As William Bratton and Zachary Tumin state in their new book, Collaborate or Perish!: Reaching Across Boundaries in a Networked World, cross boundary collaboration releases a powerful capability to do things no one could do alone. Further, collaboration is not about technology as much as it is about people. People who are motivated develop collaborative working relationships to deliver efficiencies, improved services, save money and time, and enhance the lives of citizens. We practice what we preach. NASCIO’s success is built on a culture of building strategic alliances and collaborating with organizations that fit with our mission or complement our resources. Collaborate or Perish!
Interested in fostering collaboration? I recommend you get this book to discover key building blocks, ideas and illuminating case studies.
The NASCIO State and Local Collaboration Working Group (S&LWG) has been making progress. The S&LWG has been “shaking the bushes” to uncover interesting collaborations involving state and local governments and information technology. 19 scenarios have been created using a 9 element outline. In the near future, the Committee will release a two page report discussing the value proposition for cross jurisdictional collaborations; launch a webpage that presents state and local government collaboration scenarios and produce a white paper that summarizes and discusses the lessons learned, patterns and calls to action gleaned from the scenarios. This year’s effort will culminate with a conference panel on the first day of the 2012 NASCIO Annual Conference in San Diego. Be on the lookout for more on these events and publications.
I want to thank David Behen and Chuck Fredrick for their S&LWG leadership. You’ll hear more from them in upcoming blogs on the Community. If you have a scenario you would like to include in our growing library of stories or any questions about our work, contact Eric Sweden, Program Director, Enterprise Architecture & Governance at esweden@amrms.com