trust government decision-makers. You think it is possible to involve the entire society? Toda la sociedad? Does it mean instead that you would like to transfer power from a few individuals to a wider base?

If tomorrow, someone decides that toda la sociedad will now be leading government business, will government employees be able to handle it? What would they need, to move from the current situation, to an ideal government?

As I understand it, in Spain, there is some open data, but no open government. Are there groups of citizens, or individual citizens, applying pressure, lobbying at the highest levels of the government, asking for a declaration of open government? Should there be popular uprisings, huge demonstrations? What would it take, in Spain, to put in place an open government?

If tomorrow there was an open government in Spain, on which priorities should the citizens collaborate first? What are the most pressing issues that need to be solved? Data sets that correspond to these problems, have they been released? What kind of data has been released so far?

Euh, I’ll stop here for now, not to be shot on site for asking too many questions! But I have a ton of other questions. I’ll save some for tomorrow, ok :)   Hey, I already have questions about your next mission, which is not even written yet… (don’t forget to mention your nice opengov presentations!). I want to know where the aesthete in you comes from.

Also, I am not sure I understand your answer, about my question on ‘care and attention to the Other’. I don’t see that every civil servant and decision-maker in my government has this special skill. As a matter of fact, most of them DON’T CARE at all. You answered the opposite: ‘Most of government employees have these qualities’, It they cared so much about the Other, wouldn’t they have more integrity? Maybe you meant that it should be a requirement for most government employees. I try to make you say that you are super good, and you are too humble. Like John Moore!

Changes in daily life/ work of civil servants and politicians

Hi Marc,

Thanks for sharing this. It’s interesting to see things from the perspective that’s more “inside”. I am quite curious how politicians and civil servants percieve the situation, if there has been a shift in the daily work routines. I think very few people, sometimes myself included, have any idea what the work actually entails…what constraints people are working under.

  It is increasingly difficult for a group of people (politicians and technicians) have the capacity to carry out positive policies for the public to whom they are accountable.
What does this mean, and how do I recognise it ? why is it increasingly difficult? And "why can't they just fix it" ? IIt would be so helpful to have politicians and civil servants really tell their stories, about their rydes and their work. Perhaps then the sheer scale of the issues becomes tangible to people who aren't on the inside of institutions.

Also, I ask myself what it would take to get a culture of cooperation and collaboration to solve major issues going. I notice that in my contexts, the drive towards sharing- information, resources, skills- comes naturally. But that is often because there is little percieved competition for funding etc. So how do you/ we/ they create the incentives so that behaviors of people within institutions works with, not against good initiatives? And how do we identify when people are doing good work and give them cred?

Copons 2.0

Nadia,

Thanks for your comment.

Yes, one of main problems is the unknowledge of public sector by citizen.

This is a big problem in order to understand how works and what can you expect of public sector.

But there are several good initiatives in order to know sector public by citizen.

On of these is Copons.

Copons is a little village of 300 inhabitants in Catalonia, Spain.

In May 2008 the Copons’ government began a OpenGov project (they called it: ‘Copons 2.0’, it’s not original :).

The main goal was to inform, discuss, to be transparent and accountable about the public decisions.

They used tools with a low cost like Facebook to be flexible, powerful, free to make the debate and where the public already has a digital profile.

It is another case in this Digital Society that show that it’s not necessary a big infrastructure, only ideas and action!

The project is not without difficulties and the results are not always expected, the reality is stubborn: openGov projects are not easy … But it’s clearly that has managed to involve the citizen to discuss issues of concern: for example children’s education.

One of the great benefits of this initiative is that citizens now know better their City Council, they know its limits, they can build a better village because they have all information.

These citizens know very well their government, so they act accordingly.

It’s fantastic!.

Where lie the answers

How did your Needs statement end up here?! http://edgeryders.ppa.coe.int/user/user_profile/marc-garriga

I’ll do my best to come to your rescue, and point you to sources of ideas.

You are not the only one asking questions. I would say that we are all more or less walking in the fog. JohnFMoore is also looking for answers. This morning, he set up a new discussion group on the biggest challenges of open open government at Government in the Lab. Have you seen it? I mentioned you in a comment.

It’s easier for me to visualize your vision of open government and open data, as I gradually read more about you.

I think that we have the answers (they are in us).

What we can do, through this Edgeryders platform, a think tank, is to express at best what drives us to act - it comes from within, and it is usually the right guide - and interact with others, to see what they think, and how they tackle similar problems.

I really liked the information you provided about integrity (and related topics). I am not surprised that you speak of integrity, as I noticed in the past that you are interested in meeting people’s needs. If you did not have integrity, you would not do this.

You see, for me, integrity is an idea, an answer to bring more open government. And this answer comes from you! Create more integrity, I see it is a solution to implement more open government in the future. I see this as part of a new model of leadership.

How to show policymakers and elected members of parliament, how to make them understand that they have gaps in integrity, and get them to change their behavior? That is one of my questions.

About a month ago, I had an interesting discussion with Michel Filippi here at Edgeryders, about locking behaviour (or risk aversion, fear of change). He explained that creating models helps him to find solutions to problems.

'To act on problem of situations, I would say that we both have to create one or more models and use models already built to see if we can better understand what is happening.

 

Typically, someone who does not change its mode of action should first be referred by a model. Cognitive scientists have shown that when a player is locked to a spot, nothing external to the situation can enter the cognitive system. Therefore, a policy maker or government official that does not change his leadership style could be locked on a task.

 

With this information, we can see that this model has taught us more about the situation described, than what was known previously. This is a beginning of knowledge creation that can be done collectively.’ (Ref, comment to Longing for open government, Lyne Robichaud)

 
Michel Filippi tests models, he applies them in the world, and sees if they can help to better understand it, and therefore improve action.
Marc, I invite you to pursue your exploration, here, at Edgeryders, by playing the mission 'Spotlight: open government'. Describe what has been done in your country. Describe what you have been doing in this area, what you care about, and why you care. By defining your own vision, you will help to identify possible solutions.

I think that your vision is about integrity, responsibility, care for the other, servant leadership, civic engagement in society, collaboration, co-creation, that sort of things. But I might be wrong. I’m guessing… Keep digging! We are here to ask you questions and discuss with you. There is no right or wrong answers. Everyone is experimenting in this world, and we all have something that is unique to each one of us.