January 2009 Archives

An unrepentant and even gleeful television loyalist, Government Technology Associate Editor Chad Vander Veen added a inauguration post script in a recent GovLog post about how the conventional and new media compared in delivering the video the world wanted to watch last Tuesday.

There was a good reason for the herky jerky video from streaming sources.  It turns out that Vander Veen was in the minority by choosing to watch the party on the national mall on television. (In the name of disclosure, I double dipped with the TV remote on one knee and my laptop on the other.)

Consider recently released numbers about the inauguration coverage from the Nielsen Media Research and its sister organization Nielsen Online.  The former counted the total television and cable audience across 17 broadcast and cable networks at 37.8 million.  For its part, Nielson Online reports that the Top 10 current events and news sites served up a unique audience of 48.7 million.

This may be an inflection point in the way that we use media.  Broadcast and cable may have been able to deliver a more consistent signal but it is remarkable that a larger audience chose to make a little history of their own while watching a historic moment online.  Make no mistake, the digital majority has spoken again.  We would do well to listen and think carefully about what that means for meeting the expectations of generations that gravitate to the Internet but probably couldn't tell you that there were dedicated public access, educational and government (PEG) channels on cable.

Change.gov, the transition site of the former President-elect, actively solicited advice and input from all comers on matters of public concern.  (That function will now be performed through the newly relaunched whitehouse.gov.)  Our sister program, Digital Communities, responded early to the call with a transition brief that summarized the priorities of local governments.

Beyond the Digital Communities document, there are three nuggets that stand out in the breathtaking volume of unsolicited advice.

The first two represent a rare bit of agreement between a liberal Nobel Laureate economist and a conservative operative of the first order. Their subject: Economic Stimulus.

In the January 22 issue of Rolling Stone, Economist Paul Krugman wrote an open letter to the new president.  It read, in part,

As much as possible, you should spend on things of lasting value, things that, like roads and bridges, will make us a richer nation.  Upgrade the infrastructure behind the Internet; upgrade the electrical grid; improve information technology in the health care sector, a critical part of any health care." 

Importantly, Krugman continues, 

Provide aid to state and local governments, to prevent them from cutting investment spending at precisely the wrong moment.  And remember, as you do this, that all this spending does double duty: It serves the future, but it also helps the present, by providing jobs and income to offset the slump."

Still on the subject of stimulus, former House speaker Newt Gingrich cautions,

They're talking about a government that's still a trillion, 500 billion dollars. We ought to then have a smart, trillion, 500 billion dollar government, not a dumb one. Lincoln built the trans-continental railroads, one of the key factors in the rising Republican majority of his generation. Theodore Roosevelt built the Panama Canal.  Eisenhower proposed the interstate highway system as a national defense act.... There are smart things government should do....There's a huge jump from the transcontinental railroad president to a pothole presidency. What I've seen so far is a tendency to have relatively tiny projects that have no strategic impact on the country's long-term future."

Greg Elin of the Sunshine Foundation told public radio that digital technologies are transformative -- and that new administration can prove it by doing a couple of things on day one:

I think the first one is an executive order stating that social media and technology of Web 2.0 should be used by all the agencies. I think that that's absolutely the first one. We're certainly hopeful that he's going to follow through on his promises to create an Ethics.gov site and to make the information of lobbying activity as searchable as the contracts are.

I think the other thing is we'd like to see this information available in real time; rather than report it twice a year or quarterly or annually, that this information is available as it happens in real time.

If it is not too early to speak of the new president's legacy, if this is our moment, if this is our time, then let's let government in our time be remembered for being smart, sustainable and transparent.

CBS News was the first to post a story that conceded the grand streaming experiment of the inauguration -- including its own streams -- was brought to its knees at just the moment for which Americans had been waiting:

Minutes after noon as Barack Obama took the oath of office, the much talked about online video coverage of the event almost ground to a halt.

