Gen. Gary L. Salisbury reports, the electronic mail messages showing up on his personal computer have multiplied fivefold. It's clear from his tone of voice that Salisbury is not entirely happy with the situation. But he's in the same position as many other federal executives, caught between the appeal of being in the loop, on the one hand, and being overwhelmed with information, on the other. There's a certain irony here, because Salisbury heads a major unit of the Defense Information Systems Agency.
DISA is one of several federal agencies tackling the next phase of the information revolution.
They're trying to figure out what to do with all the information that now is available to everyone. Progress in this area has been slow, and meanwhile federal managers are struggling to make the best use of the new tools at their disposal. The State Department's Bureau of Information and Research, for example, gets about 5,000 reports a day from the field and other information sources. With a staff that's dwindled from 361 to 276 in recent years, keeping up is difficult, even though the reports arrive via computer and not on paper. But almost in the same breath, he said technology has made the bureau's job more challenging.