Governing Magazine/August 1995

TECHNOLOGY COLUMN

DON'T HANG BACK ON TECHNOLOGY

By Jerry Mechling

Jerry Mechling is director of the Program on Strategic Computing and
Telecommunications in the Public Sector at Harvard University's
Kennedy School of Government. To reach him, call 617-495-3036 or send
e-mail to jerrym@ksgrsch.harvard.edu.

Dear Governor:
 With just a few exceptions--Michael O. Leavitt of Utah comes quickly
to mind--you and the other governors have not been visible on
information technology issues. Why?
 The primary rationale seems to be that you are needed for more
important issues--those that require political leadership, not the
numbing details of automation projects. Besides, you may not know much
about technology, and thus may have little to contribute.
 I think you are wrong on both counts. Technology issues are of
critical importance to the future of the economy, and the hard part is
leadership, not technology per se.
 While hanging back was often sensible 10 years ago, it's increasingly
dangerous now. Computing today is roughly 32 times (that's 3,200
percent) more productive than it was just 10 years ago, and gives
every indication of growing another 32-fold more productive over the
next decade as well. That big a change in managing information is
beginning to generate big changes in organizing and managing work.
 The economy is becoming global and knowledge-based. To protect the
welfare of your citizens and institutions, your state government will
need to partner with other levels of government and with the private
sector to prepare to make the transition to a knowledge-based economy
and the related phenomenon of global electronic commerce.
 Uncertainty, anxiety and conflict will characterize this transition.
It will require you and others to exercise wise and sustained
leadership on technology-related issues. Your old stance of delegating
technology to "the experts" will no longer suffice.
 In many ways, the economic trends are epitomized by the last decade's
changes in the automobile bumper. Where once it was made of metals
that were expensive to mine, manufacture and ship, today's bumper is
fabricated of light, high-performance plastics that can be made
anywhere in the world and shipped cheaply.
 As with the bumper, so with the rest of economic life. The keys to
productivity and wealth are shifting from raw materials and energy to
"codified knowledge"--knowledge made explicit, symbolic and readily
processed and communicated over computer networks.
 Today's production processes accept inputs from anywhere in the world
reachable by adequate computer-based communications. Your "local"
telephone company directory-assistance operator may in fact be
hundreds or thousands of miles away. Omaha is staking a claim to being
the "1-800" capital of North America. Singapore is becoming your ally
and your competitor. If you want productive (and therefore
economically well-off) workers in a knowledge-based economy, you will
need--as Omaha and Singapore are doing--to give them access to
computer-networked organizations and to the markets where the world's
commerce is shifting.
 A role for the governor? Most state economies have barely begun the
institutional restructuring required for global electronic commerce.
This is where you need to come in. Keep the costs down and the quality
high for the infrastructure that business needs to compete, such as a
well-trained work force and good transportation. Beyond that, you
might begin with the following checklist:
 --Your planning process: Are you explicitly addressing the issue of
preparing your state for a knowledge-based economy? You should be.
 --Your budget process: Are you finding the funds you need to invest
in the information-infrastructure "seed corn" needed for the future?
If you're having trouble, try looking to non-traditional financing
sources such as user charges, bonds and partnerships with the private
sector.
 --Staffing: Have you assembled trusted sources of leadership and the
skills you will need in network-building and reengineering? These will
be at a premium.
 --Partnerships: Have you mobilized not only your own administration
but also supporters in other governments, industry groups, labor, the
legislature, the press and the general public?
 You will need to decide how visible to make these issues. You could
lose if the transition to a knowledge-based economy is not visible
enough on the public agenda (and fails to mobilize needed support),
but you could also lose if it is too visible (fanning controversy and
partisanship).
 Success will involve judgment calls, not certainty, much as was true
of the old western trail bosses whose persistence and general sense of
direction were their greatest allies. For you, as for them, perhaps
the best advice is: "Keep the herd headed roughly west."

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Copyright 1995, Congressional Quarterly, Inc. Reproduction in any form
without the written permission of the publisher is prohibited.
Governing, City & State and Governing.com are registered trademarks of
Congressional Quarterly, Inc.
http://governing.com