This is the third in a series of posts about the "rules" of deploying collaborative technology in an organizational context. Read about the first two rules here and here

Increasingly, it seems like the only thing easier than finding a reason to deploy collaborative technology is finding a reason not to. In an era that demands massive change, government has a tendency to let its"inner lawyer" to slow innovation and empower the status quo.

The reality is that collaboration is happening whether or not government gets involved. The very attributes that make collaboration a powerful catalyst for change - low cost and complexity, widespread availability of data - also make it easy for normal citizens to bring about extraordinary change without much help from government. As far as government is concerned, this is the key paradox of mass collaboration: any technology that allows government to "go around" its normal bureaucratic constraints also has the potential to let citizens "go around" government itself.

Take, for example, Fix My Street. The wiki site, created by My Society, aims to help resolve issues like landscaping, rubbish collection, and street lighting in towns and communities across the United Kingdom. These problems are reported and aggregated on the site, and then sent to the nearest town council for action.

Fix My Street is a great way to deliver government services more efficiently and responsively. The catch is, it's fully citizen-run, and totally independent of the government. Apparently, instead of waiting for their government to work better, the ordinary citizens across the UK started transforming it themselves, from the outside in. While the site is a great asset, governments across the pond are now in the position of catching up to this new, citizen-invented paradigm. We all know what it's like when your mandates suddenly don't fit with your normal way of doing business or your stakeholders' expectations. The way that technology enables collaboration and empowers citizens means that this is going to be happening a lot more.

Throughout this series of "Big Rules", we've talked about the importance of providing a clear value exchange and the necessity of thinking about problems in a new way. The biggest rule of all, however, may be that doing nothing simply isn't an option. Mass collaboration represents not just an exciting chance to engage citizens, but also a responsibility to draw citizens and stakeholders into the process proactively and ensure that public deliberation is fueled by accurate data and realistic expectations about what government can and cannot achieve. We've entered an age where the challenges of collaborative governance are dwarfed by the opportunities it presents - and our leaders in government have a responsibility to rise to the opportunity and embrace it.