Recently in Government Modernization Category

A bipartisan and independent California state agency is recommending further consolidation of the state's information technology infrastructure, assets and staff under the state CIO.  The Little Hoover Commission, in an ironically-named report called  A New Legacy System: Using Technology to Drive Performance, recommends:

Empower the state chief information officer with tools and resources to oversee a generational transformation of information technology in state government. The state must consolidate resources under the Office of the State Chief Information Officer, including the Department of Technology Services, the Office of Systems Integration, geospatial information functions and the information security functions of the Office of Information Security and Privacy Protection.

Use public money for technology projects responsibly and with transparency.
To rebuild the confidence of the Legislature and the public, the process through which California's technology projects are governed must be open and transparent. The Information Technology Council should expand to include legislative members as well as members from existing technology councils, and it should be empowered to prioritize overall technology projects for the state and aggressively monitor their implementation. The state chief information officer should regularly report on the progress of the state's information technology projects through a more robust Web site.

Use technology to track, measure and improve performance.
The state should encourage and foster the burgeoning development of performance measurement projects throughout state departments and agencies by re-establishing the technology innovation fund and creating opportunities to regularly integrate performance data into the state's management and budgeting strategy. The governor should hold regular public meetings with agency heads to evaluate performance data.

Even while tacitly recognizing that these changes will be difficult and take time, the Commission points to a new model for IT governance as key to a more effective fiscal management in the long run.

In the name of full disclosure, I was one of many who provided testimony to the Commission and worked with its staff in the preparation of the report.  To read the full text of the report, download it here -- LittleHoover.pdf .

The answer is in the room.  The room, in this case, was a discussion of changing the way government works at the conclusion of re:public VII: a gathering of those who choose to lead, an invitation-only event convened in Tucson, AZ by e.Republic's Center of Digital Government.

The answer is in the room, taken more broadly, recognizes the power and potential of internal initiative in changing the way organizations work.

As a case in point, Veterans Day came with a pair of announcements that new veterans-only social networks were launching, not by upstart newcomers but by incumbents that have been protecting and promoting the interests of veterans -- Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, working with the Ad Council, launched CommunityofVeterans.org on Tuesday and the Veterans of Foreign Wars brought www.myvetworks.com online this week too.

But that may be just scratching the surface.  Back in the room in Tucson, the assembled panel had all gone deeper in their respective jurisdictions.  Here are brief summaries of their case stories:

On the Spot: Open Source and Authority to Change

Vivek Kundra, CTO for the District of Columbia, says formal cross-agency agreements to surface and share data has made it possible to democratize DC's data -- for the good of the District and democracy itself.

It has resulted in the surfacing of 260 data feeds across DC government and a 30 percent reduction in requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

As noted in an earlier post, the internal initiative to create the 260 feeds was a necessary precondition to creating Apps for Democracy, the $20,000 competition to mashup the District's data.

This final judging is slated for this Thursday but the contest has attracted a steady stream (with at least one developed every day) of open source apps for platforms from Facebook to iPhones Apps -- including ones that let you know when the next metro train is coming, give you real time notification of crimes and disturbances in progress or allow you to customize tour routes in the DC based on your interests.

Kundra says the Apps for Democracy is part of a deliberate process to rethink the way government is done and in which "citizens and NGOs co-create" the future with and for government.

Kundra says that a future of that time involves confronting entrenched bureaucracies.  He asked for and received the authority to make hiring offers on the spot -- successfully attracting 100 new people into public service that would have otherwise been snapped up by the private sector before government-as-usual could act. A more startling HR move is a parallel mechanism for showing others to the door.  The district has also implemented daily performance reviews to identify people who are simply not working (out) and get them off the public payroll.  The daily performance checks enforce expectations that everybody gets something done everyday.  If you are not getting it done, you have until tomorrow or the next day to start.  And if you never start, your employment ends.

Building an Arc

The City of Sacramento, CA, is partnering with Westinghouse to vaporize and monetize trash.  So says Sacramento City Manager Ray Kerridge who, upon first meeting, appears to be the kind of guy who has a well thumbed first edition of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.  Listen a little longer and it becomes clear that he could write Zen and the Art of Repairing Government.

