Does Government Need a Prediction Market for Policy Options?

by Nick Charney

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I'd like to spend some time exploring whether or not the idea of a Policy Analysis Market (or if you prefer a prediction market for policy options) has legs in the broader public policy context. In so doing, I will be drawing on a handful of papers I've read on the subject, citing them heavily, reserving most of my own commentary for the end. Each of the quotations are linked to the source and I've provided the references as a laundry list of recommended reading at the end of this piece.

What is a prediction market?

"Prediction markets are forums for trading contracts that yield payments based on the outcome of uncertain events. There is mounting evidence that such markets can help to produce forecasts of event outcomes with a lower prediction error than conventional methods... Several researchers emphasize the potential of prediction markets to improve decisions. The range of applications is virtually limitless – from helping businesses make better investment decisions to helping governments make better fiscal and monetary policy decisions ... These markets could assist private firms and public institutions in managing economic risks, such as declines in consumer demand. and social risks, such as flu outbreaks and environmental disasters, more efficiently." (The Promise of Prediction Markets)

"The theories underlying [Policy Analysis Market] and other prediction markets are the Efficient Capital Markets Hypothesis (ECMH) and the Hayek hypotheses. These hypotheses explain how information is aggregated such that market prices provide accurate estimates on the likelihood of future outcomes." (Using Prediction Markets to Enhance US Intelligence Capabilities)

"The power of prediction markets derives from the fact that they provide incentives for truthful revelation, they provide incentives for research and information discovery, and the market provides an algorithm for aggregating opinions." (Prediction Markets)

How do prediction markets work?

"Trading in prediction markets is similar to any haggling kind of transaction: buyers and sellers exchange offers and counter-offers until they agree on a price. In a double auction, the most common mechanism used to clear prediction markets, buyers submit bids and sellers submit asking prices, which are ranked from highest to lowest to generate supply and demand curves. Trades are executed when two prices match (i.e., bid-ask spread is zero or supply intersects demand) ... [and] payoffs are determined by the occurrence (or lack thereof) of outcomes." (Using Prediction Markets to Enhance US Intelligence Capabilities)

Generally speaking:

"Market prices for contracts can be interpreted as probabilities of an expected outcome ... [for] example, a contract closing at 67 cents would mean there is a 67 percent probability." (Using Prediction Markets to Enhance US Intelligence Capabilities)

What purpose do prediction markets serve?

"Numerous studies have suggested, however, that markets do lead to predictions that are more accurate than traditional forecasting techniques, including those that rely on expert opinions. (Using Prediction Markets to Enhance US Intelligence Capabilities)"

"Exploring the possibilities of prediction markets further, others have proposed that these markets should serve as mechanisms to help decide which of several policies options should be implemented." (Using Prediction Markets to Enhance US Intelligence Capabilities)

"The 9/11 Commission, in its discussion of how to reorganize the US Intelligence Community, cited the lack of unity of effort in information sharing as the “biggest impediment to all-source analysis—to a greater likelihood of connecting the dots.” The lack of information sharing is further compounded by a culture that emphasizes information compartmentalization, suffers from stovepipe mentalities, and bureaucratic distrust. One way to solve these problems is to work on [Intelligence Community]-wide software and databases and develop improved protocols for accessing classified information and for providing better coordination of interagency analyses. Another way is to use prediction markets to aggregate information and analyses ... information and judgments from different corporate divisions into probabilistic estimates of future outcomes, a prediction market could perform the same function for the Intelligence Community." (Using Prediction Markets to Enhance US Intelligence Capabilities)

Have prediction markets worked before in a policy context?

The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) experimented with this approach back in 2001 when it created a Future Markets Applied to Prediction (FutureMAP) program that tested whether prediction markets, could be used to improve upon existing approaches to preparing strategic intelligence. Long story short, the program was cut short when congressional (faux) outrage took over and shut down the project; apparently the optics of intelligence officers placing wagers on terrorist activities didn't sit well with them and they thought such activities might actually incite actors to take measures they otherwise wouldn't have. That said, much of the research I've done have indicated considerable upside to the approach:

