Reflection: E-governance

February  23rd class

This week we talked about issues related to electronic governance.  Much of the focus of the class was from an technical perspective: technology decisions, failures, and lessons.  However, for me, its hard to talk about political participation without considering my role in it.  Political participation is certainly a social issue, but it's also deeply personal.

It was shared that around 80% of government electronic initiatives are failures (similar to the amount of initiatives that don't make it to market - is it too easy for government initiative to "make it to market", perhaps?).  This statistic leads us to examine the reasons behind the general failure of e-government to take hold.  No doubt the major reason is lack of participation.  No doubt the reasons why most Americans don't participate can be complex, so I start by examining myself.

I'm a young, tech-savvy person who votes and is generally interested in politics (I'm no die-hard, but I like to know what's going on).  I don't participate much in the political process offline, where it's considered a bit more time and energy consuming.  However, I don't really "participate" in the political process online either.  I semi-frequently use government provided information and statistics services online, but I don't communicate with my representatives online, I don't follow politicians or government organizations through social media.  I guess the reason why is I'm busy doing other things, or not necessarily busy, but I find more value in doing other things.  Whether its working, schooling, or just watching T.V., I'd rather be doing that than e-mailing my representative or checking the governors twitter.

In a way, that's OK.  That's partly the purpose of a representative system: we send people to represent us in the political world to free us up to do other, oftentimes productive things.  On the other hand, thanks to the internet it's easier than ever to be connected. So traditional excuses don't hold up so well, anymore.

Whether I have more of an obligation to participate politically, it's good to know that when I want to, it's there.  Perhaps I (an other people) just need to get fired up about something before I jump.