Lucas Cherkewski

Digital transformation and neighbourliness

Hit and Miss #470

So the big news this week, for a certain definition of big and a certain audience for news, was the long-awaited announcement of Digital Transformation Canada.

Kathryn May gives excellent context for this new [insert machinery type once anyone knows what it is], which will include my beloved former workplace, the Canadian Digital Service (CDS). There were many reactions worth reading, including from former colleagues Michael, Alex, and Ryan. (Okay, Ryan was a near-miss colleague, but his time at CDS felt very close to my own.)

I, like others, will eagerly watch the Orders in Council site for the various OICs that’ll give this effect. A few under the Public Service Rearrangement and Transfer of Duties Act, maybe another under the Shared Services Canada Act or Public Service Employment Act (depending on the machinery choices). The details of which teams are scoped into this new body will prove important—I’m particularly curious to understand who’s coming over from PSPC and TBS.

Putting all these teams in one place has a machinery elegance to it. Whether it’ll be possible for everyone to row in the same direction will be key: the interfaces between these different mandates and departmental IT / delivery teams has long been complicated enough; will departments feel they’re working with (/ being supported by / etc) a single organization, or will the constituent parts maintain their distinction? (Which, in CDS’s case, was long sought and hard fought, and served a very valuable recruitment function.)

Just as with CDS’s move to ESDC a few years back (when I was still technically part of CDS), there’s a bittersweet element—is this the end, is this special organization to fade away? It’s fair to say that my feelings about that are… complicated.

It’s a very special place we built, and I wish more folks got and get to experience, learn, and benefit from its special capabilities (namely, its strong culture and ability to deliver). But I also remember, two weeks into my time at CDS, participating in a vision exercise for the then-babyfaced organization. Asked where it’d be in five years (or some similar horizon), I, the cheeky new guy on the policy team, said “non-existent”. Not because I wanted to lose the special place I’d recently started at—because I wanted that exceptionalism to become the norm. To which, ahhh the audacity of youth.

But perhaps a move to a new organization, one with energized leadership and top-level support, can help reinvigorate some of that audacity. It’s worth a shot, at least.

A coda on digital government efforts:

I’m writing tonight’s letter after joining a delightful neighbourhood street party this week, chatting with neighbours familiar and new alike. It was delightful, a great example of what a bit of organizational effort and a “let’s try this” spirit can bring about.

Events like these build familiarity and bonds. Sometimes that’s it. But sometimes, those bonds become essential, enabling action or support that you wouldn’t otherwise have been able to draw upon.

It was a similar thing working on digital government. Some of the many successes within CDS came from people knowing each other, reaching out, and working together—regardless of what the formal structure allowed or provided for. The same is true of digital government generally: its magic is in the ability to share approaches (even, at its best, projects or people!) outside the constraints of departmental or organizational structures.

For any worried about the meaning of this new organization, this may offer a source of hope or reassurance. Success will continue to come from strong community, so build and sustain it wherever you find it. (While I’m less directly in the digital government game these days, I remain a huge fan, ever supportive, and hope to one day rejoin the effort.)

The other big news this week, likely among different circles than those interested in the above, was the death of farmer, poet, and storyteller Wendell Berry.

I first learned of Berry, as best I can remember, from watching Look and See, a film in large part about Berry and his work (that and more, really). I believe it was staged in connection with The Working Centre, a one-of-a-kind organization in Kitchener-Waterloo, which had “a year of Wendell Berry”.

I distinctly remember the reading of “Window Poems Part III” in the film, and the iconic image of Berry, booted feet up on his desk, staring out those forty panes of glass. I then picked up some of his essays, though I confess I struggled through them more often than not.

But I knew I had things to learn from Berry—in part thanks to Nick Offerman, and his frequent advocacy for Berry’s work. Eventually, through T, I read some of his fiction, and what a world that opened for me. It also exposed me to his poetry, and, in a roundabout way, made the essays more approachable—same voice, different format.

Perhaps the best final words from me on Berry would be those I first wrote, after watching Look and See nine years ago:

I don’t know much about Berry, but I like what he said in the documentary, and I like how he said it. One point he made really stuck with me. In talking about the small communities throughout the rural United States, communities which used to thrive but may now be dead due to the loss of family farms, Berry says that “no place is nowhere.” There are important histories all around us, and we ought to accord them more respect. No place is nowhere. Nice.

Okay, it’s getting late, but let’s share a couple links:

All the best for the week ahead!

Lucas