Developing a Radical Vision of Future Government
Nesta is an Innovation Foundation. In the context of government challenges including waning public trust, Nesta launched a call for submissions for a publication that would be about perspectives on how government might change by 2030. I led a team to create a submission and accompanying video pulling together the views of public servants from around the world.
Task
In 2019 Nesta launched a call for submissions on the theme of Radical Visions of Future Government, this would culminate in an event, and with a publication with provocations on how government may change, or need to change by 2030. As part of the One Team Gov movement I worked with a small team to pitch an idea which was selected for the publication.
Our proposal focused on harnessing the power of our global network to understand diverse perspectives about the future of government, the challenges faced and the hopes for government reform. I was responsible for running the research project to enable this in a short timeframe of 2 months.
Action
Using One Team Gov channels such as Twitter and Medium, I devised a brief that could be shared amongst the community asking for video, audio or written submissions for our research work. As part of this I included a consent form that others could use to go and generate video interviews.
I called on members of the network from around the world to support them to understand the work and how to participate, as well as supporting them to spread the word about the work.
I used events like the weekly One Team Gov community meetup to crowdsource ideas, and select the areas of questioning that our research would focus on. I used OTG Wellbeing Camp and Bureaucracy Hack to interview and video participants.
I generated annotated transcripts of submissions and used Trello to categorise these. I also ran a workshop with members of the UK community to sensemake and storyboard a video to support the submission. I worked with a video editor to produce 2 videos that formed part of the 1500 word submission, which was co-written with two central government colleagues. Finally, I worked with Nesta’s team in the design of the publication.
Result
We received 4 audio and 31 video submissions from community members in 8 countries across and including community groups like One Team Gov Australia and Tasmania, New Zealand, Finland, Canada, Wales, Scotland and the UK.
Our work was endorced by a central government permanent secreatry who appeared alongside participants in the video.
The publication was launched by Nesta in September 2019 to positive response.
Sam Villis 