Government Ideas

Interesting model. A variant of this came to me during a visit to Badami where I found the Archeological Society was doing a great job, but its pamphlets and brochures could be improved. The idea was to have a website where people could post things in government that can be improved (in this case, the brochure about Badami). If I had particular solutions for the problem, which will happen reasonably often (I recognised the problem because I have a bent towards improving communication through design), then there is an option to suggest the solution. The organisation ("Improve Your Life") behind the website tries to figure out who in which Government department needs to be contacted to deal with this information. Ideally, Improve Your Life also works out a strategy by which the idea gets implements. In this particular case, it could be working out a sponsorship deal with a FMCG company to sponsor the printing of this material. This could then be provided free to the Government Department. Ideally, the designer with the solution can be part of the eventual graphic production and get credit, and even paid. 

I just came across Sunlight Labs, which had a contest "Design for America". Very interesting concept - Open contest for design which makes Government more understandable. Can we do one for India ? Will the Government accept the designs ?

Better Governance - Living Life

Following up on the idea of a Government focussed on customer service, I'd like to look at the "Doing Business" series of reports that the World Bank has set out. These reports have helped trigger reforms in the business environment in numerous countries. This is really a sort of standard corporate benchmarking exercise executed well. I believe that the time has come for a similar series of "Living Life" reports that compare sovereign governments, and within countries, comparison of sub-regions right down to municipality or village wards.

Note : This part of the post was added later. The original post is available after the jump. 

Better Governance

I will be doing a series of posts on the quality of our Governance and what can be done to make it better. Its a source of great frustration for me, and for most fellow Indians, to have to interact with those that govern us.  We go to great lengths to avoid the interaction. Many of the issues of governance are really customer service issues and would be resolved in a matter of years in a competitive environment - think telecoms before and after private players. Or banking. So this series of posts will investigate this issue and hopefully throw some light.