The New Fed

I read this article over at Federal Computer Week entitled Generation Fed. It was a good piece that highlighted some good work people are doing. But it would be wrong to think that there are just 5 people out there trying to change government for the better. In fact, off the top of my head I can easily come up with 50 in the next 5 minutes.

Federal employment is just as much a calling as being a teacher, or working in law enforcement. It is who you are AND what you do. There are a lot of things that I don't like about the federal government. But every day me and countless others are working hard to turn things around and make it better. I don't know of any person in federal service who isn't working to this ideal. In fact, it is the challenge that drives me forward.

This is why my new project, BusinessUSA is so important to me. I work hard every day to better connect citizens with the services and programs Congress authorizes and funds. But it is rare indeed when a person or small group of people have an opportunity to consider and change things beyond the boundaries of one single Agency or Department. That is what we are doing. To a certain extent the Bureaus of the Department of Commerce, the Small Business Administration, parts of the Department of Treasury, the Department of Agriculture and many others are competing for eyeballs on the Internet.

The issue is actually simple. Each entity is doing and has done a terrific job of putting a message out there and working to connect people, business owners and entrepreneurs, to the programs, services and data they support and administer. The issue is that each Agency's mandate is constrained to the programs, services and data that particular Agency provides. From the perspective of the business owner or entrepreneur this is a maze of disjointed programs services and data. Today we, the federal government are forcing that business owner to figure out how we are organized in order to access what we have. The business owner needs to navigate through the Department of Commerce and get to the Patent and Trademark Office to protect his or her idea. He or she needs to go through the Department of Treasury to get to the IRS content about what forms are required for filing taxes. And to get started, he or she must get to the Small Business Administration to connect to a loan. I didn't even touch on exporting or agri-business. It really is quite a maze.

But this isn't a situation about assessing blame. This is nobody's fault. In fact, everyone was working as he or she should, representing his or her Agency and making sure that the right information is out and available. But to address the problem we have to look at those constraints and think beyond the mandate of our individual Agencies. What is necessary here is a cross-functional, cross-Agency team that is able to really adopt the voice of the business and organize the programs, services and data in a new way that makes sense to the people who need help.

This for me is also a personal project. As you may know, my wife had a business for 20 years. She succumbed to the changing market and economy about 2 years ago. I wasn't able to help her save the business, but I hope that with this project I may be able to help someone else save his or hers. And I hope that I will help someone new to take that leap of faith to start a business. Time that these people spend trying to figure out how the government is organized is time lost. That is time that could have been spent on improving a product or service, or making contacts with new customers, or hiring great people.

So when we talk about the new fed, open your eyes. We are everywhere, and we're doing some really amazing things. Now get out there and do something amazing yourself.