Toying with new ideas

The city could post a problem that the government is trying to solve and ask people to do the same, see what they come up with and let the community of involved people do the selection of best ideas for you. It would increase the number of smart brains involved in the problem solving and would again reduce the risk of group think.

The principle behind this is “crowdsourcing”. It's the Internet's equivalent of the classical call in a theatre: “Is there a doctor?” when someone is unwell. Wikipedia, the world’s biggest encyclopedia, is built on this principle. Set up by volunteers, it created an infrastructure where anyone can contribute.

As the saying goes, nobody knows as much as everybody. It's very likely that the best solution for a government problem is somewhere out there, you just have to involve the right people. The richer the network a government can tap into, the bigger the chance that it will find someone with a very elegant, smart, simple solution.

And what can we learn from Apple? Well, just take a look at the iPod. See how beautiful its design is, the smooth curves, the thinness, the wonderful look and feel of it. Pure eye candy.

However, you shouldn't underestimate what a powerful, complex machine it is. Yet it's extremely easy to operate. It just works. And the secret behind it is: no matter how great you or your ideas look, it's worth nothing if it doesn't work properly every day.

Apple has always had by far the brightest ideas of the computer industry, but in the late 90s it failed to deliver those ideas to the customer in a high quality way. Luckily the company learned and put itself back on the right track. It learned the hard way that the proof of the pudding is in the execution. That's 90 per cent of the work, both in business and in government.

Now I've met many people in many countries that work in government. All of them love to work for the public good, however many of them are frustrated about the organisations they work in. Especially the inability of their organisation to innovate and pick up new ideas is very frustrating.

I often find that it's the most creative, entrepreneurial and inspiring people that leave the administration. They are tired of fighting the bureaucracy, they feel undervalued and have the choice to step out. They often end up in consultancy jobs or think tanks, still working on public issues.

That's partly good, because we don't loose their minds. But it's a shame too, because we really need very good people inside government to solve issues like global warming, worldwide security problems, energy dependency and maybe even a few national problems as well.

We can redesign our public sector organisations so that they are open for innovation and know how to embrace inspired ideas of new possibilities. Learning from methods that work successfully in business is a great starting point. Those public organisations that succeed will make working for government much more fun, and that's the best way to attract and retain talent.