LET'S KEEP THE CONVERSATION GOING – A Plan for Tomorrow's Government Services

I wrote this conceptual piece on how to enhance government services a bit over a year ago - man, things are moving fast, aren't they?

BUILDING A CONSCIOUS SOCIETY – A PLAN FOR TOMORROW’S GOVERNMENT SERVICES

1 - Cognitive Labour/Mental Health

-       Focuses on Human Resource supports, cognitive workspace design and supporting/enhancing outputs of cognitive labour resources, mitigating negative mental health stressors

http://www.positivepsychologycanada.com/

http://www.mentalhealthworks.ca/

2 - Innovation/ Information Economy

-       Builds on cognitive labour/ mental health piece by focusing on go-forward side of cognitive labour: building new markets and generating innovation. 

-          Seeks to connect individuals, companies and sectors in new ways to gestate collaboration and innovation; create new partnerships, new fields and new opportunities. 

-          ThinkFair one example of a project that could be implemented and tested for its efficacy; would include “policy generating game” as innovative way to facilitate collaborative innovation

3 - Online Service Aggregates

US Government has already released a roadmap for Digital Government.  Canada / Ontario needs to catch up to this trend through the creation of Online Shared Services Networks that aggregate services, collate data, allow for user interface and personal ownership of data while presenting material in a map-based interface with Apple-like clarity of presentation.

Guardly an example of an existing piece that could be expanded to test this model on a smaller scale.

4 - Service Restructuring

One of the core themes of the Drummond Report http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/reformcommission/ was about big structural changes, aggregations and reducing the silo-effect that's leading to duplication, gaps and overlaps in our services.  There has been early discussions around structuring government differently; hiring, managing, funding, etc.  Whether there's the appetite or will to enact systematic change is yet to be seen, but people know it has to happen sooner or later.

 5 – Justice Reform

Applying what we know of Social-Emotional and resortative justice tools to rehabilitate offenders; look at the education side to provide these tools earlier in life, allowing for better choices at the individual level; empowering justice officials through the implementation of other Parts of the strategy

Let’s keep the conversation going!