Ronin Research

Like every other amateur prognosticator, I wish I had a crystal ball to tell what is coming tomorrow. But I don’t. The nearest I can give are the nine trends that I expect to see when it comes to government and technology that may give indications about the future. Those trends include:

Shared Services Becomes More The Norm. This is already happening in places like Washington DC, Los Angeles, and others where government agencies and whole government entities turn to the cloud as a more effective and lower cost option.  This doesn’t mean that every government entity will be in the cloud by the end of 2010, but it does mean that where it makes sense more and more government agencies will be turning to cloud computing, either through a private cloud, a consortium, or other semi-private form.

Continued Transparency Of Government. Government is becoming more transparent and as a result more democratized. Some have claimed that this new Open Government movement is a passing fad and a backlash to the previous administration. I disagree. It’s roots go much deeper back to the 1990’s when the agencies first paid companies to publish data. 2010 will be the year of execution – when agencies will be spending more time and money cleaning data up and getting it out there in a format that is useful. The less pleasant result is that some agencies (and the public) will discover programs were not as successful as first thought and it will force some hard decisions.

Efforts To Be More Green. Sustainability is a major issue for government agencies – from procuring energy to reducing paper usage to better managing the usage of resources like water. It also ties in closely with the Open Government movement as true sustainability reporting needs to allow for open sharing of information and data.  The question outstanding in will US governments become as serious about reporting and managing this as say the Australian government is.

Invasion Of Digital Natives Forces Organizational Changes. With the economy remaining questionable and the stated social intentions of the Obama administration, more and more new and recent graduates are looking at government employment to secure a paycheck and maybe contribute some back. This invasion of 20 something’s that are digital natives will have a significant effect on the government workplace. What will this impact be?  I expect there will be pockets of reverse mentoring, more open work arrangements, and maybe even a more open desktop. A guy can hope, can’t he?

Improving Efforts At Measuring Performance. Key to any government program and effort is measuring performance – something government has continued to struggle with. 2010 won’t be the turning point yet where government gets really good at measuring and reporting performance without a serious stick. None the less, tightening budgets and the availability of better tools will force agencies to be more aware of their spending and the corresponding impact.

Agencies Strive For Better Citizen Engagement. Citizen engagement is becoming more and more critical. It isn’t necessarily that most government agencies want this, but the shifting digital culture is forcing government agencies to adapt to these new ways of engaging and conversing with citizens and businesses. In 2010 I am expecting that more and more government agencies will realize that there is a very close alignment between Open Government, Gov 2.0, and eGovernment that manifests in citizen engagement as agencies move beyond a page on Facebook or a twitter stream into deeper citizen engagement.

Ongoing Battle To Keep IT And Data Secure. Government agencies and IT shops continue to do a tremendous job at trying to keep IT systems, government data, and personal data secure. With the closer integration of physical and logical security along with efforts to expose more government data online, expect the relentless attacks on government IT systems and data to only increase. As a result, spending on cyber and data security will continue to grow.

Rise Of Enterprise Content Management Systems. Increasing rates of content and information creation, more content converted to digital format, and a push to move more and more information out on the Web all require a more robust backend system to manage all of that content. Government agencies will more and more turn to real enterprise content management systems to manage, store, and deliver all of that content. The large systems push across government in 2010 will be ECM systems.

Escalation Of CRM & ERM As Healthcare & Web-Based Engagement Move Forward. No matter what you call it – customer relationship management, citizen relationship management, electronic records management – nothing is going to push the management of electronic records forward faster in government then healthcare and the increase in Web based interactions increase in 2010. Expect the shift from ERP systems to CRM and ERM systems that started in the private sector earlier to become firmly entrenched in government primarily because of healthcare requirements and increased interactions between citizens and government on the Web. Whether it is the integration between VA and DoD health records for a soldier, efforts to track Medicare and Medicaid recipients, or even updating DMV records at state and local level, CRM and ERM adoption forward in government in 2010 at a greater rate then in previous years.

These are my best guesses for 2010. What do you think? What do you expect to see in 2010?

