KM software tailored for government

The state of KM in government

With the aid of technology, state and local governments are becoming much more agile. Agency after agency has replaced paper with automated forms that are easy to modify, and built portals for citizen 24/7 self-service. "State and local governments deal with problems that tend to be much closer to citizens than the issues the federal government addresses," says Ramon Barquin, president of Barquin International, a consulting firm that focuses on KM and government, "so they need to be very responsive."

Part of the ability to respond has been fueled by social media. "State and local governments also are more likely to have Facebook and use Twitter," Barquin remarks. "However, they also have automated workflows for responding to citizen complaints about daily issues such as utility problems, which allow them to respond in a very tangible way."

State and local governments are also starting to use big data. "One of the more interesting developments is that KM tools are now able to bring in a lot of detail and make sense of it," Barquin says, "whether it be text analytics, semantic or sentiment analysis. These insights can help at the state level but can also feed into policy making at the federal level."

Cloud technology is growing in importance at all levels of government. "Working with very large amounts of data is best done in the cloud environment," Barquin says. Although implementation of the federal "cloud first" policy faced challenges because agencies had concerns about security, control of data and funding, most federal IT professionals supported the concept. "In general, concerns about the cloud are being resolved as IT staffers gain direct experience with the technology," Barquin says.­­

Cloud technology also benefits state and local governments because it reduces demands on infrastructure, and SaaS products lower capital investment costs that previously were required for software purchases. In conjunction with mobile technology, cloud technology allows "anytime, anywhere" in government at any level.