Over at Fastcompany.tv, a recent interview covered the efforts of American Solutions to get more technology into the everyday use of the US government. Some ideas that were talked about was a database that housed all the contact info and bios of elected officials in the US, of which in 1992, was estimated to be around 512,000 officials. The interview also talked about the troubles that are still found with adopting technology to carry out government related work i.e. the 2010 census will be done w/ paper and pencil and the issues of locating illegal immigrants.

The interesting part of both of these examples is not that the technology isn’t present or in beta mode- rather its the continued use of outdated methods, stale behavior and old strategies used  by various agencies that if not change, will only continue to result in census counted with #2 pencils.  Adopting the technology isn’t simply enough – the entire process and understanding the role of technology and its benefits is the first step, not one that is taken at a later time.

For some examples and coverage of how web 2.0 tools and increasing investment in technology within government circles, readers could follow two great bloggers that cover these issues. For the past three days at the Synergy Conference, Bob Gourley of CTOVision (Day 1,2,3) blogs about the speakers and presentations, lessons, tools and all the various ideas of moving forward with adopting more technology to help with government duties. We see how web 2.0 tools – blogs, tag|connect, gallery, ivideo, etc- are being unwrapped throughout some government agencies and how they are slowly, making their way into the broader daily life of users/employees/analysts, etc. Three goals aim to change the understanding, reach and implementation of daily responsibilities through these tools:

1. Work at broadest audience possible
2. Think topically, not organizationally
3. Replace existing business processes

Lewis Shepherd focuses on similar issues and as a former senior technology officer within government and now in his new role as the CTO of Microsoft’s Institute for Advance Technology in Governments, both he and Gourley provide great insight on what is currently being done to adopt 21st century technology and the future of web 2.0 tools in government.

I was surprised to hear that there isn’t a central database containing the information on all elected officials. The idea sounds like a valuable one and if properly done and provided to the public, it will only increase voter rolls in the terms of elected officials. Exciting times ahead.