Today I am off on a new adventure with the Altimeter Group as the new Partner focused on government and public sector. I am really excited to join my former colleagues and friends Charlene, Ray, and Jeremiah and make some new friends in Deb and Lora in this amazing journey. As we have been working together over the past month, I have found that the amount of knowledge, experience and passion this group brings to emerging and disruptive technologies is just incredible. My thanks to all of them for inviting me along on this incredible journey.

For those of you who know me, you know that I believe that improving the efficiency effectiveness of how government operates and improving how government engages with citizens is critical. From my first work and experience in government up back in the late 1980’s through my continued work at Department of the Interior and other places, I have always felt that if we focus on the end user – whether it is the government employee or the citizen – we could really do a lot to improve the results of government.

The world is changing. Whether it is in the technology, the people, or the organizations, disruptions are forcing government to evolve. New disruptive technologies emerge every day that are changing how we interact and relate – person to person, business to person, and government to person.  People need to interact with for new reasons and with new problems that need to be solved. Government as an organization is being forced to evolve by internal and external forces.   This is where I will start and focus first – at the intersection of these three areas for government and how shifts in technology can provide some solutions.

Government, though my initial focus area, will not be the only area that I will be looking at. I will also be going back to my roots in this adventure and taking a look at the impact of clean tech on how organizations.  Making our organizations sustainable is more then just green IT, good CSR reports, and improving energy efficiency.  It is really a significant shift in how we think about our processes and our organizations and then using emerging technologies to make it more sustainable.

I will also be striving to better develop the application of design thinking in the areas of government, sustainability, and others, and will continue to focus primarily on the end user.  More on later as I think through and develop these area.

I will also be working through a new version of the Web site, new branding and adding more content (yes, posting more for all of you that have been asking!) over the next couple of months. In the mean time, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to email me at alan at altimetergroup dot com. Looking forward to the adventure!

Yesterday, President Obama was the first president in history to send a tweet, sent via the @RedCross account during a visit to the Red Cross’s Washington DC headquarters. There were tweets from the @BarackObama account during the campaign, but these were from campaign staffers. This was the first time the President, our most technologically advanced so far, actually pushed the button.

What followed was “big news story” and the obligatory ribbing from the Republicans.  But the real issue that is almost lost in the story is that for all of the hype about Government 2.0, Open Government, and other efforts, digital engagement is still not well accepted at the top levels of government and the word of the day remains “control.”

In the story on CNN, Ed Henry points out:

It’s unlikely the president will be doing much tweeting in office, however. White House personnel – other than a couple of top aides such as Bill Burton – are restricted from using social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. There are security concerns with White House computers, and administration officials are also not supposed to be tweeting on taxpayer time.

Okay, I can kind of buy the security concerns. They don’t want some junior staffer leaking the number of pizzas order late at night so that our enemies are aware that we are in attack mode. But the statement that “White House personnel…are restricted from using social media” and those last few words “…not supposed to be tweeting on taxpayer time” that caught me. This is a good indication that this is still one of those “do as I say, not as I do” political initiatives.

It’s not as if there aren’t other CEO’s using social media to reach out to their communities and customers. CEO’s such as Mark Cuban, John Mackey, and other CEO’s effectively use blogs, twitter, and other forms of social media to directly engage with the end user.  They may say things that upset people or that they may later regret, but that is the nature of any relationship, digital or otherwise.

Digital engagement with citizens is critical and I think this administration as serious about it as anyone.  But only encouraging agencies to adopt a social media track and not doing it at the highest levels of government won’t work. I think if agencies and citizens are to take this seriously, then we need to see some top down leadership. That first tweet was a start. Maybe a Presidential blog laying out that Thursday is meatloaf night at the White House, some pictures of Bo, how well everyone bowled at the White House bowling alley last week, and a post explaining government health care will be next.

What do you think?

Today, at the Platt’s Smart Grid Strategies Conference in Berlin, Cisco announced it’s continued commitment to developing and driving the backbone of the smart grid by announcing some new efforts and new partnerships.

