As you can see, E-International Relations has recently had a facelift. Don’t be fooled, however. The update was purely cosmetic but E-IR has committed to continuing its role as a premier outlet of international relations commentary and analysis.
Which is why it is confusing they kept me around.
I have been a proud contributor to E-IR for quite some time and when the offer was made to re-launch my blog, it was an offer I couldn’t refuse. Take solace in knowing, however, that the re-launch is going to bring with it some different elements and, more importantly, will have an all-star cast of regular contributors from across the world, all operating in the shared goal of this blog – to ignite dialogue on the key issues impacting international politics today.
Throughout the last week, questions have arisen surrounding the professional merits of academic blogging due to the ISA’s ill-conceived comment that blogging is not something it wants its editors associated with (for more on this, see Dylan Kissane’s blog post).
The ISA has a point, in that blogs are not peer-reviewed, journal-length articles that contain 75 footnotes. In this regard, when compared to the prototypical academic writing formats we are all used to, it would not be “professional”. However, students, scholars, policymakers and casual observers of international politics can learn, and have learned, a great deal from academic blogs. The qualifications are the same, the expertise is the same, but the main difference is that the purpose of a blog is completely different than academic publishing.
Among the chief reasons for my loyalty to E-IR has been its commitment to open access content that is scholarly, timely, relevant and understandable to more than experts in the field. The engagement of students is pivotal to the field being successful moving forward and I see no better way to spark interest than in blog pieces by intelligent people. And so, this is the first post in the new “IR Theory and Practice” blog that I hope will continue being of at least some interest to readers moving forward.
When former NBA player Dennis Rodman returned last week from his second visit to North Korea to meet with leader Kim Jong-un, he announced the next step in his unofficial diplomacy: He would try to take other NBA stars to Pyongyang to train the North Korean basketball team. Then, he said, he would try to have an international basketball tournament in North Korea.
Rodman isn’t an official envoy for the U.S., and his initiative wasn’t endorsed by the State Department. But there are signs that basketball diplomacy could work to ease tensions between the U.S. and the temperamental Kim family that has ruled North Korea since 1948. Traveling with a small entourage, Rodman was able to spend time with Kim Jong-un, building on an unusual friendship they began during Rodman’s first visit in February. He also broke news that the North Korean leader has a baby daughter.
While the State Department declined to comment on Rodman’s overseas activities, National Geographic asked Susan Pittman, who works with the department’s bureau of educational and cultural affairs, about how sports diplomacy works—and when it has been successful.
Can athletic relationships sometimes be more effective than traditional diplomacy?
Sports diplomacy is a powerful force for reaching individuals in every corner of the globe. Sports transcend borders, increase dialogue, and expose foreign participants to American culture. Outside of official channels, sports diplomacy connects people on a personal level through our common interests, values, and passions. We can start conversations and build lasting connections that inspire and inform our government-to-government relationships.
When has it worked?
In 2007, the U.S. supported the travel of 20 American athletes and coaches from USA Wrestling to compete in the Takhti Cup in Bandar Abbas, Iran. This was the first U.S. government-supported exchange with Iran since 1979.
Also, at the height of the Cold War, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. began a series of track-and-field competitions; the first competition was held in Moscow in 1961 and then, in the following year, over 150,000 Americans attended the competition in Palo Alto, California. The U.S.-U.S.S.R. track-and-field competition continued through 1979, alternating between the countries.
Wasn’t “Ping-Pong diplomacy” one of the most high-profile instances of this, with the Chinese in the 1970s?
Yes, but that wasn’t an official State Department initiative. Henry Kissinger, who was an adviser at the time, supported the idea, but it wasn’t run by our diplomats. The Chinese made the first invitation, but the main events were organized by the International Table Tennis Federation.
Was it seen as a success?
Oh, yes. It was definitely one of the doors that opened as we moved forward with our relations with China.
Are there people or demographic groups that get more focus?
Today, people under the age of 30 are 60 percent of the world’s 7.2 billion people. They are tomorrow’s leaders. Because of this, we prioritize engaging youth as a core strategic mission.
Which sports tend to be the greatest unifiers?
Our programs run the gamut, from the track to the pool, from the basketball court to the soccer pitch, or from the baseball diamond to the wrestling mat. Diversity is so essential to what we strive to accomplish that no one sport stands out above the rest. Sports are a common language that transcend borders and increase dialogue.
