At a time when the debate on the startup-state is raging, a step back from the linked notion of the platform state can do no harm. Where does this notion come from, and in what direction is it evolving? While the answer to this question is initially shaped by reflections from across the Atlantic, there is an increasingly active reception of these themes in Europe, both intellectually and politically.
C’is Tim O'Reilly, who put the theme of the Platform State into orbit in 2009, just as the Obama era was beginning in the United States. The concept of the Platform State has breathed new life into the earlier notion of e-government.
Obama's presidential campaign was technologically innovative at the time: crowdfunding and sophisticated data analysis to guide door-to-door campaign targeting methods that are now becoming widespread in Europe.
Tim O'Reilly advocates a state that functions on one hand less... like a cathedral and more like a bazaar.This is the case of the Apple Store, to use Eric Raymond's famous opposition, and also draws its inspiration from the Apple Store and the then very recent success of the iPhone. The notion of openness is defined in this framework as the possibility of connecting third-party applications to the platform's data via APIs.
The idea of the Platform State is also gaining ground in France through the reflections of Henri Verdier and Nicolas Colin, published in the form of book in 2013.
In France, the State has a particular importance and flair. Nicolas Colin puts a new emphasis on the fiscal dimension of the activities of the Internet giants, the GAFA often mentioned in our columns.
But this dimension is only one aspect within a vast subject whose analysis is continually deepening. The notion of platform is becoming more refined. According to Laura Létourneau and Clément Bertholet, both from the Corps des Mines, the State must today submit to the imperative of self-uberization in order to become a meta-platform, a platform of platforms like AWS. Their recent book Uberish the state! before others do is prefaced by Xavier Niel and seems full of allusions to the Star Wars saga.
Here is the video of Laura Létourneau's intervention during the TEDx Issy les Moulineaux on November 23rd, 2016 at the Professional Training School of the Bars of the Court of Appeal of Paris.
Mounir Mahjoubi now seems to be well positioned to be the Vivek Kundra of Emmanuel Macron. Will he take over the state's metaplatform project? Will he be able to find a new way to avoid the minefield of the legacy systems from the administration? Nicolas Colin has already drawn attention in the past to the difficulty faced by the State when it comes to operating like Amazon. As Albert Meige says, digital is indeed the pharmakon of open organisations, and the managerial recipe that would allow administrative structures to kick some butt on the model of Jeff Bezos remains entirely to be invented.
Metaplatformization is thus presented as an ambition whose achievement would, by its prowess, once again sign the greatness of our State. Our new President seems determined to meet this challenge.
Jacques Knight, Presans
Courtesy of the author - Article published in open-your-innovation.com
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