In the way of new efforts by Cisco, one of the most welcomed announcements is Cisco’s increased smart grid security effort.  For anyone who is familiar with Cisco, Cisco’s strength in the network security space is well known around general network security, router firewall security, intrusion prevention, physical security and building systems, and more. Cisco is now turning some of this great background and experience towards the security issues of the smart grid through a set of smart grid security services targeted at utilities and other key components of the smart grid ecosystem.  Cisco’s smart grid security services are broken down into three progressive offerings – Plan, Build, and Run. The offerings include services like Grid Security Business Architecture Assessments, Grid Security Technical Requirements Development, Physical Security Solution Design, Grid Security Optimization, and more.

Cisco also announced a new Smart Grid Technical Advisory Board designed to be an open forum between Cisco, utilities, and other key players to align smart grid strategies among key players and validate solution and services offerings from Cisco. Initial announced members are a broad mix of international players in the smart grid including Duke Energy in the U.S., Enmax in Canada, and Yello Strom in Germany.

Lastly, Cisco continues to build out an already strong smart grid partner ecosystem with announcements about new partnerships. The purpose of these partnerships, according to Cisco, is really to move smart grid efforts towards adoption of a communications infrastructure standard of open IP and one of Cisco’s obvious strong points. These newly announced partnerships are with power and utility integrators and consultants, systems integrators like Capgemni and WiPro; technology vendors like Itron, Landis & Gyr, and SecureLogix; and service providers like Verizon.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that more and more IT vendors like Cisco are getting deeper and deeper into the smart grid and clean technology space. From my perspective, it is a natural fit and evolution of the convergence between IT and sustainability/clean technology spaces. First, both the smart grid and most clean technologies are highly dependent upon information and information technologies. Second, many of the same development and progress issues that we saw with the emergence of the core IT functions and then with the evolution of the Internet are similar if not the same as experienced by smart grid efforts and clean technology development and implementation efforts.

The Bottom Line: John Chambers and those around him clearly see the potential value of this market, as the smart grid market remains a top focus area for Cisco. These announcements place Cisco clearly on the path to be a driving force in the smart grid space.  Additionally, I would expect over the next six to twelve months for Cisco to announce additional partnerships and additional efforts with other IT vendors, utility providers, government agencies, and others to secure it’s position in the smart grid ecosystem.

Let’s be honest – technology is changing fast. I think tying your agency to a particular social media technology or platform, whether it be Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, or another technology is a mistake. The technology platforms that are here today may significantly change or not be here at all tomorrow. Instead, agencies should focus on the principles of social media that are technology agnostic.

1. It’s Not About The Technology, But Engagement. Too much of the conversation about social media and government still revolves around the technology. I am constantly getting questions such as “Should my agency be on twitter?”, or “Should we set up a facebook page?”, or ” What content should we put on our blog?” These are all good questions, but they are the wrong questions. The social media in government conversation needs to revolve around engagement between constituents and government. The current technology platforms maybe around for 20 years or they may be gone in a few weeks.  If you focus your efforts around engagement, then if the technology changes you simply look for the technology that improves engagement and go there.
2. Efforts have to support the mission. No matter the social media efforts you undertake, those efforts have to support the mission. For example, the US Army Recruiting command does a great job with their online social media efforts. Yes, I am biased since I am an Army vet, but their efforts include video’s, games, widgets, and interactive chat that are all targeted towards potential recruits, concerned parents, and school counselors.  These social media efforts all clearly support the mission of the Army Recruiting Command. So don’t fall for the argument that your agency has to have a twitter handle or facebook page just because every other agency does. Make sure it clearly fits your mission.
3. Think about your constituents first, then the channel. As I mentioned above, not all channels are appropriate for you constituents. For example, it wouldn’t make a lot of sense for the Social Security Administration to use Twitter to notify recipients about upcoming changes. Instead, these constituents would most likely best be reached through the snail mail channel. So start by examining what channels your constituents are comfortable with. Then look at who influences your constituents and what channels they are comfortable with. Influencers may be more comfortable with social media channels, so a secondary effort may target them to influence your base constituents. If you don’t have personas for your primary constituents, consider starting there first.
4. Make it accessible. Simply put – usability matters. This is more than Section 508 compliance, though I do think that is important. This is about making the social media to government interface simple and easy for the largest percentage of your constituents to use. San Francisco 311 is a great example of an agency that is making its efforts accessible to the broadest constituent population possible. Not only are the traditional channels, such as the phone, still available, SF311 is also a twitter handle that you can use to register complaints with the city. For example, if the street light in front of your house is out, simply send a tweet to @SF311 and they will respond with a case number and a resolution when the problem is fixed!
5. Know the value. Whether you like it or not, metrics matter. Right now, social media in government is still on its honeymoon. There are not a lot of demands coming from budgets and managers who want a demonstrated value for the money and resources being poured into social media – yet. But those demands will come and you need to be prepared with appropriate metrics to justify your efforts. These need to be both qualitative (constituent interviews, focus groups, etc) and quantitative (page views, cases closed, number of contacts, etc.)

