Hi all. I just wanted to let anybody who's still reading this blog know that I'll be continuing to share learning opportunities and events on our IGGI blog from now on, and leaving this site up for archival purposes.
Continue to the IGGI blog by clicking on this link.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you'll stay in touch!
Melissa
#GovJamTO: Rocked the public sector on June 4, 5, and 6, 2013!
2013-10-07
2013-09-09
Meetup: Behavioural Economics
This was passed along to me by Tanya, one of our GovJammers. It strikes me as an interesting way to approach the observation stage in design thinking in a very hands-on and experimental environment.
Where: Future Bakery & Cafe, Bloor & Brunswick Ave. in Toronto
RSVP: Register through Eventbrite.
Behavioural Economics meetup
When: Tuesday, September 17, 7-9pmWhere: Future Bakery & Cafe, Bloor & Brunswick Ave. in Toronto
RSVP: Register through Eventbrite.
2013-09-03
Our next inter-gov meetup is this Thursday
In case you're not following on Twitter, or haven't joined IGGI yet, wanted to give people who still read this blog a head's up that our next meetup is this Thursday, September 5, starting after work at 5:30pm. Click here for all details, and to RSVP through Twitter.
2013-08-29
Co-production: Learning from Lucie Stephens (part 2)
As a follow-up to my last blog post, I wanted to share some more things I learned about co-production by meeting Lucie in person, and having the opportunity to chat with her. (For an intro on co-production, see my previous blog post.)
Lucie, Geraldine Cahill (from SiG at MaRS), Karen (our manager at CIWC), and I meet a few weeks ago after Lucie's session at MaRS. She had a number of great examples on how her organization, nef (new economics foundation), has successfully facilitated programs and co-produced solutions alongside the people who traditional services impacted. It was pretty thrilling to hear about those examples, because it indicates to me that we might be able to play with co-production in Ontario to solve some of our complex problems - like health care, poverty/homelessness, and climate change.
I asked Lucie a few questions, and thought I'd share some of her thoughts on them.
A: Put risk in its place. Lucie said that when nef goes in and helps facilitate a co-produced solution to something, they don't ignore that there's always a risk that things might go wrong. Rather, she turns the question of risk on its head by inviting officials to see firsthand the positive impact that co-produced solutions have on the people effected. I guess what she's saying is they effectively give officials stories to tell in case a bad news story emerges.
For example, in one place where people with dementia and mental illnesses were involved in co-producing a new kind of environment for their care, a press story came out saying that the government was making people with mental illness make their own tea, casting a negative light on what was traditionally a service that service providers delivered. In fact, the people at the residence - professionals providing services and the residents, too - found it was empowering and even good for the health of residents to set their own routine and do things like make their own tea. People with dementia, for example, were shown to benefit.
The more stories that officials can witness firsthand, the better they'll get at taking on the perceived risk of co-produced solutions.
A: It helps, but isn't necessary. Lucie said it's definitely easier to develop co-produced solutions when there's top-down leadership and support from officials/commissioners in charge of certain public service files. But where there's a need for it, and passionate practitioners on the ground, co-production will happen.
Lucie says co-production calls for policy-makers to do less in order to create the environment where co-production can thrive at the grassroots. Government should admit to itself that with a lot of these complex problems, it doesn't have all the answers; policy makers need to write public policy as a "discovery tool" - something that can be nimble and change/iterate, as needed.
A: No, and not necessarily! This one surprised me... Lucie said that it's not always a great idea for governments to lead these kinds of innovative approaches, reason being because, typically, officials in the government aren't close enough to the ground-level to really sense the passion and ability of the grassroots to affect change.
As well, co-production is very much a method/approach that depends on understanding and being in the local context. Lucie gave many examples where co-production worked in small environments. During her presentation at MaRS, she touched upon this point - she said that one of the challenges co-production faces is seeing how it might work on a bigger scale. There aren't really examples of co-production being used for big public programs, or services that effect masses of people, which governments typically deliver.
So many more questions than that... what do you think?
Lucie, Geraldine Cahill (from SiG at MaRS), Karen (our manager at CIWC), and I meet a few weeks ago after Lucie's session at MaRS. She had a number of great examples on how her organization, nef (new economics foundation), has successfully facilitated programs and co-produced solutions alongside the people who traditional services impacted. It was pretty thrilling to hear about those examples, because it indicates to me that we might be able to play with co-production in Ontario to solve some of our complex problems - like health care, poverty/homelessness, and climate change.
I asked Lucie a few questions, and thought I'd share some of her thoughts on them.
On risk
Q: How do you prepare ministers/people accountable for government programs for the potential bad press if something goes wrong?A: Put risk in its place. Lucie said that when nef goes in and helps facilitate a co-produced solution to something, they don't ignore that there's always a risk that things might go wrong. Rather, she turns the question of risk on its head by inviting officials to see firsthand the positive impact that co-produced solutions have on the people effected. I guess what she's saying is they effectively give officials stories to tell in case a bad news story emerges.
For example, in one place where people with dementia and mental illnesses were involved in co-producing a new kind of environment for their care, a press story came out saying that the government was making people with mental illness make their own tea, casting a negative light on what was traditionally a service that service providers delivered. In fact, the people at the residence - professionals providing services and the residents, too - found it was empowering and even good for the health of residents to set their own routine and do things like make their own tea. People with dementia, for example, were shown to benefit.
The more stories that officials can witness firsthand, the better they'll get at taking on the perceived risk of co-produced solutions.
