by Andrea Di Maio | December 9, 2011 | Comments Off
As part of the research that my colleague David Furlonger and I are doing about the IT impact of the euro crisis, we are gathering anecdotal evidence of preparedness (or lack thereof) in IT organizations around the world. It would be very helpful if you would fill this very short questionnaire to give us a [...]
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Category: Europe and IT IT management Tags: euro crisis
by Andrea Di Maio | December 7, 2011 | 5 Comments
Before joining Gartner I spent a few years at the European Commission, where I was lucky enough to work on one of the most exciting projects at the time, which was the implementation of the single European currency. I was tasked with helping understand and prepare for the IT impact of the change, ranging from [...]
Category: Europe and IT IT management Tags: euro crisis
by Andrea Di Maio | November 17, 2011 | 1 Comment
Over the last few months we have been witnessing a deterioration of sovereign debts, the vulnerability of financial services organizations, a new slowdown for the economy, high unemployment, social tensions in countries that need to implement unprecedented austerity measures. Despite all this, the IT industry seems to be doing remarkably well, and the pace of [...]
Category: e-government Europe and IT Tags: government 2.0, information society
by Andrea Di Maio | October 10, 2011 | 1 Comment
Sometimes personal experience is a powerful source of data for a government-related blog. Yesterday I was one of the millions of Italians who tried to fill their census forms online rather than on paper. I would have thought that the statistical office would plan for an easily foreseeable spike in demand or at least advise [...]
Category: e-government Europe and IT Tags: Italy
by Andrea Di Maio | May 16, 2011 | 1 Comment
A few days ago I had a conversation with people from a southern European country about the state of government IT in Europe, with particular reference to what the European Commission is doing on large-scale projects and their benchmarking activities to compare progress across EU Member States. We agreed that, bas on our collective experience [...]
Category: Europe and IT Tags:
by Andrea Di Maio | May 13, 2011 | Comments Off
I often engage in discussions of a more personal nature on Facebook, where I happen to debate about politics, music, movies, technology and more. The other day I saw a post by a well-reputed Italian university professor about some usability shortcomings of the Italian railways web site. Quite a few commentators, including myself, supported his [...]
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Category: e-government Europe and IT Tags: IT management, Italy
by Andrea Di Maio | December 17, 2010 | 7 Comments
On December 15, in conjunction with the conference on Lift Off Open Government (see previous post), the European Commission issued its communication to to other European institutions (such as the Parliament and the Council) about the European eGovernment Action Plan 2011-2015. The subtitle of the communication is quite intriguing: Harnessing ICT to promote smart, sustainable [...]
Category: e-government Europe and IT Tags: European Commission, open government
by Andrea Di Maio | December 16, 2010 | 5 Comments
On December 15 and 16 the Belgian EU presidency and the European Commission are holding in Brussels a conference with an inspiring title: Lift-Off Toward Open Government. From what I can tell, this is as far as inspiration goes, because what I have seen so far through its program, opening speech and several tweets, does [...]
Category: e-government Europe and IT Tags: EU, government 2.0, open government
by Andrea Di Maio | December 2, 2010 | 6 Comments
This week I have come across another episode that really sets my country (Italy) apart from all logical thought processes. A group of otherwise respectable people, including the former privacy commissioner, are advocating the need to introduce the right to internet access into the Italian constitution. Where they suggest to add this is as article [...]
Category: Europe and IT Tags: Internet, Italy
by Andrea Di Maio | October 5, 2010 | 8 Comments
My professional life has always taken me outside my own country. As a young systems engineer, as a software technology manager, as a government official and as an analyst, I have been working primarily with non Italian clients, suppliers and partners. I can say that this has been both a blessing, as I’ve been able [...]
Category: Europe and IT web 2.0 in government Tags: government 2.0, Italy
