So a couple of years ago I started a program to try to get the rockstar tech and design people to take a year off and work in the one environment that represents pretty much everything they're supposed to hate; we have them work in government. The program is called Code for America, and it's a little bit like a Peace Corps for geeks. We select a few fellows every year and we have them work with city governments. Instead of sending them off into the Third World, we send them into the wilds of City Hall. And there they make great apps, they work with city staffers. But really what they're doing is they're showing what's possible with technology today.
幾年前我發起一項計畫 要超級科技人才和明星設計師 休假一年 在另一個環境工作 這個環境幾乎代表了他們所痛恨的每一樣東西 就是我們的政府 這個計畫叫做美國程式碼 類似和平部隊 不過隊員都是怪咖 我們每年選擇幾個人 要他們替市政府工作 他們沒被送去第三世界 反而進入了市政廳的險惡叢林 他們在那裡做出超讚的應用程式 和市府職員一起工作 但真正重要的是 他們展現出一種可能性 當今科技的可能性
So meet Al. Al is a fire hydrant in the city of Boston. Here it kind of looks like he's looking for a date, but what he's really looking for is for someone to shovel him out when he gets snowed in, because he knows he's not very good at fighting fires when he's covered in four feet of snow. Now how did he come to be looking for help in this very unique manner? We had a team of fellows in Boston last year through the Code for America program. They were there in February, and it snowed a lot in February last year. And they noticed that the city never gets to digging out these fire hydrants. But one fellow in particular, a guy named Erik Michaels-Ober, noticed something else, and that's that citizens are shoveling out sidewalks right in front of these things. So he did what any good developer would do, he wrote an app.
這是艾爾 艾爾是波士頓市裡的消防栓之一 照片裡它看起來有點像想找個伴 但其實它真正想要的是有人能在它被大雪掩埋時 把它挖出來 因為它知道 儘管它有打火英雄的潛力 當被埋在四呎深的雪中時 也無用武之地 那它現在這個德性 要怎麼尋求幫助? 我們去年在波士頓組了一支團隊 是美國程式碼(Code for America)計畫工作的一環 去年二月波士頓大雪紛飛時 這支團隊就在那裡 他們注意到市政府從未採取行動 把這些消防栓挖出來 其中一位隊員 名叫艾瑞克‧麥克歐寶 注意到其他事情 就是市民會剷除人行道上的積雪 把消防栓前面的地面清出來 所以他就做了一位優秀開發員會做的事 他寫了一個應用程式
It's a cute little app where you can adopt a fire hydrant. So you agree to dig it out when it snows. If you do, you get to name it, and he called the first one Al. And if you don't, someone can steal it from you. So it's got cute little game dynamics on it. This is a modest little app. It's probably the smallest of the 21 apps that the fellows wrote last year. But it's doing something that no other government technology does. It's spreading virally.
一個很可愛的程式 讓你可以認養某個消防栓 表示當它被雪埋起來時 你願意把它挖出來 如果你願意 就可以替它取名字 他就把第一個消防栓命名為艾爾 如果你不願意 別人就可以把它偷走 因此這個程式也帶點遊戲的趣味 它是一個很普通的小應用程式 可能是這個團隊 去年寫的21個應用程式中最小的 但是它的功用 卻在其他政府科技中獨樹一格 它像病毒一樣四處傳播
There's a guy in the I.T. department of the City of Honolulu who saw this app and realized that he could use it, not for snow, but to get citizens to adopt tsunami sirens. It's very important that these tsunami sirens work, but people steal the batteries out of them. So he's getting citizens to check on them. And then Seattle decided to use it to get citizens to clear out clogged storm drains. And Chicago just rolled it out to get people to sign up to shovel sidewalks when it snows. So we now know of nine cities that are planning to use this. And this has spread just frictionlessly, organically, naturally.
檀香山市的IT部門有個員工 看到這個應用程式 發現它大有用處,而不只是用在積雪 而是讓市民認養海嘯警報器 這些海嘯警報器非常重要 一定要運作正常 但是有人會偷走機器中的電池 因此他讓市民去查看電池 接著西雅圖決定用這個程式 讓市民清理堵塞的排水孔 然後芝加哥才剛採用這個程式 讓市民登記在下雪時把人行道清出來 因此我們已知有九個城市 正計畫要利用這個應用程式 它暢行無阻地四處傳播 自然而然 充滿生氣
If you know anything about government technology, you know that this isn't how it normally goes. Procuring software usually takes a couple of years. We had a team that worked on a project in Boston last year that took three people about two and a half months. It was a way that parents could figure out which were the right public schools for their kids. We were told afterward that if that had gone through normal channels, it would have taken at least two years and it would have cost about two million dollars. And that's nothing. There is one project in the California court system right now that so far cost taxpayers two billion dollars, and it doesn't work. And there are projects like this at every level of government.
