Author of machiavelli.net, proud father of three, interested in shaping network society. Welcome to my blog.today in Mexico City we were thinking about the future…(here my memo, uncut, uncensored)
From: Dr. Philipp Mueller (EGAP – Tec de Monterrey, Catedra Software AG)[1]
To: Participants of the Workshop “Prospectiva del Gobierno Electrónico†of Función Publica
Digital Era Governance: Policy Making in Network Society
The world is changing radically. We are moving from modern contract society (1700-2000) to network society (2100s). Digital-Era Governance is becoming the most important policy field, necessary for all other policy areas (development, security, welfare). The new president will have the chance to shape digital-era governance policy. What are the main opportunities and challenges for the next Mexican President?
Four radical challenges (and opportunities)
1. Implementing Citizen-Focused Government. Taking Citizen Relationship Management (CiRM) seriously will lead to the reengineering of almost all governmental processes that affect the citizens, will break down governmental silos to make cross-agency cooperation possible, will lead to a massive deployment of CRM-software, and will change how we think of the state. At the avant-garde are cities like NYC, Chicago, with the implementation of 311-numbers and citizen contact centers. No Federal government worldwide has implemented a pure CiRM-approach.
à Federal government should foster municipal and state initiatives and develop its own approaches.
2. Fostering a robust and diverse software development ecosystem. Government as a major buyer of IT-products and services can impact the IT-industry structure and (best) practices. There are many issues where governments might want to push for open source solutions for security, cost, or industrial policy reasons.
à It will be necessary to develop an explicit open source policy.
3. Developing an explicit federal policy on public internet access projects such as municipal wireless or the MIT one-laptop-per-child project. In the next years WiMax deployment, other access technologies, and hardware developments will radically change the internet provision landscape and new ways to bridge the digital divide will become possible.
à Develop explicit public internet access policy and think about joining the OLPC-Initiative.
4. Move the Mexican Nation online. I am referring to the nation not the state. With the Web 2.0 revolution social software (online communities such as myspace, secondlife, linkedin, etc.) are becoming mainstream. Most of us spend most of our lifes online even today. Mexico is already a network society with more than 10% of the population living outside of Mexico.
à Find a way of developing or using online platforms that will be taken up by the Mexican nation.
For more information and to discuss the points, please send me an email: philipp@itesm.mx!
[1] Opinions expressed in this document are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of EGAP – Tec de Monterrey or of the Catedra Software AG.