Just as massive crowds filled the National Mall in Washington, millions of users flocked to online video feeds. Maybe we're not as far into the Internet Age as we thought because for the 20 or so minutes surrounding the big moment, it was hard, if not impossible, to watch the inaugural festivities....

Clicking around to some of the other major news outlets, they seemed to be having similar issues.

Indeed, during the speech, the CNN Live/ Facebook streaming social network hybrid had its moments. 

One moment, it looked like this:

The inauguration of the nation's 44th president promises to be the largest live social-networking event to date.  It is expected to dwarf election night and the Super Bowl and push the edges in the ongoing experimentation with social networking.

Among the most prominent projects, CNN is integrating Facebook user status updates on CNN.com Live's streaming of the event and ABC is soliciting text messages and videos from neighborhood inauguration parties to include in its broadcast of the Tuesday night concert all in the hope of creating a national virtual inauguration ball.  Social networks including Flickr and Meebo and social platform companies such as Slide and Socialcast are expecting spikes in traffic, up 60 percent from normal patterns by one estimate. 

With less than 24 hours to go, the volume of micro blogging at Twitter was already beginning to overwhelm the system:







For their part, major wireless network providers have bulked up their capacity in the Washington, DC area.

In the other Washington -- Washington state -- public employees have been asked to help prevent congestion on state controlled networks on inauguration day.  Instead of streaming inauguration coverage into their own cubicles, employees interested in watching the inauguration have been asked to gather in conference rooms and watch it together -- on TV.

There is no word about whether employees who watch the ceremony will be required to submit leave slips for the time.

The New Year begins with no shortage of crisis. Economic. Geopolitical. Confidence.  Then there is the need for rebuilding the things on which communities rely to get stuff done - roads, bridges, airports, water, sewer, electricity and, lest we take it for granted, the Internet.

Friedman, the Chicago school free-market economist, would hardly think so but Keynesian-style public works had been an old idea lying around that is now gaining currency because building roads, bridges, grids and networks create jobs and help renew confidence - with more direct, measurable impacts than economic rescue plans and stimulus packages.

Public works is a not an instant remedy.  It reflects a long term commitment from investors based on what might be best characterized as a patient urgency, recognizing that government is uniquely able to invest as both a means and an ends - the means of kick starting a stalled economy and the ends of making needed improvements.  

Here are five smaller ideas that have been lying around that are worth considering as we think about the path forward:

1.    Be Like Ike
On inauguration day 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower made this note in his official, "My first day at the President's Desk. Plenty of worries and difficult problems."  His was a post-war, post-depression presidency into which Eisenhower introduced what is widely credited as the greatest public works project in history - the interstate highway, defense and communications system.  It became the backbone of a resurgent economy, supported national defense and did more to bring Americans together than any other law in the twentieth century.  The 47,000 mile system cost about a half trillion inflation-adjusted dollars.  That sounds about right, because trillion has become the denominator of choice in estimating the levels of investment needed for national renewal, competitiveness and sustainability.

2.    Smart is Second to Nothing
Dr. Robert Atkinson, President of the non-partisan Information Technology and Innovation Foundation argues that investments in what he calls "digital progress" is vital to: improved productivity, competitiveness, and quality of life; collaboration among public, private and not-for-profit organizations; and, solving intractable problems.  He concedes that investments in making digital progress is hard to attract because it invisible and intangible or both, yet it is much stronger economic driver that the industrial age institutions that are going to Washington, DC in search of a bail out.

Likewise, IBM chief executive Samuel J. Palmisano recently told the Council on Foreign Relations that more intelligent, efficient and smarter systems for modernizing utility grids, traffic management, food distribution, water conservation and health care are central to economic recovery as is the need for huge levels of public and private investment.  For Palmisano, smart is not just a metaphor. "I mean infusing intelligence into the way the world literally works -- the systems and processes that enable physical goods to be developed, manufactured, bought and sold... services to be delivered... everything from people and money to oil, water and electrons to move... and billions of people to work and live."

If, as the New York Times observes, this approach "potentially providing a foundation for innovation and growth across a range of industries," digital progress and smart systems should not take a backseat to any incumbent industry in the competition for new investments.

