Ykgis - conflict of interest

Tuesday, July 18, 2017

I've been asked to fill out a conflict of interest form with regard to yukongis.ca by my director.

I've been twisting this way and that on the letter. Wording in the corporate guidelines says the employee should advise a supervisor when they think there might be conflict. I've come to the realization that part of why this is difficult is: I don't actually understand what the problem to be solved is. What is the perceived conflict, specifically? I don’t see conflict so why would I engage the process?

Possibilities I've come up with:

That I might post while on duty?
That I might post using work resources? (computers, connectivity, bandwidth, …?)
That I might someday, somehow profit from the website?
That I'm building a reputation which might benefit me after I leave government?
That I have a website to which I post things that are sometimes about work?
That I might expose secrets?
That I will say uncomfortable things about my co-workers? management? Env? YG?
That feeding the offsite activity takes away from work?
If this is about work and for work why not post at work?
…?

Posting While on Duty // From Work Machines#

As a general rule:

Questions, research, investigation and follow up - Yes, during work hours and from work machines
Articles, blog posts, longer form write ups - No, off hours and not from work

Are the rules hard and fast? No, but they're true the majority of the time by far.

On occasion particularly thorny issues that have inspired my sometimes compulsive need to get to the root cause of something and fix it once and for all have me responding to threads and running tests in the wee hours from home. Conversely I sometimes update or tweak something during the day and from work if I see an error or need to add something – I use the posts as my own reference material as well as share for others.

I might profit from the website#

I could conceivably use yukongis.ca as a platform to generate an income of some kind. I've not explored that idea and don't know how I'd go about it, however I must admit the possibility is there. I think it would be a lot of work for not much gain. The site has never accepted advertising of any kind. Since acquiring the domain in 2005 I've paid for all expenses myself.

Building a reputation for benefit outside of YG#

Yes, I have a reputation that I care about and maintain. So does anybody who publishes papers to an academic journal, or engage in any kind of activity that utilizes skills gained and exercised in the workplace. Many of those papers will actually be about work, and paid for by work, using much more expensive equipment than mine (planes, helicopters, snow machines, tranquilizer guns, traps, trail cams, …). Do all those staff members have to file conflict of interest letters?

Posting about work // Exposing secrets#

Yes, that happens. The site is about and for challenges discovered in the work of GIS, and GIS is my work and what I do at my job with ENV. When posting about something encountered in the workplace I remove reference to names, dates, places, and so on that may reveal internal business processes and concerns that are not already available to the public.

My interest and focus in this public display is in discussing problems that I and others in this line of work encounter, and with hard work and luck provide solutions as well. This is integral to how the industry works. I literally could not do my job if countless others were not already publicly sharing their experiences. Sharing is the coin of the realm. When I write about my problems and solutions I'm filling the bank account of good will for when I need help.

Could say uncomfortable things about co-workers, management, Environment, or Yukon Government#

To the best of my knowledge that has not happened. It certainly has never been brought to my attention. I have a decades long track record of engaging in public discourse.

Feeding a website takes away from work#

This is a valid concern, but not a conflict of interest. It takes time to write a good article, to explain something well. It would be easy to spend extra time at work rewording something for general consumption, when it has already been documented well enough for internal processes.

This has happened from time to time. My supervisor and I discuss it and together devise a way to balance the scales, usually taking the form of "drop that, focus on this, make up the time there". Actually it used to be that, now we have a shorthand of "what are you working on?" "… Oh right! Switching…".

This is not the kind of problem that is because of a website somewhere out there. Finding oneself in a rabbit hole of unwisely used and wasted time can just easily happen spending a full day trying to write that script that saves 2 minutes when creating a new project folder structure; or fixing a contractor's mistakes when it should be sent back for repair; or troubleshooting X from another Branch's printing problems down the hall; or…

The point is wise use of time and attention is a general challenge that never goes away, though we do get more skillful at recognizing and applying course correction.

Of all the possible conflicts I've come up with, this is the only that has any substance, and it's a management of flow, not a conflict.

Post for work at work#

I'd love to. Over the years I have built from the ground up no less than 6 versions of a GIS Knowledge-base, from installing the Operating System to the Content Management System to configuring the CMS to populating it with useful material. For reasons outside the scope of this page and beyond my control none of them were pressed into service for our staff. When Sharepoint is ready I will port as much of the material I've written as I can into this space. (This is under way at present. With IT I am working out the technical details of how to migrate content without having to upload every single picture and media element as a distinct and separate task.)

Where does offsite activity take place?#

Potentially? Anywhere. Anywhere there is public discourse on the topics of concern. Today the most likely places are:

What do others do?#

Surprisingly to me I have not found many examples of people in YG publicly sharing their experiences. This could be poor choice of search keywords (chiefly "firstname lastname yukon") but it's more likely that just not very many are moved to write and share. I ignored things like LinkedIn profiles and Facebook feeds, focussing on those who have dedicated websites or blogs.

Of the sites I found so far only one could be considered similar, and loosely at that, is Geof Harries , Project Manager, eServices for Citizens. A much higher profile position than mine, one that directly impacts far more people, both inside and outside government. Harries ran a web design business for almost a decade before coming to YG and continues to freelance and shares experiences in his blog about what he's learning at work. I asked him about his conflict of interest letter: he doesn't have one anymore. It's no longer needed:

Simply, any freelance work I do isn’t/can’t be for Government of Yukon.
I get contacted sometimes by different departments who have my old email address or have seen my previous work, but I just tell them I can’t be involved and recommend alternatives. That said, i definitely still do freelance work for non-government orgs.
When I first started in my job back in April 2014, I had some loose ends to tie up and that required a letter to HR and signed authorization from our DM before I could keep going. It was pretty basic; outlined the work I had on my plate, why i was doing it (to pay off debt, haha) and when it would be finished. After the projects were finished and invoices paid, I was out.

So I return to, what is my perceived conflict of interest?

Snapshots from Harries' site: