Gov. Gregoire addresses the Governing Management Technology Conference

May 28, 2008

*As Written*

Good Afternoon.

Thank you, Peter for the kind introduction.

I�m very pleased to be here today.

And on behalf of the Great State of Washington, I�d like to welcome everybody who came from all over the country to talk about the power of technology to help us revolutionize the way we serve our citizens.

You could not have picked a better venue! Washington�s technology sector continues to surge, even as other parts of the economy slow a little bit, and it�s because Washington has � always has had � a culture of innovation.

And its heart is right here in Seattle.

Welcome to this beautiful city, and I hope you find the time to enjoy the fresh air, ferries, restaurants, Pike Place Market, and all the other unique gifts the city offers.
If not � come back! Bring your families. Spend some money!

I�d especially like to welcome John Gillespie, President of the National Association of State Chief Information Officers, and his colleagues from across the country, and of course, the folks of Governing Magazine � Editor and Publisher Peter Harkness, and Deputy Publisher Elder Witt -- who generously put this whole event together.

Governing Magazine is more than a great publication. Gatherings like this one really help us improve the work we do for citizens. Welcome, Peter and Elder, and thank you.

And I want to recognize and thank our own Gary Robinson for the work he does leading my Department of Information Services. I know he is a valuable member of the information-officers association.

I suspect there are no actual computer programmers here today, but if so, my apologies in advance. Because I heard a joke the other day about programmers, and here it is:

�Theory is when you know something, but it doesn't work.�

�Practice is when something works, but you don't know why it works.

�Programmers combine theory and practice -- Nothing works and they don't know why.�

But we�re not here today to talk about computer programming � amazing and innovative as it is -- or even about the wonders of technology as a whole.

No, we�re here to talk about plain old information�and how to use the wonders of technology to get our hands on it and use it to serve citizens.

The kind of information that helped us in Washington State Government reduce the incidence of repeat-child abuse by 30 percent, and keep our rate of growth in health care costs to 3 percent -- well below the 6 percent benchmark of private or public organizations...

�And the kind of information that reduced the lines at the Departments of Licensing and Revenue -- and the kind that let�s us respond quickly to public records requests.

The mountains of information we�re sitting on in our roles as top state government officials � information to mine�

�To isolate and extract, and use to do what our citizens expect us to do, and as importantly -- in ways they can see and understand.

�To use to see what we in our workplaces are doing right and doing wrong, so we can do things better.

�And to use it to make life simpler and more productive for our employees.

When I took office more than three years ago, I looked at the challenge ahead from many different angles.

One of the realizations I came to quickly was that in order to truly and effectively lead a state approaching 7 million people, I needed the right information at the right time to make the right decisions to get the results Washingtonians expect.

At the same time, I realized citizens from small business folks to motorists need easily accessible information too � to comply with the rules � pay their taxes � renew their license tabs � know that government is doing what it claims to be doing -- and so much more.

I realized quickly that anecdotal information wasn�t enough. First of all, there aren�t enough hours in a day to hear and sort it out. There�s no time for Easter-Egg hunts. Secondly, that kind of information, while necessary and useful, is simply not sufficient.

Businesses, of course, know this, and the successful ones use technology to manage information in ways that feed their bottom lines.

I would suggest that our challenge is even greater. Unlike a business, our results aren�t about making widgets for profit. That�s a nice, easy road map. But for us, the map is more complex.

We�re trying to protect kids from child abuse, rehabilitate felons, keep our highways safe, and make sure our drinking water is pure and clean. Strong families � justice � healthy kids � that�s our bottom line.

And that�s why one of the first things I did after taking office was to create a way for us to see � in a timely, efficient way � if we�re measuring up to our bottom line.

We call it G-MAP. If you wander into our large, public, meeting room on Wednesday mornings at 7:30 --you�ll find me and a bunch of my cabinet directors scrutinizing charts and data up on these big screens to try and figure out how to make government work better.

Gary Robinson is there, and so is our Human Resources Director, Eva Santos, along with our budget chief, our policy director, our risk manager, and other key people. Also there are agency directors whose work we are scrutinizing that day.

We expect � indeed demand � good, transparent information from our agencies � and to their great credit, we get it. And it�s the kind information that really matters to citizens.

Out of this information come questions, arguments, course-corrections and decisions, and always a request for even more information.

Out of this information comes something else too -- �Ah-hah!� moments that can cause us to go in a whole new direction.

I understand that a number of you have spent most of today examining what � at its root -- must have been an �Ah-hah� moment when somebody, somewhere, realized that 3-1-1 calls � that is, citizen complaints to government officials � can be so much more than just a �to-do list�.

3-1-1 calls can be useful management intelligence --if we collect the information they produce, track what happens, and analyze the results. And that�s what technology can help us do � manage this information efficiently to get results.

We can use it to ask the agencies what they did with the complaint, and we can even tell the person who called just how we responded.

Just one �Ah-hah� moment we had in G-MAP recently came as we wrestled with how to speed up permitting of establishments that process food � an important industry in our state.

Our permit people have all the information they need to issue a permit immediately after meeting with the processor and inspecting paperwork and the premises. But we learned that it takes 30 days to make it happen!

We had already talked about and admired an information system used by UPS � the great package delivery company founded in Seattle.

So we asked ourselves? Why not issue handheld computers to Department of Agriculture inspectors and let them issue temporary food processing permits from the field?

Ah-hah! Why not indeed. And that�s what we�re doing now, and it takes just one day � instead of 30 � for a food processor to get a permit and start processing food.

All across state government, technology is giving us the tools to create information systems just like that one.

But let�s be clear here. Technology is just a tool. When I call up Gary Robinson, I don�t say � �I need new technology.� I say, I need a better way to get information. Sometimes people lose sight of that.

We end up as slaves to our systems, instead of making sure those systems serve our bottom line. As your own Bill Bott of Missouri put it � �We want to worry about kids not kilobytes.�

I and other government leaders really depend on your understanding of this � and your innovation to help us find, isolate, and harvest the information we need to make the right choices...

�To make the right choices so we can solve the tough problems and get the results that will make our communities stronger and our children�s future brighter.

I know all of you here today are sharing with one another impressive results as you use technology to mine information and use it to better serve citizens.

We have some impressive results too�

�From creative uses of the Web to serve citizens and businesses easily and quickly with one-stop shopping�

�To increasingly sophisticated management of information to get results for Washingtonians.

I�m sure you are hearing about some of our results and plans from Gary and Larisa Benson � who we call �The G-Map Lady.�

It�s because of our results that Forbes and Fortune magazines recently recognized Washington as one of the five best states in which to do business, and the Pew Center on the States gave us its highest rating for managing information.

Let me also mention that I am pleased that the National Association of State Chief Information Officers recognized the Business Portal as the nation's top "Government to Business" digital government initiative last year.

Each of us today, I�m sure, could stand up here and talk about successes at harnessing technology to serve our citizens.

We�re all proud of our successes � and we should be. When I started in state government as a clerk-typist we were using chisels and stone tablets to move information. and then upgraded to typewriters!

But one thing has not changed. It�s still all about information.

It�s all about finding the right information and using it to make the lives of our citizens better

�Be it a single parent on welfare or a start-up business looking to take care of paperwork quickly, or law enforcement officials helping neighborhoods keep an eye on dangerous people, or motorists renewing their license tabs...

Technology is the marvelous avenue we have to get us there, but it will never replace the best technology at our disposal � our minds.

I appreciate that some good minds are here to share information and find some of those �Ah-Hah� moments that can, and I believe will, continue to bring results citizens want and expect.

Thank You.