Feb. 8, 2009 - Lessons from NAPA

Washington blogger Chris Dorobek reports today thatThe National Academy of Public Administration’s Collaboration Project has issued a new report titled “Enabling Collaboration: Three Priorities for New Administration.” In it, the NAPA spells out these priorities:
* Create an Open Technology Environment
* Treat Data as a National Asset
* Foster a Culture and Framework of Collaboration

The NAPA report explains that “today, information can be accessed and shared with unprecedented speed and agility. However, government operates according to an industrial era model that is fundamentally out of step with the needs and expectations of modern citizens. This industrial model emphasizes controlling information more than sharing it and avoiding risk more than fostering innovation. Worst of all, this model uses rigid hierarchies as opposed to collaborative communities of practitioners, to create and implement responses to emerging public needs.”

I am currently participating in an email forum that is concerned with the changes in the real estate business environment, and in the Realtor organization which supports the industry practitioners, and because this perspective is foremost in my thoughts, it occurs to me that NAPA offers an object lesson which can be translated as follows:

`*Create an Open Technology Environment. This admonition has been around for a long time, and certainlty Mark Lesswing and the NAR technology initiative have been working on many facets of this puzzle. But, there's lots to be done: many of the obstacles can be laid at the feet of vendors of technology services, but an even more significant impediment is our own organizational structure which is fraught with protectionism and archaic policies.

*Treat Data as a National Asset. Well, there's another one that offers the Realtor organization a real challenge. Not only is the market data traditionally collected by MLSs primitive and often lacking in consistent terminology, it is also protected by some who see losing information control means losing job security.

*Foster a Culture and Framework of Collaboration. When the first and second points are absent, the third cannot succeed. Hence the prolonged Realtor association battle over a national property data base and the elimination of ongoing barriers to association membership by other key stakeholders in the real estate industry.

Imagine the power and credibility of an organization which focused on controlling information with the idea of providing a collaborative professional environment for all the 'players' who need to work together to make a strong industry (bankers, builders, assessors and government officials, and so on), and which worked toward providing meaningful information and data which can only strengthen the real estate environment nationwide.