NPM vs. eGovernment = pessimist vs. optimist ???

The assignment about NPM is progressing and i have arrived at a place where im puzzled about my NPM theory. The thing is, that it seems that NPM derives from a notion that the public sector isn’t doing their jobs in a propper maner and that it is too big ..enter private sector style management/marketization/de-bureaucratization. The public sector is too big and lazy and too bureaucratic. Therefore IT is the tool to minimize, rationaliz and make everything transparent, for everybody to see the in-efficient work of the public sector. Really this is a mistrust in the public bureau.

EGovernment derives from another notion, differentiate it self on different points, that is growing from the idea that IT is capable of democratizing a sector, meaning giving it back to the citizens, including them in various processes. I guess this i said to be a evolution/modernization of the public sector as we knew it, now applied with modern tools, processes reflecting the new paradigme that the internet brought to the world, feeding on the will of the people to take part. 

My question to you, reader: is this a “correct” way of picture it og is it too controversial? Im aware of the parts where the two notions share common grounds. Is this to black and white? Or is it simply the case, that the two can’t live without one another? Maybe the one is alive due to the other.. could it be?

If this is somewhat the case, I see why P. Dunleavy et.al (Digital Era Governance) and others say that NPM is “a dead fish in the water”, and that we need to look further .. to get to a governance model capable of holding the emerging technologies and their benefits.

 

Master thesis page ..

For now, I have a page designated for the topics related to my master thesis on interoperabilty.

 

 

Back at the “office” – reflecting on the conference

I’m back at the office at ITU, doing some reading, working on my NPM assignment, having spend exciting 5 days in Prag speaking at the East European eGovernment conference. IBM, where I work, and with who I have been co-written a paper titled “How Government Can Benefit From Web2.0”, sponsored the trip. 

Doing a bit of reflecting on what I have learned on the trip, which experiences I have had, these are my thoughts:

- The countries in the east, are getting out of the plan-economics, and getting around to a new paradigm, where the Internet and the current revolution (or evolution?) is Web2.0, Enterprise architecture is the way forward to getting IT and business goals aligned (am I missing anything here?). 

- Some (many) of the contribution on the conference, by the east (central maybe) European countries, missed the fact, that the web is a platform where we can learn many great things about user inclusion, transparence etc. They seem to have their mind set on the phenomenon web2.0 as yet another technology like any other, with really nothing to give. Of course this is a provocation towards my article on “How Government Can Benefit From Web2.0″, hence I have to give my opinion on this topic. The explanation is probably centrated around the fact, that the governments of the east, are focused on the back-office systems to work, hence postpone the “technology” of the teenagers room – and of course letting others do the bleeding (Carr).

- Enterprise architecture was hardly mentioned approximately one or two times during a four days conference. Striking I think, as we in Denmark seems to believe firmly in this paradigm as a motor to create it-systems of the future. There is undoubtedly some work there, for consultants feeling keen on going east, preaching the good word..  

- The EU is far in supporting projects, preaching the word of tomorrow. My “meeting” with Davis Osimo was a pleasure, and was able to qualify the keynote of the first day. Ill be adding his blog to my Bloglines.

 

Well thats it for now, more thoughts to come..

 

New Public Management assignment

These days im doing an assignment on NPM i Denmark. Im looking at four historic documents describing the strategy for eGovernment i Denmark. In addition Ill be carry out some interviews, with key players/stakeholders in this regard, namely: Lone Dybkjær member of parliament and front woman on the “Dybkjær rapport” from 1994 pressing the go-button for eGov i DK, Lars Frelle, head of office in the ministry of finances, working on the pan-public sector strategy for eGov and chief of the digital taskforce, and finally Rachid El Mousti ex-employee/senior consultant in the ITST, expert on NPM as well as DEG. 

The key area of interest is whether of not NPM is the right governance strategy for the public sector.. or would it be a good thing is somebody found a new paradigme. My thesis, for now, is that NPM is old news or a dead fish in the water (Dunleavy) and our beloved public sector needs a revitalization of some sort. DEG could be a great answer.

 

6th Eastern European eGovernment Days: 23 – 25 April 2008 in Prague .. next week

Next week Ill be attending the 6th Eastern European eGovernment Days: 23 – 25 April 2008 in Prague with my boss.  We will be presenting our paper “How web2.0 can benefit government”. This is my first conference presenting a scientific paper, and I anticipate to do a bit of networking with some of the people who have been in the business of making government more efficient, effective and user centric. From the list of participants I can see that there will be attending some exciting people from alle over the world – so Ill be taking notes and discussing eGovernment for en interesting week. Also Ill try to do a bit of blogging form there – filling the gaps with some reflective work about the subject.. and doing a bit of sightseeing of Prag.

Also Im still curious to know if you have some experiences or knowledge about New Public Management or (as I see it) the new paradigme / optics of doing eGovernment, namely, Digital Era Governance, as proposed by Patrick Dunleavy et.al.

 

New Public Management/ eGovernment – happy marriage?

Im in my office at ITU working on an assignment about New Public Management (NPM), being the current governance paradigme of many states. NPM is a notion that the known bureaucratic hierarci has slowed the every decision and, basically that the departements of the government is not efficient enough. The answer to these prayers is NPM, creating a quasi market, by putting great parts of the public sector to be managed by private companies, hens the public sector, being unproductive (not my take), should learn  to manage in a marked oriented way. Many authors (Dunleavy etc.) proclaim this not to be the case, since we are in a Internet age, where new paradigmes are the law of the land. 

Of course my optics are eGovernment, and I will be observing this from that angle, asking if NPM is the right way to make eGovernment. As of today i’ll be looking at interviewing a few with knowledge in the area of NPM and eGovernment 

If you have relevant insights on this topic or related, I’ll be pleased to hear from you!!

 

 

 

Gary Doucet , chief architect Canada

Yesterday I attended an lecture by the chief architect of the Canadian government. Very exciting stuff and and interesting view on how to do EA on a pan-government level. Canada is one of the, if not the leading countries on eGovernment and maybe Enterprise Architecture.Gary pointed out how architects from a central place, his departement, infiltrated (in a positive way of course) a line of business, structured the IT and left it  with a structured IT aligned with the business. Sure, some of the architects were left in the business in order to do day-to-day work, I guess. I think i’ll be looking for more content from his hand, extracting good ideas. Gary also talked about a book coming in the near future, about this topic, in collaboration with  Bernhard, Gotze and Sahay.

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Florida conference this summer – presenting web 2.0 for Gov

 My boss, Soren Duus/IBM and I have worked on a paper on the trends in Web2.0 for Government use, and we submitted it to the WMSCI2008 conference in Florida .. and it was accepted! So I guess I’ll be going to Florida this summer, presenting our findings to a crowde of very well educated people. Looking forward to make some great contacts and witness some interesting keynotes, eventhough it is in the middel of my master thesis.

Great news on my ODF / OOXML assignment

Friday the 25.th was the day where I were to present my ODF/OOXML/B103 assignment at an oral exam. The paper is quite good and I’m really happy with the result, eventhough it doesn’t bring forward new groundbreaking  material. But I guess  there has been a need for some new insights on the whole “game” – though, working for IBM probably biases the complete situation a bit. On the contrary, I feel the paper is balanced evenly out. Well, the result of the exam was an 10.      UPDATE: The paper is not online  yet and I don’t know if it will be, since it is in danish and is mostly about the danish scene. Furthermore it was made in 4 quick weeks.