Civic E-Source

At his "State of the State" address in early January, Governor Gray Davis announced the arrival of 'My California Homepage,' the Golden State's new and improved Web presence. Atypical of a politician, Davis wasn't just blowing his horn when he said his efforts had "personalized government in a way no other state ever has done." Across the board, government has been generally slow in advancing its online accessibility, with a large majority of civic sites acting as mere information hubs. From budget complexities to technology learning curves, governing entities have a long and complex path in figuring out how they can bridge their own digital divide between state and citizen. E-commerce could be the best prototype they have to begin sorting it out.

"The various civic sectors are facing the same problems that we had to face at the state level," Arun Bahedti said, who was appointed Director of e-Government last fall, as part of Davis' efforts to give his state better Internet accessibility. The approach the state took was based largely on e-commerce models and private sector Web sites that Bahedti and his team spent three months studying. "The governor was very strong in his direction of looking towards e-commerce. We went to Silicon Valley to look at companies that do a great deal of interacting with their customers on the web or were very informational. We looked at Cisco, Amazon, MSNBC, HP, Disney. We decided to model our infrastructure on what the best companies in Silicon Valley were doing, and engaged a group of hi-tech CEOs to help us develop our architecture. One of the marks of our success is that we've been able to bring that infrastructure over, and we've now established a model at the state level that will allow us to expand services into the local level."

Civic Resource Group, a Santa Monica-based company that provides Internet solutions to address the specific needs of civic entities, conducted a study on California government sites, and it seems the state's site is an exception to the rule. Out of the 81% of sectors that even had a site, most used it to solely publish information. A skim 5% included technology for delivering services, 2% used video and a meager 9% met basic accessibility standards. Greg Curtin, CEO of Civic Resource Group, cited the lack of understanding of the available technologies as one of the main obstacles public sectors face, yet he doesn't necessarily think e-commerce is the exact model to look towards. "It all depends on how you define e-commerce. We sort of approach e-commerce as a spectrum. On one end of the spectrum e-commerce is the ability to transact online. If we define it that way I think it's not a model at all. But if we define e-commerce as facilitating information in all of its forms, then it provides some interesting prototypes or demonstrations that the government could follow. I think if it's about transacting online, it's clearly not a model. I think
e-Government is about much more. Transaction online is just the first step."

Eliminating the generally inconvenient, in-person interaction with the DMV, and being able to access government applications or information online is the ideal type of interactivity a government sector should aim to offer on its site. Yet imposing these kinds of changes in how government gets its business done and reaches its public is not a simple matter of hiring a tech team. "One of the most common mistakes I see in governments is letting the IT people drive the Web, and that is absolutely the wrong thing to do," said Bahedti. "You need to have the (government) business folks driving what you're going to have on the Web by defining the business function or defining the business need."

Budgeting for a sector's Internet presence currently suffers from the square-peg-in-a round-hole syndrome. "With budget and funding you've got the obstacle of structuring technology needs into it," said Curtin. "Technology tends not to be a programmatic type budget, it's an operations type budget; so structurally some governments are facing the challenge of how to fit this into their budgeting process. They need more identification of e-Government initiatives right now, especially at smaller government levels. It's an obstacle and an opportunity for them. It's going to have to change the way they create long-term strategy that can match up to funding or special foundation funding for technology initiatives."

One of the most visible current events that brought attention to e-governing's role with the public, or lackthereof, with the public was the Florida recount of the 2000 presidential election. Although it did shed light on the area of e-voting, it won't be any time soon that there's a significant amount of online voting in elections. Yet Florida was inundated with visitors seeking online government information during the fiasco, and was consequently faced with the inefficiency of their current online infrastructure. "The court cases and, at a federal level, the incredible amount of online access demanded by the public that the Florida government could not handle, forced them to start outsourcing to figure out how to meet demands," said Curtin. "People actually accessing records, documents, videos online in Internet time from government agencies--the state reacted quickly and came up with streamlined offerings for citizens of Florida and in a sense, citizens everywhere. It did a lot to clarify the need for e-Government in all of its forms and elements."

The prospect of sparing citizens the inconvenience and time-wasting process typical of any traditional interaction with the government, whether it's waiting in line or waiting for something to be mailed, has given the public a significant incentive to pressure it's civic entities for electronic development, yet that's not likely to be where the initiatives will come from. Government itself, or more specifically elected officials as with Governor Davis, will probably be the most influential forces for instigating change. "At the elected official level, it is a direct benefit for them. It is a direct reflection of his or her role as an elected official," said Curtin.

John Chiang, who serves on the California State Board of Equalization, thinks e-Government is a necessary growth for civic sectors to fulfill basic service obligations and streamline efficiency. "Government must apply the same commitment to seamless, high speed information transfers that businesses supply to electronic commerce. Just as businesses are made more efficient by the rapid distribution of goods and services, e-commerce is made more efficient by increasing the availability of useful information provided by government."

by Wendy Hall

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