Towards distributed and dynamic state property management –

multi agency, government-to-government network operations in São Paulo

Authors: Neide Farran e Rupert Brown

Institution: Fundap
Coordenação: Aguinaldo Ribeiro da Cunha

Abstract: This paper looks at the processes of managing the inventory of state government
properties in São Paulo, Brazil and the systematisation and exchanges of information
between state agencies. It traces the integration of operations between these agencies and
between different layers of government as elements of database storage and electronic
interconnection have been implemented. It sees the co-evolution of processes, channels and
contracts under the influence of technological change and suggests routes towards
extending participation in the information system and improved internal metrics and
reporting mechanisms.

Electronic access has allowed closer contact between decision makers and their
assets and overheads while the public interest is better served by greater internal
transparency and clarity, through the savings made and through improved data for
decision-making. There has been a reduction in the number of processes, greatly
reduced inertia and more functionality with opportunities for faster, information and in
new configurations. Many improvements are still possible, the paper acknowledges a
local technology lag, however it sees this as an advantage for moving towards fully
integrated e-government operations, joined up government. (Perri 6 2001, Bogadanor
2005)

Core processes of São Paulo State's property management are managed through
discrete channels for information and decision transactions. It is a government to
government initiative with no direct public participation and with Fundap responsible
for the administration and logistics of the Sistema de Gerenciamento de Imóveis - SGI
property system. This has abolished many parallel institutional processes and
information solos for a single collaborative information pool with a common graphical
interface and with few primary keys. The paper analyses these changes and seeks
connections to future initiatives through:

• Expansion of underlying metrics

• Engagement with new channel relationships
• The pilot project for heritage properties and new information gathering contexts
• Moderated submissions and non statutory updates
• Spatial keys and markers

E-government logistics
Pubic administration has been driven by technology towards an electronic enabled
government model, and now e-government, for the past thirty years. Computer
projects of the 1970s and 80s were justified by rationalisation, cost savings and staff
efficiencies and in the 1990s there was a wider move to install databases, local
connections and desktop machines. The 21st Century has seen a wholesale move to
the internet – information and management resources can exist entirely on the network.
The shifts have seen the São Paulo State property management system move from a
paper mountain in single office with more than 10 employees, to a dispersed system
with 500 users actualizing records.

Property management information and logistics are essentially back office functions.
This is partially due to an element of secrecy and partially because of current
technological limitations in the separation and updating of systems. The most
frequently cited e-government services are public-facing information, documentation
or revenue based interfaces: Government-to-Citizen. Poupatempo centres are a widely
copied Brazilian example of the physical delivery of multiple State government and
City government services under a single roof and a world-class example of how São
Paulo has a running start in offering a coordinated multi agency public sector
approach. However, State government and State e-government handle no public
transactions online – perhaps motivated by national internet access figures of around
15%. Instead, they maintain mainly Government to Business, enterprise-facing portals
for transactions with concentrate only on online information provision for the public.

Many processes
The development of the SGI property system worked towards the goal of simplifying
government to government coordination and information updating through an online
database. The system is the current de facto interface and the administration and
management of property to allow functional gains such as collaborative working and
devolved data entry. Each property consists of 48 dimensions within the database and
these require monthly inflation updates, stock maintenance updates and yearly
inventory subtotals. The CPI Property Commission should always have access to
actualised snapshots, monthly reports and a yearly balance of transactions, values
and changes.

Many properties
The state of São Paulo has a stock of around 30,000 properties - including prisons,
schools, courts, ministries, foundations and universities. 6,000 are in the state capital
with 15% rented and 12% used by non-state organisations. There are an additional
300 heritage properties that are either listed and protected by the state or have other
historical value and these represent a public face to the overall stock and attract
different forms of overheads. The state manages all of the properties and in turn, it
manages the organs that are in day to day control of the properties. This requires
inventory management, an enhanced management information system and the legal,
financial and political mechanisms to provide a coordinated strategy for use and
devolved responsibility. Each ministry or agency is in charge of updating information
on the use, changes in use and state of repair of buildings independent of their legal
status.