3.    Action is at the Edges
For Palmisano, being smart is synonymous with the rise of "the globally integrated enterprise" -- perhaps one with three initials in its name.  The conjoining of the two may put us at risk of losing out on the great lesson of the Internet - that innovation, growth and community always happen at the edges of a federation rather than the center of an enterprise.  The network has forever inverted center-periphery relationships in the hinterland's favor.  

4.    Value is in what public works make possible
Engineers and policy makers both have a tendency to talk about investments in terms of the thing itself rather than the value the thing creates.  In a political context, a bridge is much less an engineering marvel than a cost effective way to reduce congestion, improve safety and increase opportunities for residents and businesses alike.  The same holds true for investments in digital renewal - engineering and wizardry in the ether means far less to elected officials and taxpayers than how it improves quality of life and opportunities for their kids and communities.

5.    Watch Our Language
This column will doubtlessly be meta tagged as being about infrastructure but I have been at pains not to use that word here.  It is a useful shorthand among technologists but - according to no less authorities than Dr. Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Director of the Annenberg School of Public Policy at the University of Pennsylvania and MSNBC commentator Chris Mathews on an unlikely point of agreement - "infrastructure is an awful word."  The task ahead is too important for our potential friends and allies to be turned away from something good by an apparently awful label.  While we are it, we should probably lay off the practice of using software-style versioning numbers - as in Government 2.0 - to talk about things that are more important than the name lets on.

A fellow economist reminds us that there is something to learn here from Milton Friedman, who was particularly effective as a "popularize" with even his most polemical work "beautifully and cunningly written. There is no jargon; the points are made with cleverly chosen real-world examples."

Perhaps that is our charge for making the case for things that matter: be clever, beautiful and cunning.

For the last seven years, the editors of Government Technology and I have usually found a way to shoehorn my often over length columns into the available space on the back page of the magazine.  The first few drafts of the January 2009 column, originally titled The Case for Patiently Urgent Public Works, were much longer than they should have been.  I took the axe to it to get it down to the size but I still like the longer version better.  Now, if a guy had a forum or a platform, maybe he could surface the longer version ... wait, they have blogs on the Internet now.

After seven years, Tom Jarrett is leaving his post as state CIO in Delaware.  In a note to NASCIO colleagues, he explained simply, the "new governor has decided that he wants to make a change."  So go transitions.

In a follow up note, he told me that he was "not ready to retire and believe I still have something to offer."  The track record from the plucky little state where 'its good to be first' speaks for itself.

Jarrett joins Dan Ross, formerly of Missouri, on the "between opportunities" list but probably not for long.

Little noticed amid all the talk of a $600 billion stimulus for 'shovel ready' public infrastructure projects, the Wikimedia Foundation raised $6.2 million the old fashioned way -- it begged for it. 

In the Internet version of a public broadcasting pledge drive, the foundation appealed to need and vision all in the name of two mind numbingly dull subjects -- operations and infrastructure.  Here is the foundation in its own words -- the money would be used to "to maintain and grow the Foundation's technical infrastructure, which includes managing global traffic for Wikipedia, the 4th most popular web property on the Internet."

"This campaign has proven that Wikipedia matters to its users, and that our users strongly support our mission: to bring free knowledge to the planet, free of charge and free of advertising," wrote founder Jimmy Wales in a thank you note to users.

The campaign also proves public broadcasters have been on to something for decades -- or, alternatively, has acculturated us to responding to things like pledge drives.  Some 125,000 donors from around the world helped the foundation exceed the foundation's $6 million goal.

There is also a reminder about the power of a strong pitch man as the wikipledging surged in the final days, "A personal appeal from Jimmy Wales, published on the Wikimedia Foundation's website on December 23, 2008, resulted in a surge of more than 50,000 contributions in eight days, totaling $2 million and closing the gap towards the revenue goal."

