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THE WICKED NOTES # 2 14 January 2013, Issue 2

Unlocking the Black Box: How does transparency work?

EXPEDITION TRANSPARENCY

13 DECEMBER, OPEN CO-OP, AMSTERDAMIt is a cold December evening when we embark on our second Wicked adventure. The Bite-Me catering had worked hard to welcome us with hot, spicy drinks and prepared delicious food, presented in transparent and nontransparent wrappers. Our 40-member crew arrived just in time or rushed in fashionably late, but around 7 PM we were ready to kick-off the second episode of the Wicked Series. This time on transparency!

IS TRANSPARENCY A WICKED STRATEGY?In the session on Greece transparency was mentioned as a potential innovative strategy. The assumption was that by making (the movements of) information more transparent and accessible, we might be able to move away from the dynamics of wicked problems. One group for example developed ‘Greeky Leaks’, an initiative to share and exchange skills and knowledge on local coping strategies. Anno 2013 there is indeed a clear trend to more openness.

K e n n i s l a n d & H i v o sE M A I LMK@KL.NL T E L E P H O N E0 2 0 - 5 7 5 6 7 2 0

Expedition Log by Marlieke Kieboom

Photographer: Aukje Dekker

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The usual notion is that openness will create better governance, more accountability, more responsibility, and overall better outcomes in the context of wicked problems. But how does transparency as a strategy actually work in practice?

INTRODUCING WICKED PROBLEMSSome of our expedition members were new to the Wicked Series, others had attended the first session. To refresh our memory, Chris Sigaloff [Kennisland] took us back to our first session about Greece, where we got completely entangled in the wicked problem of ‘ the economic crisis’. We attempted to distil innovative strategies from new, small, community-based initiatives that are being hatched in the societal margins. Chris first highlighted a few elements of wicked problems by paraphrasing a thought provoking article written by Jay Rosen, which can be read here.

In hindsight the exercise on Greece brought us valuable insights on how to approach wicked problems as an ongoing, agile process. A few elements may be highlighted here.

First, it is clear that one single person can never solve a wicked problem. You need a horizontal network that contains different types of knowledge, and people that want to work together over an urgent issue. The

desired knowledge about the wicked problem has to be knowledge from different perspectives and experiences. It is not about who gets it right, but about sharing experiences about coping with such problems. It is about tapping into this distributed knowledge and developing new stories.

Second, we always need to look at the underlying patterns and values that wire wicked problems. You can find wicked problems pretty much in every sphere of society. But we need to understand why and where we get stuck. Where can we discover similarities in the patterns and start understanding the underlying values? Only then can we get unstuck.

Thirdly, in such a messy process it is useful to use an approach that is characterized by agility. We need to develop strategies that are able to continuously jump back and forth from a global understanding that is constantly in revision, to local solutions that are constantly being tested. This approach suits wicked problems better than the ordinary, linear strategies where people typically gather information, outline the options, analyse the costs, pick the best option, hire the experts, and implement the solution. Agile development is learned behaviour for coping with wicked problems [Jay Rosen].

Fourth, we need to learn from the outgrowth of wicked problems, recognize the smoke signals and start connecting the dots

“Openness is not the same as

transparency”

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to discover which stories are successful and help us cope with wicked problems. In doing so we cannot forget that the world looks different to people who hold different interests. But we can only move forward if we start understanding and recognizing these stakes and move beyond them to learn from the new, inspiring, innovative initiatives that sprout from the dark matter in the societal margins.

WICKED TOUR GUIDESWe took the first hurdle by learning more about transparency as a wicked issue. This time we had three tour guides on board to explore the topic. Paul Keller [Kennisland], expert on copyright and open access, turned our minds upside down by showing us the many faces of transparency and asking the audience poignant, almost philosophical questions. For example: If you have the right to access information, does it mean you actually therefore need to access this information? Paul explained with several examples that data might look objective, but is often not used in an objective way by different parties. He points out that behind the transparency issue there are many hidden power structures. Some infrastructures might look very transparent and open, but are intended to keep people from achieving their goals (like obtaining access to the European Union). Furthermore he claims that ‘transparency leads to objectification of information’ is a stubborn myth, just as ‘privatization supposedly leads to consumers making the best choices’. According to Paul, privacy should be seen as a property of information. With technological progress systems become more transparent. This is something that is largely out of control of society.

The other side of transparency is privacy. The technology is actually there to make every piece of information visible to us. When this serves us well we tend to frame this as transparency. When it is against our interests we call it a privacy violation. In reality these are two sides of the same coin: the public official who has to surrender his expense receipts feels violated in his or her privacy, while the public demands access in the name of transparency.

An old story creeps up, and the numbers 1984 blatantly flash in our faces from the double transparent screen in the room. They remind us all of the Big Brother’s tale of how an abundance of open information intrudes into very private spheres of our lives to exercise control (check this Pizza-call!) Paul closes his story by stating that complete transparency is often not desirable, but we better acknowledge that opening up data is an ongoing, increasing process. We should therefore continuously ask ourselves what are the benefits to be in control of information? And consequently, what are the benefits of freedom of information? In this way we realize and recognize that data is politicized, and that we better deal with it as a given, instead of ignoring this fact.

