Government in the Metaverse - Public Works Group Blog

March 14, 2010March 14, 2010

A Brave New Grid – The Decision

Last month I decided to close down the Public Works Group island in Second Life. Over the last 2 1/2 years, the island allowed many people the opportunity to see and explore how virtual worlds could enhance the public works industry. The site also provided a place for people to meet and experience virtual worlds in a relatively safe place – the only exception being the occasional disruption from people intent on causing problems in Second Life.

Summary of accomplishments
One of the first projects launched on the island was the Bridge Maintenance Tour built by James Matney, project manager for TEEX. This build was a great example of how someone could simply set up an educational resource in virtual worlds.
(Link to video of the bridge tour: http://www.publicworksgroup.com/videos/bridgetour1.wmv)

Another prototype of an educational resource was the Code House, a virtual single-family residence allowing for the 3-D visualization of the building code. Since the house was built, there have been at least two other examples of this educational concept constructed in Second Life. One by the Planning Portal in the UK and one by the FAS.

Visualizing The Building Code

View more presentations from Pam Broviak.

Public Works island also hosted the founding of MuniGov – an online community of local government professionals established by Bill Greeves and myself. Meetings for MuniGov were held on the island from about Sept 2008 until the closing of the island. Last year in April, Public Works hosted the trade show and after conference activities for MuniGovCon09 – the first virtual conference for government.

MuniGovCon09 Scrapbook

View more presentations from Pam Broviak.

So What is the Deal?
Those are just a few examples of the many accomplishments and activities supported by Public Works island. So, you might be wondering, if the island was providing benefit why close it down. One of the key reasons is cost. Because public works is a primary function of local government, this field along with government in general must pay close attention to costs. For a virtual world tool to be embraced and used by local government, the cost must be acceptable not only to those managing government but more importantly to taxpayers.

Another reason is accessibility and perception. While firewalls can easily be configured to allow access to a virtual world, some IT government professionals are hesitant to create these openings due to security concerns. This is not helped by the fact that mainstream media has portrayed Second Life as just a crazy game with people running wild leading those not familiar with the technology to disregard it as a serious business tool.

Last year, members of the Emerging Leaders Group for APWA researched the use of Second Life as a viable tool. While they saw many benefits of the technology, they shared in the concerns expressed above. (Here is a link to the group’s report, Communicating with APWA Membership, New Media Evaluation.)

While I was aware of these issues when setting up Public Works island, I did think that eventually Linden Lab, the creators of Second Life, would see the value in offering solutions to local government and would end up addressing cost, perception, and accessibility issues. However, based on their actions and decision over the last 2 1/2 years, I am no longer convinced they will move in this direction.

Onward Ho!
While I still see value in exploring and using Second Life, I realize that local government needs a different solution – one that costs much less and that can be better controlled. Fortunately there is such a solution. Opensim software has now been developed to a point where local government can launch a stable and cost effective virtual world using this alternative. The other benefit of OpenSim is the use model of this choice parallels the existing Web hosting model already implemented by many local governments.

So the Public Works Group virtual world initiative has moved on to create GovGrid – a government-focused virtual world. This initial world or grid now consists of four islands that initially will host the following uses:

Orientation/Tutorials/Help Resources

Sandbox where members can learn to build virtual objects

MuniGov outpost

Research and Development

Other government agencies, groups, and vendors working with government can set up space in this grid knowing that there will be a government focused community. The OpenSim solution also allows for control features designed to meet security and backup concerns.

So What’s Next?
If local government is going to use this technology there needs to be some type of guidance provided to help agencies understand and set up their own virtual space. I thought by sharing my efforts in establishing GovGrid, I might be able to help others who make the decision to move down this path. So instead of setting up everything and then inviting people in, I am inviting everyone to watch as I begin establishing the grid and creating the content. I will also continue to blog about the progress of GovGrid through future posts.

You can register at the GovGrid Web site at http://www.govgrid.org which should then allow you to access the registration for creating an avatar on GovGrid. Then follow the instructions for accessing the new grid. Remember things are still under construction, but feel free to wander around, check things out, and ask questions. And if you work for government or for a company or group that does business with government, you are invited to eventually become part of GovGrid by setting up your own virtual space on the Grid.

See you in GovGrid!

February 24, 2010

Measuring Success of Virtual Spaces

In order to reach a valid conclusion about the success of a virtual space, we need to understand the reason that space was created. If someone knew nothing about baseball and visited the large barren, snow-covered baseball complex near me that no one has entered for the last 7 months because it has barricades across the drive, they would say what a waste of space. Why would anyone spend millions of dollars to create that? But isn’t this the same conclusion people are making when they decide sites in Second Life and other virtual worlds have failed because they don’t see people there 24/7?