So there are alternatives to applying for a federal bailout.  They both involve swallowing hard and asking for help but a key difference between a bailout and a pledge drive is who you ask and how.  Madame Governor, Mr. Mayor, it is time for your close up.

"Everything we need to know about making government service delivery better, particularly during tough economic times, we can learn from home improvement television."


That's the premise behind a major new white paper from the Center for Digital Government that couples everything good about home improvement with a contemporary view of government modernization.  It is all about building a smart and sustainable platform for governing in the age of stimulus. 

There was more material than would fit inside the covers of the Renovation Nation, so it overflowed onto this companion site. 

On this page:

• Priority Plans by States in the Top Five Categories of Government Modernization
• State-specific applications launched on existing platforms
• Videos featuring many of thought leaders quoted in the paper
• The full white paper, Renovation Nation, available for download here or here. 
• The companion presentation, Renovation Nation Roadshow, available for download
• An additional companion presentation, All-a-Twitter about Web 2.0 in government, available for download

Be sure to bookmark this site -- www.govtech.com/renovationnation -- to share with your colleagues and check back for updates.

Renovation Nation was made possible through the underwriting support of:

• Informatica
• Intuit
• Red Hat/ DLT Solutions
• salesforce.com
• Sungard Public Sector

and these members of the Digital States Performance Institute:

• Accenture
  
• EMC
• NIC
  

WEB EXTRA: Priority Plans by States in Top Five Categories

The Center for Digital Government surveyed U.S. states on the functions of government that would grow in importance even as the public treasury becomes constrained. 

The consensus between state executives and technology leaders held for the top 5, but there was less agreement in priorities moving forward on the remainder of the list.  That said, it is useful to see what is driving select states to make smarter and sustainable approaches their highest priorities.  It is also worth noting that in each of the examples that follow, the possibility of transformation is rooted in an organization and a process that values knowledge.

1.    Public Safety, Emergency Management, Corrections and Courts 

Public safety is a perennially high priority and the economic downturn has not displaced it from a matter of first importance.  Arizona, Utah, Michigan, Washington, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, California and Virginia have all outlined aggressive plans for modernization in the next biennium.

Arizona's AZ3D will bring together geospatial data from local, state and federal sources through service-oriented architecture to provide an advanced utility for better data exchange, situational awareness, visualization and enhanced decision-making in handling emergencies and managing the state's border and homeland security needs.

Utah is radically redefining what was once called radio interoperability.  Over the next two years, the state will begin transitioning radio communications to IP, a platform that will further integrate voice and data.  Increased bandwidth to patrol cars will allow for the streaming of video from the scene to a central video capture environment that is the basis of a comprehensive library of law enforcement video.   What is true on the ground is also true in the air, where the state maintains a small fleet of remote-controlled, camera-equipped mini helicopters that help manage and report on traffic accidents and other incidents. 

2.    Finance and Administration

There is nothing like a public sector revenue recession to focus attention on finance and administration systems.  States as diverse as Kentucky, New Jersey, Virginia, Utah, Michigan, Tennessee, Maryland, Arizona and Georgia are making investments in smarter money managing.

Kentucky is completely re-engineering and replacing a pair of core systems -- personnel and tax -- with a view to improving human resources and tax services, adding significant new online self services and increasing the transparency of government spending activities. 

One commonwealth over, Virginia is modernizing a trio of central administrative systems - financial, budget and personnel -- through its Enterprise Application Public-Private Partnership Office that was established by the General Assembly.  The new performance budget system will use analytical information on outcomes as the foundation for resource allocation.  For the first time, it will connect actual and targeted results to spending while establishing an environment to discuss, evaluate and re-evaluate earlier decisions.  The replacement of the 1980s vintage personnel management system needs to be sufficiently malleable to accommodate the widely different staffing structures among agencies, prompting the state to look to ERP and Software as a Service (SaaS) technologies to optimize flexibility while managing risk in incremental chunks.    

Georgia is taking a phased approach to replacing the 23 existing systems that, together, collect $23 billion per year with a single system that integrates sales and use tax, withholding and corporate tax.  It will allow Department of Revenue (DOR) employees to view all the taxpayer's accounts simultaneously while reducing manual intervention, increasing accuracy and improving accounting controls.