如果你對政府科技有一點概念 就會知道它通常不是這麼運作的 開發軟體通常要花一兩年 我們有個團隊去年在波士頓進行一項計畫 團隊共三人 花了兩個半月的時間 這個計畫是讓家長能找出 哪一所公立學校適合他們的小孩 我們後來得知 如果是依照正常的管道 可能會需要至少兩年 花費大約200萬美金 這還不算什麼 加州法庭系統裡有一項計畫 到目前為止已經讓納稅人 付了20億元 但是它一點用也沒有 這種計畫 充斥在各階層的政府
So an app that takes a couple of days to write and then spreads virally, that's sort of a shot across the bow to the institution of government. It suggests how government could work better -- not more like a private company, as many people think it should. And not even like a tech company, but more like the Internet itself. And that means permissionless, it means open, it means generative. And that's important. But what's more important about this app is that it represents how a new generation is tackling the problem of government -- not as the problem of an ossified institution, but as a problem of collective action. And that's great news, because, it turns out, we're very good at collective action with digital technology.
因此只要花幾天就可以寫出來的應用程式 像病毒一樣四散 對政府機構而言 就像平地一聲雷 它建議政府怎樣才能更有效地運作 不是像許多人認為的 要更像私人企業 或甚至是科技公司 而是要更像網路本身 意思是說不需要經過誰的批准 一個開放 具有生產力的環境 這一點很重要 但更重要的是 這個應用程式 代表了新的世代 如何探究政府問題的解決方式 解決問題不再只靠僵化的體制 而是集體行動 這真是大好消息 因為我們發現 我們其實善於集體行動 有了數位科技就更容易
Now there's a very large community of people that are building the tools that we need to do things together effectively. It's not just Code for America fellows, there are hundreds of people all over the country that are standing and writing civic apps every day in their own communities. They haven't given up on government. They are frustrated as hell with it, but they're not complaining about it, they're fixing it. And these folks know something that we've lost sight of. And that's that when you strip away all your feelings about politics and the line at the DMV and all those other things that we're really mad about, government is, at its core, in the words of Tim O'Reilly, "What we do together that we can't do alone."
現今有一大群人 在製造我們需要的工具 讓合作可以更有效 不只是美國程式碼(Code for America)的成員 全國各地有上百人 不斷地撰寫市民用的應用程式 每天都對自己的社區做出貢獻 他們沒有放棄政府 雖然他們對於政府非常失望 但並沒有抱怨連連 而是設法改正它 這些人知道的某些事情 是我們看不到的 你得要擺脫所有關於政治 和在監理處大排長龍時的情緒 以及所有其他 讓人火冒三丈的事情 那時你就會看到 政府的核心 就像提姆‧奧萊理所說的 是「合眾人之力完成個人力有未逮之事」
Now a lot of people have given up on government. And if you're one of those people, I would ask that you reconsider, because things are changing. Politics is not changing; government is changing. And because government ultimately derives its power from us -- remember "We the people?" -- how we think about it is going to effect how that change happens.
現今有許多人已經對政府不抱希望 如果你是其中之一 我要請你再好好考慮 因為如今時代正在改變 政治沒有改變 但政府正在改頭換面 因為政府 得其權利於人民 記得「民治」的民就是我們嗎? 我們對政府的觀感 將影響改變發生的方式
Now I didn't know very much about government when I started this program. And like a lot of people, I thought government was basically about getting people elected to office. Well after two years, I've come to the conclusion that, especially local government, is about opossums.
我剛發起計畫時 對政府所知不多 和許多人一樣 我以為政府基本上就是選出官員擔任公職 兩年後 我得到結論 政府 尤其是地方政府 就是在管負鼠(註:一種約家貓大小的有袋動物)
This is the call center for the services and information line. It's generally where you will get if you call 311 in your city. If you should ever have the chance to staff your city's call center, as our fellow Scott Silverman did as part of the program -- in fact, they all do that -- you will find that people call government with a very wide range of issues, including having an opossum stuck in your house. So Scott gets this call. He types "Opossum" into this official knowledge base. He doesn't really come up with anything. He starts with animal control. And finally, he says, "Look, can you just open all the doors to your house and play music really loud and see if the thing leaves?" So that worked. So booya for Scott. But that wasn't the end of the opossums.