Outside of the government, can it sometimes be helpful to have freelance ambassadors?
Here’s what’s important about being an ambassador: The whole idea with sports diplomacy is that you’re working with the sports people and doing exchanges outside of [politics]. That’s not what [Rodman] is doing. We haven’t conferred with him about what he’s doing. It can sometimes do more harm than good.
Digitalizacija odnosa država-građani u Velikoj Britaniji
Velika Britanija je ovih dana ponovo okupila najvažnije stratege u oblasti digitalizacije usluga i servisa koje vlada ove zemlje pruža građanima. Predstavila je prvih 5 od 25 planiranih digitalnih servisa, uz procenu da će time već u 2015. god. da uštedi oko 2 milijarde evra svojih poreskih platiša kao i njihovo vreme.
Na prezentaciji koju su nazvali ’’ Sprint 14’’ britanski ministri i najviši zvaničnici javno su demonstrirali prve nove servise.
’’Digital tax account’’ ili digitalni račun za takse svakako je najvažniji i treba da omogući 41. milionu obveznika PAYE ( Pay as You earn ) da putem Interneta pristupaju svojim poreskim dosijeima i plaćaju svoje obaveze prema državi. Trenutno se ovaj posao obavlja putem telefona ili pismima.
Greg Clark, izvršni direktor u Kabinetu Premijera, demonstrirao je aplikaciju koja omogućava britanskim građanima da se online prijave u biračke spiskove. Ovaj servis će pored 5 miliona onih koji su se već online registrovali da obraduje i četrdesetak miliona preostalih birača kojima ovaj posaopredstoji ali će im aplikacija uštedeti vreme.
Mike Person, glavni koordinator iz Kancelarije za Vize, demonstrirao je aplikaciju za ’’ Tier 2 ’’ Prioritetne vize, koja omogućava brže i jeftinije prijavljivanje za britanske vize za određene grupe građana van evropske unije. Prošle godine je izdato oko 3,5 miliona viza ovog tipa.
Oliver Morley, izvršni direktor britanske državne agencije za registraciju vozača i vozila, demonstrirao je kako britanski vozači mogu da pogledaju svoj dosije u ovoj Agenciji odnosno da se informišu o eventualnom broju negativnih poena ili saobraćajnim kaznama. Ovaj servis koristiće blizu 40 miliona registrovanih vozača.
Jeremy Wright, podsekretar ministra za sankcije i rehabilitaciju, prikazao je novi online servis kojim će se u budućnosti zakazivati posete zatvorenicima u Britaniji. Procenjuje se da ih ima oko 1,5 miliona godišnje. Trenutno, zakazivanje se vrši elektronskom poštom, telefonom ili lično.
Na pomenutoj javnoj prezentaciji britanski ministri i visoki zvaničnici razmotrili su i druge aspekte digitalne revolucije u sistemu odnosa država – građanin.
Ministar Francis Maude nije propustio priliku da se pohvali da je digitalni plan britanske vlade dobio međunarodno priznanje jer obezbeđuje odgovorniju, dinamičniju i efikasniju državnu upravu. Ovaj plan jača i britansku ekonomiju, jer podstiče inovativne IT snabdevače širom Britanije kao i male i srednje IT preduzetnike da dobiju državne poslove.
Ipak najveću korist dobijaju građani, koji će uštedeti novac i imati više slobodnog vremena koristeći ove državne digitalne servise u vreme i na način kako njima najviše odgovara.
Ova promocija digitalnih servisa britanske države nastavak je prošlogodišnje prezentacije ’’ 400 dana ’’ koja obavezuje modernizaciju 25 najvažnijih usluga i servisa koje britanska država pruža građanima.
Mike Bracke, izvršni direktor Vladinog digitalnog servisa najavio je da će se uskoro pojaviti nove digitalne olakšice i alati za britanske građane i da će oni biti najbolji u svetu. Što je još važnije, oni će biti jednostavni za korišćenje, kao što se sada koriste bankarske online transakcije ili online rezervacija knjiga ili hotela.
Digitalizacija definitivno postaje realnost u odnosima države Velike Britanije i njenih podanika.
Podanici države Srbije još uvek nisu dostigli digitalni status.
