What I learned in IT Class

Essentially I learned that IT is not what we think it is. At least not when it comes to its application in public sector organizations. The impression that many of us have of IT is that of a young guy coming to the boss' office with a great new idea of how some computer application, network or new technology is going to provide such a revolutionary advantage that the entity will make zillions of dollars or meet its mission more so than all of its competitors.

While the companies that I work for never had that happen, I will agree that many organizations are run by managers who have this impression of IT. What compounds this problem are managers who don't know much about how the internet works and therefore wouldn't know how to appropriately utilize emerging technologies. This class sought to stop us from becoming one of those managers.

The class project challenged us to think of a way that IT would actually help an organization. Many times, you hear someone talking about how it would be so much more efficient for a non-profit or government entity to hire an IT guy to bring them into the 21st century. Everyone thinks that things like facebook are the wave of the future, so companies rush to open their own Facebook page and join in the benefits of this supposed magic IT answer. I guess its not that easy. Facebook allows for on-line communities to flourish especially when centered around a cause, objective or common interest. Do managers understand that while the cost of opening an account is free, facebook is not free for the organization! In order to have a chance at being effective, someone must administer the site in order to make sure that current themes of interest are constantly displayed. After all, who would visit the United Way facebook page (more than once or twice) if it always had the same things listed? And what would they be going to facebook to learn that they could not learn from the United Way website? What's pulling people to the facebook page? You can't just implicitly assume that all of these questions would work themselves out because IT solves all problems. Someone must take their time to make sure that the United Way facebook page actually does something to help (and not hurt) the organizations ability to reach its mission. Unless that person is going to work for free, than there is an associated cost. Thus, United Way, must decide whether a facebook page will add any kind of value to their organization.

Being able to work through the activity allows one to learn these sorts of things better so than if they simply found them in a text book. I only wish that the project could have taken more classroom time. While I think that the other activities were interesting and informative, the project was really where much of the learning was. There are certain things that have the potential to actually help you in the world of offices and decision making. This project really hits this well. When it comes to the planning process, I think that additional classroom activity could help to get everyone on the same page. Because it was a class on technology, it was easy to think that the goal of the project was to utilize technology. I assert that the goal is to find a way for a non-profit or government entity to better meet its mission with technology simply as a vehicle. "Better" can mean more efficiently, safely, politically expediently or in any other way that might matter to a key stakeholder. The technology being utilized was just a means to an end.

When it comes to learning to work as a team, it is important to establish roles early on and meet in person at the beginning of the process. Furthermore, milestones must be set so that presentation time is not the moment of truth. Everyone on the team should have a good idea of their concept and feel confident in it by the end of the semester. I would make sure that I took it upon myself to do these things in the future. With that stated, I think that the end result turned out to be a great improvement in clarity of the finished product, it would have been nice to have that confidence at presentation time. On teams, everyone is at the graduate level, bright and wants to do a good job. Yet, with all of the different working styles, an understanding must be met early.

As for the E-government part of the class, as can be observed in my blogs, I thought the class was very interesting. These are the things that the future gov't leaders are going to have to address. Like Pat Sine brought up, the E-government section sought to answer questions of how do we know that IT is more efficient, transparent or even the best thing for society. If these kinds of things aren't thought threw, the consequences can be even more disastrous than a lackluster presentation.

Does e-government really provide transparency?

One of the supposed benefits that politicians often tout off about transparency is they will post everything on their websites. The problem is, much of this is on the website that they control and we all know that they have a competing interest to hide information that is not politically favorable to them or their cause. Technology may not actually create transparency, but only better help political officials create the illusion of transparency. Even if the government makes administrative laws that it must follow, agency heads and bureaucrats know how to get around these laws and rules just as they did before the days of the internet. Thus, the illusion of transparency may actually be causing the adverse effect of giving people a sense of false security.

In the end, while some 501(c)4s may be acting as watchdogs of the government, they only have so much access. Thus, although technology gives people the ability to track things, is it the government that is being tracked or the people themselves?

E-Government, a marvel of technology or a double edged sword/

One of the benefits of e-government is the increase in efficiency brought about by the use of computers and internet based platforms that allow people to learn things such as what they're representative has agreed to fund. In a country that is getting larger and more complex, this benefit can be very meaningful. When the population becomes active and engaged, this means that democracy, in a sense, can become more efficient. What constituencies want can be better reflected as transparency increases in government.

Yet, studies have also shown that this increased level of access does not translate to a more representative democracy. Once the population has better access to information and to their elected officials, it is often the most engaged who dominate the attention of the Senatorial and Congressional staffs. Thus, those with the most organized and aggressive agendas are better able to crowd out the rest of the electorate and population.

For the most part, E-government has shown no solutions in addressing the latter matter.

I believe that e-government is in a state of transition where in which the full potential has not yet been realized. Today it exists more as a highly efficient version of essentially what was there before. This is common when matters of invention or innovation are applied. No one realizes the true applications of such technologies so they just mimic what they were doing prior to the discovery with marginal improvements. However, in time, technology will drastically change the way that government operates until it is virtually unrecognizable. Although everyone can be tracked through their cellphone or car, I believe that the way policy is formulated will essentially connect the dots and find solutions that crack many societal problems. I doubt any of us will see this until hindsight is available.

There is a reason that the first cars resembled horse carriages. I'm sure that no one at the time envisioned these enhanced horse carriages using an interstate system that expanded the city and changed the landscape, economy, and policies of America.