The Dream, the Fantasy: Government More Like the Alphabet Google Thing
September 27, 2015
I read in my dead tree edition of the New York Times “”Making Government Work More Like Google.” A version of this story is / was online at “A Better Government, One Tweak at a Time.” Gentle reader, you may have to pay to access this chunk of “real” journalistic content.
The premise of the write up is that Google knows how to do stuff. The lead example is the Google.com splash page: Clean, simple, ad free, etc.
The article snags the notion that I think emerged from the Ivory Tower at the University of Chicago. The idea manifested money in the form of the best selling “Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness.”
Make little changes, and big things can happen. The notion is, according to my ageing memory, part of the Butterfly Effect. Yes, your favorite mathematician Edward Lorenz.
The core idea is that government needs to do more tweaking and nudging. Big things will happen. Maybe not what the whiz kids expect, but something great will definitely, eventually happen, maybe.
Here’s the passage which warranted a big circle:
the big idea is simpler: It’s not about knowing how to do better, it’s about testing what works. Experiment relentlessly, keep what works, and discard what doesn’t. Following this recipe may yield a government that’s just like Google: clear, user-friendly and unflinchingly effective.
A few observations:
- Alphabet Google is another minor tweak at what used to be Google. Tweak? Yep, no big deal. Focus the legal matters at the new unit and move forward with Loon balloons and solving death. Working well I assume.
- The tweaks at Google have not resulted in shifting the firm’s revenues from almost complete dependence on online advertising. Sure, the business model is still pumping out cash, but after 15 years of tweaks, maybe there could be a couple of other revenue streams?
- Lots of tweaks in the social media space at the Alphabet Google thing have done little to make Google a challenger to Facebook. Facebook is doing its same old, same old. But if the tweak thing worked, wouldn’t Orkut have blasted Facebook out of the water as it improved with each nudge of Google’s social media offerings?
Stepping back, the idea that the US government, or any government for that matter, can continuously “improve” like Alphabet Google is interesting.
I assume that the momentum of centuries old bureaucracies will respond to a nudge. The idea is similar to that of pushing an asteroid heading toward earth so the ice ball does not obliterate a chunk of real estate. Great idea.
I am confident that a government working like Google can make this work. Project Runway comes to the procurement procedures of the US, French, or Brazilian government.
Nudge away. A-B test a lot. Rinse. Repeat. Tweak. Etc.
Stephen E Arnold, September 27, 2015
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