#ESRIUC Federal and State Collaboration for Open Government

Mr. Gopal Khanna, CIO for the State of Minnesota and President, National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) provided some interesting thoughts on the work of state and local government IT officers as part of his presentation at the ESRI Senior Executive Seminar at the 2009 ESRI UC. Here is a summary of his remarks:

The whole idea of federal/state collaboration in the US can be viewed as three challenges.

1. Citizens in our country don’t see the difference between governments (city/state/federal) anymore. If government is not able to respond to a calamity, there is something wrong; the government has "failed." There is no differentiation between what part of government failed…just that "government" was not proactive in solving the problem. "We as IT leaders must work together. We in state and local government need to take the lead and NASCIO is working with the federal CIOs to do exactly that."

2. Because of the current economic situation and the ARRA, a unique opportunity exists.  This economic disaster was not expected to happen. Vivek Kundra’s idea of Data.gov will change things forever. Data is king. Citizens will get used to information and data like never before which leads to accountability and transparency. This is driving the way we collect, manage and report information. There is a "demand pull" for information.

3. We need to plan for the future; we need to envision what the future will be. I submit to you what we in the state CIOs see: Citizens are used to the Google and Amazon experience. When it comes to government services, we are very vertical and very siloed. This is counterintuitive for making data and information useful to citizens. We have to deliver data in real-time, accessible, and secure.

What’s the opportunity? It’s huge! What we are seeing is that this is an international issue; cybersecurity is an big issue. We can reengineer and redefine the future.

As an industry, we have to change the context, change the conversation and change the game. CIOs, even in the private sector, don’t get it! But things are changing. Today’s CIO make decisions, not just related to costs, but on issues such as time to market, competitive advantage, etc. But government is still thinking of it in terms of what it will cost! IT cannot be seen as a cost center; it must be seen as a resource center.