Government Technology - September 2008 - (Page DC28)

Viewpoint BY TODD SANDER | DIRECTOR, DIGITAL COMMUNITIES INITIATIVE DEPUTY DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR DIGITAL GOVERNMENT Government at La-Z-Boy Speed Web 2.0 can help government interact better with citizens. was talking with my son about a paper he’s writing for a summer school course at the University of Arizona. He was sitting in our family room holding his laptop and collecting research from the Internet using the wireless connection that, I must admit, he helped me set up. He was telling me about the various Web sites he was visiting, the material he was collecting from around the world, and the project team members he was collaborating with via instant messaging and Facebook from the comfort of my La-Z-Boy recliner. I couldn’t help but think back to my own experiences researching and writing school papers. I’m sure many of you, much like myself, remember a vastly different experience. Not long ago the search for information required multiple trips to the library and a hard-earned familiarity with the card catalog and Dewey Decimal system. Successful navigation often resulted in a National Treasure-like search through rows and rows of books with the hope that we’d stumble upon the right book that held the potential for making us look smarter than we probably were. More often than not, I arrived at the cryptically deﬁned location only to discover that I couldn’t ﬁnd the book I needed. Either I had misinterpreted the clues somewhere along the way or someone else working on the same project had beaten me to the prize. It amazes me how fundamentally our world has changed. Almost without noticing, we’ve moved from a world I of information scarcity to information overload. Our challenge now isn’t ﬁ nding enough information about a particular subject, but making sense of and qualitative judgments about the almost limitless variety of data and information that’s available. At a recent gathering of the Digital Communities CIO Task Force, members spent a good portion of the day talking about how social networking and collaboration tools are affecting local government operation. Pressure to change the way information ﬂows and is managed within an organization is coming from newly hired employees (some practically born with digital devices in their hands) and citizens who have come to rely on mobile communication devices and free-ﬂowing information to manage their day-to-day lives. Even so, some CIOs believe they have more than enough to worry about with existing systems, ever-changing security requirements and expensive infrastructure demands. To many in government, the Web 2.0 stuff — social networks, blogs, wikis, instant messaging systems, viral videos and virtual communities — may 28 DIGITAL COMMUNITIES SEPTEMBER 08

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Government Technology - September 2008

Government Technology - September 2008 Contents Point of View On the Scene Big Picture Four Questions for... Up Close Fork in the Road On Time and On Target On the Record, Off the Charts Government’s Greatest Asset? Easy Access Finding the Money Security in the Wireless World The Case for Mobility Spectrum Products Two Cents signal:noise Digital Communities Contents A New Government Paradigm News is Now Transformation Web 2.0 Style Protecting Community Media Thinking Regionally Government at La-Z-Boy Speed

Government Technology - September 2008

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