Kerridge enthusiastically detailed joint plans between the city (with a 5% percent ownership stake) and Westinghouse (the majority owner at 95%) to build earth's largest Plasma arc gasification plant.  Riiight, as in Bill Cosby's Noah.

Wikipedia helpfully describes Plasma arc gasification as "a waste treatment technology that uses high electrical energy and high temperature created by an electrical arc gasifier. This arc breaks down waste primarily into elemental gas and solid waste slag, in a device called a plasma converter. The process has been intended to be a net generator of electricity, depending upon the composition of input wastes, and to reduce the volumes of waste being sent to landfill sites."  Right.

That is exactly what Kerridge says the sacred northern California city will do.  Gone will be the expense of trucking Sacramento's garbage to far away landfills.  What's more, the scheme will redeem slag's good name because in this new brownish green economy, slag has economic value and a new name -- feed stock.

And Sacramento produces 5,000 tons of feed stock every day, which they will be able to sell as the raw resource for the gasifier.  The stuff that comes out of the gasifier has added value in the making of green products.  Under the agreement, Sacramento will get a cut of that too.  If that wasn't enough, Kerridge says the city is also looking at the possibility at taking garbage off of other cities (for a fee), provide it as feeder stock (for a fee) and take a third fee for its share of the value-added products.

Amid looks of disbelief and furious note taking in the room, Kerridge -- whose voice still carries a residual British accent -- reminded the audience of an old saying from his native England, "Where there is muck there is money."  The new world translation will be worth watching.

The Education Dividend

The Commonwealth of Virginia's strategic partnerships on infrastructure (Northrop Grumman) and enterprise applications (CGI) are credited for bringing hope to hard scrabble southwest Virginia.  The collaborations are on track to help create 700 jobs.  But the opportunities surface problems of their own -- what if the jobs go begging for want of workers with the needed education and skills? 

For all his work on creating and sheparding the partnerships, Virginia Secretary of Technology Aneesh Chopra loves the challenge that comes with these more complex, stickier questions.  The first part of the state's response is called plugGED In (notice how GED is imbedded in the name) which combines adult literacy, skills assessment, and workforce development.

Thanks to internal initiative, the commonwealth was able to stand the program up in only 6 months.  But they did not do it alone, particularly in the area of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) where the education gap was particularly pronounced.

Virginia reached out to a non-profit "open course" start-up, the CK Foundation, which describes itslef this way on its website:

Our mission is to reduce the cost of textbook materials for the K-12 market both in the US and worldwide, but also to empower teacher practitioners by generating or adapting content relevant to their local context. Using a collaborative and web-based compilation model that can manifest open resource content as an adaptive textbook, termed the "FlexBook", CK-12 intends to pioneer the generation and distribution of high quality, locally and temporally relevant, educational web texts. The content generated by CK-12 and the CK-12 community will serve both as source material for a student's learning and provide an adaptive environment that scaffolds the learner's journey as he or she masters a standards-based body of knowledge, while allowing for passion-based learning.

Generating and adapting content relevant to a local context was exactly what is plugGED In needed. Chopra says they issued an open call for contributors and collaborators for their own untextbook that focused on the skills the commonwealth sought to develop.  They received responses from over the country, with would-be collaborators ranging from an 11th grader to major research universities.  The result: a custom open source physics flex book that will be available in February 2009, which Chopra proudly points out is the speed that the market needs and puts the conventional textbook industry to shame.

On the exit question, the panel offered a few random elements on the secrets to change that you can believe in -- and get done:

• Be bold enough to take on entrenched bureaucracies (and have the necessary air cover from your appointing authority in place before you hit the streets);
• Convince your people that their lives will be better;
• Remember that attorneys answer the questions that they are asked -- "what are the barriers to doing this?" gets a very different answer than "how can we do this?";
  
• Push innovation down as far as it can go in the organization.  Innovation is embraced downstream when the people in the trenches believe its theirs;
• Create a war room to prosecute the change with military-style discipline -- but only build a war room if you are relentless about it and willing to stake your career on it; and,
• Remember that innovation cannot come at the cost of consistent and reliable service delivery -- blocking and tackling on the front lines buys permission to keep working on the next new thing just behind the curtain.

