I recently came across this funny (and too true) post by Todd Heim on social media villains that piqued both my long-time interest in super-heroes and super-villains and all things Government 2.0 too. While we pump up the Gov 2.0 Heroes (and even had an entire Day dedicated to them), and we hold conferences to highlight the work done by these heroes, I haven’t seen the opposite side get its due. Well, I’d like to dedicate this post to the people who make government innovation so difficult, the people who have stood in our way for years, the people who have been classified as hurdles, obstacles, and barriers – the Villains of Gov 2.0.
Dr. Closed Mind
“Yeah, that’s a great idea, but we don’t have time for that – just focus on doing your job!”
Description: Dr. Closed Mind has the ability make even the most new and innovative ideas seem like frivolous wastes of time. He thrives on doing things his way because that’s “the way they’ve always done.” By relying on the force of inertia and his extreme stubbornness, he’s able to simultaneously frustrate his numerous adversaries as well as advance his own career. Dr. Closed Mind is focused on checking off his task list and will aggressively squash any attempt to disrupt that routine.
Strengths: Able to avoid changing his routine for years on end; leverages allies in the legal and IT security departments to maintain the status quo; super-human ability to make stagnation appear to seem like laser-like focus.
Weaknesses: Transparency. By exposing the outdated and often inefficient methods of Dr. Closed Mind to more people, you can help shine a light on the work of Dr. Closed Mind and force his leadership to ask him the often-deadly question of “why aren’t we doing it like this instead?”
The Downer
“Sure, it’d be great to do that, but unfortunately, we’re not allowed. I hate working here :(“
Description: The Downer is a deceptively strong villain, capable of destroying the morale of even the strongest teams. Through near constant talk of policies, regulations, and costs, The Downer calls attention to every possible reason why an idea can’t and won’t work, yet is unable to see the potential benefits. Changing policies, getting buy-in, and taking risks
Strengths: Able to destroy morale with a single agenda item; has the uncanny ability to rattle off the most obscure policies and regulations; able to turn “quick wins” into insignificant activities that will never amount to anything;
Weaknesses: Change. By highlighting positive changes that have occurred, The Downer’s seemingly immense pessimism can be slowly chipped away and he starts to see that things can change.
The Money-Monger
“I’ve had Ashton Kutcher retweet me – I can show you how to do that too!”
Description: Seeing business development opportunities wherever he goes, the Money-Monger (also known by the aliases “Social Media Ninja” and “Social Media Guru”) has a Red Bull-fueled energy for telling everyone who will listen how he can help them use social media…for a price. He will probably talk about how to increase your Twitter followers, guarantee that he can create “viral videos,” and tell you how easy social media is.
Strengths: Master of ulterior motives. Able to see a business opportunity where no one ever had before. Immune to common social etiquette, meaningful relationships, and small talk. Has mastered the ability to create 50 slide presentations without one bit of actual thought on any of the slides.
Weaknesses: Strategy. Weaken the Money-Monger’s defenses by asking him how he measures the effectiveness of his tactics that does NOT involve the number of friends, fans, or followers. Force the Money-Monger to show how social media will help accomplish your agency’s mission.
Captain Conservative
“This sounds like a great idea, but let’s make sure that we circulate it with everyone and get their buy-in first.”
Description: Captain Conservative is often both a villain and an ally of the Gov 2.0 Heroes. While Captain Conservative is often supportive of the Gov 2.0 Heroes, he lives by the mantra of “always ask for permission first or you may get fired.” He’s been brainwashed by two of his former mentors, Dr. Closed Mind and The Downer, who have unfortunately, scrambled his brain. While his intentions are good, the mental scars of his former mentors still appear strong.
Strengths: Through his sheer likability, Captain Conservative is often able to embed himself into teams early on, only to systematically dismantle them through long, prolonged review and approval processes. He often leaves no visible traces of the damage he causes and often emerges from the failed project unscathed.
Weaknesses: Top Cover. By securing the approval of people located above Captain Conservative on the org chart, you can mitigate his fear of doing something wrong and getting in trouble for it.
The Silo
“We’d love to be more collaborative…as long as no one outside of my team can get in and mess with our stuff.”
