Digitizing Bedford Falls
     The merging of the centers will broaden the focus of the institute, which until now had centered primarily on electronic communities and the ways each sector (primarily public) can use technology. The mission, according to director Janet Caldow, is to provide technology and innovation leadership as a think tank and through its e-city of Bedford Falls. The model town "places the technology within the context of what we're talking about," she says. "If you come here, you can see what's going on today."
     Even though the town has had to restructure itself to make way for the renovations, the principles are still in place. There's the "home," complete with a blue denim couch, flower printed pillows, a television set and two home computers that provide video conferencing capability. That technology can prove useful for distance learning, telecommuting and setting up parent-teacher conferences, as the "school" demonstrates. The "university" employs many of the same technologies, and all three are grouped to show the way communication and new technologies can facilitate learning.
     While those three rooms contain technology that is somewhat standard for most tech-savvy consumers, the rest of the town highlights the governmental and community uses of new systems that may be less familiar. The courtroom, which even features a witness stand, justice bench and tables for both the prosecution and defense, is wired to a network that allows e-filing of court cases and highlights the paper elimination process that many courts are undertaking. Next door is the police station, where a police cruiser demonstrates how laptops in cars can help officers send digital mug shots and issue e-citations with wireless connections.

Transforming E-Government
     While the Disney-esque town may be the big draw for many leaders, who come to the center to share ideas and get information on how to wire their communities, the center also issues white papers on digital governance and is among the organizations leading the way to transform the way government interacts with citizens. And that translates into using the Internet to connect the government and its constituents in ways that have never before been possible.
     There has been increased attention on e-government ever since the beginning of the year, when technology-focused staffers in government offices around the country began to concentrate on topics other than a millennial meltdown from the Y2K computer bug. "Y2K couldn't have come at a better time," Caldow says. "Governments learned so much about their information technology systems and how to take advantage of them."
     And now IBM's center is trying to focus that energy into effective solutions for connecting government with its citizens. The center recently worked with the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University to release the first in a series of eight papers dictating "imperatives for leaders in a networked world." And many of the points in that paper mirror those mentioned in another report released Friday by the Democratic Leadership Council's Progressive Policy Institute, which urged the federal government to accelerate the process of digitizing its services.
     "Digital Government: The Next Step to Re-engineering the Federal Government" calls for a "rethinking of government around the needs of customers," said Robert Atkinson, the report's co-author. "They don't care if it's a state or federal role, they need seamless government," he said.
     Currently, citizen interaction with government online is limited to Web pages designed to fit the need of the state or locality, he said. Traditionally, each department has developed its own Web site with little communication with other departments, Caldow added. E-government will often hit a roadblock because many citizens who go online to complete their business with the government may not know the department, or even the arm of government, that handles their needs.

A New Way Of Doing Things
     But now, more states are developing their own "portals." Such Web sites are structured by function rather than department and offer a more user-friendly face to the complex underbelly of government. Atkinson said that while portals are helpful to consumers who are looking to accomplish their business with the state online, they may not be the ultimate solution.
     "The problem with portals is it's really just integration on the front page," he said. "They just zap you back to the department pages which are poorly organized and confusing, and then you're back into the confusion."
     What Atkinson and Caldow say they are both working toward is a seamless government solution that could one day intertwine all government Web sites into a true community that would be the most user friendly. But to do that takes communication, they say.
     "You ought to be getting together now," Caldow says. "Right now everyone's so focused on their own thing. But there should be a summit or something to start talking about it."
- by Stephanie Lash