"Prediction markets can function as powerful complements to the traditional process by which long-term estimates are performed. Their power is further multiplied when one imagines that the time and resources saved in running such markets means that several long-term estimates can be run concurrently and updated periodically. ... by allowing analysts to hedge their estimates in the form of conditional contracts, policymakers gain valuable probabilistic estimates, as opposed to wishy-washy judgments which policymakers may easily ignore." (Using Prediction Markets to Enhance US Intelligence Capabilities)

"Prediction markets could also be used to make ex-ante evaluation of policies. Take the question of whether the United States should continue to fund the Andean Regional Initiative (ARI). Analysts could bet on two futures contracts: (1) the tons of cocaine that will be exported from the countries affected by the ARI to the United States in 2009, conditional on the United States continuing ARI; and (2) the tons of cocaine that will be exported if ARI is terminated.The difference in the two estimates would tell policymakers how much of a reduction (or increase) in cocaine analysts expect from the implementation of ARI. A more realistic assessment would most likely involve analysts speculating on several futures contracts with different expiration dates." (Using Prediction Markets to Enhance US Intelligence Capabilities)

Who ought to participate in such a prediction market?

"Since the objective here is to effectively aggregate information and analyses of the entire Intelligence Community, implementation of prediction markets on a community-wide basis is preferable to intra-agency markets. Ideally, anyone with the relevant information should trade. If the traded contract relates to aerial suicide bombs, then even airport luggage screeners, in addition to homeland security analysts, are potential market participants. This necessarily means that expert knowledge on a particular subject is not required before making a bet.

A more difficult question is whether there are circumstances under which the general public should be allowed to trade. Certain issues might require the aggregation of information and opinions on subjects intelligence officers may know little or not enough about. On the other hand, making public certain markets might be inadvisable because doing so might signal adversaries about intelligence interests.

A compelling case can be made for making diversity a key criterion. Diversity means that market participants have different pieces of information about their surrounding environment and consequently different judgments on the event for which they are betting. The HP experiment aggregated information across several corporate divisions. Economic theory and empirical evidence suggests that “thick” markets are preferable to “thin” ones."(Using Prediction Markets to Enhance US Intelligence Capabilities)

Moreover,

"Ambiguous public information may be better in motivating trade than private information, especially if the private information is concentrated, since a cadre of highly informed traders can easily drive out the partly informed, repressing trade to the point that the market exists" (Prediction markets for business and public policy)

What would a policy options prediction market look like in the Canadian policy context?

At the systems level, a cross government policy options prediction market holds out the promise of providing a better interdepartmental view on success/failure probabilities of different policy interventions because the aggregating forces of the market helps overcome the inherent information asymmetries built into Westminster accountability structures. It could also provide tremendous insight into how different departments view a given issue because you could run analysis on whom (point of origin) is investing where.

If such a market was opened up to broader public participation it would provide policy makers with a better overall societal view of the options on the table. Further, there's an interesting argument to be made here about whether or not such a market could help redefine participative democracy in a digital era and improve overall public engagement by offering continuous options for engagement across a spectrum of issues rather than limiting it public participation to issue specific and time-limited opportunities for feedback. In so doing this approach could also give policy makers valuable insight into public preference on a particular subset of issues, say whether or not the public prefers prevention or remediation strategies, by how they invest (prioritize) between competing options.

An interesting place to test this type of broader approach may be in the field of social finance where it could be used to see how different players (funders, service providers, stakeholders, clients, and government officials) see the probability of success of a given initiative and/or how they value the other actors in the ecosystem.

Overall, I think the idea has merit.


Three closing but related caveats about design

First, the research clearly shows that contracts in such a market would need to be clear and specific, written in plain language so as to be easily understood by participants.

Second, the research also shows that the market's success is contingent on participants' motivation to trade and that the profit motive is usually enough to spur activity; this tells me that the design of the overall prediction market needs to be gamified in some way.

Third, an interesting place for people interested in this type of design might be Empire Avenue, which has a whole bunch of those types of design decisions built into it under the hood. It's a social media service that a bunch of us got into years ago but subsequently walked away from. That said, it may be worth a second look in the context of this conversation around the applicability of prediction markets to policy options.


