Digital Transformations in the 21st Century Bureaucracies
September 18, 2017
On September 13, 2017, The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace hosted American University’s Key FEDTalks with Tom Cochran on the topic of digital transformation in 21st century bureaucracies. Cochran held positions as Chief Technology Officer at Atlantic Media, Director of New Media Technologies at the White House, and Managing Director of the State department’s Bureau of International Information Programs. Prior to beginning the session, guests signed-in at a booth outside of the room and were then welcomed to tables of refreshments to include bitterly brewed coffee and strangely sour water as well as cookies and fruit platters. Chatter overwhelmed the refreshment area with business cards being passed as secret notes in an elementary classroom.
In an intimate corner room of the Carnegie Endowment building, the Key FEDTalks series host and Executive in Residence of SPA , Patrick Malone, took the podium first. Explaining the origins of the program that began four to five years ago, the speaker series welcomes federal leaders within American University’s Key Program. Cochran stood center stage of the small room with approximately twenty audience members, informally introducing himself and setting the tone for the casual presentation. Beginning with his participation in building the “We The People” Petition, Cochran gave a brief historical context of the term “bureaucracy”. A conjoined French and Greek word, in layman's terms, bureaucracy was summed up as “political control behind a desk”. Emphasis on the well known idea that the government is not meant to be fast, in comparison, the 2008 election was extremely digital with the political environment finally getting a grasp on the “whole fast-paced media thing” , said Cochran.
With the introduction of digital communication within any business however, there must be a few guidelines to stick to: transparency, participation, and collaboration. Cochran’s first day at the White House was welcomed with no wifi, 21 hour email outages, 77% of email updates necessary, and 82% of hardware ending their lifespan. Amazed by the lack of digital proficiency at the head of the nation’s executive branch, Cochran and his team decided to tackle the problem through a Minimum Viable Product plan. Essentially they would start small rather than attempting to answer big issues quickly that would inevitably lead to failure.
However, the current governmental procedure has more to do with process rather than results. Hence the concept of bureaucracy. Cochran repeated that the “We The People” petition was a means of getting everyday people’s voices in the White House ranging from ideas of creating a Death Star Petition for the U.S. (someone suggested the United States to budget for a Star Wars Death Star) to the Cellphone Acts (allowing users to purchase a cellphone with one phone provider and then choose to switch to another one). Yet once assigned to the State Department, Cochran had harder tasks such as digitizing contacts to relationships and harnessing crisis to vision. Using data and analytics to keep track of “customers” is an uncommon idea within our governmental process. Partially due to the fact that we don’t think of foreign ambassadors as customers, Cochran demonstrated the parallels.
First and foremost, the initiation of a Contact Relationship Management system (CRM) online was a major breakthrough. While many federal leaders have hundreds, if not thousands, of business cards to keep track of everyday, keeping all this information online would be a much more effective means of organization. Yet many were reluctant, therefore, credibility was the key to changing the system. Comparatively, demonstrating the value of risk in an organization that doesn’t take risk must have a nuanced approach in order to truly be successful. Finally, enabling people with technology was another big hurdle regardless of the 1.6 billion dollar budget on technology within the State Department’s budget alone.
Yet balancing security with transparency in technology can be a valid concern of government departments. However if lives don’t depend on it, Cochran sees no harm in sharing it. Likewise, distinguishing the categories of classified, sensitive, or open are another valuable aspect of the digital transformation within bureaucracy. During the brief ending Q&A of the session, concerns involving a possible generational demographic arose. However, it has less to do with the age of the individual and more to do with the right ingredients of curiosity. Similarly, the greatest complaint was the outdated and complicated platform in which many government departments and bureaus have to utilize. For example, any government job must be filed through USA Jobs, a tedious system filled with more processes and wait periods than many individuals are willing to set aside time for. Therefore, Cochran’s final piece of advice was stressing the importance of beginning with bite-sized modernization as the optimal way to translate the paper processes into digital transformations.
Yet balancing security with transparency in technology can be a valid concern of government departments. However if lives don’t depend on it, Cochran sees no harm in sharing it. Likewise, distinguishing the categories of classified, sensitive, or open are another valuable aspect of the digital transformation within bureaucracy. During the brief ending Q&A of the session, concerns involving a possible generational demographic arose. However, it has less to do with the age of the individual and more to do with the right ingredients of curiosity. Similarly, the greatest complaint was the outdated and complicated platform in which many government departments and bureaus have to utilize. For example, any government job must be filed through USA Jobs, a tedious system filled with more processes and wait periods than many individuals are willing to set aside time for. Therefore, Cochran’s final piece of advice was stressing the importance of beginning with bite-sized modernization as the optimal way to translate the paper processes into digital transformations.
0 comments