Continuing the development of my thinking around the Framework for Digital Local Public Services and following quickly on from my previous posts on Connectivity and Education. This post focuses on Hardware and Software and some of the opportunities to think differently around this area.
The framework outlines the following:
Hardware : every citizen requires the capacity to connect to the Internet and tap into the full range of its resources and content.
Software: that meets the needs of individuals, families, businesses and communities.
Taking all the capabilities together can be seen a like looking at a whole system and we are essentially trying to change the whole system.
Nesta recently published a Systems Innovations discussion paper and I highly recommend it.
The description states:
Over the past few years there has been growing interest in systemic innovation. We are defining this as an interconnected set of innovations, where each influences the other, with innovation both in the parts of the system and in the ways in which they interconnect.
Yet rather than simply theorising, we want to make this practical. We want to explore the potential of systemic innovation to help tackle some of the key challenges the UK currently faces, from supporting an ageing population to tackling unemployment.
I’ve found this discussion paper helpful in defining some of the challenges these framework wishes to address also.
On page 39 of the discussion paper it states:
System innovation involves a powerful combination of new:
- Products, services and technologies (tablet computers, containers, stamps, digital projectors);
- infrastructures that make these innovations widely available;
- alliances of partners who provide complementary services, software and assets;
- consumer norms and behaviour, which often emerge peer–to–peer, through a process of social learning, copying and emulation.
these basic common ingredients of systems innovation, however, can be combined in many
different ways.
The first two points are really what the hardware and software components are looking to foster and address, whilst the rest are also picked up by other areas of the framework.
Hardware:
Like connectivity if we focus on public sector organisations, we currently all provide staff with a range of computers and those inevitably need recycling or replacing and we need to start questioning where those are going – this would be PC’s laptops; smartphones etc.
We should think about how we can capture the needs within communities around access to appropriate hardware and we should prioritise the needs of our own communities first and connect the devices and equipment with them.
As a new system of local public services emerges communities and individuals will need adequate hardware to access and connect to that system in order to be able to engage with it.
This pretty much leads into the next area of software…
Software:
The software that underpins any new system of local public services has to be open and available for communities and individuals to create new services and opportunities to access and deliver local services. This links very much with having access to open and linked data, but critically means that we need to be able to ensure that people have the ability to connect to the system of local public services.
If we see public services as a system, we can’t simply do more within the current system as that won’t work – we need to change the purpose of the overarching system of public services and do things differently.To re-purpose and re-frame local public services we have to open it up in order to allow it to change.
It can be seen like the android or apple ecosystems – Apple and Google provide a system for which stuff can be created, developed and delivered and it only requires people to resolve the connectivity and education aspects in order to actively participate with those ecosystems in order to gain the wider benefits and value that being part of them brings.
We all need to start questioning how these things can start to be realised and not wait for other people to make them happen as i don’t believe that will be the case. What we need to do more of and quicker is open up the system to be challenged and disrupted as well as allowing people to take ownership of parts of the new system of public services.
Filed under: Digital Framework for Local Public Services, Local Government Tagged: digital, digital framework, hardware, linked data, localgov, open data, software 
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.