Recommended Reading / Resources

• Using Prediction Markets to Enhance US Intelligence Capabilities: A "Standard and; Poors 500 Index" for Intelligence 
• Prediction Markets by Justin Wolfers and Eric Zitzewitz, National Bureau of Economic Research
• Prediction markets for business and public policy, Andrew Leigh and Justin Wolfers, The Melbourne Review
• The Promise of Prediction Markets, Science Magazine 

Game Mechanics, Hype, and Motivation

by Kent Aitken

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For a while I wondered if the idea of gamification would stick on our collective radars. It seems that it will, at least for a while longer - it gets listed as part of the "emerging policy toolkit", written about in business magazines, and several departments are at least exploring the concept.

(A quick definition: gamification is the application of game mechanics to non-game concepts, to drive engagement on initiatives, or to solve problems.)

However, when the idea comes up, it tends to be a narrow view of the subject. Last month an article showed up in Fortune called Looks like that whole 'gamification' thing is over. The author may have overdramaticized the title as clickbait, but there are two issues with the take.

One, she references Gartner's research on the idea's market penetration, but implies that it means that gamification is on the way out. In fact, a period of overhyping followed by a call for maturation is exactly what Gartner predicted (always predicts) would happen.

Two, she only references games. Badges, rewards, educational games for employees at Marriott.

I think there are actually two distinct lenses about game mechanics that are really interesting for organizations. The first is the possibility in some scenarios to create games that serve as problem-solving platforms, such as that Fortune article describes. Though it's important to remember that games are just one part of a much larger toolkit - it is not a hammer such that one should just go looking for nails.

The second, which is in my mind should be far more interesting to most people, is the fact that games provide a preposterously gigantic body of research on why people expend discretionary effort and engage. Gaming companies have accidentally proven amazing points about motivation for managers to learn from.

Mission, discrete goals, challenge, progress, and feedback. With these factors present, people engage.

For a real-world government example, read Blaise Hebert on engagement.

I recommend a trifecta of books that all approach that equation from very different angles:

Drive by Dan Pink

The Progress Principle by Teresa Amabile

Reality is Broken by Jane McGonigal

Drive and The Progress Principle are through-and-through business books. But interestingly, Reality is Broken about gaming is in many ways the one that provides the playbook for managers (though I believe McGonigal avoided the term gamification in it). It sparks the questions to answer about employees' day-to-day experiences.

Game Mechanics

In some cases, government actually building a game - to solve a problem, for education, for outreach - may be the most effective approach. But this will be the outlier application for the idea. For most, the valuable insight into motivation should keep eyes unrolled when the term gamification comes up.

MBR: Reality is Broken, Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World

I decided I was going to read a book a week for a year, here's a quick review of this week's book.  You can see the ongoing list here.

Basic Info

Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World by Jane McGonigal





Why I read it

I wanted to learn more about gamification, this seemed like a natural choice.


How it connects to the Public Sector


The book speaks at length about the future of collaboration and the role of games in promulgating a more collaborative ethos.

In fact, immediately after reading the chapter on Collaboration Superpowers I was convinced that senior managers looking to better understand collaboration ought pick up a copy of the book.

(Note: the whole book is available on Scribd at the link above but I'm really not sure as to the legality of it being there.)


What I got out of reading it


What struck me most about the book was how it rooted some of my long standing interests and how I approach my work, in my love of (and experience with) video games; in particular, my desire to be immersed in highly engaging work, the fact that I enjoy frequent feedback, and the fact that I tend to approach problems with a long/systems view.

I was also struck with how McGonigal relates a part of her argument to Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers, stating that we are growing entire generations of gamers who will all meet the criteria for the 10,000 hour rule, and that these people are likely to be more poised for collaboration than the generations that came before them.

If you are interested in knowing more about the concepts from the book, I've embedded a couple of videos from the author below, but I suggest picking a copy of Reality is Broken if you want a more complete understanding.

Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.casubscribe/connect

On Gamification, Portal, and the Public Sector

A few weeks ago I shared Valve's employee handbook, positioning as the defacto office culture that all other office cultures are competing with. Last week I wrote why I believe that organizational learning plans are crutch. What I failed to do was explicitly connect the two in some meaningful way.