3.    Enterprise IT Infrastructure and Applications     

Extending the reach and benefits of networked digital technologies is a common theme among states as they prepare to meet the needs and expectations of a smarter century.  It goes beyond conventional approaches of consolidation to providing a common platform for doing the public's business.  No two states on a long list of those with ambitious plans in this area --Michigan, South Dakota, Maine, Virginia, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Indiana, Kansas, California, Texas, Colorado and New York - approach it the same way, owing to notable differences in their respective histories, geographies, hierarchies and policy priorities.

"Michigan/1" is the aptly named campaign to simplify that state's technology architecture by introducing a centrally-supported, enterprise-wide common productivity platform, providing the basis for a cohesive approach to telework, security, continuity and collaboration.  Seven of 19 agencies were migrated in the program's first 18 months.  And it scales. When it's done, Michigan/1 will be among the largest infrastructure migrations in either the public or private sectors.

The state of Maine is taking an active role in extending terrestrial broadband into underserved communities through the ConnectME Authority.  Through a grant program, the state has been able to tap community initiative and enjoy a multiplier effect in introducing broadband access to 14,400 household and businesses in 50 communities that had no previous infrastructure and were unlikely to receive high-speed service from conventional providers. The authority is projecting that, in the next 12-24 months, the state will add another 12,500 additional households to the broadband universe through a combination of WiMAX and Wi-Fi mesh networks, with two of the larger projects using a multi-modal solution, combining DSL and wireless equipment.

4.    Health, Human Services and Employment     

Health and human service agencies face the challenge of reconciling infinite demand with finite resources. Utah, Pennsylvania, Michigan, South Dakota, Georgia, Missouri, New Jersey, Washington, Arizona, Kentucky, California, Virginia, Mississippi are among the states that are modernizing their systems to stay ahead of the demand.

Cover All Pennsylvanians (CAP) is the self-descriptive name of a program which makes affordable basic health insurance available to eligible small businesses that do not presently offer health insurance to their employees, and to the uninsured, offered through the private insurance market. A companion plan will promote non-emergency settings for non-emergency care and increase the number of care centers in underserved areas.  To make it work, the Pennsylvania Health Information Exchange (PHIX) will provide secure access to patient information to authorized users at the point of care.  This high-level goal encompasses many initiatives which have been announced or are in planning and will provide the required framework to make health information available.  Due for initial release in late 2009, PHIX will serve as a platform for data sharing among Medicaid and public health information systems, with the ability to take advantage of electronic medical records and electronic prescribing.

Kentucky is pursuing a priority-driven razing and renovation across a number of social service agencies and the systems that support them.  Health and Family Services is developing an e-Health Interchange System to be a standardized platform for admissions, billing, pharmacy management and patient medical records for the state's mental health and mental retardation facilities.   The commonwealth is also re-engineering the eligibility systems that administer food stamps, medical assistance and other programs for families in transition to break free of the constraints caused by the age and complexity of legacy systems.  The story is the same for the systems that help support and enforce the administration of programs for child support, assistance for needy families and foster care.  Add to the mix new systems for real-time access to (and processing of) vital statistics on one hand and online electric death registration on the other - all with a view of increasing accuracy and reducing the need for manual intervention.

5.    Economic, Business, Community and Workforce Development 

Economic development is multi-faceted and a multi-agency undertaking.  Regardless of the size or geography of the state -- California, South Dakota, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Maryland, Maine, South Dakota, North Dakota, Kansas, Kentucky, Arkansas, New York - they share many of the same goals and characteristics, but allow for regional diversity.

The country's largest state is taking a platform approach to modernizing the administration of its unemployment insurance program. The UI Modernization (UIMOD) project at the California Employment Development Department (EDD) will implement Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and a service-oriented architecture to allow customers faster access to EDD services. The UIMOD project replaces the existing telephonic platform in favor of new automation technologies to be more responsive to customers requesting information about their claims. The project will also introduce a multi-channel self-service application for claim submission.