Description: One of the more powerful Gov 2.0 villains, The Silo is known for his ability to protect sandboxes with a maniacal sense of urgency. The Silo always considers he and his team unique, and has an almost paranoid fear that everyone else has the worst intentions in mind. By keeping a stranglehold on his data and his team, The Silo has the ability to set the precedent that sharing data is optional, poisoning an entire organization’s thinking. Ironically, The Silo is often an outspoken advocate of collaborative tools…as long as he gets final say over who’s collaborating with whom.
Strengths: Seeming collaborative while actually not being collaborative; able to craft incredibly detailed stories about people getting fired, killed, maimed, reprimanded for sharing data; has the innate ability to create a PDF version of virtually everything he and his team share; very comfortable with managing incredibly detailed access controls.
Weaknesses: Open Platforms. Without the ability to restrict access, The Silo is unable to hoard information and lock it away so he is forced to either use the new tools and share, or use his old methods.
The Information Sucker
“Can you send me any materials you have – someone was asking me about Gov 2.0 and I want to be able to talk with them.”
Description: The Information Sucker paints himself as a friend of the Gov 2.0 Heroes, but in reality, he’s only focused on advancing his own career. The Information Sucker is keenly aware of the increased attention being paid to open government initiatives and wants to get in on the action without actually doing any of the work. Viewing attribution as a weakness, The Information Sucker makes nice with the Gov 2.0 Heroes and then sucks every last idea and product from them that he can, only to disappear and resurface months later to much fanfare because of the “new and innovative ideas” that he’s brought to his team.
Strengths: Deftly able to conceal his true motives; extreme copy and paste abilities; able to pull together entire presentations and proposals without actually needing to understand what he’s writing; excellent ability to insert latest buzzwords into his speech.
Weaknesses: Probing Questions. Because The Information Sucker’s “expertise” has been gained from a few white papers and PowerPoint presentations, his outer shell can be penetrated with follow-up questions.
Beware of the Gov 2.0 Villains – they’re lurking everywhere, sometimes concealing their identity, sometimes not even aware of their own villainous ways. Rather than attacking and defeating these villains, we would do well to befriend and educate them. The best way to neutralize a Gov 2.0 Villain is to turn them into a Gov 2.0 advocate.
** UPDATE: Make sure you check out Gwynne Kostin’s excellent FanGirl addendum to this post too! **
Strengths: Able to avoid changing his routine for years on end; leverages allies in the legal and IT security departments to maintain the status quo; super-human ability to make stagnation appear to seem like laser-like focus.
Weaknesses: Transparency. By exposing the outdated and often inefficient methods of Dr. Closed Mind to more people, you can help shine a light on the work of Dr. Closed Mind and force his leadership to ask him the often-deadly question of “why aren’t we doing it like this instead?”
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RT @sradick: Six Villains of Gov 2.0, including Dr. Closed Mind, The Downer, and The Silo ([link to post]) #gov20 #opengov
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RT @JohnFMoore: RT @sradick: Six Villains of Gov 2.0, including Dr. Closed Mind, The Downer, & Silo ([link to post]) #gov20 #opengov
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RT @govfresh: RT @sradick: Six Villains of Gov 2.0, including Dr. Closed Mind, The Downer, and The Silo ([link to post]) #gov20 #openg
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Your last paragraph is the most important one. Sadly the stereotypes are true, but so much time has been spent on “singing to the choir” of Gov 2.0 advocates instead of doing action planning on how to help government employees turn these folks into supporters and innovators (albeit not necessariy Gov 2.0 which is a contrived concept that may actually turn some of these stereotypes off).
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Love it.
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Another villain for you:
The Old Guard of IT – Probably one of the biggest obstacles to Gov 2.0 because his or her power is based on the centralized control of IT resources and strict control of the users. Constantly warns of “security” when any user wants to use social networking tools or any computer resources not provided and managed by the IT Old Guard. Credible to the agency management because he or she is IT but the IT Old Guard doesn't get the new world of web apps and open source. They can kill any Gov 2.0 project by demanding endless planning, testing, and reams of requirements documents.
