Digital Business insights: Government in the slow lane

The digital revolution rolls on. An invisible, international tsunami sweeping everything before it.

 

It creates massive change, but it happens invisibly. Through wires and wireless. No guns. No tanks. No flags. Just continual disruption.

What do we see? Not a lot on the surface.

We read the occasional article on the NSA hoovering up data from everyone and everywhere across the world. Or we hear about the price of Google and Apple shares moving up as Facebook shares move down. And we observe the steady decline of the old school vendors evidenced by IBM, Telstra, Cisco, HP etc pushing workers out the door.

But if we are in an industry that is being disrupted it is closer to home. We notice fewer customer enquiries. We notice the postponement of decisions. We notice the quarterly and annual results are down. We notice customers are more informed and better prepared than before. They want more. They want it quicker.

And daily, the connection, collaboration and integration continues. It is changing the world.

Who is disrupted? Everybody. But particularly, anybody and everybody who is a broker for products, services and information - "the middlemen".

It is especially hard for the associations, unions, peak bodies, local government, state and federal government departments that used to have clear and obvious relationships with organisations that needed them.

For their customers have changed. Their customers have shifted allegiance.

Rather than hunt for information on government portals and websites or rely on the monthly industry newsletter, the customer uses Google.

The PR approved and washed content, and legally cleaned government portals and websites contain lots of "vanilla" information - generic and principle based, but no direct advice, recommendations, consultation or direct help, when this is quickly and freely available at many locations across the internet.

Customer expectations have changed, and government portals and websites don't deliver to this new, bigger expectation. "I can find what I am looking for through Google quickly and easily, why can't you give me what I want, in the way that I want it?"

Government can't do what commerce and the open internet can do.

Government is not agile. Rules and regulations bind them. It's not their fault. That's how they are required to operate. They are not allowed to do things differently.

There is even a sense of frustration within government from staff who see this situation clearly themselves.

What they deliver doesn't align to what customers now expect because of all the other sources of information they access through Google. Even if and when customers visit government portals, they are disappointed with what they find.

Five  years ago, Gartner recognised that this was happening worldwide and proposed that government information and services should be made freely available through third parties and channels outside of government.

But it is hard for government to accept change and to effect change, especially when it would diminish apparent control, and what they see as their responsibility for the information they provide. That is perfectly understandable, but unfortunately it provides an excuse to change nothing.

Meanwhile the world continues to connect, collaborate and integrate.

And a thorough analysis of what the digital revolution is invisibly doing may even undermine and diminish the requirement for government departments of industry and trade and communication and services in the first place, including many of the people that work in them.

So that isn't going to happen.

However, doing nothing doesn't block or stop the continual disruptive change.

Customers just look elsewhere. And Google is the catalyst for this search and enquiry.

It's no use telling people that Dr Google is dangerous. People use Dr Google anyway...84%. So do doctors. And it's the same for everything else.

How do you compete with that? Government is in the slow lane, doing everything properly for a world that no longer exists.

The politicians and their departments are on a different time scale to the revolution. Three year terms. Sound bites. Quick wins. Short-term photo opportunities. Focused on the media scrum.

All while the fundamental digital changes and disruptions continue.

Debate, consultation, committees, advisory groups and everything else are designed to make decision making more camel-like, laborious and irrelevant.

It is not hard to understand. Politicians don't have the time. They rely on political advisors who only have a superficial grasp of what is happening (digital change) and then on the policy officers in government departments who have lost touch with all the day to day impacts the digital revolution is making in the real world. Assuming they were ever in touch in the first place.

Big issues? Not enough time. Broad issues? Leave them alone. Strategic issues? Forget them. Leave them to the next government.

All these things involve more than one department and who's going to pay, who's going to lead, which minister would possibly support such a focus, and who will own the photo op at the end? If there is an end.

Leave it to posterity.

So in an ever more connected world, government doesn't do connections. Government doesn't do holistic. Government doesn't do strategic. Not our government. China, Singapore, Vietnam = different story.

But our government doesn't know how to think. plan or legislate for the new issues.

Our government doesn't do long term, or even medium term. It does 3 years. Which by the time it gets settled and allowing for the next election means government actually does 2 years if we are lucky.

And the digital revolution rolls on. Connecting, collaborating and integrating as it goes.

And Google has replaced anything and everything as an information source.

Well duh! We all know that don't we?

We certainly all know the obvious part of it.  Google is a very efficient search engine.

Less obvious are the changes in patterns of behaviour that result, as people continue to use and trust Google more and more.

New habits are being formed. New relationships are being created.

Google has replaced the industry association as an information source.

Google has replaced the salesperson as an information source. Google has replaced newspapers and the Yellow Pages as an information source. Google has replaced government as an information source.

They are all too slow. Too siloed. They have too many limitations. They lack direct knowledge. They are too political. They are not responsive. They are inaccessible.

Too vanilla flavoured or biased = irrelevant = somebody else is filling the gaps.

And that is Google. It empowers. It builds confidence. Gives access.

Then people check what they find out with friends and family, and online and offline associates and referees.

For many people internet based collaboration has completely replaced and swept away physical limitations and geographic, council, state and national boundaries.

Businesses may be physically located somewhere, but connected everywhere.

So customers now look to whoever and wherever they can find support.

New tribes. New relationships. New advisers. New collaborators.

For government, the restrictions of geographic boundaries and responsibilities, funding limitations and decisions, and election-based timetables are becoming serious barriers to each and every 21st century digital opportunity.

New digital networks are steadily replacing old geographic, social, business, economic and political networks.

There is an ongoing scramble for relevance.

The digital revolution inexorably rolls on. And government is in the slow lane.

But if it is not careful, it will end up parked by the side of the road.

- John Sheridan, November 2013.

John Sheridan is CEO of Digital Business insights, an organisation based in Brisbane, Australia, which focuses on helping organisations and communities adapt to, and flourish in, the new digital world. He is the author of Connecting the Dots and getting more out of the digital revolution. Digital Business insights has been researching and analysing the digital revolution for more than 12 years and has surveyed more than 50,000 businesses, conducting in-depth case study analysis on more than 350 organisations and digital entrepreneurs.

http://www.db-insights.com/

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