這是服務資訊專線的客服中心 基本上就是 你打311會接到的地方 如果你有機會 在你住的城市的客服中心工作 就像我們的史考特‧斯維曼參與計畫時所做的一樣 其實他們都有去客服中心 就會發現 大家打電話給政府 原因千奇百怪 包括有負鼠在屋裡時也打 所以史考特接到這通電話 在官方知識庫裡輸入「負鼠」 不過沒有查到什麼 接著他打給動物管理中心 最後他說:「聽著 你去把屋裡的門通通打開 把音樂開大聲一點 看看牠會不會離開?」 這招成功了 有你的 史考特 但負鼠的故事還沒完
Boston doesn't just have a call center. It has an app, a Web and mobile app, called Citizens Connect. Now we didn't write this app. This is the work of the very smart people at the Office of New Urban Mechanics in Boston. So one day -- this is an actual report -- this came in: "Opossum in my trashcan. Can't tell if it's dead. How do I get this removed?" But what happens with Citizens Connect is different. So Scott was speaking person-to-person. But on Citizens Connect everything is public, so everybody can see this. And in this case, a neighbor saw it. And the next report we got said, "I walked over to this location, found the trashcan behind the house. Opossum? Check. Living? Yep. Turned trashcan on its side. Walked home. Goodnight sweet opossum."
波士頓不只有客服中心 還有應用程式 網路和行動應用程式 叫做「市民逗陣來」 這個程式不是我們寫的 這是聰明人的傑作 波士頓新都市技術部的人寫的 跟各位分享一則真實報導 某天有一則訊息: 「我家垃圾桶裡有負鼠 不知道是死的還活的 要怎麼把牠弄出去?」 有了"市民逗陣來" 一切大不相同 史考特的例子 是一對一交談 但"市民逗陣來"上所有的資訊都是公開的 因此每個人都看得見 剛剛那則訊息 有個鄰居看到了 然後我們看到的下一則訊息 「我走到那個地方 在屋子後面找到垃圾桶 有沒有負鼠?有 活的嗎?是的 把垃圾桶放倒 走回家 晚安 小負鼠」
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
Pretty simple. So this is great. This is the digital meeting the physical. And it's also a great example of government getting in on the crowd-sourcing game. But it's also a great example of government as a platform. And I don't mean necessarily a technological definition of platform here. I'm just talking about a platform for people to help themselves and to help others. So one citizen helped another citizen, but government played a key role here. It connected those two people. And it could have connected them with government services if they'd been needed, but a neighbor is a far better and cheaper alternative to government services. When one neighbor helps another, we strengthen our communities. We call animal control, it just costs a lot of money.
很簡單 真了不起 這是數位與真實世界的交會 也是絕佳的例子 說明政府如何善用群眾這項資源 這也是政府發揮平台功能的良好示範 我說的不完全是 技術定義上的平台 我說的只是給人們的舞台 讓大家可以自助也助人 因此 市民甲幫助市民乙 政府也在其中扮演關鍵角色 連接起這兩個人 政府也可以在人們有需要時 引導他們求助於官方服務 但是跟鄰居相比 鄰居又快又便宜 是更好的替代方案 左鄰右舍互相幫助 可以強化社區 打電話給動物中心--只會多人民的納稅錢
Now one of the important things we need to think about government is that it's not the same thing as politics. And most people get that, but they think that one is the input to the other. That our input to the system of government is voting. Now how many times have we elected a political leader -- and sometimes we spend a lot of energy getting a new political leader elected -- and then we sit back and we expect government to reflect our values and meet our needs, and then not that much changes? That's because government is like a vast ocean and politics is the six-inch layer on top. And what's under that is what we call bureaucracy. And we say that word with such contempt. But it's that contempt that keeps this thing that we own and we pay for as something that's working against us, this other thing, and then we're disempowering ourselves.