Autor teksta Zvonko Šošević,
Beogradska inicijativa za javnu i digitalnu diplomatiju
www.www.bidd.org.rs
redakcija Žarko Jovanović,
Beogradska inicijativa za javnu i digitalnu diplomatiju
The so-called ‘Twitter diplomacy’ has become one of the most prominent innovations in foreign policies of the world’s leading countries, political analysts say. Officials have been actively using social networking sites to address millions of people all over the globe.
President Vladimir Putin’s Twitter account has more than 120,000 followers. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev`s blog remains among the most popular accounts owned by Russia’s political leaders. It proves that ‘electronic diplomacy’ is winning more space on the web. Political analysts unanimously agree that blogging and communicating through the social networking sites has already become a political tool in the 21st century.
Now you will more likely learn the latest news from the Internet rather than from radio or television. On the other hand, e-diplomacy inspires officials to share the news directly from work meetings which often appears to be a violation of business and political ethics. E-diplomacy requires knowledge of the culture of online communication.
In his article on foreign policy President Putin says: “Internet, social networking sites, cell phones alongside TV have turned into an effective tool of both domestic and international policy.”
In 2012, French news agency AFP released the first-ever “digital diplomacy effectiveness” rating, based on the activity of top officials and diplomats in social networks, the number of subscribers to their accounts, and the citation index. In first place (out of 151 countries) was the United States. It is followed by Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Mexico, India, Britain, Colombia, and Japan. Russia came in the 13th place.
Not only officials but ministries have Twitter accounts, too. The Russian Foreign Ministry account has some 65,000 followers. All speeches delivered by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov can be found on the department’s official page on YouTube and on Facebook, which also presents his statements and media comments. Russian federal and municipal officials have even launched their own social networking site ‘Gosbuk’ (State book).
Experts believe that officials join the social networking sites to win more support from the population and be more successful in solving some strategic tasks. The head of the analytical department at the Information Democracy Foundation, Vadim Kim, warns against judging an official from his Internet activity: “We have approached a time when it is very important to differentiate between blogging aimed to make an official’s work more effective and a mere PR step.”
Each official decides for himself whether to join a social networking site or not. In any case Russian authorities appreciate the role of ‘digital diplomacy’ which has become an effective means to settle strategic tasks and promote national interests abroad.
Immigration reform advocates gather in Atlanta on Oct. 5. (Mary Silver/Epoch Times)
The public overwhelmingly supports reform with a path to citizenship.
Frank Sharry, executive director, America’s Voice
The tide may be about to change in the immigration reform debate. The Senate has developed a broad immigration reform proposal, but the standstill in the House has made reform seem out of reach until recent developments.
Bipartisan support for a bill that would provide a pathway to citizenship for the estimated 11 million people in America without documents may be within reach.
Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) is working on a House bill to reform American immigration laws. He said in a statement that it “must be a solution that will secure the border, strengthen our economy, respect the rule of law, modernize our visa system, and address the issue of the millions of undocumented immigrants in a way that is both reasonable and humane.”
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is also working on a proposal to give temporary legal status to undocumented immigrants.
Immigration reform advocates plan to keep pressing legislators for change. Current law demands that undocumented people to leave the country and re-enter legally before they can begin the process that could ultimately lead to citizenship.
Even the DREAM Act, also known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), is only a stopgap, deferring deportation for people under 30. A plan for President Obama to expand DACA to all ages is an unlikely, temporary solution.
The constitutionality of such a sweeping executive order is questionable and the president has declined to consider it an option.
Wide Public Support
Frank Sharry, executive director of immigration advocacy group America’s Voice, encourages Diaz-Balart and Issa’s efforts to introduce legislation to the House.
“The public overwhelmingly supports reform with a path to citizenship and the Senate has already approved, on a bipartisan basis, a reform package that includes a path to citizenship. It’s time for the House to step up,” he said in a statement.
Angela Kelley, vice president for Immigration Policy at the Center for American Progress, thinks there is hope if the Senate bill can stay alive through the end of this year.
The country is just emerging from “a highly dysfunctional and frankly, bizarre time in Washington,” she said.
The Hastert Rule
House Speaker John Boehner was able to avoid a national default when he broke the Hastert rule, meaning he allowed the vote to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling to pass without the support of a majority of Republicans.
This suggests that he may also break the Hastert rule again, if necessary, to pass immigration reform, according to Kelly.
The Hastert rule is named for former Republican Speaker Dennis Hastert.
