International Experiences with Integrated Services – United States

The conference has been very interesting. I have met a number of people supporting this effort who work for the Government, consultants associated with the project both from Brazil and other South American countries, and speakers from still other locations including a fellow panalist this morning from Korea who supported the Korean President for a number of years regarding their eGovernment effort and who spent the last three months in Paraguay working for the office of their president doing the same thing.

The power of the idea of eGovernment and its associated themes of empowerment and especially transparency are seemingly very strong everywhere.

At the same time, the issues are equally amazingly similar in each location. The biggest conclusions I draw are that it is very important to:

• have high level political support,
• well-defined goals plus if at all possible a credible supporting enterprise architecture, and
• a willingness to take small steps resulting in quick victories in support of the big rainbow in the sky that will occur when all this is implemented

That last point is the one that seems to be so often overlooked. People responsible for policy want to accomplish big results, which is a good thing. But if the first result is the big result often the end-point is a political investigation into why the whole project failed.

The other issue that has resonated with most people that I have talked to is the importance of exposing as much data as possible even when not in a final form, which is how I interpret one of Vivek Kundra’s big initiatives in the US. Allowing others to manipulate, create mash-ups and improve upon the data allows the government to have significant leverage in a time of tight funds.

The Rest of the Week

The next two days I will participate in meetings to talk in more detail about the current action plans and my associated advice.

The people here have all been extremely friendly. For those sessions or conversations which are not in English (and sessions which are not being translated on the fly into English), one or the other person will take their time to give me a rundown on the issues.

Around the Hotel

This evening I was tired so went to the hotel a bit before the final sessions concluded and then took a walk around the hotel including visiting a nearby shopping mall. I skipped past the McDonalds and Burger King, and of all things a Montana steakhouse, decided that ordering gourmet Chinese Food in Brasilia wasn’t a good idea, and instead ate at a place that seemed to have Brazilian food. I am not entirely sure what I ordered, but it tasted great.

Most important I found on the way back an open-air Shwarma restaurant a block away from the hotel. In the event that I end up on my own tomorrow night, I know how I will cap my time here. I hear that the best Shwarma in South America is in Brasilia (well, maybe I made that up).

Coming Home

So, I am scheduled to arrive at 6:30am Saturday morning at Dulles.

At approximately 3:15pm that afternoon, I and my younger daughter Tamar, get on a bus with a big group of Capitals fans and go up to Philadelphia to see the Ovechkin-less Capitals take on the Flyers, capping <bad choice of words I guess> my out-of-town Capitals hockey games.

I have a feeling that before and in particular afterwards on the way back from Philadelphia I might not be the life of the party on the bus regardless of the game result. No one call my house Sunday morning, please.

By the way, I have found the Google translation function, at least when dealing with Portuguese to English, works very well.

The major focus will include the issue of Interoperability and the plans in Brazil to enhance their implementation of eGovernment.

Both terms are interesting ones, I’ll have more to say either during the week or after I come back home about each.

Internationally there is a lot of emphasis and literature about Government Interoperability Frameworks (or GIFs) and thus the focus on Interoperability. While this was and is an interest within the US Government, I don’t recall hearing that specific term used very often.

eGovernment is obviously of great interest, especially in the US these days. The interesting thing  to me is that eGovernment seems to have so many different meanings depending on the person or group or society using the term, and its perceived value differs greatly accordingly. I will write further on this later on also.

Here is the first cut at my presentation understanding that I was asked to mainly talk about my personal experiences, though it is almost impossible for me to not at least attempt to generalize, and relate these experiences to the above topics. All comments are welcome either here or by emailing me directly. I will incorporate as many as I can between now and the presentation.

International Experiences with Integrated Services – United States

Once again, I believe I have demonstrated that talking, or writing, about issues is my happier place, not creating slides about them.

For those still reading, I thought it might be interesting to explain how this opportunity came about.

I have always wanted to teach. This sits in the giving back part of what I would like to accomplish. Further I find the “not wanting to appear like an idiot” syndrome forces you to think about the subject matter you are teaching where otherwise you might not really organize your thoughts. So once again we have the you get out more than you put in possibility as with so many activities.

Thus I have started doing some distance teaching for Syracuse University as an adjunct professor. My first class for what it is worth is in Cybersecurity Policy and Management which has proven to be great fun for me, if not for my students. I hope to also do some classes related to being a Federal CIO and looking at issues of management within the Federal space compared to commercial practice.

Through that activity and through my work at CSC I got to know a professor at the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, http://www1.maxwell.syr.edu/default.aspx, one of the top public affairs schools in the country. She had been doing some work with people at the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), http://www.iadb.org/. The IADB had a contract with the Brazilian Government to provide advice regarding their eGovernment goals. They decided that getting some “real-life” inputs from a number of countries, including the US, would be useful. From the IADB to my friend at Syracuse University to me.

Thus my normal random Brownian professional movement once again provides another new and exciting opportunity, one I am thrilled and honored to be able to participate in.