The Smarter State Case Studies: The Technologies of Expertise and the Future of Governing

A set of case studies examining how public institutions are using technologies of expertise

www.thegovlab.org/smarterstate

Just as individuals use only part of their brainpower to solve most problems, governing institutions make far too little use of the skills and experience of those inside and outside of government with scientific credentials, practical skills, and ground-level street smarts. New data-rich tools—what The Governance Lab calls technologies of expertise—are making it possible to match the supply of citizen and civil servant talent to the demand for it in government to solve problems.
The Smarter State Case Studies examine how public institutions are using technologies of expertise, including:
Talent Bank – Professional, social and knowledge networks
Collaboration – Platforms for group work across silos
Project Platforms – Places for inviting new participants to work on projects
Toolkits – Repositories for shared content
Explore the design and key features of these novel platforms; how they are being implemented; the challenges encountered by both creators and users and the anticipated impact of these new ways of working.
The case studies can be found at http://www.thegovlab.org/smarterstate.html
To share a case study, please contact: maria@thegovlab.org

Talent Bank

• DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE: ARISTOTLE
  This Expert Network Made Skills and Know How More Searchable at the Department of Defense
  Sector: National Gov; Defense

• HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES HHS PROFILES
  The expert network for improving the safety and efficiency of medical device review
  Sector: National Gov; Health

• THE WORLD BANK: SKILLFINDER
  This expert network accelerates the search for talent
  Sector: Inter-Governmental; Development

• TORFAEN COUNTY BOROUGH COUNCIL: WISDOM BANK TORFAEN
  This neighbor-helping-neighbor expert network attempts to replace the “pub conversation”
  Sector: Local Gov; Health and Labor

• GOVERNMENT OF CANADA: GCCONNEX
  A national network enables “just in time talent” and collaboration across the Canadian government
  Sector: National Gov; Cross-sector

• MAYOR’S OFFICE OF NEW YORK: VOLUNTEER LANGUAGE BANK
  This expert network is matching the supply of multilingual civil servants to the demand for translation services
  Sector: Cross-sector

• NOVAGOB
  Creating a community of spanish speaking public employees across national and institutional borders
  Sector: Inter-Governmental; Cross-sector

• NETWORK OF INNOVATORS
  The global skill sharing network for government and civic innovators
  Sector: Inter-Governmental; Cross-sector

• US DEPARTMENT OF STATE: CORRIDOR
  An internal professional networking system to find and share experience and expertise
  Sector: National Gov, Foreign Relations

Collaboration

• OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET: MAX.GOV
  The government-wide collaboration site whose robust permissioning system enables working and sharing knowledge across agency boundaries
  Sector: National Government; Finance and Budgeting

• CITY OF SAO PAULO: AGENTS OF OPEN GOVERNMENT
  Brazil’s largest city is embarking on a massive experiment to have citizens educate its public employees.
  Sector: Municipal Government; Cross-Sector

Projects

• ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY: ONE EPA SKILLS MARKETPLACE
  This program helps civil servants break out of silos and create project teams across the agency
  Sector: National Government; Environment

Toolkits

• ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC COOPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT (OECD): Observatory for Public Sector Innovation (OPSI)
  This library connects distributed innovators to information and to one another
  Sector: Inter-Governmental; Cross-Sector

• FEDERAL CROWDSOURCING AND CITIZEN SCIENCE TOOKLIT
  This toolkit helps federal employees use crowdsourcing and citizen science in their work.

About The GovLab

The GovLab’s mission is to improve people’s lives by changing how we govern. Our goal is to strengthen the ability of institutions – including but not limited to governments – and people to work more openly, collaboratively, effectively and legitimately to make better decisions and solve public problems. For more information, please visit: http://www.thegovlab.org.

About Smarter State

New tools—what GovLab calls technologies of expertise— are making it possible to match the supply of citizen expertise to the demand for it in government.  Smarter State is a GovLab initiative to design and test how public decision-making could improve if institutions knew how to use the technologies of expertise to tap the wisdom of citizens’ and civil servants. For more information, please visit: http://smarterstate.org/