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THE RILEY REPORT - March 2008
from Thomas B. Riley RTRiley6@cs.com
www.rileyis.com
Following is the Riley Report for March 2008. Please feel free to pass this on as you see fit. If you wish to use any part of the Report in an offline publication please acknowledge the author or contact the author for permission if it is to be fully republished offline. If you are not currently subscribed to the Riley Report (there is no charge) you may email RTRiley6@cs.com and simply put "subscribe" in the body of the text.
This month’s report assesses the ways in which new technologies are impacting societies and changing the world. This medium dominates our cultures and has transformed societies. Change is the mantra of our times. The last two decades have brought significant evolutions in technologies.
The
Changing World of Information Technology:
New Futures
By Thomas B. Riley
PREFACE
This essay concentrates on the evolution of information
and communication technologies (ICTs) in government. It also assesses the wider changes in society due to the
emergence of these technologies. The
last two decades have created a tsunami of change around the world as the
Internet brought people together over distance and time.
The implications of these changes have yet to be fully fathomed or
understood. We continue to live
during an evolutionary period with newer and newer technologies emerging into
the marketplace and changing the way we conduct our lives.
Some governments around the world have been catalysts of
change by making online services widely available in their jurisdictions.
The first stage of this change was the emergence of e-government programs
in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
e-Governance and e-Government have been concepts embraced
by the majority of governments around the world seeking more economical and
swifter ways to provide services to their citizenry. The application of the terms e-governance and e-government
over the past decade and a half has contributed to the growth of online services
and programs from government departments.
Following are definitions of these concepts.
e-Governance - is the movement of
governments online to electronically deliver their services and programs,
provide government information, and interact with the citizen. e-Governance is,
essentially, the application of proven governance principles that drives the
public service. This is the
formation of new relationships, and includes the private sector along with
citizens and other levels of government. Successful
and innovative applications of e-governance across government departments and
agencies determine the success of the development of e-government programs.
e-Government - constitutes the way
public sector institutions use technology to apply public administration
principles and conduct the business of government. This is government using new tools to enhance the delivery of
existing services. The degree
of application of e-government programs very much depends on the amount of
personnel and financial resources a government has to implement programs.
The degree of application of online services will vary widely between
developed, medium developed and developing countries.
Technologies have had a serious impact in our lives.
How far will we go and what will be the impacts on our collective
societies? This is just one
important question of our time that we need to address.
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ISSUES
Since 1854 (deployment of the telegraph) Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) have been providing electronic messaging to more and more people.
The marketplace was the first to exploit this capability,
beginning with financial and news services.
Later entertainment and workplace services were offered for sale.
In the last decade, people have had the capacity to “reach out and
touch someone” over far greater distances and in much less time than with
surface or even airmail. The result
has been the continuing spread of a social psychology of connectivity and
immediacy over the Internet as well as new information and communication
technologies. Thus it is important
to assess the current status and impact of information technologies in
government and in society overall.
The application of a smorgasbord of government IT programs
has resulted in enhanced services to the citizenry on the public side, and
efficiencies and speed of service within the government side of the equation.
The emergence of these programs has resulted in society now taking IT
programs and applications for granted. Many
countries, especially Canada in 2003, dropped the e-Government term as
departments and agencies moved on to new challenges.
In many respects, online government services are now taken for granted.
Online services from government at all levels have changed
the ways societies have operated: everything from paying taxes online, to
looking up a bus schedule, to using Google, to finding a government department
or agency, or to find a friend or any other of the thousands of actions people
do online. The world of twenty
years ago now seems ancient and antiquated given the way our new technologies
allow us as individuals to interact in the world today. This is particularly true of any living individual 22 or
under who has grown up with the Internet and the plethora of IT communication
devices now available. To this
current generation the Internet and concomitant information and communication
technologies are simply a part of ordinary life.
These changes have resulted in challenges for government
agencies, the corporate world and citizens at large. The technologies have brought instant communications, making
connections around the world, bringing the world to our computers or
Blackberries, iPods or Personal Digital Assistants (PDA).
The capacity now exists for people to seamlessly reach out to friends and
relatives through email and websites such as MySpace, You Tube and Facebook.
These have been the moving forces that have concentrated on youth who
take online activities for granted. Our
technologies are becoming legion and all- pervasive to those who have the funds
to pay and the wherewithal to utilize these ever evolving ICTs.
But this is just the beginning of change that will continue in the next
decade as our society evolves into new ways of thinking and acting.
The true change has been convenience.
For example, people no longer have to wait in long line-ups in government
departments for services. But the
reality of this change has now been articulated in hundreds of articles and
books. As the saying goes the
change is now “old hat”. What
is important at this stage of change is to assess where our society is going and
how technologies will continue to change our way of life.
Blackberries and Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), for example, make it
possible to perform any number of tasks, from phone calls, to text messages, to
schedulers, to address books, to accessing websites.
We are a people in constant motion seamlessly driven by these evolving
technologies. Change is rapid and
has been embraced in throughout societies around the world.
It is currently estimated that 94% of countries around the world have
some form of access to online services.
Recent events confirm that technology evolutions are not
nearing an end. There will be more
evolutions in society overall. From
an economic standpoint, it is crucial that new technologies evolve into the
marketplace, given that the vast majority of our populations around the world
rely on information and communication technologies. In the process our culture will change. Our mores will evolve into different dimensions in just a few
years. This is a time of rapid
change and perhaps the fastest in all of our history.
This is not to ignore the fact that our ever-growing,
pervasive online and offline technologies are causing disturbing social
problems. One prime example is that
of drivers who create text messages on their handheld mobiles while driving.
Recently, newspapers in different countries have reported on drivers who
have died in fatal accidents because they were trying to send a message from
their mobiles. Other cases have
been of drivers who, while talking on their mobiles or trying to create text
messages, have killed pedestrians or smashed into other cars killing their
drivers. The incidents are probably
low compared to total numbers but do illustrate that every new technology has
both its negative and positive side.
Other serious side effects of these new technologies include data theft, privacy violations of individuals’ personal information, identity theft, hacking, theft of websites, criminal scams, spams and a host of other anti-social behavioral attitudes. In conclusion, it is imperative to state that there are many people in all countries who do not have the financial means or necessary skills to use and fully gain the benefits of these technologies. In fact, recent statistics on online access around the world suggest that there are now a billion people who use the Internet.
This is a challenge now to bring all people into these networks of networks.
March 26, 2008
Note: Riley
Information Services will be holding a Privacy Seminar at the Minto Suites
Hotel, Ottawa, on February 25, 2008. Full
details will be on our web site on November 22 at http://www.rileyis.com
and click on seminars.
Thomas Riley is available for consultations, preparation of reports, presenting workshops or delivering speeches at conferences and seminars on e-government, e-governance and e-democracy. Please contact me at the email address below for further details.
Thomas B. Riley
Executive Director and Chair
Commonwealth Centre for E-Governance
www.electronicgov.net
President, Riley Information Services Inc.
www.rileyis.com
email:
rtriley6@cs.com
Author: Time's End
www.amazon.com
(see under books: Thomas B. Riley)
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