Among the many calls for commoditization of government IT and the arguments made to support a move toward cloud-based services (both Infrastructure and Software as a Service), some news I read today and a later client conversation made me wonder whether we are not getting it all wrong.
The news was from earlier today on NextGov, [...]
Entries from August 2009
What If IT Became A Core Business for Government?
August 31st, 2009 · 1 Comment
Tags: Uncategorized
Digital Divides Will Not Stop Government 2.0: Do Not Wait For A Crisis To Find Out
August 30th, 2009 · 5 Comments
In several papers, conferences or client inquiries I am hearing the same argument, over and over again: unless you are a digital native, you are not going to buy any soon into social networking, so there is no chance it will happen unless (1) everybody has (high speed) Internet access and (2) a generational change [...]
Tags: social networks in government
Web 2.0 May Harm E-Government Leaders
August 28th, 2009 · 2 Comments
I spent most of the day attending an interesting workshop held as part of the European Forum in Alpbach, a beautiful town hidden in the mountains of the the Tyrol region in Austria.
The topic of the workshop was the conflict between citizens and public administration in government 2.0, and there was quite an impressive line [...]
Tags: e-government · web 2.0 in government
It’s Time For E-Government and Government Employees To Get The Dignity They Deserve
August 26th, 2009 · 5 Comments
Since when the term e-government was coined around the end of the nineties, it has almost inevitably referred to the use of Internet and other information technologies to transform the way government organizations deliver services and operate. I do not think that definition has really changed since. E-government was always part of a larger initiative, [...]
Tags: e-government
Furloughs May Be A Double Edged Sword For Cash-Constrained Jurisdictions
August 24th, 2009 · No Comments
According to an article on the Washington Post,
A federal judge ruled Tuesday that Prince George’s County violated the U.S. Constitution when it furloughed 5,900 workers in the last fiscal year, a decision that could force the county to repay millions in wages
[…]
The judge also wrote that the ruling “is not a pronouncement regarding furloughs in [...]
Tags: e-government
Cloud Computing in Government: More Technology or Sourcing Approach?
August 20th, 2009 · 1 Comment
Last week I had an interesting conversation with a US State client, who runs a central organization providing infrastructure services to some State agencies. The IT organization there is quite decentralized (or – al most –federated) and each agency can run its own IT infrastructure, although quite a few have their servers hosted by the [...]
Tags: cloud
The (Not Too) New Kid On The Block in D.C.: Gartner’s McClure Moves To The GSA
August 18th, 2009 · No Comments
I have been willing to post about this since when I knew, but wanted to wait for the official news. My (now former) colleague and friend Dave McClure, who has been managing and research VP in the Gartner government research team, is starting his new job at the General Services Administration, as Associate Administrator for [...]
Tags: e-government
The Geopolitics of Cloud Computing
August 17th, 2009 · 3 Comments
Like most highly hyped technology topics, also cloud computing is raising increasing political attention. This is already clear for the U.S: Federal Government where many people at OMB and GSA push the idea of cloud computing as a cure for various IT diseases. But this is happening also at the state and local level. Two [...]
Tags: cloud
Listing the Downsides of Government 2.0: Any Hints?
August 16th, 2009 · 4 Comments
As I said in a previous post, I am currently doing research on the Dark Side of Government 2.0. Here is a list of areas I am exploring:
Security (expanding on what I wrote earlier)
Privacy (citizen’s, employee’s, boundaries between personal and professional profiles)
Freedom (1st amendment vs. policing participation)
Mashup liabilities (e.g. government data mashed up with third [...]
Tags: web 2.0 in government
Vivek Kundra’s Resume: Much Ado About Nothing?
August 14th, 2009 · 10 Comments
Over the last two days, the blogosphere has witnessed an interesting debate about whether Vivek Kundra’s resume is entirely accurate and sufficient for his current role as U.S. Federal CIO. It all started with a blog post by John Dvorak, where he casted doubts about Vivek’s academic achievements and his experience outside the public sector, [...]
Tags: e-government