There is a lot here to digest, and this summary may not have done their cases justice.  Expect a return to some of these ideas in subsequent posts.  And your thoughts are welcome and encouraged by adding your comments below.

The trip to the seventh annual re:public retreat for those who choose to lead provided a chance to get caught up with friends in Arizona over the weekend.

At breakfast on Sunday, we met with a friend who is a veteran of health care IT systems implementation and training.  She had moved here three years ago after a long career at public hospitals in the northwest.  The then new job was with a hospital system run by a religious order.

There is much in common between the two environments.  The same software, the same organizational resistance, the same tight budgets, the same aggressive time lines and the same team dynamics.  But there was at least one notable difference.

This morning's breakfast came as the launch of the next iteration of the clinical information system loomed only seven days away.  The team was pressing hard against deadlines, working long hours to ready the system for the go live next Saturday at midnight. 

In double checking the final countdown's task list, a colleague reminded our friend that there was one final requirement for the go live -- finding a priest to bless the new system as it went into production.

After a flurry of e-mail, she found a priest who was happy to help but there was one last contingency -- a page at 11:00PM to make sure he was awake at an hour much later than his normal bedtime.

There is a conventional wisdom among public employees: vote your job.  That usually means voting for the incumbent whose administration signs your paycheck rather than the challenger who ran on a platform of eliminating government waste, which could include your job.

It is a different story around the cabinet table, where the members are supposed to be the first choice of the appointing authority.  When the appointing authority changes, and when there is a change in party, resignation seems obvious.

There is sometimes a case to be made for retention over a political transition.  The speculation about the possibility that Defense Secretary Bob Gates would be held over by the incoming Obama administration is a case in point.

Sometimes continuity matters, sometimes there is a non partisan path forward, sometimes the plan is working, and sometimes the incumbent is uniquely credible in the community of interest such that spanning changes in appointing authority and even party make sense.

With eight of the eleven gubertorial elections on Tuesday night returning incumbents for another term, the issue of transitions may not seem relevant.  But returning governors often see the new term as exactly that - new.

Re-election forces soul searching and a hard look of what worked and what didn't. What remains undone and will the current strategies and players get them to done? In such circumstances, legacy becomes more important than continuity.  

It takes little intuition to figure out whether you are part of the next administration when the call comes thanking you for your service, couched in some awkward talk about going in a new direction.  

But what if doing the right thing for the good of the order comes down to your own initiative?  It may be helpful to see yourself as others do.

• When the track record of projects has been obfuscated to mask overruns in cost, time and scope, or bug lists are kept from partner agencies to save face, it is time to write that letter.
• When you have earned a reputation as a hatchet person, because the person who dismantles a program is rarely the right person to build a new one, it is time to write that letter.
• When you do not have a good and clearly stated answer to the simple question, what's next?, it is time to write that letter.
• If you have never been caught making a decision, it is time to write that letter.
• If you have a customer base of only one -- the appointing authority -- it is time to write that letter.  (Conversely, if you covertly complain about the appointing authority to curry favor with customer agencies, it is time to write that letter.)
• If you spent the good old days marginalizing people whose help you could now use to work through the hard times, it is time to write that letter.
  

An old friend taught me a long time ago that success in this business is based on competence and trust.  If that is not the way you are seen up, down and across the organization, it is time to write that letter.

Do it.  Now.

The next president's choice of, and mandate for, a federal CIO has been speculative fodder for publications as diverse as BusinessWeek and The Atlantic on one side and c|net, CIO, Information/Network/Computer -Weeks and our sister magazines (Government Technology and Public CIO) on the other.  Much of the coverage is aspirational -- projecting what the IT industry and other interested third parties (including the editors of the magazines) would like to see.

