Why this blog

This blog started in January 2008, in order to discuss how to adapt the measurement eGovernment to the web 2.0 era. The discussion was then summarised in this paper.

In the meantime I left the European Commission and set up a company with two colleagues, Paul Foley and Cristiano Codagnone.

I will continue the discussion but with a wider focus than benchmarking.

Benchmarking of eGov has been very powerful in influencing e-government policies in Europe. It is easy to understand also for non technical people, focusses on concrete benefits and it is sufficiently measurable. However for many years the eGov community has been aware of the limits of benchmarking. The main problem is that it focusses only on the provision of online services. It shows its age (it was developed during the e-commerce boom). It totally misses the recently emerged values related to web 2.0, such as transparency, simplicity, users engagement, collaboration.

Talking about measurement always implies talking about goals. I would like to open a discussion on what should be the goals of eGovernment in the web 2.0 era, and how we should measure the progress towards these goals. This is not my personal blog but a discussion tool.

My name is David Osimo. I have been working in e-government and benchmarking for the last 8 years, in regional, national and international bodies. I now work in the European Commission (JRC-IPTS) especially on eGov and web2.0. However this blog is not part of any institutional activity, the views reflected here are totally personal. I ceased my collaboration with the EC and I am now a consultant. So what I say here cannot be associated in any way to the EC.

The idea for this blog matured during the barcamp eGovernment organised in London on January 26th. Thanks Jeremy!

You can contact me through Linkedin or by email osimod at yahoo dot it