Web 2..0 in Government

Government executive has an interesting article on the adoption of Web 2.0 technologies in the federal government. Some excerpts:

But the zeal of some early adopters of such tools concerns him. "The bloggers worry less about the mission than about getting more bloggers. Intellipedia is more interested in getting more users than in contributing to the mission," Wertheimer said. "We're not yet nudging the early adopters to tinker with the iPhone to see how the adversary will use it to subvert the intelligence community."

Wertheimer also said many analysts still are skeptical about new technology and Web 2.0. Analysts distrust technology staffs, believing they deliver only tools and toys rather than greater capability. His answer to the problem, of course, is collaboration. "We need courses [that include] both of them," he said. "We need to integrate tools. . . . Neurons need to talk to other neurons."

In addition, fear and distrust are impediments on the agency level, he said, noting that ODNI's efforts to convince agencies to share information and people often founder on the ambiguous legislative authority with which the office was created. Each agency is content to discuss other agencies' problems with ODNI officials, but unwilling to examine its own problems, he said. And few willingly follow actions recommended by the director's office for fear that cooperation will lead to more requests for change. "There isn't a sense of common purpose," Wertheimer added.

I don't know how one overcomes such obstacles. One way might be to blow up the existing organizations and start from scratch, but that doesn't work in the government. I think it was Steve Coll, whose book "The Bin Ladens" I just finished (strongly recommend), who commented in passing that the FBI seemed very good in collecting facts but horrible in accumulating them in one place and analyzing them, while the CIA was the opposite, good at analysis but bad at collection. That sort of reflects the cultures of the organizations.