The Bottom Line: The one thing for certain with social media is that the technology and the platforms will continue to evolve. To stay ahead of this, government agencies need to focus on implementing around the principles of social media, not the technologies.

Note: This post is a high-level summary of presentation/road show that I am currently doing for Adobe. If you are interested in seeing the complete presentation live, drop me a note at alan@roninresearch.org and I will see about getting you an invite.

As the title indicates, I am shifting my research direction to move back more towards my passions and something that is very important to me. But first I want to say thank you to all of my current readers and subscribers. I apologize that I haven’t kept up with my part of posting as often as I should be, but as I learned blogging is not always the priority it should have been.  I will strive to take that lesson to heart as I move forward.

How will things be changing? Beginning next week you will see a shift in the topics covered on this blog. First, I will still be researching and writing about social media and government because I think one of the key aspects to any solution for the large number of problems we face is citizen action and engagement, and that vision of engagement has its best chance to be realized through social media.

Second, I am also going to start digging back into the whole government market from an technology vendors perspective. Prior to my time at Forrester, I served in the Office of the Secretary at the Department of the Interior and worked for a government systems integrator (aka Beltway Bandit). When I first joined Forrester, it was to focus on government though this changed with the sift to roles. The reason I am returning this to my quiver is this market is a mess. Too many vendors have serious misconceptions about the government market, how government works, how government buys, and what government is buying. On the opposite side, the heavy influx of vendors looking for stimulus dollars have overwhelmed most government buyers. I spoke with a former colleague of mine last week who said he now spends more time fielding calls from vendors looking for appointments to sell him something instead of doing his actual job. So it sounds like both sides need a little help in sorting out this mess.

But the largest change you will is is that I am going to be spending a lot more time looking at clean technologies, sustainability issues, energy issues, corporate responsibility, and social change. I promise this won’t be another blog about how to live more green, though I do think that is important (you can find more about that as I resurrect A Green Dad). Instead, I will be looking at these issues from a business perspective, both at the tactical level and the strategic level. I have always been interested in natural resources, sustainability, green technologies, etc. Enough so that I spent tens of thousands of dollars getting two-plus graduate degrees in the areas of natural resources management and environmental policy. But I set aside my passions to “make a living,” a mistake that most of us are all to familiar with.  I am going to correct that mistake and add something valuable to the rising chorus of voices around clean technologies and sustainability.

Over the next couple of months you will notice some of changes to this blog. A new layout is coming, some new links, some guest posts, some interesting interviews, and a lot of new content. Should be a lot of fun!

Looking at government, technology, social media, sustainability, renewable energy, and cleantech should make for some interesting research and reading. I know not everything will appeal to everybody, and that is okay. But I do hope that you will come along with me on my professional journey.

Today’s Wall Street Journal carried a good article about the adoption of Web 2.0 technologies by the Federal government titled Federal Government Mulls Web 2.0. It was, for the most part, a positive article about the Federal government’s efforts to implement social media technologies. In the article, Aneesh Chopra the new Federal CTO, does a great job of towing the Administration line saying that “It’s a safe assumption that the federal government will be more likely to adopt Web 2.0 technologies in the months ahead.”

