"We live under a government of men and morning newspapers." - Wendell Phillips, 1852
By Dennis McKenna Publisher Bringing your state, city, county or agency up with its own home page on the Internet's World Wide Web is the latest high tech wave to come crashing down on government. Less than two years ago, seminars on the Internet drew only a handful to technical types. Today, however, workshops at September's International City Management Association in Denver, and at Government Technology Conferences, drew big crowds of government executives who have previously had little interest in technology. States are the earliest public-sector Internet users, with nearly every state now hosting a home page. A recent survey of U.S. cities conducted by ICMA and Public Technology Inc., however, showed only 38 percent of local government with Internet access and five percent with a World Wide Web site.
MORE SIZZLE THAN SUBSTANCE? How important is it to get a city, county or agency up and running on the Internet? After all, in many respects there's a lot more sizzle than substance in cyberspace today. Actually, today's "home page" technology is still primitive stuff - analogous to eight-track cassette tapes in the early days of portable magnetic music. What's important about this Internet phenomenon is not specifically the business that's taking place in cyberspace today, but where the Internet will be taking all of us - and our change-averse institutions - in a few short years. This will be a big deal for government. The Internet is the latest incarnation of an evolving digital infrastructure that will rival the water, electric power and transportation infrastructures that exist in communities today. This new infrastructure is emerging from the accelerating convergence of television, telecommunications and computer technologies. As those physical infrastructures of water, power and roads defined the nature of our cities in the Industrial Age, this new globally networked electronic infrastructure will have a transformational influence on all types of institutions in this digital era on which we are just embarking. Take, for example, the newspaper industry. While it will be a long time before newsprint and newspapers go away, it won't be long before significant elements of the daily publishing business are radically transformed by this new telecommunications infrastructure, presenting daunting economic realities for publishers. Today, daily newspaper companies control a $12.5 billion annual classified advertising business in jobs, real estate, automobiles, etc. For many newspaper publishers, classified advertising represents 30 percent or more of their company's annual revenues. Different than mass market display ads, classified are driven by a specific need - you're looking for certain type of job in a particular part of the county or a house in a set price range and style in a definite location. If you've ever waded through the Sunday classified section of a major metropolitan newspaper, it is clear that using computer search capabilities over the Internet would be a much more effective method. In a few years, when Internet-connected computers are as ubiquitous in American homes as the VCR is today, we will be accessing classified ads online. Newspaper companies will find it nearly impossible to keep exclusive control over the information required to maintain this multi-billion dollar franchise. Governments, like newspapers, won't disappear, but the transformational implications of the new telecommunications infrastructure are no less profound for city, county and state agencies. Hence the need for governments at all levels to have an offensive - not defensive - strategy regarding this global information network. Today's Internet provides government with an inexpensive point of entry into an infrastructure as integral to managing your community as the systems for water, power or roads. As noted in this column before, most public sector services can be delivered electronically and as America's homes get wired, citizens will have greater expectations for a government less geographically oriented - requiring a trip to city hall, motor vehicles or the public library - to a government oriented around electronic transactions, accessible seven day a week, 24 hours a day. The local and state governments that understand and most successfully harness this new infrastructure will have significant advantages in the century ahead.
