The public sector must start planning now for the changing collaboration needs of the future. Younger generations entering management will have new expectations that require more dynamic, targeted, and measurable content. As content delivery becomes more focused on the end-user, personalized profiles and communities will be important features of future collaboration portals. IT managers must prepare to respond quickly and flexibly to evolving demands.

1. The public sector must
start planning now for
collaboration needs of
TECHNOLOGY
the future.
The Future State of Collaboration
by bill annibell
The title of the Bob Dylan classic “The Times They Are a-Changin" may be
an appropriate theme to describe the expected shifts in collaboration portals
not only within commercially focused organizations, but also within the
public sector. A variety of factors—including innovation initiatives, branding
requirements at a multitude of levels, and the need to create community-
focused, externally facing portals to enable transparency—are diving these shifts.
In addition, the increased demands that Generations X and Y end-users
will place on IT moving forward as they transition into senior levels of
public-sector management will affect future collaboration use and models.
IT managers should begin planning now to meet the future demands and
requirements of collaboration portals.
History
People have been collaborating in some form or another forever. The concept
is not new, nor has it changed all that much throughout history—at least
until recently. Certainly, technology has changed how we communicate, but
collaboration is a different story.
Email is the 800-pound gorilla in the room that has undermined many
collaboration projects within organizations. This is not to say that the
existence of current collaboration portals is a fallacy. They do exist. Far too
often, however, the collaborative portal’s original purpose has morphed into
document repositories, and they have become an ineffective mechanism for
driving broad content to end-users. The original intent of a truly dynamic,
collaborative environment is often lost in a less-than-real-time user experience
that fails to bring role-specific, pertinent data to the end-user.
The Public Manager | WinTer 2010 11

2. Traditionally, collaboration portals on to ensure that only the best ideas Personalized sites that offer business-
have been labeled intranets, portals, bubble to the top. Crowdsourcing is focused Facebook and MySpace
team sites, and so forth, where an empowering technology and cannot functionality will become the norm
information could be shared among be overlooked. Workers will demand it and the jump-off point to other
employees, contractors, team members, moving forward. parts of the portal. These sites will
and even cross-agency (think enable individuals to showcase their
extranet). Although these models Brand Awareness work and connect with like-minded
have had varying levels of success, Once upon a time, branding a individuals within the organization.
they often have been plagued by poor collaboration portal was as easy as With the advent of such sites, subject
planning, design, and implementation, ensuring the logo was placed at the matter expertise will evolve organically
and therefore, poor adoption. top of a webpage. As organizations and in a grassroots fashion.
within the public sector become External users visiting public-
Innovation more brand-aware, collaboration sector sites will expect personalization
Although not all organizations are portal requirements will shift. Brand as well. Visitors will look for ways
created equally, many have become awareness will continue to be about to share profile information as
increasingly aware they have been identification, but it will also be externally facing portals develop and
citizen engagement matures. This
functionality will ensure content
as content delivery becomes more focused, the internal, is finely focused and appropriately
distributed as external end-users enter
end-user brand will become the focal point of entry into the portal.
future collaboration portals. Personalized sites that offer
business-focused Facebook and MySpace functionality Community and Transparency
Today, collaboration often happens
will become the norm and the jump-off point to other outside of firewalls, and future
collaboration portals will be forced
parts of the portal. to address this requirement. Self-
registering community portals will
living in the dark ages with regard about managing both internal and become more prevalent in the future,
to effective use of collaboration. external perception. with interagency collaboration leading
Mechanisms for unleashing innovative For organizations to influence the charge. Many agencies will require
ideas will take the forefront within perception, content will need to be the establishment of community
future collaboration portals. more dynamic, increasingly targeted, portals with academia and the private
As organizational innovation and measurable by useful analytics. sector to achieve their missions.
processes mature, the need for Gone are the days of manually Common collaborative tools will
tools—both old and new—will updating static pages. True content be required, including those that
become paramount. For example, management functionality will enable blogging, discussion forums,
wikis are tools, long in tradition, that become a necessity to ensure that video, and persistent chat. Learning
are most often leveraged by multiple focused, relevant, and role-specific management system functionality,
end-users for sharing and expounding information is delivered to internal including whiteboards, audio and
on ideas. Demand for wikis will and external users. This content video conferencing, and desktop
likely increase as organizations will be measured and analyzed for sharing will also be standard
become more innovative in their usability and relevance to ensure requirements. Integration with a
collaboration approaches. perception is managed effectively. variety of social media technologies,
In addition, crowdsourcing As content delivery becomes more including the likes of YouTube, Flickr,
capabilities will be required so ideas focused, the internal, end-user brand and Twitter will become mandatory.
from the masses—both externally and will become the focal point of entry The Open Government Directive
internally—can be captured and voted into future collaboration portals. has hastened transparency, and
12 WWW.ThePublicManager.Org

3. externally facing collaboration portals to their impatient and growing user-
will conform or be left behind. These base. A variety of public and private
TECHNOLOGY
portals will be forced to evolve from cloud-based technologies will be
unstructured data repositories, required to meet such demands. IT
such as Data.gov, to ones that offer managers will have to respond to ever-
both structured and unstructured changing requirements in a far more
data services that can be accessed agile way than they may be used to.
via web services and application-
programming interfaces. The Future
End-users will demand tools that The future is now. The patience
enable them to “mash-up” data within of public-sector collaboration
the portal itself. Analysis, integration, portal users is growing increasingly
Announcing
and reporting tools will need to be short. Innovation, brand awareness,
integrated into the collaboration community building, and
portals to appease non-technical end-
users. Semantic search will become
transparency are the driving forces
behind the many expectations being our new
the norm, so individuals can quickly
and easily find what they are looking
placed on public-sector IT managers.
As Generations X and Y assume
podcast series
for regardless of whether they typed senior leadership roles within the Interviews with industry
in the correct search term. public sector, they will not only leaders and influencers,
require changes, but also demand including:
Generation Gap change regularly as technology evolves.
As Baby Boomers begin to IT managers must be prepared to Preston Tim Brown,
retire from their senior government respond far more quickly than ever Manager, Grant Thornton
positions, they will be replaced by before, which requires a flexible, agile Richard “Rick” Koonce,
Certified Executive Coach
Generation X and Y workers, both model that is capable of adapting
Matt Peters,
of which seem to embrace change. rapidly to an agency’s mission needs. CLO, Defense Intelligence
Many claim that these generations— Agency
the creators of Twitter, Facebook, Christine Rush,
and Google—expect diversity, learn Assistant Professor of Public
from video games, and communicate Administration, Cleveland State
University
with peers via text messaging and
instant messaging. They are quick A full calendar of interviews
to adapt to the latest technology planned for 2011
and often look forward to see what Visit The Public Manager
technological advancements are on online to listen to the latest
the horizon. They are well aware of interviews offering new
their personal brands and the impact perspectives and deeper
it has on their future. understanding of the diverse
If a technology to make their jobs challenges facing today’s
more efficient is not available to them, public managers.
workers from these generations will
find one and leverage it regardless Bill Annibell is a director of technology and chief
of whether it is approved. Typically, technology officer of Sapient Government Services. WWW.THEPUBLICMANAGER.ORG
they do not stand for status quo in He has deployed a variety of collaborative
the realm of technology, putting a technologies within the private and public sectors
111035.98110
significant strain on IT managers in the United States and abroad. Contact him at
responsible for delivering such tools bannibell@sapient.com.
The Public Manager | WinTer 2010 13