Staying Alive
If the House could bring an immigration reform bill into a conference committee, the bill could stay alive into 2014. This is the first year of this Congress, so legislation that has advanced into a committee could still be passed in 2014, according to Kelley.
She said 27 Republicans have come out in support of a path to citizenship, and therefore could sponsor a bill that provides one.
Alternatively, they could create legislation with a poison pill in it, one element that is unacceptable to the other side, and then start a blame game if the Senate refuses to pass it.
The final outcome is difficult to predict. “This is all complete Ouiji board and tea leaf reading, speculation,” said Kelley.
Starting next week, the Internet is going to look very different — and ICANN Chief Executive Fadi Chehade is the one who’ll get both the credit and the blame.
Today, Net addresses end with 22 familiar terms — .com, .net, and .edu — called generic top-level domains (GTLDs). But starting Feb. 4, the first of hundreds of new GTLDs will begin arriving — .ninja, .farm, .shoes, .photography, .bike, .pink, and even .wtf.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a non-profit organization, oversees the domain-name expansion and the core Internet technology called the Domain Name System that makes it tick. Chehade took over ICANN leadership in 2012 and now is grappling not just with the GTLD expansion, but also the dwindling supply of numeric Internet addresses and an attempt to wean the Internet from the US government’s dominant oversight role.
Why bother with the domain-name expansion? For a company trying to get a new start on the Net, finding an unclaimed Web address can be tough. And for a company catering to customers in countries like China or Russia, names are held back with characters in the Roman alphabet. Other companies might want to use their own domain — actual examples including .google, .canon, .apple, .samsung, and .ibm.
That’s pleased those who see a business reason to embrace the new addresses. “Since Fadi has taken the helm at ICANN, the program has moved forward at a much faster pace,” said Shayan Rostam, production manager at XYZ.com, which will operate registries for .xyz and .college. “We have pushed up our global .xyz launch date to this March, directly due to Fadi’s leadership of the program.”
The reason Chehade is also in the hot seat, though, is fielding criticisms from those with a trademark to protect. For them, the explosion of new GTLDs means new hassles and expenses.
ICANN established a Trademark Clearinghouse where organizations can register their brand names and get alerts if somebody else wants to use them in some way. But even with that, organizations still must decide whether to apply for the right to operate a registry with their name, to contest or bid against others’ domain-name choices, and to register Net addresses on the hundreds of new domains others will operate — ibm.xyz, for example. (Although the first round of applications to run generic top-level domains is closed, companies still must decide what to do with approved new domains and what to do when they can apply again.)
Chehade, 50, brings an international viewpoint to the job of running the Internet. He’s a citizen of Egypt, Lebanon, and the United States who speaks Arabic, English, French, and Italian. He founded three technology companies and more recently served as CEO of two others Vocado and CoreObjects Software. The following is an edited transcript of his conversation with CNET News’ Stephen Shankland.
Stephen Shankland: We’re at a very important juncture where ICANN is about to launch the first generic top-level domains. When do the first new ones come on line?
Fadi Chehade: In February you’ll see them. You can go to some of the large registrars like GoDaddy and preregister for many of them. We’re excited. The champagne is ready.
Eight years in the making is a long time for anything, especially when you’re not manufacturing anything, but just to getting everybody to agree. We just delegated a bunch in the last few days — .democrat, .florist, .repair, and so forth.
By the end of the year we’ll have hundreds of new domains. What’s the benefit of opening this up so widely?
At ICANN we came to the conclusion that the 22 current GTLDs were crowded and it was time to give more variety and more choice and more competition.
As an entrepreneur, I am a great believer that as you expand technology and give new horizons to people, you can’t even imagine what people will come up with — but I’m certain the market will discover them.
The Domain Name System [will allow domains] not only in Latin letters but in Chinese letters and Cyrillic letters and Arabic letters. You can talk to the mayor of New York. He has big ideas for .nyc. The mayor of Rio [de Janeiro] called me about all their plans for .rio. I belong to a minority community — the Coptic Orthodox Christian community. I know that minorities will find places on the Net to express themselves through Domain Name System spaces.
I’ve heard a lot of pushback from trademarks owners who worry how they’re going to protect their trademarks across hundreds of thousands of new domains. Are they going to have register coca-cola.xyz, coca-cola.sucks, coca-cola.anything?