These speculative pieces look forward to election day or, more properly, inauguration day, and what could be.  With much less fanfare, and just 15 days before the election, the outgoing administration issued a memo that defines what is now.

The memo, heavily laden with the kind of language that assigns responsibility retroactively while simultaneously dulling the senses, lays out fourteen characterstics of a federal CIO.  (It is worth noting that the memo codifies a federated model where there are many federal CIOs, each working independently on behaf of their respective agencies.)  Here is the job as understood in the dying days of an outgoing administration, in its own words:

I. Organizational Structure and Reporting Relationships of IT Executives and Senior Managers

A. The Department or Agency has a designated executive-level Chief Information Officer (CIO) reporting to the head of the organization, with formal and full responsibility for all requirements set forth in promulgating statutes, regulations and guidance of Public Law 104-106, "Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996," Public Law 107-347, "E-Government Act of 2002," Title 44 U.S. Code Section 3506 "Federal Agency Responsibilities," Federal Acquisition Regulation Part 39, "Acquisition of Information Technology," and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-130, "Transmittal Memorandum #4, Management of Federal Information Resources."
B. The Agency CIO has ultimate responsibility for the governance, management and delivery of IT mission and business programs within the Department, and has an effective operative means of meeting this responsibility.
C. The CIO may review the qualifications of and provides input into the selection process for IT and IT-related executive and senior management positions within the Agency and organizational components thereof.
D. IT executives and senior managers in all organizational components of the Agency have clear responsibilities and accountability for adhering to Agency IT policy and direction established by the CIO.
E. The CIO may establish and provide evaluations and appraisals in collaboration with the appropriate supervisors of record for at least one critical performance element within the performance plans of IT and IT-related executives and senior managers within the Agency and organizational components thereof.

II. Authorities to Set IT Policy and Implementing Procedures
Except where otherwise authorized by law, regulation, or other policy, the CIO has the authority to set Agency-wide IT policy, including all areas of IT governance such as enterprise architecture and standards, IT capital planning and investment management, IT asset management, IT budgeting and acquisition, IT performance management, risk management, IT workforce management, IT security and operations, and information security.

III. Authorities to Select, Plan, Control and Evaluate Investments in and Acquisition of Information Systems and Information Technology
Except where otherwise authorized by law, regulation, or other policy, the Agency head is responsible for the following activities. The Agency CIO shall be the lead agency official in taking the necessary actions to ensure such activities are completed. Thus, the Agency head:

A. Is responsible for ensuring all Agency business and mission policies, processes, and IT and IT-related programs comply with the Federal Enterprise Architecture;
B. Ensures the organization's enterprise architecture data is visible and accessible to other federal agencies and mission partners to the extent necessary for other organizations to leverage those resources, and works collaboratively with other agencies and organizations on enterprise architecture issues and opportunities;
C. Ensures IT and IT-related systems, assets and services acquired and existing within the organization do not unnecessarily duplicate those available from other federal agencies, and are planned for and managed throughout their lifecycle;
D. Shall include the Agency CIO in budget formulation, preparation, prioritization and presentation activities, including determining and evaluating IT resource requirements in support of mission execution and program administration and support;
E. Shall include the Agency CIO in Agency and component budget execution and resource allocation and planning activities for IT and systems development, operations, and services as appropriate to ensure resources are expended in accordance with established IT policy;
F. Shall include the Agency CIO in the selection, planning, review, and oversight of major IT and IT-related investments and acquisitions, development projects, and contracts or agreements for goods or services, and in evaluating and providing approval to proceed at the earliest state possible prior to initiating procurements or advancing to subsequent phases of system development and/or acquisition;
G. Reviews the status and progress of projects and activities in the Agency IT investment portfolio to determinate whether to continue, suspend, re-baseline or cancel projects or components thereof, including any associated current or planned acquisitions; and
H. Has established means for ensuring investment management, risk management, information security, and systems development lifecycle management policy compliance, including periodic review of artifacts and development products for IT investments and activities developed within or for component organizations.