Many bodies
The Estação da Luz is an example of how some of this complexity is worked through.
It is a protected landmark building that is both a working train station and the
Museum of Portuguese Language that is wholly owned by the state government.
Responsibility for the property is shared between the São Paulo State Railway
Company (under the Secretary of Transport), The Secretary of Culture and the
broadcaster, Rede Globo. The State Government is in charge of both of these
ministries and of their expenditures and it maintains the close relationship with Globo
as an important sponsor. The overheads incurred in the running of the Estação da Luz
are mostly borne by the railways, while the recent restoration has been managed by
an agency of the Culture Ministry and the museum wing is overseen by the private
sector in the form of Rede Globo.
The combined complexities of this combination of multiple processes, properties and
bodies is managed with Fundap – the Foundation for Administrative Development –
playing the statutory and central coordinating role. Until the mid 1980s, Fundap had
managed a paper based system and information was gathered over the telephone and
through more detailed visits which required around 10 dedicated staff operating out of
a single office. The system revolved around the yearly inventory – a stock-take of the
entire holdings of the state – where each of the fifty to sixty responsible ministries,
foundations or autonomous bodies brought a large box of papers for processing. At
the end of 1984, the paper system was replaced by a PICK database managed and
updated locally and maintained these same in-house controls over quality and process
based on familiarity and continuity.

Table 1: Evolution of IT processes in State property management systems

Description Advantages Disadvantages

Paper Paper Submissions, Permanent records Time, Effort, Storage
Paper Records
PICK Database Paper Submission, Fast access, Information Paper, Submissions,
(1986) Electronic Records gathering aligned with Low participation
data integrity

Domino & Electronic Faster, distributed Devolved data

Notes submissions, submissions and data management, limited
(1999) Electronic records, entry coverage, expensive
Limited private
network
SGI Electronic More participation, Devolved data
(2003) submissions, Universal accessibility, management,
Electronic records, Relational database, Complexity
Internet Grained permissions

In 1999, the first reports were produced with Lotus Notes and Domino databases
managing communications and remote gathering of submissions, spelling the end of
boxes and boxes of paper. The system was accessible within the City of São Paulo and
ran on the state's private data network. There was another unforeseen gain from this
wider participation as the database and records became visible to a great number of
users and these "extra pairs of eyes" helped build the quality of entries through more
frequent and direct interactions with property data. There were huge costs of
maintaining and extending a system build on proprietary networks with proprietary
software and the state took advantage of World Bank funded technology initiatives to
modernise and upgrade the state's fiscal infrastructure. This money centred on the
treasury ministry and motivated a familiar internet and relational database solution
which was delivered in 2003 as the Sistema de Gerenciamento de Imóveis (SGI).
Figure 1 shows the structure and operations of State institutions within the SGI
planning system.
Figure 1: Schematic view the responsible bodies integrated within the SGI

Fundap in the system

Fundap were initially ascribed and funded as administrators of the property

management system by the Attorney Branch in the 1970s. Currently they are funded
by the Treasury but their role as administrators remains unchanged. This change in
connection between legal attribution and financial attribution - the transfer from PGE
to SGE – meant that the SGI property system and its administration moved entirely
“within the state”. The PGE Attorney Branch was part of an independent justice
system, the SGE and Treasury part of the politically accountable state financial
apparatus. This has little operational effect on the administrative function although it
placed the evolution of property management on the same technological trajectory as
the Treasury. Fundap's operations within the system are to:

• To systematically update and produce strategic reports for the state

government, for example bi-annual reports on the properties for which state
bodies are paying rent
• Permissions and norms for database access and use: establishing profiles,
managing passwords, rights to read/write records
• Human Resource capacity building: trainings, feedback, frequently asked
questions
 • Producing reports for the State Governor, advisors, the Property Commission
and wider public administration
• Put forward reports in support of public administration objectives
• Continuous evaluation of the SGI property system in conjunction with the
Prodesp Treasury technology team

People and logistics

Fundap is at the heart of the logistical effort of coordinating the principal resources of
São Paulo's property management effort. It is responsible for user management and
instruction across the entire state with weekly training and subscriptions sessions for
state employees who can travel for up to 10 hours to reach the capital. Fundap has a
consulting role as the principal human interface between the SGI property system and
the politicians that comprise the Property Commission and who still work with paper
and with laws. This is additional to responsibilities for information quality to the CGE
Treasury and finance and to the PGE Attorney for statutory sign-off. Finally there are
direct personal connections to the developers and maintainers of the SGI property
system within the Treasury Ministry.

Table 2: Functions and routines

Rented properties Properties overview

Costs of and quantity of
Properties ceded to other
properties rented (Monthly and organizations (state government,
yearly reports) charities)

Comparison of rental values (with
By final use
up to date price changes)
By locale or district

Subtotals per end-use
By the responsible body
(administrative, infrastructure
etc.)