不過 談到政府時 有件事情要銘記在心 就是政府和政治是兩回事 大部分人都了解這一點 但他們認為一個是雞 一個是蛋 我們對政府體系的參與 就是投票 我們是不是都參與過好多次選舉 有時候花了好大一番功夫 選出一個新的官員 然後我們就坐在那 期望政府反映我們的價值 達成我們的需求 結果改變的卻不多? 因為政府就像個巨大的海洋 政治只是表層六英吋的水 在表層之下 是我們所謂的官僚制度 我們用這個詞時 總帶著輕蔑 但就是這種輕蔑 讓這個為我們所有 我們繳稅供養的東西 一直跟我們作對 變成另一種東西 是我們讓自己變得無力
People seem to think politics is sexy. If we want this institution to work for us, we're going to have to make bureaucracy sexy. Because that's where the real work of government happens. We have to engage with the machinery of government. So that's OccupytheSEC movement has done. Have you seen these guys? It's a group of concerned citizens that have written a very detailed 325-page report that's a response to the SEC's request for comment on the Financial Reform Bill. That's not being politically active, that's being bureaucratically active.
人們似乎覺得政治很性感 如果我們要讓政府為民服務 就得把官僚制度變得性感 因為它是政府實際工作進行的地方 我們必須參與政府機器的運作 這就是佔領華爾街運動所做的 有看到這些人嗎? 他們是一群憂慮的市民 寫了一份非常詳細 長達325頁的報告 回應證券交易委員會所提出 對金融改革法案所做的回應 這並不是積極參予政治 而是積極參予官僚制度
Now for those of us who've given up on government, it's time that we asked ourselves about the world that we want to leave for our children. You have to see the enormous challenges that they're going to face. Do we really think we're going to get where we need to go without fixing the one institution that can act on behalf of all of us? We can't do without government, but we do need it to be more effective. The good news is that technology is making it possible to fundamentally reframe the function of government in a way that can actually scale by strengthening civil society. And there's a generation out there that's grown up on the Internet, and they know that it's not that hard to do things together, you just have to architect the systems the right way.
那些已經放棄政府的人 現在該問問自己 想留給後代子孫怎樣的世界 你必須看到那些巨大的 後代必須面對的挑戰 難道我們真的認為可以達成自己的期待 即使不改善這個唯一的機構 這個能夠代表眾人行動的機構? 沒有政府 無事可成 但政府 必須更有效率 幸好 科技正開啟新的可能性 徹底重整 政府的功能 讓效能確實擴大 方法是強化公民社會 現在的新世代 是跟著網路長大的 他們知道 一同參予並不難 只要有正確的系統架構就行
Now the average age of our fellows is 28, so I am, begrudgingly, almost a generation older than most of them. This is a generation that's grown up taking their voices pretty much for granted. They're not fighting that battle that we're all fighting about who gets to speak; they all get to speak. They can express their opinion on any channel at any time, and they do. So when they're faced with the problem of government, they don't care as much about using their voices. They're using their hands. They're using their hands to write applications that make government work better.
和我同代的人現在平均是28歲 因此雖然我不想承認 但我幾乎已經是上一個世代的人 這個世代 把發聲的權利視為理所當然 他們沒有經歷過我們的奮戰 搶奪發言權 他們都有發言權 可以表達自己的意見 不受管道與時間的限制 他們也在這麼做 所以面對政府的問題 他們並不那麼在乎 發聲的權利 他們用的是雙手 用雙手 撰寫程式 讓政府運作得更順暢
And those applications let us use our hands to make our communities better. That could be shoveling out a hydrant, pulling a weed, turning over a garbage can with an opossum in it. And certainly, we could have been shoveling out those fire hydrants all along, and many people do. But these apps are like little digital reminders that we're not just consumers, and we're not just consumers of government, putting in our taxes and getting back services. We're more than that, we're citizens. And we're not going to fix government until we fix citizenship.
這些應用程式讓我們用自己的雙手 改善我們的社區 可能是把消防栓挖出來 或是除草 或是把裡面有負鼠的垃圾桶放倒 當然 我們一直都有在挖消防栓 許多人都是如此 但是這些應用程式就像小小的數位記號 提醒我們 我們不只是消費者 也不只是政府服務的對象 繳稅以享有服務 不只是這樣 我們是公民 如果我們要改善政府 就要先修正公民精神
So the question I have for all of you here: When it comes to the big, important things that we need to do together, all of us together, are we just going to be a crowd of voices, or are we also going to be a crowd of hands?
因此我留給各位的問題是 當我們面對重大 重要的事情 需要同心協力 群策群力時 我們是一堆只會出一張嘴的鄉民 還是我們也可以 真的有所作為?
Thank you.
謝謝各位
(Applause)
(掌聲)