A fair reading of this 14-point job description suggests that the memo is a one-size fits all straight jacket.  It would have to be undone by any incoming administration that had a different view of how to manage or lead government modernization efforts.  It would telegraph a message to anyone considering a role as one of many federal CIOs about the skills and world view that are valued -- and those that are not.  And, sadly, it places a straight jacket on incumbent federal CIOs who are instructed to "review the attached IT governance framework [the 14 points above] and summarize your agency's current alignment with each element of the framework via signed memorandum by December 1, 2008."

Sign here.  Take one for the team.  And good luck with the transition.

Asian stock markets began the new week at 26 year lows and a sharply lower Dow futures market was a harbinger of more bad news domestically.  And some of that bad news came from a new report on state government revenues.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities surveyed 15 states and the news was universally downbeat.  Revenues for the quarter just ended were lower than in the same period in 2007 in the majority of surveyed states.  When adjusted for inflation, total revenue collections are below last year's levels in all but one of the 15 states covered in the survey.

The median state experienced a 5.5 percent decline in total tax revenue after adjustment for inflation. The sales tax story was even worse.  The report says, "Revenues are down in every one of those 15 states, with a median decline of 7.3 percent after adjustment for inflation."

The report says the numbers can be explained by the crisis in consumer confidence that is seen throughout the economy, and reflects the anxiety created by the loss of a half million jobs between September 2007 and September 2008.

The report's authors expect government service delivery to pay the price for the constitutional requirement on states to balance their budgets:

Many of the actions states take to balance their budgets will be harmful to families and to the economy.  State taxes pay for state aid to K-12 schools, support for public colleges and universities, health coverage for children, families, seniors and people with disabilities, public safety, and transportation.  States are enacting cuts in all these areas already.  They are also increasing taxes and fees.  Both spending cuts and revenue increases take money out of state economies, deepening the nation's economic problems.

State finances have not been this tight since 2002 when states slashed spending on health care insurance and education.  That could happen again this time around or, borrowing a page from Wall Street and the financial services sector, the federal government could step in with loans and a bail out package for political subdivisions.

The hardest hit states among the 15 in the CBPP survey -- when adjusted for inflation -- are: Washington (11.3%); Tennessee (9.5%); Idaho (9.1%) and Virginia (9.0%).  On a percentage basis, the country's largest states did moderately better -- with California experiencing a 6 percent decline and New York revenues off by a 1.3 percent.  

As road trips go, a journey to visit each of the Top 10 states as ranked in the 2008 Digital States survey (conducted every two years by e.Republic's Center for Digital Government) would cover 12,928 miles (if done in order) from coast to coast, with stops in a number of state capitols in between.

In the spirit of those famous 5-day tours of Europe, here is a busboy's recap of an only-time-to-hit-the-highlights trip to the eleven states that earned the distinction of being a Top 10 Digital State. 

The tour begins in the industrial heartland and ends, after crisscrossing the country at least three times, in the emergent new mountain west.

10.    Pennsylvania
(Image: Pennsylvania Portal)

COMPASS brings together these programs in a simple fashion - the customer does not have to have the detailed understanding of federal, state and local policy knowledge and focuses on 3 key steps - Click, Apply, Benefit.    A customer is able to access a wide variety of human service programs online that are spread across 20 different bureaus, agencies and departments. COMPASS began by integrating the various forms of state Medicaid assistance programs offered by DPW and Insurance and integrated healthcare access to individuals, pregnant women, families and children who are in need of healthcare assistance. Through the much publicized "Cover all kids" program, Pennsylvania expanded access for healthcare to all eligible children, and COMPASS is the primary access point for the commonwealth. In addition to health related access, including access to long term care and home and community based services, customers can access benefits for food assistance, school meals, and Women and Infant Children programs online. COMPASS expands access to critical emergency programs such as fuel assistance and general assistance for needy residents.     COMPASS improves customer service by providing electronic features to report any coverage changes, and allowing access to benefit and service information similar to online banking features.