Troubleshooting Property Commission decisions

Duplicate addresses
Sales, purchases, reviews

Corrections - Legal documentation

Missing documentation fields
Scans of deeds and certificates

Critical path
Fundap is the point at which value is added and created, where data gathered is
shaped into reports and represents the critical path for the processes and tasks that
comprise the State property management system. It is also the only part that receives
direct funding and the system relies on fine grained customary connections that
underlie the e-government of the SGI property system. Fountain has said that,
'Organizations tend to patch information systems onto existing structures in ways that may
enhance efficiency and capacity but that otherwise maintain the status quo' (Fountain
2001:19) and this form of technology enactment has certainly been the case with the
SGI property system. However, it is also an example of integrated e-government that
reaches the objectives of a government-to-government operation available 24 hours a
day that crosses departments and ministries and that is oriented to functional user
requirements.
Informal contracts and joined up government
Technology, and especially internet interconnection, opened up the possibility of
joined up government, fully interactive and self aware agencies and ministries with
excellent communications and shared information pools. The SGI property system
represents many of these multi-agency, government to government operations and
service chains but through discrete channels that overlay the principle operational
triangle - the Commission funds Fundap, Prodesp (from the Treasury) provides the
technical infrastructure, Fundap executes the instructions of the Property Commission
and CGE submissions. These concrete connections and the channel relationships are
shown in Figure 2 along with the non-authoritative link to government agencies as
property holding information providers together with a future public interface.

Figure 2: Channels in the SGI

The efficiency of these contracts has not been measured, tested or compared because
they are not effectively contracts and are not bound by time or price. Some of the
arrangements do not officially exist and are kept going through negotiation and
reciprocity. This is an economical solution for a back office integration of processes,
which fulfils most requirements of all the stakeholders. The relationships and
responsibilities of the executive bodies have shifted over the years however despite the
changing configuration of the chains of information, the channels though which they
pass (Cachon 2006:3) remain stable. This has maintained the contractual impasse
that maintains and sustains the SGI property system yet prevents fully budgeted,
measured and planned system.

The channels are operating at different speeds, under different priorities and with
varying strategic foci and the informality of contractual obligations allows the
maintenance of a database, management information system and collaborative
interface that are under no single control. Again, Fountain illustrates a stark
comparison with private sector arrangements and “(I)n contrast to the economic firms in
the market, government agencies face strong institutional constraints on network formation
in the form of oversight relationships, the budget process, and a long tradition of adversarial
bureaucratic politics. The incentive of profits and economic success that accrues to firms
that form wise strategic alliances in the private sector is not available in government. On the
contrary, efficiency gains from networking across agencies are likely to result in the loss of
budget, staff, and even agency jurisdiction. These disincentives to the development of cross-
agency networks contrast sharply with the networking logic of the Internet or the logic of
networks of organizations that benefit from cooperation” (Fountain: 2001, 101). This
perfectly describes the disincentive to co-operate due the obstacles of instituting
matrix budgeting, negotiating the division of responsibilities and collaborative
planning and the risks of reduced budgets, staff shrinkage or reassignment and turf-
loss. Table 3 presents a fuller picture of the actual obligations and expectations
operating through the service chain channels.

Table 3: Channels and obligations for SGI participants

Channel Expectations Obligations Basis

Legal Timely, accurate Sign-off and monitor statutory Statutory duty
information changes
Financial Timely, accurate Sign-off and monitor financial Statutory duty
information changes and reports
Policy Timely, accurate Policy, decision
information making
Technology Time tolerance Maintain and update system, Informal
interface, forms and reports
Administration Funds Quality of information, Statutory role
Logistical training, users

Reporting Fast, always Input changes Routine

ministries and available system.
agencies Training.

Operations and channel process opportunities

The principal defining feature of the SGI is that it is a database independent from an
institution and accessible to all. This common denominator is sufficient to please all
of the participants and to maintain these more limited forms of communication and
exchange. Information should pass up and down through these channels and there are
clearly opportunities for channel partnerships and ideally in the technology channel
where there are shared interests and baseline expertise. Canalization and the lack of
direct collaboration are reinforced by conflict avoidance, state precedence and a lack
of multilateral contact. Budgets and contracts arrangements also reflect planning that
focus on inputs rather than those the matrix while the channels maintain their specific
functions motivated by internal accountability with system efficiency as a hoped-for by
product.

