Once governments have figured out how to create platforms for their own employees, we can begin to think about how to enable citizen participation. One thing that is frequently frustrating is that we treat these types of approaches as new (and thus different or scary). The fact is that governments have been accessing a long tail of information from the public for a long time. Indeed, municipal 911 services are an excellent example. Here is a system that, to a limited degree, is already a platform. It relies on constant citizen input and is architected to be participatory. Indeed, it works only because it is participatory—without citizen input, the system falls apart. Specifically, it aggregates, very effectively, the long tail of knowledge within a community to deliver, with pinpoint accuracy, an essential service to the location it is needed at a time it is needed. Better still, people are familiar and comfortable with it, and virtually everyone agrees it is both an essential component of modern government service as well as one of the most effective (see Figure 12-2).
Imagine the curve in Figure 12-2 represents all of the police, fire, and ambulance interventions in a city. Many of the most critical interventions are ones the police force and ambulance service determine themselves. For example, the police are involved in an investigation that results in a big arrest, or the ambulance parks outside an Eagles reunion concert knowing that some of the boomers in attendance will be “overserved” and are likely to suffer heart attacks.
Although investigations and predictable events may account for some police/fire/ambulatory actions (and possibly those that receive the most press attention), the vast majority of arrests, firefights, and medical interventions result from plain old 911 calls made by ordinary citizens. True, many of these are false alarms, or are resolved with minimal effort (a fire extinguisher deals with the problem, or a minor amount of drugs is confiscated but no arrests are made). But the sheer quantity of these calls means that while the average quality may be low, the calls still account for the bulk of successful (however defined) interventions. Viewed in this light, 911 is a knowledge aggregator, collecting knowledge from citizens to determine where police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances need to go.
As we look to governments to replicate this type of success across other areas, to tap into both the long tail and the emerging patch culture, two important lessons spring to mind:
- It is a self-interested system
While many 911 callers are concerned citizens calling about someone else, I suspect the majority of calls—and the most accurate calls—are initiated by those directly or immediately affected by a situation. People who have been robbed, are suffering from a heart attack, or have a fire in their kitchen have a high incentive to call 911. Consequently, the system leverages our self-interest, although it also allows for Good Samaritans to contribute as well. We need to enable citizens to contribute when and where it is most convenient and urgent to them.
- It is narrowly focused in its construct
The 911 service doesn’t ask or permit callers to talk about the nature of justice, the history of fire, or the research evidence supporting a given medical condition. It seeks a very narrow set of data points: the nature of the problem and its location. This is helpful to both emergency response officials and citizens. It limits the quantity of data for the former and helps minimize the demands on the latter.
These, I believe, are the secret ingredients to citizen engagement of the future: one where we focus on gathering specific, painless information/preferences/knowledge from citizens to augment or redistribute services more effectively.
The genius of 911 is that it understands the critical nature information plays in a system. It has the credibility to draw important information in, and it rewards those who share appropriate information by moving it quickly through the network. As a result, the right resources, in the right place, can be allocated to the task.