E-Government: March 2008 Archives

I met with Darren Ash, the CIO of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, today as well as Jeffrey Main who is driving much of the effort to improve the NRC's website over the coming months and years. 

We were talking about all of the great things made possible by Web 2.0: Information sharing, collaboration, improved integration of systems, etc., but CIO Ash made the point that whatever NRC puts in place needs to anticipate "whatever comes next." 

In one of the best displays I've seen of a CIO vision aligning with his team, Jeffrey chimed in and said that their plan is to modularize the key services they offer.  They want best-in-class content management, Web metrics, customer surveys, and-- if we have made the case effectively for GovDelivery-- Email & Digital Subscription Management.  Jeffrey was very clear that modularization for them means two things:

1) NRC wants systems to talk with each other particularly on the reporting front so they can track results easily across their entire suite of Web tools / systems
2) NRC will use different systems (including hosted, Software as a Service platforms) provided they are best-in-class and work nicely together.  If a particular module underperforms or is no longer necessary in the future, they will swap it out for something new because they own the data and content and can move to a new platform at anytime.

I find this approach very compelling for the following reasons:
-Encourages NRC to think about scalable strategies for ensuring systems work together
-Leaves the door open for using more modern, innovative, and cost-effective SaaS solutions that government sometimes avoids to its detriment
-Keeps the service providers honest and focused on continuous improvement and results
-Avoids NRC getting too embedded with a single service provider

I believe we will be hearing more about this type of approach and that modularization will become the goal of many Web teams.

I do everything online: read the news, connect with friends, register my car, pay my taxes, look up directions, buy gifts, perform research, send messages, download podcasts, and post pictures.  Sometimes I'm accomplishing something that makes my offline life better (I met my wife online, for example).  Other times, I'm using a website, but it's not making my life better in any notable way (I'd say YouTube videos often fall in this category).

When I co-founded GovDelivery in 1999, my hope was that we could provide a Web service that made citizens better citizens and governments better governments in the real world.

Every month, governments send millions of messages to the public-- on topics ranging from local park hours to national emergencies-- using our email and digital subscription management platform.  We hope we've learned a thing or two about how e-government can be both used and useful over the past 8 years.  Our team has a lot to share and we will use this blog to discuss what we're learning as we work with our 250+ public sector clients and watch the industry evolve.  We hope you'll join the conversation by commenting or by sending me a note offering to "guest post" if you have something you'd like to share.