If there is a structural contractual form and the entire service chain is dependent on
the reciprocal obligations of each of the organisations that compose it then this is a
holistic yet historical arrangement that is neither dynamic nor future proof. The
contract binds the different stakeholders and channels together with the expectations
and obligations that have developed over the last thirty years. It is a simple
arrangement with few crossovers – all of the organizations have discrete roles with the
exception of Fundap in its logistical role. Changes are negotiated well in advance with
few fundamental changes or shifts in power taking place, the most dynamic element
to change has been the technology and the process – now indivisible - which have
determined and shaped contractual relationships while maintaining a balance of
responsibilities. Specific characteristics are:

Legal Channel
This operates as the conduit for plans and legal documentation and through the PGE -
State Attorney's Office. The process is a short exchange that could be enriched with
scans of plans and documentation related to each target property. This is the most
estranged channel perhaps because of the past responsibility, its institutional
independence and irregular (buying/selling/transfer of title) interaction yet with
natural connections with policy and management operations.

Financial Channel
Operated through the treasury and is the route for property valuations and for
expenditure on running costs. Its operations encompass a monthly audit of rents, a
continual inventory of property costs and expenditures, a mandate for property
valuation. There is an opportunity for a connection to market data for property on
property valuation and direct involvement with restoration budgeting.

Executive Channel
The council looks at use permissions, ceded property, donated property, mixed uses,
administrative transfers, concessions, letting, rights of way, authorisation to sell etc
There are strong relationships with city government and federal government and other
private sector concessions and partnerships. An authoritative process to incentivise
reporting by property holding state institutions will be operationalised.

IT Channel
This channel could integrate better though financial, statutory and logistical
interaction. The technology behind the SGI property system could learn from newer
systems are built from lessons already learnt from previous deployments. The
Seraphim heritage pilot will inform the SGI with an enormous amount of new
experiences however there remain local lessons. Without direct feedback channels and
with user feedback mediated thorough third parties, contact is minimized and despite
great efforts, anomalies remain. An example of a process refinement is the monthly
rent report, still produced on a spreadsheet that requires updated renting data and
factoring inflation. It consists of 11 steps and has to surmount potential errors in data
and tables. It is a very visual example of potential gains though addressing removed
and distant data sources through channel partnerships.

Measurements and Pilot studies

If these the loose obligations and expectations are to survive and continue to deliver
timely information and co-ordination, then the performance of the system needs to be
measured and future options tested rather than negotiated. The first steps are the
development of indicators, and a pilot project to incorporate opportunities for
generating interaction. The lack of in-built indicators needs to be addressed if the
quality of data is to be extended and to identify areas for training and examples of
excellence that can be duplicated. The performance indicators should include:
property information gathered, not gathered and an idea of what potential inclusions
can also be considered. Key performance indicator tests are vital in order to define
measurable flows and results and Fundap is developing three such metrics.

Figure 3: Key performance indicators for SGI property system information

Process tracking metric

Focus: identify active paths and blockages to target training and process planning
Formula: metric = Time taken between each handover point from submission to
signoff
Profile: aligned with new database ticketing system to help submission of jobs and
issues reporting

User interaction metric

Focus: identify individual and institutional capacity - most active users to act as local
trainers, inactive users to gain insight on training effectiveness
Formula: metric = number of user entries over a time period per institution
Profile: a short database report function to integrate the SGI property system with
user management and training

Data completion metric

Focus: identify areas and methods to improve information quality
Formula: metric = group and display form name by percent completion, target fields
completed
Profile: a tool to influence effective key choice and future data design

Figure three gives a clear path through the processes and the metrics that can lead to
solutions. An end-to-end measure of task progress is an easily implemented
formalisation of the email request – email confirm – research/report – data update – email
confirm chain. User derived opportunities lie in updating information perhaps with non
statutory updates and queued moderation that can avoid holiday staff lags and might
solicit information supplied by the public s for updating data preventing access.
Training could also be enhanced by identifying local points of excellence or interface
issues that are affecting process outcomes. The issue of information quality might
highlight the efficiency and accuracy of using the CEP zip postcode as a primary key
and information missing – possible alternatives or backups – maps and photos.

Heritage properties pilot

Can database modifications effect a transition from joined up government? Some of
this is answered in the operationalisation and technology shift towards open
standards, protocols and services such as xml. These can free information from a
database using the API programming interface to allow only certain types of data in
and out. This allows a public subset of the database to interact with, in order to
provide an external service and to generate gains. The value of “extra pairs of eyes”
has already been noted above in the context of collaborative data monitoring and this
would be an expected gain from the pilot where Fundap will allow selected data from
records on heritage properties to be shared through a public web site.