Consider what follows my attempt to do just that

Organizations like Valve don't bother with formalized learning plans, rather they choose to position learning as a cornerstone of their business. They recognize that creativity is their competitive advantage and organize around that very principle. Here is how the handbook positions learning:

If you were hired as a software engineer, you’re now surrounded by a multidisciplinary group of experts in all kinds of fields—creative, legal, financial, even psychological. Many of these people are probably sitting in the same room as you every day, so the opportunities for learning are huge. Take advantage of this fact whenever possible: the more you can learn about the mechanics, vocabulary, and analysis within other disciplines, the more valuable you become. (p39)

The approach at Valve is, I think, akin to what Rands recently described as "sandbox learning" in a great piece entitled "Two Universes: Design Well-Informed Improvisation"; a piece that explains the importance of gamification for learning using Valve's popular video game Portal as its primary example. Gamification, according to Rands, isn't "pulling the worst aspects out of games and shoving them into an application" but simply "clever strategies to motivate someone to learn so they can have fun being productive".

I want to pull in some longer quotations from the entire article; but I want you to think about them in the context of organizations and not in the context of video games. Don't worry, I will be chiming along the way to help you draw some comparisons.

As you progress through the increasingly complex puzzles, Portal does something [cool]. It teaches you the game, it teaches you how to improvise solutions to the puzzles, and it eventually makes you a master of the Portal gun and its associated physics — without a single page of documentation. You learn about the Portal universe intimately, but you don’t notice the learning because you’re too busy playing.

This is precisely the type of learning I was referring to above and in previous posts. Learning on the fly, no documentation, just a fully immersive environment culture.

In addition to not knowing what the hell is going on in terms of the plot, the first time you play Portal, you have no idea how to play it. Like all games, the initial levels teach you the very basics: how to move, how to pick up an item, and how to use items to get things done. Yes, there is a heads up display indicating how to move, but it’s up to you to learn. Oh look, when I put the cube on the button, it opens the door… to where? The plaques at the beginning of each level seem important, but I don’t know why. Why do I feel something sinister is going down?

The mystery of the player not having a clue what the hell is going on is the initial incentive to learn. It’s the desire to discover the story that situates the player in the Portal universe. It’s a difficult balance to strike in designing a game or application. How much do you explain versus how much do you let them discover? Too much explanation and you get this [image of a complicated user interface]. Too much reliance on exploration and they may never discover what they can actually do.

Think back to your initial on boarding at your organization. You probably didn't have a clue what was going on. You learned the basics first, how to move around, how to get and use your security pass, how to negotiate early relationships and other general housecleaning items.

Not knowing how your organization worked was incentive to learn. As was trying to figure out your own role within that organization. The key difference here is that no one actively thought through how much to explain to you versus how much to leave you to discover. You probably got the overwhelming walk around, the deluge of forms and the quiet desk time in (probably in that order).

Unlike the video game, very little forethought was given to how you'd react to the system around you. Which, on your first day at the office, is just as much of an unknown as a first encounter with the Portal universe.  However, much like the video game, too much explanation (in the form of "hey read this enormous pile of documents, they will help you make sense of the environment") and you'd tune out.  While too much freedom to discover everything on your own would leave you wandering aimlessly in and out of people's cubicles for days (I've experienced both of these during different organizational on-boardings).

More on this from Rands:

As the game progresses, the increasing complexity of the puzzles introduces a bevy of hazards, including high energy pellets, goo, and turrets. The goal remains the same: get out - don’t die. This is a tricky inflection point for any game: the arrival of the puzzle which is no longer a straightforward challenge, and I believe Portal’s developers have solved for this moment in two ways.

First, Valve play tests the hell out their games. They are intimately aware of when a chamber is too laborious, too complex, or introduced before the player has learned the lessons they need to satisfyingly solve the puzzle in a reasonable amount of time. This is essential testing that must be performed again and again to find a delicate balance providing a sense of progress and accomplishment with just enough challenge.

This is a critical inflection point where the user is weighing the following: is the amount of investment I’ve made to date worth banging my head against the screen trying to figure out what to do next?

As you progress through your career your work becomes more complicated, but the goals remain the same: get your work done - don't screw it up. Similarly you are likely to reach that key inflection point where work is no longer straightforward. Perhaps you no longer have a boss who hands you the work with a clear set of expectations, you are moved in a reorganization, etc.

The key difference here is again that no one actively designed and tested your work flow (or for that matter your career path). No one is intimately aware if your workflow is too laborious, too complex, or if you've been put into a situation before you learned all the prerequisites. As with the video game, this may be essential testing, yet unlike the video game it isn't performed rigorously - it probably isn't even tested at all.