I come from the business sector. I’m extremely personally sensitive to the cries of concern you’re hearing and I’m hearing. Having said that, the intellectual property community has been extremely active in a very good way in ICANN. They have been able, through their good participation in the multistakeholder model, to guide us in the establishment of some things that have never been done. We now have the first global trademark clearinghouse, where people can register and protect their trademarks. We are protecting things far more now in the GTLD program than they are protected in the current top-level domains and far more than they are in the physical world now. And we provide all kinds of mechanisms for people to lodge complaints and to give domain names back to them if they are the rightful owners.
When I first came on board, I wanted to give the trademark IP [intellectual property] holders a second chance to express their concerns. We made some adjustments to the program to go the extra mile to ensure their concerns are heard.
On the practical side, do I need to register my name under every domain all over the world? I think the fears of massive defensive registration are unwarranted. I encourage companies that have IP to protect in the Domain Name System to instead engage in what I call a wise and balanced approach understanding how to assess these things in a structured way rather than a protect everything, everywhere, all the time.
I understand that there are a lot of mechanisms to handle the problem gracefully. But this isn’t a problem people had to handle before, and now they do. It’s still extra work for a lot of trademark holders.
No question. I’m a businessman who understands the two sides of the coin. A gentleman from one of the major brands cornered me at an ICANN meeting and said this is work that didn’t have to be done that we now have to do. I said, “I understand, what are your plans to use your brand name, to create new virtual spaces where you can sell services, products, and content?” He looked at me like I was from outer space. Some of companies move more from risk mitigation, but I know at least two dozen companies planning some very interesting things to actually build their brand on the Web. Making the investment to protecting their name in the vast domain name system pales in comparison to the opportunity.
ICANN charges $185,000 for an organization to apply to run a generic top-level domain, and then there are further annual fees on top. Will costs come down as we get hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of GTLDs?
From my business sense I’d be extremely surprised if the costs don’t go down in the next round. The fee we charged, $185,000, turned out to be just what we needed to get that program built — not too high, not too low. We’re fully transparent. We showed how we spent every penny.
At the end of the day, I’m not a business. We are a nonprofit offering services in the interest of the public. Under my administration, we’ll make a major effort to ensure people around the world know about the GTLD program and have easier access to participate.
I’ve seen examples like the Japanese camera maker Canon applying to run a registry for .canon Net addresses. Do you hope that all companies with trademarks will run their own generic top-level domains?
We a huge pent-up demand to reopen the program. It’s coming quite a bit from the brand side. Many, many brands and many, many communities didn’t know about the GTLD program. I get significant amounts of questions about when can we open the next round, because certainly there is a bit of angst that if Canon uses this to do an incredible mass customization campaign to win users to their product, I’m sure the brand next to them will say “Why aren’t we doing this?” So I do believe this will snowball. But many will find a .com or whatever they have now will be good enough, and I believe that one excludes the other.
What exactly is the nature of your contract with the US Department of Commerce? I don’t think a lot of people know.
It’s a zero-dollar contract: there’s no money that passes between us and the Department of Commerce. The origins of ICANN started when the US government left this function of updating the root of the Internet Domain Name System. Three things are covered by this contract: the Domain Name System, which are the names; the numbers, which are the IP numbers [Internet Protocol numbers are used to route data across the Net from one machine to another]; and the protocol parameters. That’s the extent of our relationship with the US government, other than the US government, like any other government, being a member of ICANN’s governmental advisory committee.
This contract continues to maintain the US government’s stewardship over these three areas that we do. The US government role is to ensure that we are doing these functions as the community has asked us to do them. The US government is essentially in an oversight role over ICANN. The US government as well as the contract itself has always defined that at some point that stewardship will be replaced by the multistakeholder stewardship of the ICANN community. This was always envisaged as coming, but the question was when and how.
I have in the last few months publicly stated that the time for that has come. This oversight is not sustainable any longer, and therefore we should work with the US to hand over its superb stewardship. We should all be thankful for the stewardship of the US government. It’s worked marvelously well. Now it is important for the US government to appreciate it’s time to have that stewardship headed to the world community through the ICANN’s multistakeholder model.
What influence have the Snowden revelations had on your agenda and the timeline you’re pursuing it on?