On creating the conditions for co-production
Q: Is it fair to say that support for co-production depends on who's in power or who's elected at the time?A: It helps, but isn't necessary. Lucie said it's definitely easier to develop co-produced solutions when there's top-down leadership and support from officials/commissioners in charge of certain public service files. But where there's a need for it, and passionate practitioners on the ground, co-production will happen.
Lucie says co-production calls for policy-makers to do less in order to create the environment where co-production can thrive at the grassroots. Government should admit to itself that with a lot of these complex problems, it doesn't have all the answers; policy makers need to write public policy as a "discovery tool" - something that can be nimble and change/iterate, as needed.
On government as catalysts of co-production
Q: Do you have any examples where governments or government agencies are using co-production as a new method of service (co-)delivery? Should governments lead the way?A: No, and not necessarily! This one surprised me... Lucie said that it's not always a great idea for governments to lead these kinds of innovative approaches, reason being because, typically, officials in the government aren't close enough to the ground-level to really sense the passion and ability of the grassroots to affect change.
As well, co-production is very much a method/approach that depends on understanding and being in the local context. Lucie gave many examples where co-production worked in small environments. During her presentation at MaRS, she touched upon this point - she said that one of the challenges co-production faces is seeing how it might work on a bigger scale. There aren't really examples of co-production being used for big public programs, or services that effect masses of people, which governments typically deliver.
Thoughts? Ideas?
Our conversation left my head spinning with ideas... what if government re-defined what it means by service delivery? What if governments scaled down its idea of what its role and impact on people should be? How can government foster an environment, through public policy/law, that encourages co-produced solutions to complex problems?So many more questions than that... what do you think?
2013-08-22
Co-Production: learning from Lucie Stephens (part 1 of a series of posts)
A few weeks ago, I was invited to MaRS for a talk by Lucie Stephens about co-production. I'd never heard about co-production before, and I'd never heard of nef (new economics foundation) either. So I didn't know what to expect.
I was so inspired by Lucie's talk at MaRS, and I had the opportunity to meet up with her a few days afterwards to ask her some questions. I shared what I learned on our internal blog, and wanted to share them here, too. But first, I wanted to give a bit of an overview of co-production, and then get into what I've learned about it over the past few weeks.
Our team at CIWC has been exploring design thinking and other methods/processes for solving complex problems. Co-production is a way to design and deliver services for communities, with communities. Here's a bit of background on Lucie's/nef's definition of co-production.
As well, you can learn more about co-production on nef's website, and download this publication by nef that gives a more detailed overview of this method: Co-production - A manifesto for growing the core economy.
I will get into some examples of how co-production is being used, and some of Lucie's answers to our questions about co-production, in a follow up blog post.
I was so inspired by Lucie's talk at MaRS, and I had the opportunity to meet up with her a few days afterwards to ask her some questions. I shared what I learned on our internal blog, and wanted to share them here, too. But first, I wanted to give a bit of an overview of co-production, and then get into what I've learned about it over the past few weeks.
Co-production: a working definition
Our team at CIWC has been exploring design thinking and other methods/processes for solving complex problems. Co-production is a way to design and deliver services for communities, with communities. Here's a bit of background on Lucie's/nef's definition of co-production.
#coprodTO co-production: professionals & citizens share power to plan & deliver support together; both have vital contributions to make
— CreativeGov (@CreativeGov) August 20, 2013
Co-production is about empowering people who have a need for a service/program to co-design it alongside professionals (e.g., from the government), and co-deliver it as well. It's about sharing power, in the truest sense; rather than consulting at people and delivering a program to them, co-production seeks to build solutions alongside the people who need them, and build programs with them.Co-production - professionals + citizens sharing power and recognition in their roles designing and transforming quality of life. #coprodTO
— Jennie Faber (@jennie) August 20, 2013
Six elements of co-production
There are lots of things that might look like co-production, but nef has determined that when co-production is happening, these six elements are always present.- People as assets. nef believes there are three parts to consider in our economy: the environment, the financial markets, and (what's most abundant), people. The traditional sense of economics was based in scarcity; gold is scarce and therefore highly valued, but traditionally, people/human resources aren't valued as highly because they might not be as scarce. nef believes in focusing on people as what they call the core economy, and one of the principles behind it is that people all have something to contribute, and therefore should play an active role in the community's well being.
- Building on assets. Another principle behind co-production is building on our abundant assets (people), and finding the opportunities where they might make the best use of their skills. It's about leaving no one's talents behind.
- Mutuality. Co-production happens when there is a true partnership occurring between professionals and the end users of something. It's not a partnership in the traditional sense, where professionals (government) are still just consulting at people; rather, there's a true reciprocity of expertise and wisdom shared, and each person brings equal levels of value to the equation.
- Networks. Another element inherent in co-production is the ability to transcend boundaries - to work between networks and diverse populations to make sure that where linkages can be made, they are, so that the best outcome/service can be achieved.
- Blurring distinctions. This speaks, again, to mutuality, and goes a step further. Where in traditional service delivery models, the professionals develop and deliver services, in co-production, there might be solutions created where users are delivering services, too. There's a blurring of titles or traditional hierarchy in co-production where power is shared more evenly.
- Facilitating. Another important thing that happens in co-produced scenarios is that the participants are truly empowered to make decisions for themselves. In co-production, each user that's part of the system has a stake in the outcome, and if something were to go wrong, it's OK - it's a matter of coming back together and working out a solution.
As well, you can learn more about co-production on nef's website, and download this publication by nef that gives a more detailed overview of this method: Co-production - A manifesto for growing the core economy.
I will get into some examples of how co-production is being used, and some of Lucie's answers to our questions about co-production, in a follow up blog post.
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