Comments on: Government 2.0 is coming http://www.marcgunther.com/2009/09/08/government-2-0-is-coming/ This blog is about the impact of business on society. Thu, 09 Feb 2012 04:08:41 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Marc http://www.marcgunther.com/2009/09/08/government-2-0-is-coming/comment-page-1/#comment-283606 Marc Wed, 09 Sep 2009 10:56:13 +0000 http://www.marcgunther.com/?p=1890#comment-283606 Mark, thanks for your thoughtful and very informative comment from an insider's perspective. It makes a lot of sense to me. Throwing more technology at the government is like throwing more technology at schools--more important than the tools are the incentives built into the system. I do like the idea of using Web 2.0 to encourage employee whistleblowing or, to the extent that it is possible, citizen oversight, along with cross-agency collaboration. Even better would be to see if Web 2.0 could be use to drive "core management reform" but I don't see that as likely or perhaps even possible given the incentive structures built into the federal system. [Which isn't to say that the federal government can't be efficient--I've recently had to deal with the VA after the death of my dad. They were responsive, speedy and efficient, much more so than his "high tech" phone services from Vonage.] Mark, thanks for your thoughtful and very informative comment from an insider’s perspective. It makes a lot of sense to me. Throwing more technology at the government is like throwing more technology at schools–more important than the tools are the incentives built into the system.

I do like the idea of using Web 2.0 to encourage employee whistleblowing or, to the extent that it is possible, citizen oversight, along with cross-agency collaboration. Even better would be to see if Web 2.0 could be use to drive “core management reform” but I don’t see that as likely or perhaps even possible given the incentive structures built into the federal system.

[Which isn't to say that the federal government can't be efficient--I've recently had to deal with the VA after the death of my dad. They were responsive, speedy and efficient, much more so than his "high tech" phone services from Vonage.]

]]> By: Mark Forman http://www.marcgunther.com/2009/09/08/government-2-0-is-coming/comment-page-1/#comment-283604 Mark Forman Wed, 09 Sep 2009 05:33:13 +0000 http://www.marcgunther.com/?p=1890#comment-283604 Very interesting and positive thoughts. As the first CIO for the federal government (officially titled the Administrator for E-Government and IT), I can attest that these are old ideas re-born with new appointees and out of synch with the real activities of the federal government. The U.S. federal government always acts faster and in a totally disorganized manner to consume (but not necessarily benefit from) emerging technologies. Concepts like Data.gov make sense if the federal government was not on the web, but anyone who has used federal data to build a model or write a paper in college knows that the government was the predominate source of data for many years. The problem is not transparency in data sets; there are well over 35 million U.S. govt docs published on the web and all agencies want to sell their data to get revenues outside the rules of Congress. No data are collected with a public notice and data come from people and companies into statistical reports, with a listing and justification reported to Congress every 2 years. Rather, the transparency issue is about improper government actions that no one gets to see until an audit is requested or whisteblower leaks the issue. To understand the value of web 2.0 and constraints on gov 2.0, you have to understand the agency incentive structures that employees work under. Perhaps using web 2.0 to encourage "whistleblowing" and cross agecny solutioning would be a better use of the creativity and genious of Vivek and Anish. After all, leaders can't just publish data about what's happening and what's going wrong, they have to engage people who are knowledgable in problem solving. In the case of the article, it seems the theoretical gov 2.0 problem solving would enable people to figure out how to solve problems themselves with out relying on government officials...which seems totally out of synch with the current government plans to hire 300,000-600,000 employees. The reality in government is that blogging and sharepoint don't get people to change their desire to maintain a silo of control and data. One must ask what problems uncovered in a GAO audit or IG report would be fixed by data.gov or similar initiative? Absent major government restructuring that is focused on performance improvement through transparency and rapid collaborative problem solving, technology fads are a distraction from core management reforms we need. In otherwords, the 60 year old organization structure is too antiquated for gov 2.0 and acts as a barrier to changes. So, many outstanding champions like the current technology leadership end up trying to do things outside the system, rather than fixing it. Is that understood by the gov 2.0 wannabe's???? I hope so. Very interesting and positive thoughts. As the first CIO for the federal government (officially titled the Administrator for E-Government and IT), I can attest that these are old ideas re-born with new appointees and out of synch with the real activities of the federal government. The U.S. federal government always acts faster and in a totally disorganized manner to consume (but not necessarily benefit from) emerging technologies. Concepts like Data.gov make sense if the federal government was not on the web, but anyone who has used federal data to build a model or write a paper in college knows that the government was the predominate source of data for many years. The problem is not transparency in data sets; there are well over 35 million U.S. govt docs published on the web and all agencies want to sell their data to get revenues outside the rules of Congress. No data are collected with a public notice and data come from people and companies into statistical reports, with a listing and justification reported to Congress every 2 years. Rather, the transparency issue is about improper government actions that no one gets to see until an audit is requested or whisteblower leaks the issue. To understand the value of web 2.0 and constraints on gov 2.0, you have to understand the agency incentive structures that employees work under. Perhaps using web 2.0 to encourage “whistleblowing” and cross agecny solutioning would be a better use of the creativity and genious of Vivek and Anish. After all, leaders can’t just publish data about what’s happening and what’s going wrong, they have to engage people who are knowledgable in problem solving. In the case of the article, it seems the theoretical gov 2.0 problem solving would enable people to figure out how to solve problems themselves with out relying on government officials…which seems totally out of synch with the current government plans to hire 300,000-600,000 employees. The reality in government is that blogging and sharepoint don’t get people to change their desire to maintain a silo of control and data. One must ask what problems uncovered in a GAO audit or IG report would be fixed by data.gov or similar initiative? Absent major government restructuring that is focused on performance improvement through transparency and rapid collaborative problem solving, technology fads are a distraction from core management reforms we need. In otherwords, the 60 year old organization structure is too antiquated for gov 2.0 and acts as a barrier to changes. So, many outstanding champions like the current technology leadership end up trying to do things outside the system, rather than fixing it. Is that understood by the gov 2.0 wannabe’s???? I hope so.

]]>