We’ve been waiting for the right moment to get there. The right moment is now, evidenced by the progress at ICANN in the last two years, and before that under Rod Beckstrom, my predecessor. ICANN has become a more mature organization — not just in its number of staff, but also in its global accountability and its presence around the world. President [Toomas Hendrik] Ilves of Estonia announced at the World Economic Forum that the ICANN multistakeholder regime is probably the most advanced in the world. These are statements that three or four years ago were not heard. Therefore it is important to appreciate the US government now sees this moment is upon us.
The question is how and when? We do calmly, we do it wisely, with all the community involved, so the community can guide us. These discussions I need to start with our colleagues in the US government, and I will, but I first wanted to ensure we were aligned as a community.
Clearly, there is no question that Edward Snowden’s revelations have stimulated the dialog. I attended a couple sessions at the World Economic Forum about security risks. I saw leader after of leader of major companies like GE sincerely worried about the trust factor on the Internet. And we have the Target situation. The trust in the ecosystem has been punctured a little bit.
I’m not naive. I don’t believe we should all hug each other and trust each other. The reality is that trust can only be restored through checks and balances. Checks and balances mean you do not have a single actor or institution that owns the responsibility in any one part of the Internet governance ecosystem. What you want instead is to create governance networks — a term I’m pushing. Not governance institutions, not governance regulations. What we need in the age of the Internet is governance networks. These are networks that are formed by multiple stakeholders to solve governance characteristics. They must have three characteristics: they must be effective, they must be dynamic, and they must be legitimate. These are very complex characteristics. We need to evolve the US oversight into something that the world will embrace but also to not replace it with something that will be either one actor or one type of actor — for example, all governments — but target a governance network that includes all the stakeholders.
How does that tie in with the power grab at the United Nations’ International Telecommunications Union (ITU)’s power grab?
They want to address some issues that are not being addressed well through the tech sector or many governments around the world. They picked on things like spam and cybersecurity and said, “We could help there.” Where ICANN and the IETF play is the layer of governance of what makes up the Internet — the logical layer. Where the discussion is open is how do we govern what is on the Internet.
Rather than continuing to say not here, and continuing this polarized fight between the multistakeholder and multilateral model, I went to Brazil and met with President [Dilma] Rousseff and asked her, why don’t we address all these issues on all sides. We need a more nuanced approach that ensures we have a home to start addressing what is on the Internet, and at the same time to evolve the current governance networks like ICANN so they also are more legitimate, accepted by the whole world, and more effective at things like addressing US oversight.
So you’re proposing what sort of organization to oversee what’s on the Internet?
It is not an organization. What we’re going to do at a meeting on April 23 in Sao Paulo is propose an interconnected governance ecosystem. We’re creating a highly distributed but also structured way to address the issues by establishing new governance networks. We’ll make sure these are well coordinated at the global, regional, and national levels. It’s like a 21st century governance system for the Internet. Hopefully at Brazil we’ll see the birth of something that evolves what we have today but also allows it to expand.
I’m a US-UK citizen who lives in France. You’re a citizen of Lebanon, Egypt, and the US. We both live what some people are calling a post-national existence. Will the Internet ultimately make national borders look obsolete?
As measured in centuries, yes. The Internet operates in a transnational space. It is challenging our laws, our jurisdictions. It is challenging world to create more international frameworks for legal and cultural matters.
Today, we get certain rights and certain guarantees, but it is the nation-state model that provides them. But the Internet is humbling the nation-state model. It is stressing it and creating new challenges that didn’t exist before. I tell leaders they have two choices. They can build walls and create friction between their own Internet and the rest of the world, or they can engage in the world and participate in these networks.
A Boston Consulting Group study introduced the idea of the e-friction index. It shows you that for a government that resorts to building friction that allow it to protect who it is, there is a cost to that. The study concludes there are up to 2.5 percentage points of GDP [gross domestic product, a measure a country’s total economic activity] that are potentially lost. A frictionless Internet should be our goal.
Are you worried about that countries will wall off their own Internet services into their own “splinternets”?
I’m really worried, because people do not understand the impact of a high-friction Internet. If they will resort to nationalization of their Internet ecosystem, the cost of that will be tremendous, not just economically, but socially. I talked to a professor who put online a senior college course in advanced mathematics. About 36,000 students used it, and the top students are in the age group of 14-15 years old. Imagine all these knowledge lines fractured by policy friction and content friction.
The danger is there. Some people predicting it is inevitable. If we thoughtfully move to new governance networks to address the issues, we may have a chance this year to start a less alarming path to solving that problem today.