WEB EXTRA:
Nationwide Comparables: What Have You Done for Me Lately?

State-specific applications launched on existing platforms


Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts    
An accountability and transparency-related site that tells taxpayers "Where the Money Goes."

Utah Educator Licensing Suite   
The Education Service Suite exemplifies innovation and it's a fast and efficient alternative to the lengthy paper process.
  
Virginia's Regulation Information System and Virginia Regulatory Town Hall 2.0
This Web-based enterprise approach allows agencies to seamlessly submit regulatory actions for review and approval, for public comment and to the Registrar for real-time publication.

Missouri Business Portal     
This site brings together information from a variety of sources related to doing business in Missouri.  In addition to the service to the taxpayers, the increased usage of online business registration could save 30 to 40 hours per registration.

Tennessee 511   
The information results in reduced traffic congestion, thereby improving air quality and a reduction in traffic crashes. 

Michigan Mobile 24-hour Fishing License   
The state saved $239,200 in development hours and did not require any special hardware or software purchases. Every angler saves an average of 30 miles of round-trip drive time, fuel expenses and emissions. 
 
Hawaii Online Hunting License Application   
The state had more licenses sold online than through paper forms -- 52% vs. 48% -- in fiscal year 2008. 

California Bond Accountability   
California succeeded in providing a satisfactory level of transparency that benefits two major stakeholder groups.  First, it established a window for residents to see how their government is spending money.  Second, it gives public policy experts, including the legislature, access to instantaneous information on approved bond expenditures. 
  
Oregon Building Permits
Since its launch in May 2005, the site has been used by contractors to purchase over 30,000 building permits.  The number of participating jurisdictions has grown from six to 20, with an additional 15 jurisdictions in the process of joining. 

Wyoming E-Filing of Annual Reports   
Since mid-March 2007, over 19,500 annual reports have been filed online for over $1.1 million in fees.
  
Vermont CourtPay    
In its first year and a half of use, the CourtPay service processed over 30,000 transactions and collected approximately $4.7 million in overdue fines for the state
 
Washington DOT Good to Go   
This project was to provide electronic tolling on the new Narrows Bridge. By opening day, more than 60,000 customers had established Good To Go! accounts and more than 130,000 transponders had been distributed - nearly three times the goal. On opening morning, smooth-flowing traffic heralded the commute as 73 percent of the peak commute drivers used the electronic toll lanes. Traffic zipped along at freeway speeds for the first time in years. Today, eight months after the bridge opened, more than 220,000 transponders are distributed and 85 percent of morning commuters use the electronic toll lanes.

Massachusetts Virtual Gateway/Consumer Facing Food Stamp Application   
Consumers can apply for food stamp benefits through the online application as well as hard-copy applications. Currently, DTA receives approximately 25% of the total amount of applications online (about 1,800 applications per month).

New Jersey Registration Renewal Application   
The application has successfully processed around 571,000 renewals, representing over $30 million in revenue. Included in the transactions were almost 2,300 specialty plate add-ons and over 24,000 addresses changed. The daily average is just short of 3,000 requests, with the highest day's volume exceeding 5,200 completed transactions.

VIDEO WEB EXTRAS:
Heads in the Cloud




GETTING SOMETHING DONE
Federal CIO Vivek Kundra on the inevitability of cloud computing

RAINING ON THE INSIDE
State of California EDD CIO Dale Jablonsky on the merits of internal clouds

FATHER OF THE INTERNET, IP AND ME
Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf on computational power of the cloud

OVERCOMING HIS OWN RESISTANCE TO THE GATHERING CLOUD
Cerf on the advantages of cloud connectivity
 
ADEQUATE CONNECTIVITY, CAPACITY AND A LITTLE LUCK
Cerf on why it is better to be lucky and good
 
HEY YOU, GET OFF OF MY CLOUD
Cerf on why disconnection is as bad as you think it is