Sounds nice, but what's the problem?

Step back a bit. From a broad perspective, our biggest problem is arguably the difficulty in keeping up as the pace of innovation increases.

Good performance has always come from two elements: a) control - doing well what we've already learned -- and b) innovation -- learning new things.

What's different over the past century (keep that broad perspective...), is the HUGE jump in innovation. Science has taken off. Knowledge has taken off. The application of science and knowledge has taken off. Productivity has taken off.

But the take-off has been much less dramatic for governments. Governments are built for comfort, not speed. They are large. They offer essential services, so can't afford disastrous mistakes. They care a lot about fairness. They do things in a fishbowl.

All this makes experimentation and innovation difficult. Governments have a hard time putting money aside for future possibilities when constituents in need demand services NOW. Governments have a hard time absorbing three projects that don't pan out as they search for that fourth idea that makes it all worthwhile.

So, how can we keep up with 21st century demands for innovation?

One answer is by not going it alone. Corporate and non-profit institutions aren't so big. They are often more capable at tolerating and managing the risks of innovation than are governments. However, particularly as innovation and knowledge is captured within and disseminated through software, privates and non-profits need substantive expertise and test markets for trying things out before they can grow to great scale.

So, Why not look to bringing all these groups together? The privates and non-profits have entrepreneurial interests and skills (social venture capital), while the public sector has substantive expertise and a scale to support meaningful early applications and downstream operations that can be hard for the privates to otherwise find.

This could allow governments to foster innovation, not by going it alone, but by cross-boundary collaboration -- i.e., public/private partnerships.

For an interesting example, look at OneCleveland (now called OneCommunity). In this case, Mayor Jane Campbell provided leadership and absorbed risks, but not the financial risks that the city simply couldn't afford.

Take a look at this case and let me know what you think: http://www.3eproject.org/onecleveland/

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If you're interested in these problems of cross-boundary leadership, Harvard has two related events coming up soon:

1- A workshop on shared services, April 19-21: http://www.3ecompass.net/public/shared_services

2- A workshop on portfolio management and communications for cross-boundary initiatives, May 22-24: http://ksgexecprogram.harvard.edu/ProgramDetail.aspx?programID=220&sessionID=440

Hope you can make it.

Best regards,

Jerry