Access FWD50 2023 content now available to the public

Hundreds of public sector innovation videos are now free!

Since we began recording and livestreaming FWD50 talks, we’ve made that content available online to the world. As of today, our community platform, Access.FWD50.com, contains 265 keynotes, interviews, and case studies.

Each May, we add the previous year’s content to that library of free recordings for everyone in the world to watch. But unless you’re a hardcore student of digital innovation in the public sector, you might not think to fire up a video one evening to relax.

Thanks to our community, however, we’ve learned of a number of ways these videos are being put to use by civic innovators and public servants worldwide. So here are a few suggestions:

Hold a Watch Party

It turns out that several groups within government have been getting together on a monthly basis to watch a couple of FWD50 talks and then have an open discussion with their team about how to implement them.

We mentioned this back in our February newsletter, but it’s worth bringing back with all the new content we just added to Access. If you want to try this with your team:

1. Pick a topic

2. Choose a few videos about that topic on access.fwd50.com.

3. Make a list of discussion questions for the team afterwards.

4. Schedule the watch party, and attach the discussion questions to the invite. Good questions include:

1. How can we apply this to projects we’re currently working on?

2. What things that we’re currently doing will no longer be needed?

3. What things we aren’t doing do we need to start doing?

4. How will we measure success or failure if we try this?

5. Get on Zoom, Teams, or another platform where video and audio sharing are possible. Have the host share their audio and video and encourage participants to comment in the chat.

Before you start a project, search for relevant content

If you’re kicking off a new digital transformation project, why not start by hearing from a few experts? We’ve organized talks into multiple categories, making them easy to browse.

• 🧠 AI & machine learning

• 🔄 Change management

• 🚨 Crisis management

• 🛡️ Cybersecurity

• 🔐 Data & privacy

• 🏛️ Gov-as-a-Platform

• 🤝 HR, culture & accessibility

• 👑 Leadership

• 🤝 Public/private collaboration

• 🏛️ Public trust & resilient democracy

• 🛎️ Service delivery & UX

• 📋 Standards & governance

There are also some ask-me-anything Q&A sessions with experts, and more than two dozen case studies where public servants offer a detailed overview of their work. We’ve also got some thought-provoking sessions that don’t fit neatly into any of these categories under “Food for thought.”

If you’re looking for a particular topic, just log into access.fwd50.com (or create a free account if you haven’t already.)

Click in the search bar at the top and type in what you’re after.

Add our content to your curriculum

Access is free for everyone, so if you’re in a university or civic tech program, or just putting together an onboarding kit for new employees or a digital upskilling course for existing ones, feel free to include our content. We only ask that you share the Access URL rather than linking outside the platform.

All of our videos have been edited and captioned in French and English, to make them accessible to the widest audience possible.

Some of our favorites

To celebrate the release of our 2023 video content, here are a few of our favorite picks from this year:

• Transforming Public Services with User Research: A no-nonsense look at some of the civic work the U.S. Digital Response has been doing that will inspire anyone doing service design and delivery.

• How to use AI tools for your work in government: Everyone’s wondering what AI will do to their jobs. 2023’s most-watched workshop, featuring our friends at Apolitical, is a great place to start.

• Reframing choices for widespread public adoption: Nele Leosk is the Ambassador at Large for Digital Affairs, and a fascinating speaker. Get a peek inside Estonia’s digital government.

• Implementing Implementation: Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you’ve probably heard of Jennifer Palhlka’s clear, articulate, (dare-I-say thrilling) Recoding America. We were thrilled Jen could make it to the 2023 stage (and after-hours events, and spontaneous morning book club. Now everyone can hear what she had to say.

• Is the strategy still delivery? The UK GDS kicked off a revolution in digital adoption across many countries. One of its chief architects, Mike Bracken, is famous for saying, “The Strategy is Delivery.” If strategy is a plan to win, then delivering is winning. Is that still the case over a decade later?

• The Radical How: Tom Loosemore, another foundational part of UK Digital Services, gives newly minted Terry Beech a birthday present onstage: A call for a radical reinvention of how things get done in government.

There’s so much good content from past years on Access. We hope you’ll find it useful. If you do use it for watch parties, project guidance, or a curriculum, please let us know how it went.