10.    Tennessee
(Image: Tennessee Maps)

Tennessee.gov maps drivers license stations, schools, county clerks, state parks and other public facilities.  Below the covers, the state has consolidated three-quarters of what had been 1,600 widely dispersed servers and more than 200 IT functions into a shared data center.

9.    Maryland
(Image: Maryland DG Promo)

Service Access and Information Link (SAIL), a web-based screening and application tool open to all Maryland residents, provides online tools to determine potential benefit eligibility and examine various social services offerings. SAIL is available publicly and DHR has partnered with many community-based organizations such as the United Way of Maryland to encourage awareness and promote access. In addition to allowing individuals to pre-screen for benefit eligibility and explore information about social services programs.

8.     South Dakota
(Image: South Dakota Open SD)

On information: In addition to more than 180,000 pages of information already available on state government websites, OPEN SD provides financial information about state government, in a searchable format, which currently includes over 106,000 different financial records.

On services: Residents can now apply for UI weekly benefits through Interactive Voice Response (IVR) or the Internet and have his/her weekly payment delivered by direct deposit or debit card. The automation also provides the citizens 24x7 access to track their current claims process through online self service. Mailing and printing cost have been eliminated or reduced.  Client trips to the Career Centers have been reduced or eliminated resulting in lower costs for citizens.

7.     Kentucky
(Image: Kentucky Tech Trooper)

Kentucky State Police officer demonstrates a mobile data terminal, scanner and digital driver's license in his cruiser near the State Capitol in Frankfort.  Kentucky is emphasizing wireless delivery of state services as part of its e-Government strategy.


6.    Washington
(Image: Artist rendering of Washington Tech State)

With newly implemented systems in the corrections and personnel departments, and new initiatives in e-health and master business licensing, the Evergreen state has turned its attention to sustainability: 2/3 of agencies use energy conservation software on their PCs and laptops (with $1 million in estimated annual savings); and embraces industry standard sustainability practices for environmentally preferable purchasing and disposal.

5.     California
(Image: California YouTube Channel)

The home state of silicon valley relaunched its portal with new video, blogging and social network entry points while moving mission critical systems that do the heavy lifting of determining eligibility, administering and delivering social services to modern technology architectures.

4.     Arizona
(Image: Arizona @ Your Service)

Building on success of online self service, the Arizona Health Care Containment System has transitioned 20 percent of its workforce (300 people) to full time teleworkers, saving $667,000 each year, cancelled the leases on two office buildings, with employee productivity up by up to 45% and turnover down by 16%.


3.    Virginia
(Image: Virginia CMOC)

Virginia's Centralized Management and Operations Center for information technology at theChesterfield Enterprise Solutions Center, a key element in a ten year $1.9 billion partnership with Northrup Grumman to create a standardized, shared statewide computing utility.  It is expected to save $120 million in the next ten years in energy costs alone.

2.    Michigan
(Image: Michigan Self Service Station)

Business Intelligence Competency Center (BICC) - In 2007, the Governor's emergency financial advisory panel called for structural transformation of public service delivery. Across every state program the directive was given to eliminate fraud/abuse, streamline operations and get critical services to the citizens needing it most. In just two years, BICC has become core to optimizing outcomes and measuring programs, through successfully integrating BI and performance management. Results include:

• Compared food stamp records for 429,000 kids (4-19) against our student database, automatically qualifying 337,000 for school lunch assistance without filing out a single form;
• Matching health screening records against birth records identified thousands of newborns eligible for but not receiving free screening;
• By comparing day care benefits against wage records, detected over $17 million in fraud/abuse;
• BICC influenced policy when data analysis found that many homeless were eligible for, but not utilizing, program assistance, leading to the statewide homeless initiative, proactively getting assistance to at-risk families before they lost their homes; and,
  
• Cross-referencing children's metabolic screenings against immunization records allowed parent notification, increasing immunizations for high-risk kids.
  