Fieke Jansen [Hivos], expert on citizen agency in relation to ICT, media and technology continues the story of Paul and makes it more complex by showing us examples from Hivos’ practice on election monitoring initiatives in East Africa. Fieke made it clear that initiatives that were intended to promote transparent structures, and therefore improve democratic elections, were not always making the most important data available. For example only making a mobile reporting system available on the day of elections, might make the elections look fair to outsiders. But in real life, the rigging and manipulating of votes happens much before the actual elections take place. Fieke’s examples also showed that the more data was available, the more vulnerable the system became for malign purposes like data manipulation. By making some data more transparent, other data gets covered up, consequently making the situation more nontransparent and prone to abuse.

Nishant Shah [Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, India] was unfortunately unable to attend our session due to (very nontransparent) bureaucratic procedures.

Realize and recognize that

data is politicized

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However thanks to our high-tech society he was able to share an audio note with us (listen here), in which he explained the various detours his visa had made. Nishant’s story made us wonder who actually needs to become transparent in order for a (non)transparent system to be created and operated? In his story he states that it is not enough to just build systems of transparency. It is important to ask ourselves how these systems are deployed, and who are the people using them, and for what purpose? His story matched our theme perfectly, and we listened to his contemplations on transparency quietly before starting our group assignments. Want to listen more to his reflections? Here is a second, not-yet-published audio-note in which he takes a different angle on the story of Gujarat (listen here).

FOUR TIMES TRANSPARENCYSo how does transparency work in our own practice? We were presented with four real-life wicked problems by actual problem holders who could provide more information on the matter right on the spot. The cases were presented by a doctor (health care costs), a project manager (stimulating innovative education systems), a public servant (local governance and civic agency) and a knowledge policy officer (ICT tools and election transparency). The groups were then asked to figure out: who are the stakeholders in this case, why is it

relevant that more transparency is achieved, and what exactly should be made more transparent? Second they had to find out what would happen if this case would actually gain more transparency. What is actually needed to create a more transparent infrastructure in this case? And what are the outcomes for different stakeholders when the case becomes more transparent? Third and last, the groups presented the outcomes to each other. The insights were very inspiring and brought us some interesting, new clues, which are summarized below.

HEALTH CARE: GAINS AND LOSSESThe group that delved into the costs of treating the Pompe disease came to know that raising transparency might have its economic gains: by unlocking scientific knowledge to the public and by pricing medical interventions competition maybe higher and lead to faster and cheaper solutions. But this dynamic creates an ethical dilemma: who decides which price a society is willing to pay to save one life? Information is now often locked up in medical journals and dark deals in patented medical industries. The health care group thought it would be a good idea to open up this type of information. At the same time an overall opening up of the information in health care brings infringements of privacy. Personal information about a  patient could easily lead to the judgements about  one’s  

Three steps in the assignment:

To ThinkTo Act

To React

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lifestyle. Does one deserve a treatment if one lives an unhealthy lifestyle?

BLACK BOX IT!How to prevent an innovative project with a bottom-up, co-creative approach to evolve into a pinball game of interests and hidden agendas of all parties involved? The problem holders of an education project were faced with this real time problem in their work practice. The two working groups came with coherent, valuable insights. One insight was the circular paradox of co-creation. For a project to start, you need very clear goals, because vagueness will never get you the finances or the commitment of parties to start it. But the co-creation process asks for mere time and patience to really start understanding and sharing each other’s vision, language, culture, ideas and hidden agendas. Not only at the beginning, but continuously throughout the whole working process. This means that you can actually only define the clear goals, and what to be transparent about, at the very end, when you have completed your project.

This is where the usual politics (which require constant accountability) and the dynamics of co-creation (which require agility) collide. The first strategy that could counteract this dynamic is to create space for the transparency of intention: what to share with whom, at what moment? This means trust and openness is needed to be built at various stages throughout the process of co-creation.

A second strategy is the transparency of the process: it is important to unravel the tame problems from the wicked problems in one context and have the parties involved recognize what they are good at solving: tame or wicked problems? For example, ministries are good at solving tame problems, and so-called labs are better at working with wicked problems. And the third, last strategy is the transparency of objectives: what do the different parties want to get out of the process? This strategy is important to define what should be put into the black box (the lab), and have the parties accept that it cannot be defined what will come out of the black box once it is put in there.

TRANSPARENT VERSUS OPAQUE The last two groups also showed interesting findings. One group looked at what transparency could do for citizens and local government in a particular neighbourhood. What happens when

the government relaxes the formal rules in order to collectively run a community building and promote entrepreneurship by co-owners? The group found out that in this particular case, the frequency of (informal) activities increased if the government exercised less control, demanded less transparency and gave more trust. But a demand by the government for more control and transparency actually lowered trust among the citizens with a particular interest (to make money, to undertake accepted economic activities) and increased unrest. The conclusion was drawn that if things seem to work reasonably well, then do not make them more transparent!

The other group dived into the wicked question whether more transparency would lead to higher levels of democracy. They came to conclude that a transparent election system can work both ways. Although the system might not work as intended, it can create the illusion of transparency, which might generate more trust in the democracy at stake. This dynamic can have positive spill over effects, for example a stable economy, less political unrest. But it can also reveal severe holes in the system and show that there are real problems to be dealt with while there is no proper political system in place to actually deal with the problems. They concluded that providing people with a tool does not automatically lead to more transparency, but it might lead to just knowing more information. It is then up to the people whether they can turn the information into action, which is not always a given in every country, given their political situations.

CROWDSOURCING THE WISE ELDERSOur wicked quest continues! In our third and last session we will unpack the wicked problems of our aging population and learn from innovative practices that tap into the potential and wisdom of the elders. What can we learn from these initiatives and what innovative strategies can we think of to address their challenges?