A Case for City and State IT Collaboration

Public-sector information technology presents an opportunity not readily available in the competitive, for-profit, private sector: the opportunity for collaboration. Public-sector CIOs are not in competition; in fact, I frequently have the sense that we are in "commiseration," facing many of the same challenges and perceived limitations. Collaboration — from sharing software across the Internet to joining forces in disaster recovery capabilities — is an under-used tool that creates mutually beneficial outcomes for the relatively few communities that are testing the waters.

Let’s take a simple utility application to explore the possibilities. Imagine the 10,000 U.S. cities and counties, and consider that each has an e-mail system. Taxpayers in each community are paying for software licenses, computing hardware, networking hardware and an IT professional to administer each system.

Bob Hanson — CIO of Sarasota County, Fla., government and schools — was one of Government Technology’s "Doers, Dreamers and Drivers" of 2005.

Full Story: http://www.govtech.net/news/news.php?id=100950