1.    Utah
(Image: Utah Digital Library)

Libraries provide an additional access point to Utah.gov's vast array of online services and information.  In 2008, Governor Jon Huntsman dedicated the new digital library at Utah Valley University.  Also:

• Launched in 2007, Utah GovCast is a comprehensive multimedia portal, providing access to over 27 unique channels and several hundred streaming videos, as well as blogs and online radio;
• Utah teamed with CrimeReports.com to present a more comprehensive view to crime information from over 40 state and local law enforcement agencies;
• Utah Geosights help students develop greater understanding and appreciation of Utah's diverse geology.  Standard Keyhole Markup Language (KML) files, enhanced with imagery and other information, allow citizens to perform virtual flyovers using Google Earth, or simply create map views with tools like Google Maps or Microsoft Live;
• Utah interacts with citizens through a variety of social media including Swivel, where the Utah Data Group presents visual charts of state data; and,
  
• Utah is working to improve the overall efficiency of its data center operations.  In 2007-08, numerous state and local agencies created efficiencies by working with DTS to move their operations into the two primary data centers in Richfield and Salt Lake City.  The connectivity between the two centers is being upgraded to 10Gb in 2008 in a cooperative venture with the Utah Education Network

As part of the state's sustainability program, Governor Jon Huntsman implemented a four day work week for state employees in August 2008.  The move promised to save trips but the Utah plan called for closing governments each Friday.  Closed buildings can go dark and cold, netting energy and cost savings from reduced heating, air conditioning and lighting use.  Significantly, the governor was satisfied that the state portal, Utah.gov, and its suite of more than 600 online transactions were sufficiently broad and deep that the public would be able to conduct business with its government even when the buildings were dark and the employees were at home.

This ability to go green -- or, more precisely, introduce a four day work week in the name of going green -- is a function of having a robust suite of online services.  This table shows, on a percentage basis, the implemtation of major transaction types by state governments over the years.  The first thing to notice is that the majority of transaction or application types have matured out -- that is, all the states that are going to implement a particular online transaction likely have.

The other thing to notice is that those applications with the lowest implementation rates are those that require more sophisticated inputs to complete the transactions - VIN validations, vital records, credential lookups and drivers license renewal among them.  These categories lag the others categories because they are tougher nuts to crack.  The harder work requires rethinking the data sharing needed to complete the transaction.  The data exists somewhere, and the Web 2.0/3.0 challenge and opportunity is to get the data from where they are to where they are needed.  This involves machine-to-machine Web services - the type of Web service that we don't think about because we don't see or touch it.  By definition, it does not involve human intervention or - the way the machines see it - human latency.

The Center's analysis of the data will continue into 2009 with ongoing reports and commentaries.

How Did We Get Here? (Or, About the Digital States Survey)

The Digital State Survey from e.Republic's Center for Digital Government is the nation's original and only continuous assessment of state government's use of information technology (IT) in service to the citizen.  The 2008 survey, conducted with the underwriting support of Verizon Business, included more than 175 questions about citizen self service - including Internet portals, applications and Web 2.0 features such as blogs, wikis, social networks, mashups and viral video.

As importantly, the Digital States survey provides a comprehensive view of state information technology programs as a whole, with measures of the alignment of the architecture, infrastructure, policy, planning, methodologies and organizational maturity of delivering on technology's promise for improved service delivery and operational efficiencies.  The 2008 Digital States survey results also provide a first-in-nation benchmark of state sustainability activities, particularly in the area of the greening of IT.

The most recent Digital States was the most competitive in the survey's decade long history.  The top ranked states include a number of jurisdictions that have consistently made government modernization a priority over time combined with those that have made significant gains more recently. 

The top states reflect the whole country - large and small, red and blue, and geographically diverse.

(This post was prepared with the assistance of Janet Grenslitt of the Center for Digital Government.)
 

Dinner with Kevin Mitnick is at once fascinating and frightening.  In the time that it took the chef to prepare dinner, Mitnick did a little vishing on a major bank's IVR system (with each number pressed on his cell phone appearing in real time on his laptop sceen) after looking up -- through legal online subscription data resellers -- a dinner companion's social security number, drivers license number and mother's maiden name.

