US and UK beef up government transformation with new CDOs, digital and data
- Summary:
- The US has a new CDO and the UK has a new CDO - one for digital, one for data.
Two very important digital government appointments on opposite sides of the Atlantic yesterday, as the US got its first Chief Digital Officer and the UK its very own Chief Data Officer.
In the US, President Barack Obama named former Google and Twitter exec Jason Goldman as the White House Chief Digital Officer, running the Office of Digital Strategy.
The White House said Goldman will:
lead the current, innovative team in the White House Office of Digital Strategy, and build out the mission and staff of that team to more effectively connect with the American people and people around the world about our policies and priorities.
In a blog posting, Goldman said that his role was about communicating better with the electorate and connecting them with government:
I believe civic engagement with our government is our right and duty. And I believe online platforms can help us do this, connecting individuals to their government and in turn making government more accountable.
I believe these things partly because that’s how I was raised, and partly because of my experiences. I grew up in a politically engaged home in St. Louis. My mom was a principal in a public elementary school. I competed in debate throughout high school and college.
And I also have experience building two web platforms, Blogger and Twitter, that hundreds of millions of people use to discuss everything and anything. I’ve seen first-hand exactly what happens when the Internet is used to connect people.
By connect, he added, he does not mean Big Government talking at people, but with them:
One big thing we’ve all learned: broadcasting isn’t the same as connecting. Broadcasting can create awareness. But connecting people can create engagement and change.
Connecting involves an invitation to participate in something. One big reason Twitter was so successful is that it asked a really simple question — “What are you doing?” and invited people to answer in 140 characters or less — and it wasn’t limited in how people answered. The people using the platform defined the connections. Not just in terms of whom to follow, but what it meant to participate at all.
The platforms that have been the most successful are the ones that have created the best and most meaningful opportunities for participation. My job will be to use those online tools to create meaningful opportunities for American citizens to participate in our government.
Opening up
While Goldman is new to government, the UK Cabinet Office has stayed closer to home in its choice of Chief Data Officer, adding the title and responsibilities to those of Mike Bracken, head of the Government Digital Service (GDS).
As well as managing the roll out of digital transformation programs across government, Bracken will now also be responsible for developing a new Government Data Standard, championing open data, and encouraging the use of data in the decision-making process. He will also be charged with developing greater data analysis skills and capability across government.
Minister for the Cabinet Office Francis Maude said of the decision:
Transparency is an idea whose time has come. Open data helps sharpen accountability, support economic growth, and inform choice over public services. The potential rewards are enormous – smarter, more responsive and more cost-effective public services – and Britain is now consistently ranked first for openness. Mike Bracken is the ideal person to take our already world-leading approach to open data even further, while strengthening data analysis skills in Whitehall.
The US government last month named Dr. DJ Patil as Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Data Policy and Chief Data Scientist at the White House.
My take
Congratulations to both.
The US government has emulated the UK's GDS success story in many ways, so it's good to see the continuation of that with the appointment of a Chief Digital Officer and one with real-world experience of building socially-enabled digital communication platforms.
Meanwhile in the UK, the Open Data agenda now has a figurehead to shape it, which can only be for the greater good. That said, at GDS Bracken has run into the cultural resistance to change inherent in government IT circles. I suspect that the resistance to change on the Open Data front will be that much greater. (It's interesting to note that the exemplars of best practice in Open Data cited by the Cabinet Office are from local government, over which GDS has no remit at present.)
Now that both the US and UK have CDOs - both digital and data - in situ, there's much each can learn from the other as the next steps in the digital government transformation journey are taken.