Governing Magazine/June 1994

TECHNOLOGY COLUMN

THE REAL BENEFIT OF `THE ATMS OF GOVERNMENT'

By Jerry Mechling

Jerry Mechling is director of the Strategic Computing and
Telecommunications Program at the Kennedy School of Government at
Harvard University. In government he has most recently served as
budget director for the city of Boston and in numerous advisory and
consulting assignments.

By now you've probably seen at least one of the interactive kiosks
that governments are placing in airline terminals, shopping malls and
similarly public locations. Often called "the ATMs of government,"
kiosks operate around the clock.
 Unlike bank automatic teller machines, however, kiosks don't offer
cash; they offer services. On some you can apply for a copy of a birth
certificate or check the balance in your Social Security account. Some
take credit card payments for traffic fines, fishing licenses and
campsite rentals. You typically interact with them by touching the
screen to select from menu items.
 Many people think of kiosks as toys: fascinating--when they work--but
limited in their applications. Can they really substitute for real
people delivering real services? It's a good question. Yet I think
kiosks could be the beginning of something big--primarily as catalysts
for two fundamental shifts in service delivery:
 1. Disentangling the simple from the complex. Most government
services today are staff-assisted. They involve standing in line
followed by one or more face-to-face interactions with government
workers. They mix simple and complicated work together. Thus many
human-services encounters are three parts relatively simple data
collection followed by one part relatively complex professional advice
and referral. This unduly ties up expensive government workers in
lower-value work and forces people to stand in line.
 But why not offload the simpler work to lower-cost workers, or even
to clients themselves? For example, could computers be programmed to
help human-services clients enter their own data? Could computers
check for data accuracy and consistency, interact in the client's
preferred language, perhaps even use graphics and video to explain
things that are difficult to explain in words alone?
 In fact, Tulare County, California, has developed exactly this sort
of computer support for its welfare programs. By separating the simple
from the complex, the county has created a touch-screen system where
clients can enter most of their data by themselves. Both clients and
welfare workers like the system, and it saves the county a
considerable sum of money.
 2. Creating publicly accessible, non-stop networks. As the banking
ATMs have shown, self-service networks must be continuously and
conveniently accessible. At present, however, governments typically
make their computer networks accessible only to staff, not to the
general public, and take them off-line after normal office hours. This
will not be good enough for kiosks. To support a growing variety of
self-service and/or teleservice options, government needs to build
networks that operate 24 hours a day, are easy to use and protect the
privacy rights of users.
 Kiosks provide a good reason to build such networks. Kiosk networks
can often begin as small entrepreneurial startups rather than
immediate full-scale challenges to existing bureaucracies. They can
get funding through staff savings and user fees, and thus work
financially even when the tax-levy budget is extremely tight. They are
appealing enough to generate public interest and support. They can
provide many services on a "one-stop" basis; a particularly good one-
stop example is Info/California, a kiosk system designed not only for
state programs but also for local and federal programs.
 Once services are configured for kiosks, they often can be delivered
via other devices as well. When the ordering of birth certificates is
made simple enough to work from an Info/Cal kiosk, it is not too
difficult to get it to work from an office- or home-based computer.
This year, Info/Cal is opening its services to corporate computer
networks so that employees can reach government right from their
desks. Info/Cal has plans to link to telephones and possibly soon to
interactive TVs.
 As services are redesigned for network delivery, the idea of one-stop
shopping may evolve into "no-stop" shopping. Instead of requiring
citizens to interrupt what they are doing in order to stop in for
face-to-face meetings at one or more governmental offices, governments
will offer service wherever citizens work and live. This is the real
long-term benefit of kiosks, and it is BIG.
 The conversion of government services for network delivery will
require major technology investments for the next decade or more.
Obviously, some governmental clients will always prefer or need face-
to-face service (even if it requires waiting in line). In my view,
however, making the investments for network-delivered service and
self-service will soon be mandatory, not discretionary. We can't
afford NOT to do it.
 So, in case you think kiosks are simply toys, you might want to take
another look.

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