Being a former Federal employee who was working on eGovernment efforts 10+ years ago, I have a lot of respect for the job both Aneesh and Vivek Kundra have been appointed to do. But I also think they have succumb to Beltway Psychosis.

Beltway Psychosis is a common disorder generally found inside the Beltway that comes from a delusional belief that any new administration has an unshakable mandate from the people to change how government is run immediately. It is a common illness that effects any incoming administration member and results in unshakable illusions about the significant changes that will be made in government in the first 100 days, 6 months, first year, etc.  Symptoms include grand announcements, press releases, stage time and photo opportunities with key members of industry, etc.

I saw the same thing when the previous administration came into office concerning government performance in what eventually became the PART effort. Under the Clinton Administration it was the Reinventing Government effort.  Every recent administration seems to have fallen prey to this sickness.

Too often the result of this is that political appointees come crashing to the ground, realizing that the very nature of our model of government makes it difficult if not nearly impossible to change. Once this realization is made, other realizations quickly follow including that people tend to have short memories and low expectations, that the political backlash of a lack of success a lot less than they expected, and that the strategy that works is targeted incremental change. When it comes to the drive towards Web 2.0, my predicted result for current efforts will be mediocre at best.

As a proponent of social media in government, why am I so pessimistic? Three reasons.

1. They Still Haven’t Gotten Web 1.0 Right. I am not sure if this Administration has done an evaluation of Department, Agency and Bureau Web sites, but there are a number of them that need a significant amount of work and resources just to bring them into the 21st Century. Now, before I get a lot of hate mail, yes there are some agencies that have really good Web sites. The problem is that these are the exception and not the rule.
2. They Have A Short Institutional Memory. Contrary to what is implied in the article and by some current administration officials, many of the successful efforts around “social media” have been going on for quite a while. For example, I worked as a small part of the original FastLane team at NSF to allow researchers to submit their grant applications and interact with NSF online. That was about 10 years or so ago.
3. They Don’t Understand Their Customer. Federal agencies remain hamstrung by OMB requirements around information collection that make it nearly impossible to gather the necessary data to develop solid constituent personas, select the appropriate channels to reach those constituents, and to design an experience that is both useful and usable for the citizen. Yes, every once and a while an Federal agency hits a home run, like the Where’s My Refund widget on the IRS web site or the Federal Student Aid Application from the Department of Education. But again, these are the exception and not the rule. Until the information collection requirements change, government agencies will be left stumbling around in the dark trying to design an experience that really meets people’s needs.

Though the article mentions it, I am not going to get into the whole set of issues around an entrenched and biased procurement process. I will save that for another post.

The Bottom Line: Aneesh, Vivek and others may be able to move the needle with most agencies adopting some forms of social media, but don’t expect most of these efforts to significantly increase the effectiveness of Federal agencies and programs.

Your Turn: I have given you my thoughts, now what are yours? Do you expect significant levels of adoption of social media technologies in the Federal government? Will social media be able to improve the effectiveness of Federal programs? Improve engagement with citizens?

Sorry for the lack of posts over the last month or so. I wish I could say it was because I had taken a long holiday at the beach, but it wasn’t. I just got caught up with all of the work that pays the bills and maybe a few trips with the kids to the swimming pool. Now that things are slowing down a bit and school is starting, I will start posting more frequently. There will also be a shift on what you will see me writing about, but more about that later this week. As they say, now on with the show.

Photo courtesy of Pipe  on Flickr

It is fun to watch the conversation around Web 2.0 in government right now. Thousands of voices inside and outside of government are talking about government agencies and employees twittering, writing blogs, putting videos up on You Tube, making agency walls in Facebook, etc.   GSA has gone so far as to start its own You Tube channel, the US Government Channel. Government has gone geek.

My prediction though is that this new obsession between government and Web 2.0 will last about another year to three, and then die a slow quiet death. If the Obama administration steps in and puts it on life support near the end of its first term, it might make four years but I think the dire end is fairly foreseeable.

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It seems like every agency – whether Federal, state, provincial, or local is putting up some sort of blog. Blogs are a great way to communicate and keep the public informed, right? Well, when it comes to government blogs not exactly.

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