Open standards and disintegrating processes also lead to the countertendency of the
reorganisation and configuration of these data in new forms. This reintegration of
information is through widgets and mashups that offer liquid interaction, interlinking
and the addition of new value to data. For the State – as a commercial entity – the two
most striking values that can be added are public service and public input – all for the
marginal cost of providing a designed interface and expert content moderation.
The Seraphim heritage documentation website pilot project is moving towards these
Web 2.0 standards where the product can exist outside of the chain, on the web, with
read and write permissions and the service can emerge from the back office to deliver:

Public generated data

Heritage properties are open for commenting and annotating. Warnings, updates
to inaccurate data, observations, comments and histories are the first stage of
this interaction while user submissions in the form of photos and videos would be
welcomed in the second stage. Within the SGI property system there are very few
visual attachments which enrich identification of, and with, properties.

Non-statutory submissions and updates

The pilot is generating a new space for informal submissions by non-experts with
passwords gained from the heritage portal rather than from the SGI property
system. Users with this type of interface might originate from within the public
sector and Fundap will also work hard to deepen participation by heritage
organisations, non-governmental organisations and general public access. The
interface has a strong spam filter and simplified moderation with tagging to sort
submissions by function, process and ad hoc categories to revisualise and better
reutilise contributed data.

Electronic access and accessibility

A digital version or summary for every asset from property titles, to historical plans is
a high priority which has no existing service chain for adding to the property database.
There is the potential for immediately shareable records making hitherto inaccessible
documentation searchable, saveable and manipulatable. This growth in accessibility is
fuelled by the widening availability of free and easy-to-use content management and
an expectation that information should be available and present rather than over-
presented and impenetrable. This means delivering the maximum content with the
minimum dressing, lifting barriers, dropping procedures and beginning to trust the
public to participate in general reporting activities, albeit through limited moderated
filters.

The heritage data of the SGI property system can be opened up. Through separate
databases and data connections over APIs a live public subset of the SGI data is
visible and becomes part of an open documentation pool. Heritage documentation in
cities has been a victim of unshared resources and it often follows that the richer the
information, the harder it is to locate, to triangulate and assimilate. A large number of
repositories also implies a larger number of gatekeepers and of 'outsiders' to
information that is effectively public. In São Paulo, the Fundap research team has to
negotiate four heritage organisations, eight federal, state and city ministries together
with three document repositories and nine libraries. Each of these requires some form
of introductory letter or permit in order to access resources and things don't happen
very quickly.

This experience of badly connected document archives perfectly matches the concept
of the information silo. Wikipedia defines this as 'a management system incapable of
reciprocal operation with other, related management systems'. The gatekeepers,
procedures, formats and different classifications all conspire against connecting
information or constructing more definitive resources. In order to reach beyond these
barriers we have to declare independence for heritage documentation. In order to free
documentation, we need to take lessons from the new information architecture and
the experiences of digital collections and to look at the examples of free online
services and free software.

Figure 4: SGI management interface and Seraphim public interface

The new platform to provide public and administrative access to records of city
properties that are under the protection of federal, state and municipal heritage laws
acknowledges that ultimate ownership of all these resources lies with the public, the
voters and the taxpayers. This information, these details and data should exist beyond
the information silos and there is a strong demand for accessible documentation for
research at one level, and on another level there is demand for casual use such as for
tourism. The Fundap approach has been to filter and research external resources in
order to assemble histories, plans and images of São Paulo's built heritage as a basis
for enriching, popularising and widening the reach of property information. Another
priority is modularity and this are already permissions for other state, government or
independent organisations and agencies to either contribute to the information
directly or run parallel systems. The system is open source and can be shared, lent,
duplicated or passed on to other organisations to use as a basis of their own
information dissemination initiatives.

Ajax and web2.0 refinements ease the viewing, reading and even the authoring of
resources, all online and away from the quicksand of directories and the hell of email.
With an ultralow budget Fundap can still deliver full histories, property blueprints,
digital maps, a real estate database, photo gallery, online updating and access control
for sensitive information. This operationalises hitherto dead information and leverages
the dimensions of maps and images; taxonomy and pivoted categories plus
participation by users to both read the resources and to write, interact and upload.

