Oliver Bell’s Weblog

I’m sat here with a huge pile of paperwork preparing for the Government Technology Summit in Phuket later this month. Microsoft is sponsoring an award for technology leadership and the paperwork represents the amazing array of submissions put forwards by governments in Asia and elsewhere in the world. 

Fifteen years ago I was involved in some very early experiments in the United Kingdom to look at smart forms and identity management, it has been astounding to watch technology and policy evolve to deliver the projects that we see today.

Looking at the submissions in front of me I would describe many of them as Phase 3 projects. I’ll explain…

I have watched many eGovernment projects evolve over the years. When it comes to thinking about what comes next for each of these projects I tend to think about their evolution in three phases.

Overall this is probably about as simple as models get, but it does give some clues around how to build a road-map for the delivery of an  online Government service, along with some introspective guidance that relates to the services that you are delivering today.

Phase 1, Presence. Most governments are past this phase these days, but many began here. Early eGovernment projects had the goal of providing basic information about a department of a service through the medium of a web page. Very often these pages would provide a form you could download and print, maybe an address for your local office, or other guidelines around how to work with the department.

Phase 2, Transactions. Today there are a large number of completed and evolving projects in this category. These phase 2 projects very often take an existing business process that has been working for years and set about digitizing it in one way or another, frequently a web form is put online and citizens or business are invited to come and fill it out in this new environment.

In themselves these projects are useful, they make government more accessible and they decrease the amount of paperwork involved in getting something done.

Phase 3, Seamless Services. Ultimately every customer I talk to today about their eGovernment objectives has some element of Seamless Service delivery in their plans. Technologists might describe this as the Web 2.0 goal for government services. To deliver these types of service government has to be ready to think about the business processes that exist today and be ready to redesign them around a model that will deliver a new level of flexibility and openness.

In society today citizens and businesses have access to a wide range of devices, upon which they manage a wide array of data. In the world of Seamless Services those devices play an integral role in engaging with government as part of their everyday purpose, often they will complete government transactions transparently as part of a commercial transaction or another everyday activity. An example might be applying for an electronic visa in your destination country as you purchase the ticket to travel there from an online travel agent.