Over 4,500 twitter followers, a blogging Ambassador, a gallery online telling UK-Holy See relations in pictures. These are part of the digital of the footprints of our small Embassy (five of us in total): the oldest UK diplomatic representation abroad, @UKinHolySee to name it in tune with the times.
Digital media have become an essential part of our work. In September 2011, our Ambassador, Nigel Baker, wrote about his Credentials Ceremony with Benedict XVI in the first ever blog from any Ambassador to the Holy See. Since then, he has published over 100 blog posts, registering 1,000 visits a month. Most recently, we ran a competition on twitter, for the winners to meet him in person and discuss a range of foreign policy questions of their choice. An “innovative digital diplomacy initiative”, “nice experiment in open diplomacy”, were some of the comments received, encouraging us to continue these experiments. So look out this year for a Google hangout with the Ambassador, twitter Q&As, “Photo of the Week”, and slideshows of UK-Holy See relations on “this day in history”!
Social media break barriers. Our blogs, twitter, and linkedin profiles are a direct window to explain the work we do, why there is an Embassy to the Holy See, and why the Holy See matters. We put ourselves out there to listen, to connect with our audience, and to discover what attracts them. The online platform gives us the chance to engage directly with people’s ideas and concerns.
We work with digital in mind. Values like trust and empowerment underpin our digital thinking. This eases pressures on staff resources, time and deadlines. Forward planning is an essential part of our strategy, as well as the Ambassador’s direct and active engagement, and Deputy Head of Mission’s live tweets.
Our motto remains: “better to handle one social media channel well, rather than many poorly”. As digital communication is only a part of my work, I deliberately focus on the channels which work best with our audience. Showing that even a small Embassy can, by using digital diplomacy, make a difference to its reach. This is what we strive to reflect in our daily work.
Simona Prete
London, UK
Head of Communications at the British Embassy to the Holy See
We set an ambitious challenge at Sprint 13; transform government in just 400 working days. Today Sprint 14 marked the halfway point, and the results are terrific;
four public betas have been used by more than 100,000 people
in Glasgow the Student Loans team are iterating and improving their live service every day
We even saw ministers test working services – Alphas and Betas – in front of a live audience. Mike Beaven and his transformation team have published more about what they’ve done this month, and you can read more detail on the team’s blog.
The strategy is delivery – transforming government by making things, putting them in front of users, improving them and shipping them.
And we’re delivering by focusing on the things that matter: opening up the supply chain, enabling open and agile teams in departments, and putting a stop to big IT projects. We’re focusing on user needs, not government needs.
We’ll have more to share from the event over the next week, but for now a huge thanks to everyone who took part.
There are 200 days to go – let’s keep delivering amazing things.
Last December we asked for your help in selecting the standard formats for documents produced by the government. We published two challenges on the Standards Hub – challenges are problems that open standards might help to solve.
Publishing these on the Standards Hub means that we can be transparent about how we select standards and be open to ideas from the broader standards community, implementers, suppliers and users.
Thanks to you, we have received some great feedback on standard formats for documents.
As well as hearing from you through the Standards Hub, we’ve also been conducting a parallel discovery project involving internal government staff, citizens and businesses. This has helped us to learn more about how people use digital information. So, here’s an update of what we’ve learned from them so far and what will happen next as we work towards reaching a conclusion on the document format challenges.
As part of our parallel discovery project we have:
analysed feedback on using government documents that we received through GOV.UK customer support and transformation projects
interviewed people in government to understand what they use electronic documents for, how they work, and who they share with
carried out a survey of 650 citizens and businesses, to ask them about their experience when using documents produced by the government
What we learnt from people inside government
Our interviews showed us that some of the things we expected to find about users’ behaviour were correct, but also added insight about things we hadn’t considered. So far, we’ve spoken to people in 10 different departments, including staff who work in IT, statistics, finance, legal and human resources teams. We learnt about some very specific user needs relating to the type of information people work with, and have been using this to help develop proposals about which standards we should use.
For example, people working on policies, guidance documents, and publications in general, tend to work with multiple documents at a time; often needing to be able to exchange documents internally and to collate feedback from different sources.
Staff working on government statistics may need to release data to the public and export the data they manipulate within specialised software into more common formats that can be used by any audience.
