Digital Government Strategy a driver for digitized documents

Last month, federal CIO, Steven VanRoekel, unveiled his Digital Government Strategy, a new directive from the Obama Administration to make government services and information accessible from mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablet computers. They also revealed a roadmap to increase the mobility and agility of federal agencies by embracing these technologies and establishing “bring your own device” policies within the federal government and its agencies.

Comparing mobile adoption to the government’s adoption of the Internet, the Obama Administration is focusing intently on a more mobile government workforce. They’re also pushing for a more transparent and useful federal government that connects with constituents on their mobile devices.

The concept of a more mobile government workforce is certainly appealing. The benefits of mobility include the ability to effectively telework, improve continuity of operations and drastically cut costs for the government.

Building apps for mobile devices that make government information available to constituents where and when they need it is also an incredible concept. The potential for applications with useful and innovative capabilities driven by government data is almost limitless. A great example would be a mobile application that could utilize location intelligence solutions and topographic data to tell potential homebuyers if a property they’re touring is in a flood plain.

Unfortunately, these applications for citizens and the increased mobility for government employees relies completely on that data being digitally available in the cloud.

Although the government already has access to mountains of digital data to utilize, a large amount of information at government agencies remains in the form of paper files. And more of these paper forms, whether they be applications for government programs or other documents, are entering the agencies every minute of every day.

For the Digital Government Strategy and the shift to a more mobile government to truly be successful, the government needs to ensure that these documents, records and files are digitized and stored in a central repository where government employees and citizens can access them via their mobile devices. This information also needs to be secured to ensure that only authorized individuals gain access to them.

Simultaneously, the federal government and its agencies need to put processes in place to capture data digitally as it enters the agency. This can mean moving certain applications and forms to electronic methods of communication, or scanning documents and extracting the information they contain effectively as they arrive.

The move towards mobility is a positive step that will ultimately generate cost savings, transparency, efficiency and agility for the government. However, there’s work to be done to ensure that the data needed for governmental processes is available to mobile devices.