You don't have to believe e-gov is dead to conclude that it has seen better days. One state chief information officer recently banned the use of the term "e-gov" in discussions with him. In this year's gubernatorial state-of-the-state messages, e-gov was invoked rarely--a distinct contrast to the past few years when the term was sprinkled throughout major speeches.
Yet, e-gov still remains a topic of great interest among top government officials. The federal government is launching several ambitious e-gov initiatives that will involve federal, state and local governments, such as a government benefits portal that consolidates 55 benefits programs into one Web address. At state and local technology leadership conferences, e-gov continues to be a hot topic. Moreover, according to a recent informal survey of state information technology leaders, spending on e-gov will continue to grow in spite of tough budgetary times.
E-gov's destiny will probably always be linked to the fate of the Internet. And no one is suggesting that the Internet, which is the technology that gave birth to e-gov, is ready for the dustheap. As long as the use of the Internet continues to grow in government, which it certainly is doing, then e-gov will have legs.
But e-gov is not just a technology. It is a way of conducting the business of government--a strategy for delivering more effective and efficient services. Government and industry continue to develop more innovative approaches to all three dimensions of e-gov: government-to- government, government-to-citizen and government-to-business. So, while the pace of moving government services to the Internet has slowed a bit, the aspiration of putting government online remains strong.
The critics who contend that e-gov needs to be reevaluated aren't claiming that using the Internet to bring efficiencies to government services is dead--only that it is suffering from an overdose of self- created hype and unrealistic expectations. They have a point. After all, though champions of e-gov routinely herald its revolutionary potential, even the strongest proponent of e-gov would be hard-pressed to cite an example where government has truly been "revolutionized" by the concept. As a result, many have grown skeptical whenever they see the words "e-gov" and "revolution" linked in the same sentence.
But in making their case, the critics may be missing the bigger picture. Perhaps e-gov, like the Internet itself, is simply entering a new phase of its life cycle. Consequently, the core idea of e-gov--the use of the Internet to transform government--may need a transformation of its own.
Now may be the opportune time to decouple the term e-gov from the underlying technology it represents. After all, the value of e-gov was never about the Internet. The appeal was always more about the goal of remaking the way government provides services and goes about its business.
Very few still believe that the use of any single technology, even a technology as powerful as the Internet, can really transform government. While e-gov has yet to reengineer government, it is changing our thinking about the contribution of technology--both its promise and its limits--to government performance.
If the goal of e-gov is truly transformation, then the focus of attention now needs to shift to more powerful drivers of reform, such as changes in government processes and structures. From the experiences of the past half-decade, we now know that the pace at which governments redo processes and realign structures is not keeping up with the rate of change in technology. Until changes in all three areas are in sync, it is doubtful that true government transformation will take place.
Also, the term transformation is used so loosely that it is losing its meaning. Too frequently it's not clear what the word means in a government context. For example, what degree of improvement is needed to qualify for transformational status? Is allowing citizens to register their vehicles or pay parking tickets over the Web really transformational? Associating e-gov with transformation, just to gain support for additional spending on technology, does more harm than good.
It has been suggested that the bursting of the dot-com bubble, followed by the events of 9-11, drove a stake in the heart of e-gov. But these events could turn out to have a liberating effect. They could free e-gov of its past legacy, allowing it to move into adolescence and eventual maturity so that it can become something much more meaningful, valuable and lasting.
