E-Government comes to the fore

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A few developments appear to be bubbling up in E-Government, starting with the Adam Smith Institute publishing a report critical of UK efforts to date:

“The UK’s e-government strategy is fragmented and producer driven, says Andrew Lomas, and will never deliver its full potential benefits to the public. By contrast, tiny Estonia has re-thought its government systems around the new technology – resulting in much higher online access to government services and great public satisfaction.” It calls for an IT minister to be given Cabinet level status.

Secondly, I understand that Tony Blair is going to grasp the E-Government nettle this month and launch a major policy initiative.

Of course all this gets covered in comprehensive detail in William Heath’s www.idealgovernment.com/ site.

What is your dangerous idea?

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Got to say that I really don’t have any dangerous ideas for life, the universe and everything – but it looks like some people may well have:

“Something radically new is in the air: new ways of understanding physical systems, new ways of thinking about thinking that call into question many of our basic assumptions.  A realistic biology of the mind, advances in evolutionary biology, physics, information technology, genetics, neurobiology, psychology, engineering, the chemistry of materials: all are questions of critical importance with respect to what it means to be human. For the first time, we have the tools and the will to undertake the scientific study of human nature.

“What you will find emerging out of the 119 original essays in the 75,000 word document written in response to the 2006 Edge Question — “What is your dangerous idea?” — are indications of a new natural philosophy, founded on the realization of the import of complexity, of evolution. Very complex systems — whether organisms, brains, the biosphere, or the universe itself — were not constructed by design; all have evolved. There is a new set of metaphors to describe ourselves, our minds, the universe, and all of the things we know in it.

“Welcome to Edge. Welcome to “dangerous ideas”. Happy New Year.”