As a question, I'd frame it thus: do those who have set your organizational structure have any expertise in organizational design? Have they tested multiple workflows, solicited feedback and chosen the most effective blend from the options available to them?

I think we all know the answer to that.

Yet again, as Rands points out, you will eventually reach a critical inflection point where you, the employee, is weighing your options: is the amount of investment I've made to date worth banging my head against the wall trying to figure out what to do next? Is it time to escape cubicle nation?

I suppose it depends on whether or not you apt at what Rands calls "well-informed improvisation"

Inevitably, you’re going to need to make a split-second decision in Portal. The floor will literally be vanishing from under your feet and you’ll have no time to consider your options; you will just improvise. It’s these moments of well-informed improvisation that I believe are Portal’s greatest accomplishment and best design. See, while you were busily having fun you had no idea that you were becoming an expert in the ways of the Portal universe. You now have experience using each of the individual tools and their behaviors to be able to combine them to handle the unexpected. The result: you are now able to effectively deal with novel and unknown situations.

It’s incredibly satisfying to sneak out of a tight spot by performing an action you didn’t know you could do, but created instinctively because of your experience.

That’s how I want to learn. Don’t give me a book; I don’t want a lecture, and I don’t want a list of topics to memorize. Give me ample reason to memorize them and a sandbox where I can safely play. Test me when I least expect it, shock me with the unknown, but make sure you’ve given me enough understanding and practice with my tools that I have a high chance of handling the unexpected.

Amen!

A video game has a very different goal than [a program like] Photoshop. A video game is designed to be pure entertainment, while Photoshop is a tool by which you get work done. A game designer knows that if a game isn’t both immediately entertaining and usable, the folks sitting in front of the Xbox 360 are going to stand up, toss their controllers on their beanbags and declare, “Screw it.” Worse, they are going to tell every single one of their friends about this gaming disaster because they feel stupid for wasting their time and money on something that was supposed to be fun, but turned out to be lame. This is game death.

Photoshop’s goal isn’t entertaining unless you think the national pastime of bitching about Photoshop is a sport. Photoshop has no points or leaderboards because Photoshop is a tool and the perception of tools is that you must be willing to supply blood, sweat, and tears in order to acquire the skills to become any good at using them.

Bullshit.

Make a list. Tell me the number of applications you use on a daily basis where there is a decent chance that you’ll end up in a foaming at the mouth homicidal rage because of crap workflow, bad UI, and bugginess. Is Photoshop on that list? Yeah, me too.

I know, I know, you are thinking: "A video game has a very different purpose than an organization, especially a public sector organization. Video games are about having fun, organizations are about getting shit done. Fun isn't important, and in order to get things done we must be willing to accept and work within the confines of the status quo.

Bullshit (to quote Rands).

List the organizations that you've worked for where on a daily basis there is a decent chance that someone inside the organization might choose to just walk away because of crap workflow, non-nonsensical rules and a lack of follow through. Is your current employer on that list?

Rands on why design is important for learning:

Great design makes learning frictionless. The brilliance of the iPhone and iPad is how little time you spend learning. Designers’ livelihood is based on how quickly and cleverly they can introduce to and teach a user how a particular tool works in a particular universe.

Perhaps there is something to be said about creating a similar economy where the livelihood of the powers that be would be based on how quickly and cleverly they could introduce to, and teach us how to solve, the big challenges this sector is facing?

If we put as much effort into designing our organizations and their workflow as Valve does with its games perhaps our work could be as engaging as playing a game like Portal.

Final note I highly recommend adding Rands to your required reading; he consistently publishes thoughtful long form writing and is one of the few writers that have been reading consistently since I myself started writing.




Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.casubscribe/connect

Used to be a public servant, took an arrow to the knee

Don't worry if you don't immediately recognize the verbiage, "taking an arrow to the knee" is an internet meme popularized by the action/role-playing video game Skyrim. In Skyrim ...