Spatial keys, markers and index

The CEP zip postcode is already a primary key of the SGI property system and it is a
ubiquitous key in Brazil. Alone it has little meaning and requires the context of maps
and images. These media have become vastly easier to produce, store and share
meanwhile the State of São Paulo taking advantage of the growing simplicity of
serving maps and photos to add to detail, accuracy, context and experience. Maps
offer a lot to property management information. They are used to visualise distance
between threats and opportunities for protection and conservation, monitoring the
encroachment of illegal developments and revealing the most vulnerable boundaries.
They can also locate possibilities for the extension of protected areas, registrations or
the consolidation of historical clusters. Based on breakthrough standards of time-to-
load, navigability and usability, there are fewer barriers for users of newer online maps
and fewer inhibitions for using digital map tools as historical documentation. Online
maps alone can offer a great level of interactivity, the ability to show many layers of
information plus a spatial search and match.

Government to Government
Seraphim heritage documentation website pilot uses municipal data and this will
extend to maps supplied by the water company and much of the functionality will
develop over time with gathering contributions and by-products of our own work.
Many of the possibilities for the heritage pilot map functionality and the integration of
mapping in documentation processes are informed by the mashups of recent years.
From the perspective of the mashup, new layers can be added from pre-prepared
external sources: visitor data, traffic conditions, and architectural history. We are also
able to enrich maps by plotting additional data 'on the go': trails, panoramic
viewpoints, 'how to get there' info. The Fundap site allows users to access
information through properties plotted onto maps, which are hyperlinked to the
records of the individual properties and plotted by the focuses shown below. They can
show the focuses of category - integrity, proximity – spread, relativity – context and
layers – parallels.

Taxonomy and operations

Weinberger’s concept of “Small Pieces Loosely Joined” matches the devolved
information gathering and informal contractual configurations of the SGI property
system management. Similarly the building block of new open data formats
rearranges the basic shape of knowledge, from (typically) trees to miscellanised piles.
This has consequences for the nature of topics, the role of metadata, and, crucially,
the authority of knowledge. In short, the change in the shape of knowledge is also
changing its place. (Weinberger 2006). Written data has a thesaurus view, a
concordance view while property data has the area view – conjoined but between
districts, the historical view, the vacant properties view. The State is learning through
interaction with similar examples to the data collected which shows a growing clutter
of added, excavated and implied categorisation and connection. It is the Richard
Rogers effect on the repository with the new information architecture creating
Pompidou Centres and Lloyd's Buildings with the pipes, whistles and metadata
extended beyond the archives and wound around the exterior.

This extra categorisation and metadata also represent navigational pivots and facts –
users can view records according to these categorisations. There is a strong use-value
for an information process architecture that allows people to navigate many
categories, to show them where they are within the information and what other
properties are closely related and to give them the possibility to contribute or move to
a different information level or focus.

Participation architecture
Tagging is the stage door to participation. It takes a large effort to research a
contribution. It takes a small effort to add a comment or extra information. It takes a
tiny effort to add an extra keyword or tag to a document. With a small and dedicated
user group these contributions can be generated in a more focused and intense way to
share work among a number of experts or to gather meaning over time. With a larger
public then the focus accuracy and relevance of keywording is less but layers of
meaning develop with a tagging average. Content is found, content is used and people
interact with content to make it more findable.

Participation future
Participation starts with team members and widens to the professional community
before the general public become involved. These initial expert contributors will offer
sharper, more fundamental tags, additions, comments and lay the foundation for the
participation of a greater number of users. According to Charles Arthur, “It's an
emerging rule of thumb that suggests that if you get a group of 100 people online then
one will create content, 10 will "interact" with it (commenting or offering
improvements) and the other 89 will just view it.” (Arthur 2006) The expectation of
contributions can therefore be overstated but it requires patience to make a system of
documentation open enough to allow a wider reading and writing of content. Success
is more certain if the technical barriers to entry are lowered to provide safe spaces for
contributions and the means of lifting information free of databases The work is
continual and punctuated while there can be little obsession for the final product when
the product is continuously produced and rewritten. Another obsession - with security
– can harm contributions when it cannot distinguish between possible collaborators
and possible threats.

The ultimate objective is a documentation system open for the public to add their
images, memories, detailed comments and to tag items with keywords to enrich the
context, depth and findability of materials. The resulting metadata and keywords are
relationships that can be mapped and make up layers of different types of information
– photos, comments, heritage tagging – that reveal new combinations and
configurations of heritage.

Conclusion
For the State property management system to remain dynamic and viable within a
regime of informal contracts then it requires internal strengthening and a future
direction. Metrics and new channel relationships can effect efficiency and interlinking
to build cohesions and extend dialogue over processes, planning and decisions. A view
to the potential of the read/write web can address information blockage and
remobilise information and allow flexible deployment, reporting and service delivery.

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