But I think we're going to see very steady and substantial progress. Take an agency like the Federal Aviation Administration. When I started, everyone had them at the top of their lists as a sure failure. They've now testified and are in the process of being certified that 99 percent of their systems are fixed. When you see an organization that's structured that way, then you have a feeling that they're going to do all right.
Information technology is an important tool for the basic core operations of an organization.
Therefore, the major information technology decisions need to be made by the senior management of an organization, not just by the information resources people. A lot of senior agency program managers and political appointees, whose eyes used to glaze over when you talked to them about information technology, now feel much more comfortable about making basic decisions or asking questions about whether particular systems or improvements or changes are actually going to make a difference in the performance of the core missions of the agency. In the past, it's been hard for information technology people to get anybody to engage in a dialogue. Although I do find that sometimes if I wake up early in the morning, at 4 or 5, it's a little hard to get back to sleep, because I've got so many things I'm thinking about.