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Reflections from a tour of public sector innovation 'in the wild' Earlier this year iESE hosted Nick Scott, Executive Director of Open Government and Innovation in New Brunswick, Canada and Dr Jules Maitland, founder of All In, a user-experience research and service design firm in New Brunswick, Canada. Here, in an letter to iESE, Nick and Jules reflect on their visit Dear iESE,
As practitioners and facilitators of public sector innovation, it's magical to see the theories and frameworks that underpin your work unfolding in the real world. That's the feeling we were left with after visiting the UK before the COVID-19 lockdown. We're writing this letter to thank you for sharing your time, experience and passion for making your communities better places to live, work and play.
We want you to know how special you are, so we thought we'd share some 'aha' moments we had when listening to your stories of innovation 'in the wild'. We've already shared many of these with colleagues to inspire and support their efforts to help New Brunswick thrive.
You lead from the future by exploring the adjacent possible By going where few public organisations would dare, your teams have created public value most could only dream of. As author Stephen Johnson described it: “The adjacent possible is a kind of shadow future, hovering on the edges of the present state of things, a map of all the ways in which the present can reinvent itself”.1 Discovery requires a kind of leadership that gets through the uncertainty and hardships of ‘losing sight of shore’. We observed this leadership in several projects. Bracknell Forest Council, for example, was a first mover in the e-card world with its e+ Card. The multi-use card gives holders access to libraries, leisure and the ability to pay for public transport services. The resulting uses and benefits of having implemented the card are examples of realising the “adjacent possible”. Beyond the obvious uses of
the card, Bracknell Forest has demonstrated a number of less obvious uses. The ability to allow vetted users to access the library after hours, variable pricing on parking and incentivising desirable behaviours, such as exercise or recycling, are all made possible by adoption of the e+ Card; adjacent possibilities. As Stephen Johnson noted: “The strange and beautiful truth about the adjacent possible is that its boundaries grow as you explore them. Each new combination opens up the possibility of other new combinations”. Bracknell Forest e+ Card is an example of the mindset and behaviours needed to explore the boundaries of possibility. Another example is the MySense initiative. Inspired by first-hand experience of watching a loved one’s independence decline alongside their health, MySense is a disruptive innovation in the healthcare space. It provides healthcare providers with information previously unavailable to them and the MySense team have recognised the need to work with healthcare providers to understand the implications of this new information for their clinical decision making, care planning and workflow.
1. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703989304575503730101860838
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About Nick and Jules DR JULES MAITLAND Dr. Jules Maitland is a people person who can also speak geek. Her career started in nursing before going on to study software engineering and gaining a doctorate for her work in digital health. After working in industry as Director of User Experience for several years, she joined NouLAB, New Brunswick's Public and Social Innovation Lab, as Human-Centred Design Lead. She founded All In in January 2020 to help organisations work with the people they serve to create effective humancentred services, programs, and products NICK SCOTT Since 2017 Nick Scott has been leading transformational change at the Government of New Brunswick in his role as Executive Director of Open Government and Innovation. In this role he established an Innovation Team, collaborative workspace and a public innovation framework, facilitating initiatives addressing mobility, literacy, second language acquisition, natural resource development, municipal reform and child protection. Previously in his role as Executive Director of the NB Social Policy Research Network, Nick launched the GovMaker Conference to explore the theory and practice of public innovation and open government, cofounded NouLAB - a public and social innovation lab facilitating collaborative problem-solving across sectors - and co-chaired the 2016 Canadian Open Data Summit.
The organisations Nick and Jules visited with iESE on their tour of the UK: • Lewes and Eastbourne Council: A two-day visit about the joint transformation programme, including a Seeing Is Believing Tour • London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea: Waste management department and low-code in partnership with Netcall • Innovation club meeting featuring Durham Constabulary and the Isle of Wight Council • Workshop session with MindOfMyOwn, MySense, MHCLG, CareCubed, Cultural Compass • The MET police: Exploration of their One Met Model and beyond • Bracknell Forest Council: SmartCard project and Town Centre redevelopment • Assurity Systems
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