E-Government

very week brings fresh evidence of federal agencies' march into the e-government age.

At the top of the ambition scale is Firstgov.gov, the Clinton administration's hurry-up effort to construct a Web portal giving citizens the ability to search more than 50 million government Web pages, and to find and make contact with agencies doing business online. Not far behind is the Treasury Department's Pay.gov, an initiative to use the Web to facilitate agencies' annual collections of $2 trillion-plus in fees, fines, leases, loans, sale proceeds and certain taxes. Then there is FedBizOpps.gov, a new initiative by the Office of Federal Procurement Policy to create a single site capturing all of government's procurement information. And the Defense Department has started up Todaysmilitary.com, a site aimed at bringing young people into the military.

We have chronicled the travails and triumphs of such ambitious technology-based projects in these pages and on our Web site, GovExec.com. Readers will know that such initiatives are difficult to implement and that failures are not uncommon. The Medicare Transaction System and the IRS' Tax Modernization System offer two examples.

There can be little doubt that many federal executives and managers will find themselves involved in e-government projects as time marches on. And that was the reason we joined with other organizations to mount a series of educational conferences under the banner of the Government Technology Leadership Institute. We think management-level officials need help with their oversight duties relating to acquisition and control of information systems. Rapid development of the World Wide Web, and associated problems with privacy and security, have only served to deepen the need.

The fourth annual GTLI conference will be held at the Ronald Reagan International Trade Center in Washington Nov. 28 and 29. Sponsors include the American Society for Public Administration, The Brookings Institution, the CIO Institute, the Council for Excellence in Government, the IRM College at the National Defense University, The George Washington University, the National Academy of Public Administration and the National Partnership for Reinventing Government, as well as Government Executive.

Participants will hear the latest on the FirstGov initiative from Inktomi founder George Brewer, who is constructing the powerhouse search engine for the site. They will learn from the experiences of top-level officials in charge of big technology projects at the National Weather Service and the Customs Service, and in the intelligence community. They will hear project management guru Gopal Kapur describe what it takes to develop a business case for technology initiatives convincing enough to persuade budget and congressional overseers. Richard Calder, deputy director of the CIA, will explain the change-management skills it takes to make technology initiatives stick within a large bureaucracy. Other sessions will cover smart procurement, knowledge management, and privacy and security-all subjects of importance to those who must oversee technology initiatives.

We hope that readers whose programs and agencies depend heavily on the successful deployment of information technology will consider attending this leadership conference. Registration and program information can be found at www.govexec.com/gtli or by calling (800) 511-7330.