**The Perfect Storm is Accelerating Electronic Government**

Here in the fall season of 2002, \"Perfect Storm\" conditions are
converging. These will accelerate progress to the integrated electronic
government of the future.

For example, one of the President's five management goals for the
government is to accelerate progress toward electronic government. In
support of this, Mark Forman has initiated remarkable momentum with the
help of many well-placed officials. At the same time, Homeland Security
has arrived on the scene adding additional momentum to intergovernmental
initiatives such as disaster management, electronic authentication, and
wireless communications.

The bursting of the dot com and telecommunications bubbles along with
the revelations of dishonesty in major corporate institutions have led
the government to reassert itself and reclaim its traditional role in
society. The government will no longer accept without question advice
from corporate leaders advocating that role of government is to
deregulate and get out of the way. The freely given corporate advice
that government should run itself like a business seems spurious in
current circumstances. For a time we forgot that government is for the
people and all of the people. And, as we saw in work done for the
Council for Excellence in Government, government is held to a higher
standard in society than private corporations.

A fourth condition that will be felt next year is the emerging federal
budget deficit. This will produce pressure to consolidate requirements
to save money. One major Federal department, for example, has
twenty-four Human Resource systems. Could they be consolidated?

With these four perfect storm conditions, things are possible in the
government that were not possible five, ten, and twenty years ago.
However we must note that important progress has been made in these
twenty years. Looking back, the great change is that we have built a
community, which shares ideas and lessons across the federal government
and with other national, state and local governments. Industry has been
brought in as an active participant as well.

In the 1970's there was a sense of isolation for IT officials in
government. Today, we take for granted the mechanisms which bring us
together. Yet, these did not exist twenty years ago. The early founders
saw the need for community and created Government Computer News. This
publication and later competitors provide the principal vehicles for
sharing lessons learned within the community.

IRMCO celebrated it 41st successful conference in September 2002. Before
1980, it was a forum for records managers. When it was transferred from
the National Archives to GSA in 1980, we added Information technology
and telecommunications issues to each IRMCO agenda. Bringing the three
legs of the information Resources Management stool together in one forum
brought the people from the three communities together to begin the long
journey to merge their skills, experiences, and programs into one.

Trail Boss, with its 1,300 graduates skilled in procuring and managing
large complex systems, built a community within the community over a
ten-year period. The bonding among Trail Bosses exists today as
evidenced by the establishment of the Trail Boss Council within the
Federation of Government Information Processing Councils (FGIPC).
Affirm, created within FGIPC, is another group, which has done its part
in building the Federal IT community.

Special recognition must be given to Betty Moore who helped to organize
and manage every IRMCO conference and Trail Boss class for 22 years.
Ande Mann, her sidekick, has been involved in every event since she
joined GSA in the mid-1980. Several other notables in these programs
include Bob Ross, Tom Horan, and today of course Emory Miller and Gary
Winters.

A major change in community building came when the Industry Advisory
Council was formed and FGIPC accepted it within its broad national
structure. This has brought government officials and industry officials
close together in ways which would have been considered impossible 20
years ago.

Building on the experiences in Canada and Australia, Congress created
the Chief Information Officer (CIO) program in 1996. Prior to this the
head IT officials in agencies generally had the title of Deputy
Assistant Secretary or Designated Senior Official for Information
Resources Management. Regardless of what we call it, the head official
has a tough job and normally is not provided with the necessary
resources and authority. The difference since 1996 is that a CIO Council
and a series of working subcommittees were formed and have been active.
These bring CIO's together in a community, which is providing synergy to
the participating members and leadership in the government.

Three generations of high level officials particularly those in the
Office of Management and Budget and the General Services Administration
felt that building a community was important. The de facto leaders of
the community over the years have been Wally Haase, John McNicholas,
Frank Reeder, Bruce McConnell, Dan Chenok, and now Mark Forman. Frank
Carr and Jim Flyzik have been in community leadership roles as well.
Having worked with these individuals over the 20 years, I can tell you
that operating at the top is hard work requiring a delicate touch. These
individuals were equal to the task in their time and helped bring us to
where we are today - ready to take advantage of the opportunities being
presented by the perfect storm conditions that we have at the moment.

Today we have a strong community with lessons learned moving in all
directions to many in the community. Many individuals have worked during
two decades to bring us to the point where we know and learn from each
other. Government today has the opportunity to be more ambitious in its
goals than just two years ago. There are issues such as program versus
agency budgeting, congressional budget procedures, and a lack of
awareness about the possibilities and risks of electronic government
outside the community. So there are difficulties ahead and budget
deficits will have an affect. At the same time, we are a strong
community with deep roots across the Federal government. This is an
important resource for change.

All governments now understand that the challenge ahead is to manage
intergovernmentally. Also, based on programs like "Government Without
Boundaries" we know how difficult integrated services delivery is going
to be. But there is consensus that this is where we need to go. Looking
ahead, I anticipate steady progress building on the successes and
failures in the past. If Community Building was the major accomplishment
since 1982, Intergovernmental Management will be the challenge for the
next 20 years.

My sense is that we are on a long journey, longer than many of us think
it will be to arrive at the end state of electronic government. The
perfect storm conditions are creating a favorable environment and may
allow completing the journey in less time.

The converging conditions are Presidential attention, a clear and
demonstrated need to integrate data bases to meet homeland security
needs, unmasking of the potential overlap in dozens in agency programs
in a time of budget deficits, and an awareness of the need to hire more
staff and special skills after a decade of personnel freezes. These
conditions suggest that intergovernmental management, integrated
systems, and collaboration across agencies will be the result of the
perfect storm.

We built the community with strong roots across government. Now we are
ready to take advantage of the conditions that are converging. There may
be some high winds symbolizing the transparent chaos and confusion that
attend major change. These divert attention from the actual change that
is taking place. In this case the actual change now underway will be
faster progress to the end state of electronic government with benefits
to citizens, business, other governments, and a more efficient and
effective government.

Can we afford not to collaborate?

Frank McDonough

September 6, 2002