Instead of analyzing success based on the site’s ability to perform its function, they are basing success on the same method used to analyze Web site performance – by site visits and page views. But this is not the correct method by which to measure success of a virtual world.

It is important to understand that virtual spaces are not just static Web pages; instead, just like the baseball park, they are spaces built to perform some function. We have a local government group, MuniGov, that meets on a regular basis in the virtual world of Second Life. If you visited our site, there would most likely be a group of people there only during our meeting times. The site also serves as an area of exploration in the use of this technology. Has the site been successful? A quick random visit will not give you this information. Instead you would have to attend a meeting and talk to members. By doing so you would find that our site has allowed many people to learn and better understand this technology. It has also allowed us to share ideas and practices for improving our job performance. And several of our members have been awarded grants to pursue research and learning of government-related issues using this technology. These efforts enhance and improve delivery of real government services. Could this be considered a successful use of the space? Yes, and this is only one example from our group’s use of virtual worlds.

The other challenge in establishing a true measurement of success in virtual worlds is developing a good general view of 3D communities. And to achieve this understanding, people must adjust their perception of spaces. This is not easy because it takes more than one visit into a virtual world to allow this to happen. I was reminded of this recently when I talked to someone who had only visited Second Life for a few hours. This beginning experience is not intuitive or comfortable. It’s easy for people to decide they don’t like this feeling and then never return. But most worthwhile, life-changing efforts begin the same way. And we only reap the benefits if we have motivation to push past the discomfort. In the end, only people who have made the transition and become familiar with these spaces can really understand what is happening there.

The bottom line is being able to analyze the success of a virtual space is more complex than showing up, seeing no one around, and deciding the site is a failure. The longer I spend time in virtual spaces, the more analogies I see to our offline world. Which makes sense; both are built and used by the same people. But because of this, we need to quit relying on articles and blog posts to analyze our 3D worlds. Instead, we should follow our offline examples and develop comprehensive virtual plans and studies modeled after the same process of analysis we have for community plans. It’s how we’ve been measuring for years the importance and vibrancy of places where we live and hang out so why aren’t we using this approach for 3D places?

January 12, 2010August 8, 2010

Smart Tagging Engineering Plans

The city of Manor, Texas, has been successfully using QR codes for some time to convey information to citizens. And a while ago, I blogged about Microsoft tags – another method of conveying information through the use of a code and mobile reader. The Microsoft Tags have intrigued me because if you have time, you can create a code that can be “hidden” in your logo or another image.

Unfortunately I was so excited about trying out the tags that I didn’t take the time to make a custom one. So I can’t demo how cool that would be, but I can show you an engineering-based use for these smart tags. Below is the cover sheet of the most recent set of engineering plans I prepared for a small sewer job we are constructing in my city. On the cover we placed two codes. One is displayed near the JULIE or 811 One-Call logo – by running the reader on your mobile and focusing it on this tag, your mobile is activated to call for a utility locate. Before actually calling, the number is displayed, and you are asked if you want to call.

If someone runs the reader on their mobile and focuses on the other tag, the mobile device is routed to the IDOT Website page displaying the State of Illinois Standard Specifications for Road and Bridge Construction. These are just two easy demonstrations of how these codes can be used in engineering and construction. I am sure with time, more ideas will arise. Feel free to comment below with your own ideas.

January 8, 2010August 8, 2010

Sustainable Open Government

The cry for open government is rising and elected officials are delivering. But in the zeal to throw open the doors to the records vault, no one bothered to fully understand the impact except for those of us who actually work for government. But no one wants to hear from us. Politicians only care about pleasing voters (particularly when their records are not subject to these laws), and citizens think we are only expressing concern because we have something to hide.

The whole thing reminds me of stories about buried treasure. A group of people hear tales of buried treasure; spend a lot of time and effort tracking down its location; then finally there is that climatic moment of uncovering the treasure box and throwing open the lid to find…nothing. The moral of the tale for me was always don’t waste a lot of time and effort on nothing. Course you are always going to have some people say that you have to keep trying because there is always that one chance you might find something worthwhile.

So how much money and time do we as a country want to spend hunting down tales of treasure? Because FOIA laws like the one that recently went into effect in Illinois have a significant cost potential. And that cost is not only for the government.

