The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite ... The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.
-- James Madison - Federalist No. 45
This is a book about government and how we use new technologies and data to support the core functions of government.
It contains a series of essays written originally as blog posts starting in early 2012 until the Fall of 2015. My time in government was spent in state and local government (two states and one city), so the ideas I articulate in this book are heavily informed by that experience.
Questions about how government can most effectively and efficiently use technology are not new, but they have become increasingly important since the early 1990's with the advent of the World Wide Web and the ensuing explosion in networked devices and new innovations.
I began my very first job in government in 1993, the same year that the Mosaic web browser was released to the public. My experience working in 3 different state and local governments over the last 20 or so years has closely tracked some important developments in the world of government technology - the introduction of the web and Internet technologies in government; the rise of e-Government and the creation of centralized government web portals, the adoption of open data and the growth in government app contests and civic hacking.
Over all that time, governments have cemented a reputation as generally being inept when it comes to adopting new technologies and using them effectively. This ineptitude is taken as an article of faith in the world of civic technology and among those who would reform the ways that the public sector acquires and uses technology.
But more often than not, this faith is absent a fuller understanding of some of the reasons why governments face challenges in adopting new technologies. As I argue in Section 1 of this book, there are some very specific and easily identifiable processes that hinder the efficient adoption of technology by governments. These processes were constructed deliberately, to work in a specific way, often as a means of correcting other perceived issues. Understanding why these processes were constructed the way that they were is key to understanding how governments might improve their use of technology.
But looking beyond the mechanics of specific government processes, there are other factors - baked into the DNA of our democracy - that can make the efficient adoption of technology by governments challenging.
The responsibility for specific government functions in our federalist system is divided between federal, state and local governments. State and local governments - numbering at more than 90,000 in 2012 - carry out some of the most critical functions in our democracy: law enforcement, administering elections, educating our children, creating rules that govern how land can be used and overseeing health care for families and children.
The large number of sub-national governments in our country is generally viewed as a benefit, but it may actually create issues which complicate the efficient adoption of technology.
Municipal codes have been described as the operating system of local governments. In the world of technology, complexity and risk is often a function of a lack of uniformity. Different operating systems, different browser versions, a different set of installed dependencies - these are all important considerations when developing and implementing a new technology solution. Accounting for these differences in software increases risk, complexity and cost.
Differences in how common functions are carried out by various state and local governments can make sharing technology solutions more difficult. Commercial software that is engineered to be used by multiple governments is typically more complex and costly because it must accommodate different business process for carrying out the same function. This is sometimes referred to as "designing high" - building a solution that covers every possible user's needs but not doing it particularly well.
One of the most fundamental aspect of our democracy is the separation of powers into different branches of government - an organizational approach that purposefully sacrifices efficiency and speed to guard against the potential danger of concentrated authority.
Even beyond this foundational aspect of our democracy, the mechanics of government are set up to move slowly. The primary mechanism for acquiring technology assets - the government procurement process (discussed in Section 2) - can be a months or even years long process. The budget process - which allocates funds for every kind of technology solution or asset - revolves on an annual (and sometimes biennial) cycle.
A healthy democracy places an emphasis on values like transparency ad inclusiveness, but putting these values into practice often means that the decision making process moves more slowly and consensus is harder to achieve.
The pace of change in the world of technology has shrunk from years to months to weeks. In the digital age, things that are viewed as virtues in a democracy may work against the efficient adoption of technology by governments.
The challenge we face as advocates of reform to the way that governments acquire, manage and use technology assets is in how we strike the balance between these fundamental concepts in our democracy and the need to operate differently. Do we concentrate decision making and power? Do we mandate a specific set of procedural steps for local governments to carry out when providing core services. Do we relax requirements to be inclusive and transparent? What are we willing to sacrifice to get better results?
I argue in this book that there is another way.
We are in the midst of a sea change in how governments operate and deliver services. We are seeing new partnerships forged between governments and outside actors who are able to innovate in ways that governments often find difficult.
These partnerships are creating new opportunities for governments to leverage technology and better serve their citizens. In Section 3 of this book, we explore the rise of open data and what it means for how governments utilize technology and create new partnerships with external innovators. In Section 4, we turn to the phenomenon of civic hacking, which is built on open data and promises to reshape the way that governments deliver services.
We're still in the very early stages of this change, but the potential benefit for both governments and citizens is immense. In the 21st Century and beyond, for governments to more effectively utilize technology to fulfill their mission, we need to construct a new state - a collaborative state.