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Will Citizen-Centric Applications Save E-Government?
E-government may have logged successes in making information and some transactions such as tax filing accessible via the Web, but many citizens feel underwhelmed by the initiative “because it hasn't really changed their lives by helping them do business with governments any better than in the past,” says Thom Rubel, practice director, government programs, for IDC Government Insights.
The problem? “E-government hasn’t anticipated doing business with the citizen based on what the citizen needs. Rather it’s based on what the government wants from the citizen,” he says.
Rubel offered his comments as governments and technology companies alike consider next-generation government technologies, such as the Oracle iGovernment technology framework, unveiled at September’s Oracle OpenWorld.
Tomorrow’s government applications could upend traditional e-government implementations by using Web 2.0, customer relationship management (CRM), service-oriented architecture (SOA), Web portals, and other technologies to initiate new types of interactions carried out not only on PCs but also via smartphones, kiosks, and notebook computers.
“Mobility is the new frontier for government applications,” says Rubel. “Citizens are used to mobile devices for transacting business, and those capabilities are going to vastly increase, including within governments.”
In addition, public sector agencies may explore ways to “harvest” information with “anywhere, anytime” applications that solicit information from businesses and citizens. For example, an army of citizen meteorologists might notify emergency managers of changing weather conditions as a hurricane approaches. “Governments should have the capacity to gather data that’s essentially free and very informative—it's from people on the ground who are reacting to events,” Rubel explains.
The initial goal of original e-government programs was to push information out to people, Rubel adds. “The flipside, and where I see the greatest benefit for both governments and citizens, is in this kind of polling where citizens are trusting enough of the government entity to have more conversational transactions to help governments know how to serve constituents better,” Rubel says.
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