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May 2008
20 YEARS OF TRANSFORMATION
Peter Harkness, Governing's founding publisher and editor, is by no means a techie. The other day, for example, he asked me to help him get the sound working on his laptop. That I failed does not say a whole lot about my credentials as a technology columnist either, but -- um -- that's not the point.
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| The Managing Technology Letter is edited by Governing's Mark Stencel. Got an idea? Contact us at techletter@ governing.com. |
Peter made mention of that article in a speech at a recent meeting of the National Association of State Chief Information Officers, whose leaders recognized him with the organization's 2008 National Technology Champion Award.
In his remarks, Peter told the NASCIO audience a story he often shares in his speeches. It's a story about the promises of technological efficiency, as well as the hype and unfulfilled expectations that those promises can foster. It also reflects the institutional realities that can be the biggest obstacles to change and modernization.
The story starts at the sprawling conference facility once known as the Opryland Hotel in Nashville. It was in the 1990s, in the middle of the last Internet boom, and Peter was speaking to a group of I.T. vendors. The tech chief of a large California agency preceded Peter at the microphone. This official predicted that the widespread adoption of emerging technologies would allow state governments to cut their workforces by as much as 40 percent in the following five years. "Whole job classifications would disappear," Peter said, paraphrasing, "sort of like bank tellers or phone operators."
(CONTINUED BELOW)
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(TRANSFORMATION, Continued)
Based on decades of covering government at all levels, that prediction did not sound right to Peter. So when it was his turn to speak, he made a wager: "If states cut their workforces at all in the next five years, I'd sing buck naked at the Grand Ole Opry. If they cut them more than 5 percent, I'd guarantee every company represented in the room a free ad schedule." Still, Peter remembered, "It was not a popular bet."
"Good people tend to be enthusiastic about what they do. But there is a reality: Policy trends and demographic trends are like the tides. If you think you're going to hold them back with some management dictum or some set of killer applications, think again."
The data ultimately supported Peter's analysis. From 1994 to 2003, local government grew by more than 18 percent to 13.8 million. State employment grew by almost 10 percent to more than 5 million. And the trend continues five years later, Peter noted in his remarks, pointing to a story in USA Today on a current "hiring binge" at every level of government. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics cited in the story, state and local government added 63,000 jobs in the first quarter of 2008, despite budgetary and economic difficulties across the country.
Technology can in fact make a difference in addressing those very fiscal realities, Peter argued, but only to the extent that it enables political change. As he put it:
"The largest single obstacle to efficient and effective governance is the culture of fragmentation. It's political, cultural and embedded in our federated system -- with our central government, 50 states, thousands of cities and counties, special districts, authorities. It's embedded in our organizational culture. It's hard -- often impossible -- for well-intended people to look out from their particular part of the world and see a broader vision, to see how their office or bureau or agency -- or even their state -- relates to others, how it fits into a very complex scheme of governance around them, over them, under them, even next to them.... The sharing and taming of information is one of the most powerful tools in combating the culture of fragmentation.... This process is made possible by new technologies, but we've made a mistake by dwelling on them in a vacuum. This isn't about technology in itself, it's about the convergence of policy, management and process."
Few of us can and ever will say it any better than Peter. We're very proud of his award.
WARY OF THE WEB?
I might have had this newsletter written and off to my editor a lot sooner if I hadn't spent so much time puttering around on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. But since almost all of those with whom I interact on those three sites are professional friends and contacts, was all of that time really wasted?
That's a question that's much on the mind of government technology managers, many of whom routinely block employees' access to the more frivolous and less reputable parts of the Web. As I wrote in my May magazine column on at-work Web use, some of those reasons are legitimate, such as concerns about security and improper business communication conducted outside of the systems that track and archive messages for open-record and discovery purposes. And there's a serious public relations concern as well: Do taxpayers really want to hear about state or local employees "poking" their Facebook pals or posting "tweets" to their Twitter followers on their work computers?
On the other hand, barring access to much of the Web also can hamper e-government, especially if policies prevent employees from using the private-sector e-commerce sites that set citizens' expectations for online services. How better to understand best practices than to use and study the best sites?
As Iowa's tech chief and the current NASCIO president, John Gillispie, told me, government leaders also need to examine their Internet use policies with an eye toward the "next generation of workers", many of whom easily alt-tab between the professional and personal sides of their active online lives.
These questions become more urgent in what the cover story in this month's Governing calls "the Wiki World" -- an interactive place where most government officials are still mulling how new tools (often lumped together under the increasing cliched "Web 2.0" label) change the way they communicate internally and with constituents.
What side of this argument is your office or agency on -- and why? How has your Internet use policy affected your access to information that would help you do your job better, or saved your agency, department, boss or self from trouble and embarrassment? Let me know at techletter@governing.com and I'll share any interesting responses in an upcoming edition of this newsletter. (You also can join us in Seattle at the end of this month for our annual Managing Technology conference, where I'll be moderating this discussion: "Governing in a Wiki World: How Web 2.0 is Changing the Way Government Does Business." )
THE HUMAN FACTOR
If social services and health overlap with your responsibilities in any way, sign up for our latest e-mail newsletter: Human Services Monthly. Governing's Jonathan Walters, who has reported on the subject for a dozen years, will be the primary writer for this new free monthly, which is scheduled to make its debut late next month.
DEALS
CivicPlus will develop and host the Web sites and provide its content-management system for Lewiston, Idaho; Overland, Mo.; Slaton, Texas; Winfield, Ill.; and the Illinois City/County Management Association.
SpectraRep will deploy an advanced emergency-alert system statewide in Missouri, deploying its AlertManager system to provide a digital upgrade to two state two emergency-alert systems.
Weld County, Colo., has renewed its contract with Affiliated Computer Service for a wide range of information-technology services. The contract, with a length of up to 15 years, has a value of as much as $60 million.
The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning has retained GeoAnalytics to provide aid in development of a GIS-based forecasting application for displaying and analyzing proposed land use changes at meetings with local government officials.
Two California municipalities, Orange and Apple Valley, have contracted with Tyler Technologies for the company's EDEN financial-management system. The agreements have a combined value of $1.3 million.
Data-warehouse and analytics applications from SAS are being used by the North Carolina Office of State Personnel to support workforce planning, including predicting employee turnover, for the state’s agencies and universities.
Georgia has awarded EDS a seven-year, $391 million contract to design, develop and implement a new-generation Medicaid Management Information System to provide fiscal agent and enrollment broker services and establish electronic health records.
The University of Florida Foundation Inc., the university's fund-raising arm, has selected Enterasys Networks to provide network connectivity, security compliance and voice convergence services.
TrafficLand and the Michigan Department of Transportation have reached an agreement to develop an integrated statewide traffic-video network that includes installing video-upload equipment to integrate 162 MDOT traffic cameras in the Detroit metropolitan area into its network.
The Kentucky Agriculture Department is employing an online tracking system from Agile Access Control to help gather, consolidate and manage data on its fleet of more than 200 cars and trucks.
BearingPoint has completed the installation of a new Louisiana pension-administration system, replacing a 20-year-old system. BearingPoint won the $16.3 million contract in 2004, but the project was delayed by the 2005 hurricanes.
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