Some More Thoughts On The Great IT Debate

I haven't had a chance to read through the whole thing yet, but the National Academy of Public Administration's Collaboration Project has put together what appears to be a really interesting white paper laying out a philosophical approach for the Obama administration's use of technology. After our big IT debate of mid-January I thought it was refreshing to see a group take a step back into that 30,000 foot zone and look not at code, not necessarily at where information should be located on a page, but to do some writing about what technology should be designed to accomplish. I think it's easy to forget about asking those forward-thinking questions when we can't find some information we want (I know I've gone round and round looking for reports, or contact information, for example). But that's different from deciding what we think federal IT should do in the future as to opposed to what we're frustrated it can't do now.