Real-time Government: Collaboration at the next level

Encouraged by advances in the Internet and information and communications technologies, governments forecasted an age of self-service government that could operate 24 hours a day, days a week. Portals, kiosks, and integrated services, (as well as the occasional reorganization) were developed to realize this vision. While there have been many successes, we find ourselves with much left to do to improve the responsiveness, efficiency and effectiveness of our interactions with citizens in the 24/7, self-service environment we have created. Now that we are e-Governments, we are faced with the new challenge of becoming Real-Time Governments; governments that can respond to citizens quickly with consistent and accurate information through multiple channels in a trustworthy manner. Each of these conference sessions addresses a challenge governments face on the path to becoming Real-Time Governments: managing multiple service channels, achieving service standards that will stretch our capacity, ensuring citizen privacy and security, improving interoperability and integration through enterprise architectures, enabling increased information sharing through the use of standards such as XML and maintaining citizens' trust and confidence in an increasingly networked and connected government.