When it comes to accessing, collating and sharing information, unfortunately these tasks don’t always go smoothly. Occasionally people can’t open files created by colleagues or by people outside government. Sometimes the content gets corrupted and can’t be read properly. Government users are telling us that when they do encounter these problems, they are mostly due to a lack of consistency in the formats used to save or export documents. This means people have to find alternative routes to read these documents or to get the correct formatting; a cause of delays and frustration.
What we learnt from people outside government
The feedback we received from people outside government showed similar results. We received 650 responses to a survey of users who viewed, downloaded or edited government documents available online, including professional users such as business owners, lawyers and accountants.
We asked about problems with viewing, downloading, opening, reading, editing or submitting government documents. In about a third of these cases, respondents said that they had issues sometimes or often.
Where users have problems, they often cite issues with internet connectivity or not being able to read documents properly. For example, sometimes documents won’t open, or some of the text is missing or overlapping. Some of these problems are due to format incompatibility and occasionally users have had to call, email or visit government offices in order to obtain the documents they need in a format they can access.
Access to government information is made easier by an ever-growing amount being made available on web pages rather than in downloadable documents. However, some users currently need downloadable information. We need to provide formats that users can work with.
What happens next
Based on this research and the feedback we received through the Standards Hub, Stephen Kelly, who is leading this work, has now published proposals about which document format standards are being considered for use in government:
If you want to know more about what happens next, you can read about how we select open standards. In the meantime, if you have a view on the proposals, you can give us your feedback through the Standards Hub until 26 February.
The online voter registration system was unveiled at Sprint 14 ahead of its launch in June.
The government today unveiled the new online voter registration system as Greg Clark, Minister for Cities and the Constitution, hosted the first public demonstration of how people will register to vote online.
Presented at the government’s Sprint 14 conference, this is the latest stage in the major project to make the electoral register as secure and convenient as possible. The new online system will go live in June at the same time as Individual Electoral Registration (IER), when the old household registration forms will be phased out and everyone will register individually for the first time.
Under IER, whether registering online or using the paper forms, voters will for the first time be required to provide their date of birth and National Insurance number to minimise the potential for fraud.
Speaking at Sprint 14, Greg Clark said:
As people increasingly grow to expect that they can conduct almost every aspect of their lives online, it is time electoral registration caught up. The new online registration system does just that. At the same time, individual registration will make sure that we have the most accurate register possible. By requiring a date of birth and National Insurance number from every individual, we can make sure that everyone who registers to vote is who they say they are.
The new online registration system is compatible with all platforms, including smartphones and tablets, meaning maximum convenience and minimum fuss when registering. The user friendly design of the site has been tested with electors of all ages and sections of society.
The introduction of online registration is part of the new system of Individual Electoral Registration (IER), which will go live in England and Wales in summer 2014, and in Scotland following the referendum on independence in September 2014. Under the new system, instead of receiving a household registration form, everyone will have to take responsibility to register themselves individually, including providing identification information such as their National Insurance number.
For the first time people will also be able to register online. IER will improve the voting system to make it safer and simpler to register to vote. Preparations for the transition are already well under way, and have remained on budget and on track for the changeover next year. Most people – we now expect around three-quarters – will not have to do anything in order to remain on the electoral register when the changeover takes place, as the current register will be matched against other public databases such as that held by the Department of Work and Pensions. If your records do not match, you will receive a letter asking you to register using the new individual forms.
There are 2 major benefits to the system we are introducing: because we will ask for identifying information such as date of birth and National Insurance number, we can verify that everyone on the register is who they say they are. This is vital as we create a register in which everyone can be fully confident, one which reduces the risk of fraud and duplication, eradicating redundant entries.
The second benefit of IER is that, because we are targeting people individually, we can bring electoral registration into the modern age. Some people, such as those in shared housing and students who move regularly, might not even realise a form has been delivered to their home.
At SPRINT 13 it was rewarding to see where departments are on their journey and to hear our digital leaders talk about the need to deliver with ‘audacious speed’. This is not a phrase one might have expected to hear from an official in the past but it’s indicative of the changes that are taking place right across the civil service.
This message is not going unnoticed, and SPRINT 13 received plenty of positive media coverage including this interview by Charles Arthur, the Guardian’s technology editor, with Minister Francis Maude. You can read all media coverage here.
SPRINT 13 was full of inspirational presentations and talks and this short video preview will give you a bit of insight into the event. We will be tweeting out links from @GDSteam as we release further content in the coming week