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RT @nickcharney: RT @sradick: Six Villains of Gov 2.0, including Dr. Closed Mind, The Downer, and The Silo ([link to post]) #gov20 #op
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RT @WatcherLinda: RT @sradick: Six Villains of Gov 2.0, including Dr. Closed Mind, The Downer, and The Silo ([link to post]) #gov20 #o
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Informative & Funny: Six Villains of Gov 2.0 [link to post] #fb #in #yam
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Six Villains of Gov 2.0 [link to post]
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RT @eantunes: RT @gwynnek Great post by @sradick Six Villains of Gov 2.0 [link to post]
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RT @opengov20: RT @sradick Six Villains of Gov 2.0 [link to post] #opengov #gov20
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RT @sradick Six Villains of Gov 2.0 [link to post] #opengov #gov20
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RT @meganesque RT @opengov20: RT @sradick Six Villains of Gov 2.0 [link to post] #opengov #gov20 http://bit.ly/aBdjn6 #ogov
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RT @sradick Six Villains of Gov 2.0 [link to post]
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@bethbeck something familiar here? 😉 RT @eantunes: RT @gwynnek Great post by @sradick Six Villains of Gov 2.0 [link to post]
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Love it: RT @eantunes: RT @gwynnek Great post by @sradick Six Villains of Gov 2.0 [link to post]
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Most important part is last paragraph RT @gwynnek (http://is.gd/do7pp): Great post by @sradick 6 Villains of Gov 2.0 [link to post]
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#theforcesofsuck have been named. RT @eantunes: RT @gwynnek Great post by @sradick Six Villains of Gov 2.0 [link to post] #w2p
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RT @sradick Six Villains of Gov 2.0 [link to post] #gov20 #opengov
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RT @sradick Six Villains of Gov 2.0 [link to post] [love it! not just true for #gov20 but any new business venture]
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RT @thisisjohnny RT @sradick Six Villains of Gov 2.0 [link to post] [love it! not just true for #gov20 but any new business venture]
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Six Villains of Gov 2.0 [link to post] [love it! not just true for #gov20 but any new business venture] (via @adrielhampton)
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hah simple, yet clever RT @TonyCastrilli: Great stuff! RT @sradick Six Villains of Gov 2.0 [link to post]
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RT @gwynnek Great post by @sradick Six Villains of Gov 2.0 [link to post]
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Great stuff! RT @sradick Six Villains of Gov 2.0 [link to post]
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LOL -Six Villains of Gov 2.0 [link to post] – Debbie Downer, Capt’n Conservative, Dr. Closed Mind etc. #w2p #gc20 via @thomkearney
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RT @sradick Six Villains of #gov20 [link to post] #transparency
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RT @sradick Six Villains of Gov 2.0 [link to post] [Love it!]
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Haha, nice!
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Best barriers to Gov 2.0 post ever! RT @sradick Six Villains of Gov 2.0 [link to post] #gov2.0 #gov20 #opengov
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RT @krazykriz: RT @kevinamagee: Best barriers to Gov 2.0 post ever! RT @sradick Six Villains of Gov 2.0 [link to post] #gov2.0 #gov20
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Which is the greater evil: Having a villain in the management or in the staff?
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Refreshing Post – RT @sradick Six Villains of Gov 2.0 [link to post]
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You forgot the locked-in closed-architecture vendor, the favorite sidekick of The Silo getting them out of trouble every time!
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RT @sradick Six Villains of Gov 2.0 [link to post] | LOL – I recognize some of these folks – do you??
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..I wish I could have the hours of my life back that were sucked away by various evil gov 2.0 Information Suckers.
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Hilarious 🙂 RT @sradick: My latest post – “Six Villains of Gov 2.0” [link to post] #gov20 #opengov
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RT @sradick: My latest post – “Six Villains of Gov 2.0” [link to post] #gov20 #opengov
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My latest post – “Six Villains of Gov 2.0” [link to post] #gov20 #opengov
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Six villains of social media use in Gov’t incl Dr. Closed Mind, Captain Conservative, the Downer – [link to post]
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Six Villains of Gov 2.0 [link to post] by Steve Radick
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Six villains of Gov 2.0 – [link to post]
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Six villains of Gov 2.0: [link to post]
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RT @billschrier – Six villains of social media use in Gov’t – [link to post] – 😉
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I like it!! RT @andresnin Every story has its villains. These are #ogov villains [link to post]
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Six Villains of #Gov2.0 [link to post] “Yeah, that’s a great idea, but we don’t have time for that> just focus on doing your job!”
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RT @billschrier: Six villains of social media use in Gov’t incl Dr. Closed Mind, Captain Conservative, the Downer – [link to post]
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