Get (electronically) smart, Massachusetts!

(some of the suggestions in this op-ed are laughably primitive, viewed from today’s perspective, yet the advantages of an aggressive net-based state government remain)
Boston Sunday Globe, November 29,1998

by W. David Stephenson

Consider the benefits if the Commonwealth were to pioneer a far more comprehensive and advanced form of Internet interdependence and synergy, with on-line electronic commerce, government services delivered to your home around-the-clock, and statewide access to advanced health care and other services traditionally only found in Boston.

Of course, becoming an electronically linked ‘’smart” state means doing things in a different way. The Net rewards those who share information, and isolates those who hoard it - a reversal from the thinking that fueled the old economy.

That old way of thinking has put us at a cultural disadvantage compared with California. Silicon Valley always fostered collaboration, while stand-alone companies that closely guarded their proprietary technology have characterized Route 128, as Anna Lee Saxenian points out in her book, Regional Advantage.

Yet, there are encouraging signs that, at least among young World Wide Web entrepreneurs, collaboration is becoming a virtue here. For example, Lycos, the Waltham portal, makes relationship-building a key competitive strategy. Best of all, our children are learning the benefits collaboration first-hand: The new on-line Virtual High School, physically based in Hudson, offers ”netcourses” from 33 public high schools in 12 states. The number of schools involved is expected to jump to 90 next year.

Massachusetts already has an important strategic advantage in creating a networked economy: We are home to one of the nation’s greatest concentrations of telecommunications companies, the kind needed to make this collaboration possible.

For one, it would be more efficient and more environmentally friendly than the old way of doing business. For example, Custom Clothing Technology, a Newton-based Levi’s subsidiary, tailors jeans for each customer. Women’s measurements are relayed electronically to a Tennessee factory where the pieces are cut and stitched on the same assembly line as conventional ones, reducing packaging, warehousing, and disposal of unsold products.

With an Internet-based economy, Fall River’s clothing industry might be revived by offering similar customization on a wide scale. The same could be true for other industries from plastics to PCs. Perhaps most striking would be the resulting governmental efficiency. The paper creation that also creates errors, delays, and costs in conventional government is eliminated online. Who would choose to stand in line at the Registry now that you can renew your auto registration on line?

We have more to gain than most states from on-line government, given that the Commonwealth’s 351 cities and towns are largely autonomous, without the economies of scale other states enjoy from a reliance on county services. Being on line would reduce redundancy and paperwork, as well as encourage virtual regional governments. A town could link not only to abutting ones, but also to ones with similar demographics or, say, to ones that host important facilities of a given manufacturer.

Towns could more easily engage in joint purchasing, and share advanced technology such as Geographic Information Systems to better coordinate growth.

Already, state government is putting operations on line through MAGNet, or Massachusetts Access to Government Networks. Its ”On-line Government in Massachusetts” report painted a picture of a reinvigorated government, a collaborative internetworked organization that links government, business, and other institutions that can deliver services to citizens in their homes or office. It’s time for local government to follow suit.

Some might well ask how the less fortunate would fare in this new Massachusetts? The answer is: better than you might expect. Boston is already home to one of the nation’s largest assortment of free or low-cost Internet access services. They could easily spread statewide.

Coralee Whitcomb, who runs one of the best of those services, Virtually Wired, says low-income people don’t have to own PCs to benefit. Her organization, for example, hires homeless people who salvage abandoned PCs to cobble together workable equipment.

In fact, one of the advantages of smart-state status would be the access people outside of Greater Boston would gain to cutting-edge services. For example, there are clear advantanges in establishing statewide the kind of telemedicine program that now lets emergency rooms in smaller hospitals consult with doctors at Massachusetts General.

Similarly, if the state was fully wired, there’d be no need for Fidelity to build a ”back office” center in Kentucky, because the work could be done by home-based workers from New Bedford to Pittsfield to Lawrence.

So what would it take for Massachusetts to achieve ‘’smart state” status? The worst strategy would be for state government to create a long-range plan to coordinate the effort. Better to let the change be driven by the system itself. One of the marvelous things about the Internet is the utter
unpredictability of a chaotic system that constantly feeds back on itself, mutating in creative ways.

Still, the state can and should play an active role, primarily by expanding MAGNet. It must provide technical help and prod municipalities to follow suit.

As ”On-line Government in Massachusetts” concludes, we should strive for solutions that promote ”a single face of government” at all levels.

The state must also help areas such as the Berkshires, handicapped by a lack of Internet infrastructure. Ideally, the cost would be covered by public and private investment. (For those who scoff at the idea of contributions from out-of-the-way regions, remember that Internet hotshot Tripod is based in Williamstown.)

State government should also be wary of enacting regulations that choke off local innovation, such as Braintree’s municipal Internet service. Overall, the state Telecommunications Council, a private industry group, should take the business lead in Massachusetts, since the results would showcase their technology.

Ironically, the greatest short-term opportunity to speed the smart-state evolution is the feared millennium bug. Companies, institutions, and government agencies statewide are spending millions of dollars to cope with the problem.

Better to attack the problem collectively — now that the Good Samaritan law exempts companies sharing Y2K knowledge from antitrust enforcement — with large companies sharing expertise with smaller operations in their supply chain. After all, it is your least sophisticated supplier’s problem that is likely to bring a big business to a halt.

Creating a statewide Y2K super Web site that would allow anyone in the state dealing with the problem to confer or get help from others, creating a framework for sharing that could be sustained long after 1/1/2000.

No matter what happens now, much of Massachusetts is going to become ‘’smart” in the next decade; agencies and companies that are already linked up have realized the benefits are forcing suppliers to follow suit.

But why not have Massachusetts take the lead? Not only would it cut government inefficiency and foster economic opportunity, it would bring us international recognition.

© Copyright 1998 Globe Newspaper Company.

Social bookmark this page

Technorati tags: