Johannesburg, June 23: There is no doubt that technology is driving a wave of economic and social change. The statistics are literally astronomical: There are more bytes of data than stars in the observable universe, and government can apply AI to this data to save up to 1.2 billion hours of work.
These technological advances are changing how governments can deliver their services, from ensuring food safety to carrying out gambling inspection, issuing key documents and more. Virtual inspections and licensure hearings are speeding up approvals and increasing the reach of individual inspectors. Similarly, AI and big data analytics have been applied to problems ranging from building code violations to financial fraud investigations, resulting in both lives and budgets saved.
However, this story is more than just about new technology in government—it is new technology enabling new ideas about how government can meet the ever-increasing demands of its people.
Take getting a birth certificate, for example. This would typically involve filling in a form and perhaps a trip to a government department. However, many governments have begun to proactively issue birth certificates. Rather than waiting on busy new parents to fill out forms, government systems know from health data when a couple has a new child and will need a birth certificate; the parent simply needs to click to confirm. No forms, no waiting in line.
There is a rider though. To truly take advantage of these new technologies, government will have to fundamentally change how it delivers services to citizens. AI is today’s version of the rocket: An exciting new technology, but one that can’t simply be grafted onto existing business models.
Take AI-enabled chatbots, for example. These can be an incredibly valuable tool to help people navigate complex processes or quickly find relevant information. But simply adding a chatbot to a traditional government webpage full of text information absolutely will not be very valuable.
It might sound cutting-edge, but it doesn’t really add anything of value. It makes little difference to users whether they read text in the website window or the chatbot window. Just adding AI to existing ways of doing business will often result in services as awkward as rocket mail.
To avoid failure for in this innovation, government should think creatively. Ways of delivering services that were once discounted as impossible may suddenly be possible as new technologies burst on to the scene.
Think about a bank or merchant asking for your driver’s license. The merchant doesn’t really want to know that you can drive a car or if you are an organ donor; they just want a government-backed means of verifying your identity or age.
Previous innovations around identity mostly focused on improving the existing driver’s license, making it plastic instead of paper, adding anti-fraud features, and so on. But now, new technologies are opening the possibility for entirely new forms of identification. New temporary digital IDs, take advantage of advances in cloud, mobile computing, and cryptography to offer government-backed identity verification that is temporary, revocable, and shareable. It meets the needs of both citizens and merchants in a way that simply modifying old, plastic ID cards never could.
Government: Good at efficiency, poor at innovation
Creating new processes or interdepartmental relationships may seem simple when weighed against the great potential benefits they can bring to citizens, but such changes go completely against the grain of innovation in government. Any organisation can become set in one way of doing business, and it often takes a significant jolt to shock it into adopting new business models.
In the private sector, where innovation is focused on creating new and improved products, an innovative new product can be that spark. This is exactly what happened in industry with the emergence of cloud. The ability of cloud to quickly scale up and down allowed software companies to adopt new pay-per-use business models for which their clients don’t have to purchase copies or licenses.
Unfortunately, government tends not to innovate that way. Rather than evolving around its core product — the citizen service — government’s innovations tend to refine the efficiency of current models. The result is that one of the key motivators of adopting new models — such a d different delivery system — is lacking. Government is therefore more likely to try and graft new technologies onto old methods, leading to utter failure. Improving only the process that delivers services can lead governments to deliver the wrong service with exquisite efficiency.
Organisations tend to think of innovation narrowly. Government may be inclined to think of innovation as improving current processes while many commercial companies default it to just creating new products. But both of these are only one way to innovate.
The most impactful innovations, whether in government or in industry, come about when multiple transformations work together. Take for example the USA Transportation Security Administration’s Precheck®, for example. It was not just a new service allowing pre-cleared travellers to have a faster security experience. Its success relied on innovations elsewhere (figures 3 and 4). It needed an expanded network of airlines to reach travellers through new channels—having their “pre-check” status printed on their boarding pass, for example. It introduced a faster customer experience and a new brand to go with it in the form of the “PreCheck” wordmark.
It even gave the US government a new source of funding to reinvest in security as passengers paid US$85 for the new service. The success of PreCheck would not have been possible with only one of these innovations. It relied on all these innovations working together to deliver a new service to citizens.
Take advantage of synergies in technology
Falling victim to “the-way-it-has-always-been-done trap” is an age-old challenge. But, luckily for government, the current time may offer one of the best opportunities to break out and discover new ways of doing business. That’s because all around us, technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution are coming together to transform everything about how we live. These technologies are the engine of transformation, and understanding how they work together can help government leaders innovate effectively.
A key point to note is that today’s technologies do not exist in isolation — they almost always work in conjunction with each other. For example, it’s rare to find AI working without cloud to provide the vast volumes of data it needs. In fact, 83% of enterprise AI runs in the cloud.
So, while modern technologies can be valuable on their own, their real transformative power comes when they work together. Virtual reality (VR) by itself is just an interesting add-on for gamers. But in combination with AI and the digital twins of a city’s transit system, VR can become a serious tool that can transform everything from city planning to defence wargaming.
Identifying the synergies in new technologies can be the first step to uncovering entirely new ways of delivering government services. For example, with the COVID-19 pandemic forcing so many in-person government services to close (at least temporarily), many agencies took advantage of the cloud to quickly pivot to a virtual footing.
But the move to the cloud didn’t just allow work to be done remotely; it also allowed government to layer on new automation tools to deal with surges in volume for services such as unemployment insurance or health questions. Governments can even use these technologies to reach citizens in new ways with chatbots that are integrated into digital assistants so that citizens can query government services in their own voice.
Identifying the synergies in new technologies can be the first step to uncovering entirely new ways of delivering government services. Adoption of one technology does not have to solve only one problem. One technology can work with other innovations to improve many aspects of government service at the same time.
Government does not need to solve every problem itself. Rather, just as a gardener creates space for plants to grow, by creating the right processes and communication channels, government can provide the space for a wide network of players to deliver needed public services.
Government must think beyond a single technology while trying to uncover entirely new models of service delivery.
A post Covid-19 new world demands new thinking from government
The world is changing. New technologies are shifting the limits of what is possible. At the same time, social and economic trends are largely changing what citizens need. Innovation in service delivery is needed if government is to efficiently meet the needs of its citizens. The future of government service delivery depends on leaders taking an active and structured approach to not only improve “how” services are delivered, but even “what” those services are.
Uncover the “job to be done” that the public needs
Perhaps the strongest challenges to finding new ways of doing business are the preconceived notions about how work needs to be done. Once government selects a service delivery model to meet a particular need, it can lead to a sort of mental “lock-in” where leaders assume that the need can only be met by that service in that particular form.
For example, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, public libraries began to spread around the world with the goal of promoting culture and education among citizens. The means of achieving this goal was housing and lending books. This led many libraries to consider lending books at the core of their mission. Yet, shifting trends in where citizens find information mean that now, people are about as likely to use the library for Wi-Fi as for books. As these trends continue to shift, the library’s goals of education and cultural enrichment may be better met by meetings and classes, or by becoming a trusted verifier of information in today’s environment of mis/disinformation.
The example of libraries shifting services exemplifies how government needs to understand the “job” that citizens need done. Citizens do not want a government service, they want a “job” done, and government service is just one way of accomplishing that. For example, citizens don’t necessarily want a fire department, they want buildings not to burn down, and there can be many ways to accomplish that. The challenge is that mental challenges (such as functional fixedness) can limit us to seeing familiar tools or services as the only way to do that particular job.
If government leaders are going to take advantage of new technologies to meet citizens’ needs in new ways, they need tools to help them break those mental challenges and see the various ways of delivering services to citizens.
Templates laying out goals and all the resources available can be valuable tools in helping government to view familiar problems from new angles and find a vision for service delivery unconstrained by “the way it’s always been done.”
Treat technologies together, not as disconnected tools
Technologies have never existed in splendid isolation. A nail is more or less useless without a hammer, or even the wood it’s meant to hold together. But the convergence of today’s digital technologies has taken this to an extreme degree. As a result, government leaders should not think about purchasing only the AI or just migrating to cloud, but must think about how those technologies interact and what opportunities — and cyber vulnerabilities — they create for each other.
Advocate for relief where necessary
Government is not a private company; it must manage risk for both employees and customers, as well as for all citizens. Moreover, unlike a private entity, government programs are often created by statute. As a result, government can face legal constraints on what services are delivered to citizens, which citizens are to receive those services, and in some cases, how services are delivered.
While most government agencies still have a wide latitude in how to best serve citizens, in the event that regulation constrains new developments, leaders should advocate for relief that can enable innovation while still protecting citizens
Governments should always be evolving and innovating, and the current time offers exciting new possibilities. But to make sure we make the most of these possibilities, we need to consider thinking differently and be open to entirely new models of government service delivery. Success in doing so could be the first step toward a truly digital government.
Video: New Technologies Helping Re-think how Government Serves Citizens
More Info on New Technologies Helping Re-think how Government Serves Citizens here:
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/FriedTomatoCo
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheFriedTomatoCo/
CLICK HERE to submit your press release to MyPR.co.za.
Press Release Views: 78
The Dangers of Meth addiction and How Rehab Can Help