Soon after the new year started I heard of one city that got a FOIA request asking for copies of all invoices and contracts for the last 12 years. First of all, in Illinois, governments only have to keep invoices for 7 years. But even finding and copying all invoices and contracts for the past 7 years can take up a lot of staff time. This small community will most likely have to shut down all city services to comply with this request because it has to be delivered in 5 days. So the citizens of that community go without services that week. Another story reported that Lakewood, Wash., spent $16,000 last year complying with the requests from one person.

At this point, if a terrorist wants to disable government, they don’t have to bomb a government building – all they have to do is continually file FOIA requests. And although that is a tongue in cheek comment, the potential for shutting down government to deal with these requests is real. But because citizens do have a right to public records, and elected officials are going to make sure laws are in place to protect that right, someone has to figure out a way to comply without shutting down core services. We have to make open government sustainable because it most definitely is not under the current structure.

Some have suggested hiring additional people whose only job is to deliver information. But this is going to cost a lot of money, and no one wants to pay higher taxes for more government personnel. Many have suggested putting the information in digital format and offering it online. This is certainly a sustainable method of delivery. If we had everything available immediately and online, little to no staff time is required to collect and distribute information. The underlying problem with this is getting it in digital format or if it already is in digital format, such as e-mail, getting it collected and distributed. Those steps still take up a lot of staff time.

So what is the answer? I believe a sustainable open government will require those of us working in government to make a significant change in our workflows, our policies and standards, and the tools we use. Let’s take e-mail to demonstrate my point. In order for e-mail to be easily made available to the public, there must be an “open government e-mail tool” designed to automatically take each e-mail and the related response and post it somewhere accessible to the public. It would also be nice if it maintained some structure in the flow so conversations can be easily followed. This could be expanded to include all documents received and/or generated: make all vendors send digital invoices; change word processing tools and mobile inspection apps to automatically save or post online, etc.

A lot of people working for government might initially be shocked about such a transparent suggestion. But if you work for government and think about it, you start to realize that there really is nothing there so who cares if it is out there for anyone to see? The key is in realizing up front everyone can see what is received and generated in our offices, and then finding a way to automatically collect and post these documents to a public site online. We will also need to rely on companies making software for government to incorporate these open government methods into their tools.

Two other steps are necessary to ensure a sustainable open government. One is to officially designate exactly what type of information must be collected and made available (such as do we tape phone calls – how far are we to go?). Then develop an open government template for online sites that integrate with the open government tools. And the other step is to integrate a local government/civic education into our high school curriculum. Because in the end all of this will mean nothing and will only lead to further problems if no one really understands the treasure they find.

January 3, 2010August 8, 2010

Microsoft Tags Go Live

Back in May I was hoping someone would make a business card that could cause a computer device to go directly to a Website. While this technology might have been possible back then, it did not seem readily available to a regular person like me. But no more! Microsoft has come to the rescue creating a cool little tag that transmits information, including Website URLs, directly to a mobile device.

So how does this very awesome and incredibly cool Microsoft tag work? Well you merely have to register on their site, create a tag, tell it what you want it to convey, then render an image file. This file can then be placed anywhere it fits (or anywhere you can legally place it). I am going to put some on business cards, but I noticed that even an image of the tag on a computer screen triggers a mobile device into action. Here is the one I made to trigger a visit to my main Website. If you have a mobile device with a camera, go ahead and download the app at http://gettag.mobi/, then start up the app, and point your camera at the image below. Then shoot on over to the Microsoft Tag site to make your own! (And a huge thanks to Microsoft!!!)

January 3, 2010

Virtual Cemetery Update

While exploring the virtual grid for government-related sites, I stumbled across a virtual graveyard on the Prince Edward County (Ontario) island in Second Life. And while Second Life has several interesting cemeteries this one caught my attention because the builders had loaded some of the stones with historic narratives from the Prince Edward County area. Thinking about my previous cemetery post, I decided to load a quick update on the topic. Here is a photo of me standing near one of these stones as I listen to the tale of shipwrecks and dangerous vortexes.

Pam Renoir at Prince Edward County Graveyard

The site was developed by the Virtual World Design Centre of Loyalist College. The Centre’s managing director, Kenny Hubble (Second Life name), was not online during my visit, or I would have asked him more about the build. If you are interested in using virtual technologies for teaching or tourism or even virtual cemeteries, I would highly recommend contacting Kenny in Second Life. Or if you want to just check out the cemetery for yourself, you can click this SLURL (you will need a free Second Life account to visit):
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Prince%20Edward%20County/179/161/33