PUNCHLINE
Ike Seneres
On the upside, I have built many
database and communications systems for several government agencies. On the
downside however, most of these systems are gone by now, after becoming victims
to the change of administrations, and the unavailability of budget supports.
This seems to be the problem when it comes to personal computers that are
purchased by government agencies. Without provisions for maintenance and
repair, many of these computers just end up being useless, in effect thrown to
a category referred to in government jargon as “unserviceable”.
It would actually be inaccurate
to say that there is no budget, because all government agencies have a
provision for “maintenance and other operating expenses” (MOOE). The problem
is, this budget is seldom used for what it is intended to be. It could
therefore be said that what is lacking is not the money, but a culture of
maintenance that is not there, even if it is supposed to be there. To some
extent however, it could be said that the main cause of the problem is the lack
of trained and capable personnel who could do the professional maintenance work
from within these agencies.
Generally speaking, hardware and
software assets are easier to acquire because anyone could just buy these. What
are more difficult to acquire are the people, the manpower base that is needed
to keep the systems running in good order and condition. This is easier said
than done, because the more skilful these people are, the more expensive they
are, and are harder to get. The irony here is that the better they are, the
more attractive they become to the private sector. To some extent, it could
even be said that if they are really that good, they would already be pirated
by the private companies and they would no longer be in the government
agencies. Of course, the circumstances would vary from one agency to another.
Very good or not so good however,
most maintenance people in the government agencies are good enough to train,
and they become better if they are trained very well. While this appears to be
a chicken and the egg situation, there is actually a way out, and the way out
is good training. Why am I talking about computers when in fact I am talking
about the work of the government agencies? My answer goes back to my opening
statement that I have built many database and communications systems for
government agencies in the past, but few have survived the test of time, hence
there is no permanence. Why are database and communications systems so
important, that’s because most of what the government agencies do today are
backed up by these two assets.
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There is a big difference between
systems based computing and web based computing. The good news is, web based
computing is less expensive, and is easier to maintain and sustain. To add to
the good news, many companies all over the world have invested (or may have
over invested) in cloud based infrastructure; the backend that supports web
based computing. Even if you are not yet familiar with cloud computing, you
might as well know that you are already using it (or you are already being
served by it), as you connect to the internet, and as you use your mobile
phones.
To some extent, it could be said
that technology has actually turned full circle, as it moved from the old
client-server architecture that used dumb terminals connected to mainframes to
the present cloud based architecture that uses remote servers and browser-based
devices. This might be too technical for most people to understand, but what is
important is for everyone to know that government agencies could now maintain
and sustain their database and communications systems without buying their own
servers and without hiring too many technical people for maintenance tasks.
There is an old saying in the
digital work that in the end, content is going to be king. That is actually a
comparative statement, because it refers to the relative importance of content,
compared to both the hardware and the software. While I do not argue against
this old saying, I want to add that manpower is important too, because in
effect it is the kingmaker. Even if database and communications functions are
now easier because of cloud computing, our government agencies would still need
well trained manpower to administer the content.
Almost everyone is now on
Facebook, and it is the king of the moment. While it is good for government
agencies to have their own group pages in the popular social networking sites,
nothing beats the advantage of having their own social networking site that is
linked to their own agency website. The challenge nowadays is to maintain a
website that is good not only for posting information, but also for offering
online transactions. In other words, government agencies should now level up
towards having dynamic sites that are transactional, not just static sites that
are informative.
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