... the town guard non-player characters (NPCs) have several stock lines they repeat when the player walks near them, including a bewildered statement about "curved swords", a patronizing statement about “sweetroll” theft, and the melancholy confession “I used to be an adventurer like you, then I took an arrow in the knee.” The restating of such a specific story over and over again by so many different guards caused it to be noticed by players, who then proceeded to post about it in gaming forums and image boards. -- Know Your Meme (emphasis mine)

So what does a common regret, uttered by otherwise unmemorable would-be adventurers, popularized by the Internet meme machine possibly have to do with the public service?

In a word: everything.


The Skyrim experience and emerging professional narrative

Skyrim relies on a non-linear model of gameplay, meaning that the game doesn't follow a strict path but rather leaves players to explore, discover, and interact with the world on their own terms. In practice this means that Skyrim is less of a game and more of an experience, it also means that the player can exert a significant amount of control over that experience. Players shape the game as much as the game shapes the player, or more rightly their playing style; and while every game of Skyrim starts the same way, players soon realize just how expansive the universe is, and just how many paths are available to them. As someone who has played a significant amount of Skyrim over the holiday season, I can attest to the fact that the game's natural ability to conform to my playing style, interests and goals (even as they change) has undoubtedly contributed to its wild success.

In short, I think that Skyrim delivers an experience on a gaming console that many people are seeking in their careers, namely a completely customizable experience that evolves as they evolve; that perpetually follows their interests; that keeps them challenged/engaged; and that allows them to prioritize their actions and execution (deliverables) in the way they see fit.

As such, I also think it's a perfect proxy for the Internet age's preferred narrative of life as a young professional: self-centric, entrepreneurial and adventurous. But Skyrim also:

• is replete with divergent and convergent story lines (but players are free to pick which to pursue and which to ignore);
• is geographically vast (but players can travel slowly or at breakneck speed); 
• is deeply detailed (but players determine how much attention to pay to them); 
• offers opportunities for specialization or generalist play (but without boxing players in or forcing them to forgo other opportunities); and 
• allows players to switch focus on the fly (but allows them to leverage past experiences without penalty). 

Guards, arrows, adventurers and the public service

If Skyrim is in fact a good proxy for the Internet age's preferred narrative, then examining the difference between the roles of adventurer (the player in Skyrim) and the city guard (the non-playable character who takes the arrow to the knee) is worthwhile.

The adventurer is free to roam, explore, and develop their skill set. They travel the land, find new challenges and have a considerable impact on the world. In fact, when the adventurer enters a city, they often overhear the guards talking about recent events, events that always revolve around the actions of the adventurer themselves. On the other hand, guards are confined to the city, they meander about its walls, and lament lack of excitement in their work. If only they hadn't taken an arrow to the knee! Instead, they suffered an injury that forces them to do something they would otherwise not do: accept a position on the periphery and settle for talking about the events around them rather than actively shaping them. My observation is that risk-averse organizations are similarly polarized, which is to say (and thereby continue the metaphor) they are made up of adventurers and guards; those who define themselves and those defined by the system around them.

Of course, I'm not speaking in absolutes, but rather trying to tease out an important point of comparison. My travels across Canada and the United States have afforded me the rare opportunity to speak with public servants from different levels of government, geographical areas, and functions. Overwhelmingly they all share a single concern: the loss of their adventuring spirit. Interestingly, when I pressed these would-be adventurers, many revealed that they never actually suffered an arrow to the knee themselves, but rather feel (or have been outright told) that they will undoubtedly suffer one should they become more adventurous.

I wonder how many public servants have actually suffered an injury so severe as to limit their ability to be bold, or to seek novel solutions to complex problems? I get a sense that there is a fundamental disconnect between the stories we hear (and sadly perpetuate) and the reality of those on the edges of our organization. Culture is after all built on stories, and if we only ever tell the ones about risk and negative consequences then those two things will ultimately define our culture. Is it any wonder that rather than being encouraged to be bold and adventurous, many of us are, like the city guard, left to meander about our cubicles or blend into the machinery.

Again, I'm not trying to be insulting, this is simply a metaphorical articulation of what a risk-averse culture could (and often does) look like; and while it is clear to me that the culture may inhibit those inside the organization, it must also be said that it inhibits those looking to join it. The people that buy Skyrim, don't buy it to play as the city guard, they buy it to play as its central character. Similarly, public servants shouldn't settle for playing roles on the periphery of their organizations. Instead they should be actively building careers as central characters, pushing other protagonists to elevate their game while simultaneously sharing and collaborating with them.  Because I for one am tired of hearing about a culture defined by "arrows to knees".




Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.casubscribe/connect

Public Sector Microtasking

Given our propensity for micromanagement I suspect many will look at the idea of micro-tasking with come skepticism, but I think the idea is worth exploring (as do others).

A primer

For the uninitiated, micro-tasking is simply the breaking-down of more complex tasks into smaller, more manageable chunks. The most widely talked about micro-tasking service is Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk); which according to Wikipedia is:

a crowdsourcing Internet marketplace that enables computer programmers (known as Requesters) to co-ordinate the use of human intelligence to perform tasks that computers are unable to do yet. It is one of the suites of Amazon Web Services. The Requesters are able to post tasks known as HITs (Human Intelligence Tasks), such as choosing the best among several photographs of a store-front, writing product descriptions, or identifying performers on music CDs. Workers (called Providers in Mechanical Turk's Terms of Service) can then browse among existing tasks and complete them for a monetary payment set by the Requester. To place HITs, the requesting programs use an open Application Programming Interface (API), or the more limited MTurk Requester site. Requestors are restricted to US-based entities.

Requesters can ask that Workers fulfill Qualifications before engaging a task, and they can set up a test in order to verify the Qualification. They can also accept or reject the result sent by the Worker, which reflects on the Worker's reputation. Currently, Workers can have an address anywhere in the world. Payments for completing tasks can be redeemed on Amazon.com via gift certificate or be later transferred to a Worker's U.S. bank account. Requesters, which are typically corporations, pay 10 percent over the price of successfully completed HITs to Amazon.

In short, corporations post tasks that computers can't do, other people do them, and in so doing earn some small modicum of compensation. (Note if you are interested in learning more about microtasking and Amazon's Mechanical Turk, I suggest watching Aaron Koblin's TED talk: Artfully visualizing our humanity)


In practice

Aphid Farm by binux

Common public sector tasks such as translation, document formatting, fact checking, and basic editing could all be tested in a microtasking environment. While these tasks aren't necessarily sexy they are probably the easiest to manage at the outset. They can be easily broken up into smaller bits (e.g. translate this paragraph, format this 5-page PowerPoint presentation, fact check this page, etc) and are directionally straightforward. In order to ensure some modicum of consistency, users could take qualifying tests prior to being granted access to a particular category of microtask.

That said, microtasking shouldn't be limited to strictly perfunctory tasks. Service providers and policy makers could leverage the same system by presenting scenarios and asking people to complete questionnaires, say evaluating proposed changes to service delivery models or interpreting legislative or regulatory changes. There is an important caveat here, that obviously not everyone in the organization would have the requisite specialized knowledge to provide an in-depth analysis on a given topic. Meaning that feedback acquired from microtasking is more likely to be a better proxy for the general public than it is to be for a specific or specialized stakeholder group.

The motivation

One of the most common criticisms levied against microtasking is the incentive structure; why would people bother completing any of these tasks? First let me start by stating that I don't think that the problem of motivation is a deal-breaker when it comes to public sector microtasking. The answer to the problem is gamification.  If we could create a system that leveraged game mechanics while allowing users to engage the system on their own terms it offers them an opportunity for greater autonomy, mastery and purpose; qualities that Dan Pink argues are the hallmarks of motivation.

I've argued in the past that:

An increasingly diverse workforce coupled with an increasingly diverse scope of work means our organizational models have to contend with increasingly jagged edges, wider gaps and unforeseen overlaps. Upon closer reflection, my gut tells me that if we took the time to examine our organizational structures more closely we would find conflict at the jagged edges, delays at the gaps, and duplication at the overlaps.

It also means that many public servants oscillate between periods of hyperactivity and lethargy in the workplace. I think the most compelling benefit of a microtasking system would be that it would help alleviate the pressure of both ends of the spectrum. Those who were incredibly busy could more easily surge as required because they could gain access and expertise from those whom were less busy at that particular moment in time.

Some of our most basic performance issues stem from the fact that few of us have things we can work on when everything else has been accomplished. If you have ever heard anyone say that they had to stretch their workload over the week you know what I am getting at. The problem, at its core, is that we (public servants) don't have a common place to aim our cognitive surplus.

Imagine what we could do if we did.






Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.casubscribe/connect