Technology Innovation

There are those who believe that the notion of an innovative government is inconsistent. The assumption is that innovation thrives in vibrant, flexible businesses and not in rigid, bureaucratic government organizations. In actual fact, the City has responded to a range of economic, political and ideological realities, the structures and processes of the organization have changed and need to continue modernizing. The traditional methods of service delivery need to develop creative ways to address fiscal restraints and citizen demands for efficient service delivery; conventional, process-oriented public administration is adapting to results-focused public management.
Governments may be budget poor, but most are data rich. Put those two realities together with information technology, and the data can help the public sector do more with less at a time when less is the rule of the day, freeing overburdened staff to provide essential services for our basic human needs. The City of Lake Mills needs to become data rich and the time management system is an efficient method for gathering data.
The analysis suggests that the organizational structure of bureaucracy impedes true revitalization and modernization of government. While technology is an effective enabler of change, its impact on the public service is limited by specific attributes that are deeply ingrained in the structure and practices of governance. Rigidity, hierarchy and routinization are among the most problematic attributes. The basic structures and processes of the City are, to some extent, changing and provide the best opportunity to modernize the public service. The objective should be to create a dynamic government that fosters partnerships, empowerment and leadership.
Explosive growth in technology productivity has expanded the range of computer applications from automation to innovation, and from working with clerical managers to working throughout the organization. The targets have grown from large governments with high volumes of work to include smaller governments with less volume.
Moreover, work that is suitably standardized for computerization has expanded to include not just the work of smaller organizations but also work that is standardized across multiple organizations. Many agencies now use "packaged" applications -- the same payroll, enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management and other packages -- thus saving the original costs of programming and many of the ongoing costs of maintenance and upgrades. Because we can now reach users through the enormous scale of the Internet, the most important standardization is not that within a given institution, but the aggregated results across many.
Certainly, governments can realize significant savings by managing information more efficiently. Beyond savings, public sector organizations are using data and information to improve services to the public—a trend that should continue.