Raising the Bar for E‐Government

• Date: 01 November 2012
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2012.02674.x
• Published date: 01 November 2012
• Author: Rob Mancini

Commentary

Raising the Bar for E-Government 829

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 72, Iss. 6, pp. 829. © 2012 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.111/j.1540-6210.2012.02674.x.

Rob Mancini is chief technology off‌i cer

for the District of Columbia, where he

provides leadership and services for 86

agencies, 39,000 employees, and more than

600,000 residents of Washington, D.C. The

Barack Obama Administration named him

a “Champion of Change” for his off‌i ce’s

pioneering work in high-speed broadband

networking infrastructure. Mancini received

the IDG Computerworld Honors Laureate

for the city’s IT Staff Augmentation program.

E-mail: rob.mancini@dc.gov

Rob Mancini

District of Columbia

The analysis of e-participation by Soonhee Kim

and Jooho Lee in their article “E-Participation,

Transparency, and Trust in Local Government”

is quite accurate as a tool to help e-government practi-

tioners prepare for e-government that works for public

participants (“participants” and “residents” are terms

that can also be taken to mean “residents, business,

visitors” . . . all of whom are served by government).

Kim and Lee present interesting dimensions of the

e-participant process, overlaying participant (and

practitioner) satisfaction across a variety of items,

including e-government delivery to the public, gov-

ernment follow-through, and the impact or relevance

perceived by the e-participant, borne of their partak-

ing of electronic engagement with their government.

In the process, the authors probe for those measures

that can and will help governments think through their

true motivations for e-government initiatives before

they begin to practice them.  e authors present a

view, or model, that is very useful as a “points to pon-

der” guide for any government entity to consider for its

e-government initiative.  e article displays the most

important considerations for a jurisdiction to address

with regard to the practice of modern-day engagement

with the public, as well as demonstrable transparency.

 ere are additional constructs that could be added to

Lee and Kim’s assessment of e-government ratings and

responses by participants. Today, there is a generation

of youth who have come of age.  ey are a group of

up-and-coming young adults who have rarely expe-

rienced a time in their lives when they were not con-

nected to the Internet, or a time when they failed to

have technology at their f‌i ngertips.  is creates added

challenges and new requirements for e-government.

It raises the bar—and this is a good thing. Acceptable

practices of yesterday are no longer suf‌f‌i cient for today

when consumer technologies are involved.

It is not enough to have Web applications that of‌f er

e-participation and transparency. Governments that

are innovative on a regular basis will of‌f er fresh and

more feature-rich options to the public.  ese are the

governments that understand the need to adapt their

e-government and transparency of‌f erings as a par tner-

ship in civic duty and responsibility.  ese are the

governments that will get the most out of e-govern-

ment and will achieve higher levels of participant

satisfaction, acceptance, participation, and, ultimately,

a state that approaches community governing.

Applications must be mobile and compatible with the

most popular devices, and these applications must be

provided at no cost to participants.  e Web browser

is no longer the medium of choice.

Where possible, the use of geospatial data must be part

of the mix, in a way that is relevant for the partici-

pant.  e District of Columbia government’s use of

SeeClickFix is a good example: a resident can download

a free application from the government, use his or

her handheld device to take a photo of a pothole or a

downed power line, click the send button, and have the

data (a photo and geospatial coordinates) delivered to

the Department of Public Works for immediate report-

ing and action. Often called “crowdsourcing,” this is a

very important element of e-participation and e-govern-

ment.  ere are more examples of this in Washington,

D.C., as we pursue initiatives for next-generation 911

that will allow response to crimes within 10 seconds.

Incorporation of available data sources is another area

in which e-government must evolve in order to provide

high value to e-participants. A government that uses

information to predict outcomes, respond to potential

threats, and follow trends that are taking place inside

and outside its boundaries (by correlating data and

f‌i nding valuable uses for the data that are available to it)

is going to earn high satisfaction ratings from residents.

Without going into minute detail of all the new and

emerging technologies themselves, I hope that I have

conveyed the idea that new or evolving constructs are

the result of what can be achieved by building on a

solid e-government foundation such as you can f‌i nd

within the article by Kim and Lee.

Raising the Bar for E-Government