What Government Can and Should Learn from Hacker Culture
South by Southwest isn’t generally associated with the federal government. But this year, between panels on “10 Things Your Band Can Do To Not Get Sued” and “Austin Breakfast Tacos: The food, people & history,” the festival will host “It’s Not About Tech: Hack the Bureaucracy.” The pitch: “Bringing geeks into government won’t make a difference if they can’t crack the code on bureaucracies.” Steering the panel is veteran government code-cracker Richard Boly, former head of the State Department’s Office of eDiplomacy.*
That the State Department embraces technology should not come as news. The department’s “21st Century Statecraft” initiatives have been well covered in the press, and officials from the secretary down to the interns use social media. But the SXSW panel focuses on a far thornier issue than getting ambassadors on Twitter: how to foster a culture of innovation and openness in a bureaucracy built to resist change.
The term “bureaucracy” has few positive connotations. It’s been called the “death of all sound work,” (Einstein), the “giant power wielded by pygmies” (Balzac), the “slime” left behind when revolutions fade (Kafka), and a “symbol of hell” (C.S. Lewis). Though it isn’t America’s only bureaucracy, the federal government is probably its most infamous one. The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press shows only 28 percent of Americans viewed the federal government favorably in 2012, its lowest rating since the poll began in 1997. The study didn’t delve into why, but perhaps part of the answer is the perception of federal agencies as bloated, ineffective bureaucracies that stifle creativity.
But there’s hope government can change this.
Read more. [Image: Edward Dodwell]
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