As part of my day job, I attended the Internet Strategy Forum in Portland yesterday. As you can see from the link, there were a lot of distinguished panelists who talked about how the Internet ties consumers and businesses together.
There was not one ... not one .. and did I say, not one? ... reference to government. And when I look at the list of attendees .. well, the lack of government attendees speaks for itself.
This is just sad. There is no place more important for people to interact with another entity than with government. It is government that has powers to give and take away freedom, to tax, to spend, to develop, to lead ... and to listen.
And government is not only letting the train go by, it's starting to look to me like a lot of governments do not know there is a station.
But that's not true of everyone. Governing.com has an encouraging item today about how Delaware is making it easier for people to find the most popular topics on their web page through what's commonly called a 'word cloud.' (You can find it under 'one-click search'on the Delaware home page)
Writer Ellen Perlman notes, "The word cloud shows that visitors to the site search for information on employment issues more than any other subject. 'Wanted persons' is the second most popular."
Well, that's a state, not a local government, which is my personal area of interest and where citizens engage with a lot of passion with their government. But it's a start, and a good sign that not everyone is asleep.
Posts
Bruce Harrell's Vision for Seattle's Future
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Yesterday, Mayor Bruce Harrell addressed the people of Seattle and shared
his vision for the future of our city. I've provided links below for you to
read ...
3 years ago
1 comment:
Council member Neary:
I have several thoughts and ideas about your astute observations in "missed opportunity".
First, government should never be on the bleeding edge. Governments are entrusted with taxpayer and ratepayer funds. We shouldn't be experimenting with those funds, but rather should let commercial enterprises and businesses break the ice and experiment with new technologies. When those technologies are proven, consumers (who are also our constituents) will demand and expect the same services from government. And the technology will be proven and cheaper, therefore easier to implement. Payments on the web are a perfect example of this, as are cell phones, BlackBerries and even the use of e-mail itself.
Second, we - governments - are constrained by a whole variety of laws, ordinances and policies (and yes sir, I am keenly aware you are a legislator!). Examples here in Washington State include the public disclosure act and the records retention act. As a specific example, we in at the City of Seattle are trying to decide how to manage and use blogs. I - like you - blog, but I use my own independent website blog.chiefseattlegeek.com for that, just as you do. If we implement official blogs at www.seattle.gov, can we have them hosted by typepad or blogspot or another Internet-based service? Can we trust such services to archive and retain the entries - and all comments - as required by the records retention act? Can we make sure proper searching technology is available to find all relevant records in response to a public disclosure act request? These sorts of laws are necessary and well-intentioned, but they DO mean we'll be slower and more cautious in adopting new technologies.
Finally, we are stewards not only of public funds, but also of the public's trust. We collect a wide variety of information about our constituents, our taxpayers and the people who live, work and travel through our cities. If we accept ratepayer credit cards and taxpayer identification numbers and other personal information, we damned well better keep that information safe. You undoubtedly remember the loss of a laptop and 26 million military records by the federal Veteran's Administration on May 3rd, 2006. As a reserve military officer, I received one of those letters from the VA warning me about that information loss. It was really hard and expensive for the VA to send out all those letters and do all that investigation. Think of the effect on a local government - the City of Seattle - or the City of Lakewood - or the effect on local elected officials such as you or senior appointed officials such as me if such a breach of trust occurred with information under our care. Once again, all these factors cause us to be careful and conservative about what technologies we employ.
Bill Schrier
Chief Technology Officer
City of Seattle
P.S. The City of Seattle's web site www.seattle.gov was named the top municipal web portal by the Center for Digital Government in 2001 and 2006!
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