From: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com>
Date: Mon, 3 Feb 1997 14:41:46 -0800 (PST)
To: Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com>
Subject: Govt & cyberspace
Message-ID: <199702032241.OAA04535@toad.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



DF raises the question of whether the IRS will be able to 
modernize in the lack of "intellectual capital" (i.e. brains).
This is actually a very interesting topic which I've not
seen a lot of analysis on elsewhere, but which I expect
to see a lot more in the future.

the basic issue is this: private industry is moving into
cyberspace at a lightening pace. yet the government is
painfully incapable of doing the same for reasons of bureacracy.
numerous articles have been documenting the inability of the
government to successfully pull of massive software and
hardware upgrade projects. 

I suspect it will only be a matter of time before this is
called a major "crisis" by politicians and milked for all
of its conceivable tax value. eeks.

I've seen a lot of articles about govt agencies in a 
computational crisis due to this problem. maybe someone
can come up with a cute tag item. "technology envy" maybe?
I read about how the FAA was trying to install a new flight
control system that's insanely over budget and lightyears
from a conceivable completion.

another *major* computation problem is the year 2000
crisis. private companies can barely get it together to
do the upgrading and investigation required to fix the
2000-flip problem. the government is even farther behind.
if there is going to be a year 2000 "crisis" due to the
millenium bug, I suspect much of it will be focused in
government agencies.

"tech envy"-- what impact is this going to have on our
government? it's becoming a huge issue. it may be a 
really great opportunity for a populist movement to
truly reform the government in the process of upgrading
their computers. I suspect that the "groupware" technology
that is just getting started will have major influence
in these areas. as private companies find increasingly
sophisticated ways of managing themselves, the obvious
question will arise, "why can't we have an efficient govt
when our private industries are"? the answer is, we
can!!

I've written about "electronic democracy" repeatedly. many
people object to the idea. but when it is phrased in terms
of groupware, it becomes more palatable. imagine a small
company humming along with its groupware application that
allows it to make company-wide decisions using a democratic
process. moreover, the software is robust and scales well.
why can't the same principles be scaled up, up, up? I predict
that they will be in a rather extraordinary revolution.

a new "velvet revolution"? comments anyone?