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Slovenian e-Government
rakerman writes "In its October 20th issue the Economist reports from Ljubljana that 'Slovenia may be Europe's most Internetted government', including 'holding most of its cabinet meetings online'. There is some information at the Slovenian e-government site, in particular check out their detailed strategy for e-commerce in public administration." I''ve read the article; very well done.
...was the one to the Slovenian association of tourist farms. Being a Nashvillian, I've often wondered where those brightly-colored perennial oddities are grown. Now I know!
It's timing out for me at the moment, so is this an act of war?
:)
"Not my manner of thinking but the manner of thinking of others has been the source of my unhappiness." - M
For those of you with Economist subscriptions, you can view the article online (for free) here to avoid having to search through your printed issue.
For those without Economist subscriptions, you can either buy access for $2.95 to this article, pay $4.95 for a week of access to the online archives, or buy a subscription...FWIW it's the only magazine I still subscribe to in printed form, as it's the only one still worth my money (Rolling Stone and Newsweek having long since become virtually worthless).
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Solvenia? (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 12, @04:57AM (#2552888) WHere the hell is slovenia and why should we care?
On the map, I cannot find the World Trade Center buildings in New York, but I can find Slovenia. So why should I care about things that does`nt exist in reality?! Sorry, but America is not always the first in every E-shit. Perhaps E-war would be the net big thing for America, but not for Europe. In Europe people DO use their brain in the right way and in Europe people DO care for their own business, so in the Europe, there are NO terrorist attacks. Here`s a little MAP that you`ve been probably using until now. Maybe you should get your self a new map and maybe then you will find Slovenia there.
Full Text:
(Copyright 2001 The Economist Newspaper Ltd. All rights reserved.)
Slovenia may be Europe's most Internetted government
DIMITRIJ RUPEL, the foreign minister of Slovenia, a small country at the eastern end of the Alps that managed to slide peacefully out of what was Yugoslavia and into something that more closely resembles Austria, enjoys showing visitors round his office. At one end sits a computer wired to the Slovenian secret-service mainframe. Mr Rupel says he is one of only four people in the country who get messages on such a machine. They come twice a day, and he must read them at a sitting. "There's no way to save them or print them out," he explains.
At the other end of his office, a slinky black laptop takes pride of place on his desk. Mr Rupel boots it up and shows off a software system that allows him access to almost everything and everyone he needs in the Slovenian government. In between promoting Slovenia's bid to join the European Union and NATO Mr Rupel says he taps away on his laptop for up to three hours a day. In the mornings he shoots off messages to other ministers and answers e-mail from ordinary citizens. In the evenings he sometimes pecks out a column with his personal view of world diplomacy which he then pastes on to the Slovenian foreign ministry's own website.
His office, like those of other Slovenian ministers, is almost paperless. Every official document comes to him electronically. Mr Rupel used to lug a "pile of papers half a metre high" to cabinet meetings. Now he takes only his laptop.
That is, if he goes at all: Slovenia is pioneering electronic government by holding most of its cabinet meetings online. Each of the country's 15 cabinet ministers receives cabinet business over a secure system. A message informs them of the topic under discussion-- say, privatisation--and lets them vote by clicking a button. They can attach a note and send it to other cabinet colleagues or, if deviousness seems called for, cut their colleagues out of the loop and just message the prime minister, Janez Drnovsek.
The technology, Mr Rupel concedes, has some snags. It is a grind: ministers feel obliged to log on and vote in e-cabinet sessions even when on holiday. No more waffling either. In the good old days of paper, a flustered minister could claim not to have received the relevant document. Now the all-knowing system records exactly which files ministers receive--and when and whether they open them.
Change has been rapid. Pavel Gantar, the minister for all things high-tech, recalls buying his first computer in Munich in 1985 and having to smuggle it back to Ljubljana when it was part of a communist state. "An age ago," he says wistfully. Even a couple of years ago most ministers were computer-illiterate, so they had to let their secretaries handle their e-mails. Now, reckons Mr Gantar, all of them personally attend to their mailboxes.
Things really took off when Mr Drnovsek, a communist-turned- social-democrat who has been prime minister with a small break since 1992, discovered the Internet. "When he e-mails you," admits one minister, "you'd better work out how to reply."
What next? Slovenian ministers already complain of having their evenings at home in front of the football interrupted by the vibrating of their mobile phone, with a text message reminding them of the next day's e-cabinet business. The prime minister is apparently not averse to text-messaging ministers himself.
So will virtual cabinet meetings completely replace the real thing? Mr Gantar thinks not. "Body language means a lot and e-mail obscures that." The cabinet still meets face to face every Thursday to thrash out issues unresolved online, though some ministers usually attend from afar, by videophone.
Changing our infrastructures, Governments included, is easier in smaller organisations than larger ones. This I believe is one of the main reasons, that smaller organisations are better suited for innovations and why larger organisations follow, incorporate and acquire them in order not to become obsolete and replaced.
If major changes are to be expected in the way we live and organize ourselves, then I believe the chance for that is higher by supporting and learning from the smaller entities (on their terms), compared to start dancing with the big old lady.
I guess that Slovenia could make this happen thanks to it being such a "young" state. I don't know exactly how long they are independent by now but it should not be much more than ten years.
Older countries (or more generally, organizations), with a tradition of paper, will only be able to move toward e-government very slowly. Primarily because people are reluctant to change in general, but paper also makes a lot of "excuses" possible (see article). Another big issue is that a lot of people require signatures, mostly to be backed up and blame someone else in case something goes wrong. As digital signatures still aren't accepted here (in Europe) normal (paper) signatures are still required.
In my organization, some people even make paper copies of e-mails in order to classify them in an ordner...just because they have done so (classifying "normal" mail) for years!
I'm from Slovenia. I can tell you that the article is a nice coup for the Slovenian govt marketing dept and pretty much nothing else.
Yes, I can find all the government departments on the net. Yes, there is an "internet ministry". Yes, they all have a nice matching spiffy web graphics. Yes, I can access all the laws online.
So what?
Can I file my tax returns via the net? No.
Can I contact govt officials via the net _and get an answer_? No.
Can I do anything via the net instead of waiting in a queue? Nope.
Did they abolish the monopoly on leased lines and voice communications, held by a company that the govt ownes? Are the voice calls and modem calls cheap? Can I choose my phone operator? No, no, and no.
To top it off, due to the 9/11 terrorist strikes the govt has now usurped the right to check all email (and other forms of communications) without a court order - a thing constitutionally possible just in a state of emergency (read war). Does the parliamentary commision that keep tabs on the police actions object? Nope.
Unfortunately, this is just another example of pretending to give more control to the public while in fact reducing it.
Yan
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Hello, Mr. Govt Man.
I think this line's only filler
Spending money on getting the government online can have many positive effects, among them cutting costs in printing and distributing material, cutting travel costs, reducing time spent distributing material, and so on.
And even if you discount positive effects from using the net itself, just using the net will translate to increased revenues for local companies and increased employment.
I have no idea whether those two in total add up to enough that they make Slovenias e-government project worth it, but discounting it outright without evaluating the above just because a relatively poor country is using money on internet related projects is shortsighted at best.