Mitnick, an early and infamous hacker who was convcted of computer crimes in 1999, has taken a turn as an information security consultant to government and industry.  We were both in Columbus, Ohio for a Government Technology event.  Interestingly, he is beginning to work magic (or, more properly, illusions) into his speeches and presentations, which takes him back to a childhood curiosity about slight of hand that became a pranksterish era of phreaking (phone freaking), all of which was a precursor to a short but headline-grabbing career as a computer hacker.

He has now gone legit, with a consulting firm and a 2002 book, The Art of Deception, which focuses on the promise, pitfalls and perils of social engineering.


Mitnick, whose metal business card can be broken out into a lock-picking kit, tells a great story but the underlying message is rather basic: Do not use information that is readily available -- SSNs, divers license numbers and mothers' maiden names -- for authentication because it just invites mischief, or worse.  (He differentiates between old school hackers who were motivated by intellectual curiosity and a new underground economy of commercial, malicious hackers who are in it for the money -- yours.)

Granted, information security is the purview of Dan Lohrmann's Securing GovSpace blog but allow me an observation or two: As sophisticated as the attacks and defences have become on this front (and they have), it is telling that the successful exploits remain rather simple, taking advantage of human foibles and poor technical design.

September 11, 2001.  The date by itself invokes a touch point in recent history, marking a modern American tragedy.

In the intervening seven years, many have done much to recover, rebuild and make things better. Others have debated the constitutional and public policy impacts of government decisions in what was euphemistically called the "new normal" of the post-9/11 environment. 

On a previous anniversary in 2004, I offered a "mulligan for the homeland" in the pages of Government Technology about what we had gained and what we had lost in the name of homeland security. Eighteen months later, in defense of the open government movement, I was still thinking about the new normal: "After 9/11, we were told that as an open society our strength was our weakness. Five years on, it's time to re-exert the modest proposition that our strength is still our strength."  This observation too originated in GT but was subsequently chosen for inclusion in a First Amendment desk calendar by the Freedom Forum.

I thought that I had said my piece about this sad American anniversary when I happened across a newly written description of a network initiative in New York state, which "is working toward a goal of developing and implementing an ... emergency radio network to provide a common communications platform for state and local public safety ... agencies.  The inability of first responders to readily communicate with one another ... can result in loss of lives and property."

I had to check the date, especially given the grammatical tense - "is working" and "can result"?!  The language use may have suited September 10, 2001, but we are a long way past then. 

The results of two audits put the situation in starker terms:

The first audit found numerous operational deficiencies and other problems that led to extensive delays and continued testing failures. The second audit found that [one county alone] could spend nearly $30 million less by scaling back its participation in SWN and building its own radio network.

"New York is not much closer to a statewide network today than it was when this whole process started," [State Comptroller Thomas] DiNapoli said. "After three rounds of failed testing, it is apparent that this system is not ready to move forward. [The contractor] has not met its contractual obligations, and New York can't afford to spend $2 billion on a system that doesn't work right. It's time to fish or cut bait.

Seven years later, first responders -- universally regarded as heroes from that dark day -- are still waiting to have their say in life and death situations.  More's the pity.  More's the shame.

 

In accepting his party's nomination for president, Senator John McCain basked in the reflected glory of a long and distinguished career in public service and the runaway buzz around his pick for vice president. 

His acceptance speech included a single reference to technology - significantly, it was in the context of a confession of things that the federal government had failed to do well, or at all.  He delivered the line at 10:56PM Eastern:

We need to change the way government does almost everything: from the way we protect our security to the way we compete in the world economy; from the way we respond to disasters to the way we fuel our transportation network; from the way we train our workers to the way we educate our children. All these functions of government were designed before the rise of the global economy, the information technology revolution and the end of the Cold War. We have to catch up to history, and we have to change the way we do business in Washington.

A fair reading suggests that catching up with history requires public policy focus and public investment in infrastructure.  Reconcile that with promises to reduce taxes and cut government spending.  It is not just a math problem.