As we contemplated the reality that the U.S. Government does not have an information strategy, we realized it may not even know what one is. Below is a snippet from an EZine article that captures the broad picture.
Design an Information Strategy
Despite investments of millions of dollars in Information Technology, we seldom come across an organization that has actually designed an information strategy that focuses on collecting and processing information for strategic decision making.
. . . . . . .
Organizing such an information activity and its structure takes a long period of time and requires a considerable investment. Therefore a strategic information plan is a long term decision.
The strategic choices to be made for instance are:
– The external search direction priorities (focus);
– The internal information priorities (focus);
– The budget for equipment and external consultancy;
– The personnel needed and their skills.
Phi Beta Iota: That will have to do for now. Our short definition of a national information strategy is this:
“Train, equip, and organize the Whole of Government so as to create a Smart Nation that can mobilize all Knowledge Management assets and all Social Network assets so as to access all external information in all languages and mediums all of the time–in real time– in order to create Organizational Intelligence with which to eradicate the ten high-level threats to humanity by harmonizing spending by all parties across all policies at all levels.”
This requires that you actually be committed to the public interest, and have integrity. If you have integrity, and serve the public interest, all things are possible at virtually no cost (in relative terms–what Yochai Benkler calls the “wealth of networks.”)
