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“If we have learned one thing from the history of inven-tion and discovery,” wrote novelist and inventorArthur C. Clarke, “it is that, in the long run—andoften in the short one—the most daring prophecies

seem laughably conservative.” Looking back on the advent ofelectronic government in the early to mid-1990s, we find thatClarke’s observation again holds true.

Consider this: In 1999, the state of Kansas made applica-tions for hunting and fishing licenses available through itsofficial Web site. It’s hard to imagine today that anyone wouldhave to physically present himself to another human being, ina state office, during normal working hours, in order to obtainor renew a simple slip of paper. Indeed, if a transaction can’tbe conducted online, we doubt the professionalism of its pur-veyor, or at the very least wonder why they haven’t joined themodern age. In hindsight, Kansas’ online services hardlyseem innovative.

But in 1999, Kansas was considered a revolutionary. Itselectronic licensing system soon became the envy of otherstate governments, which hoped to speed up sometimes slowbureaucratic transactions and, ideally, save money in theprocess. In Kansas and elsewhere, chief information officersand other technology officials declared that online licensingwas merely a starting point. Soon, they predicted, citizenswould be renewing driver’s licenses, applying for business per-mits, and opening new channels to interact with distant, incon-sistently organized agencies. Their daring prophecies were metwith no small amount of skepticism. But today, dozens ofstates are managing their relationships with citizens throughenterprise-wide Web portals, which are online destinations thatallow businesses and individuals to interact 24/7 with a vari-ety of state government agencies through a single entry point.

When Kansas began to develop its portal, Kansas.gov, noth-ing like it existed, says Ron Thornburgh, Kansas’ secretary ofstate. “Being the first in the nation, we were headed towardsome uncharted waters.” But once the state realized that itdidn’t have to act alone to get eGovernment up and running,the process became much simpler.

“The public sector had and continues to have limitedresources to build the technological infrastructure of a por-tal,” Thornburgh says. Funds for new initiatives, particularlyunproven ones, are usually tight. Like many states, Kansas didnot employ a large staff of skilled managers who could buildthe portal from the ground up, keep it running and enhance itover time.

What the state lacked in expertise and resources, portaldevelopers in the private sector made up for with a demonstra-

ble track record of building online desti-nations for large, complex organizations.

For its part, Kansas knew what services it wanted to automate,and what information it wanted to put online. “We had thedatabases, they had the technology and know-how. It becamea beautiful marriage,” Thornburgh says.

WHY OUTSOURCE? In the intervening years, state and local governments haveembraced online access. The portal, once a novelty, is now anexpectation. If a government doesn’t make services availableonline, citizens wonder what’s wrong.

Since the .gov domain—the generally preferred designationfor government Web sites—was made available to state andlocal government four years ago, almost 2,000 state and localsites use the designation, reports the National Association ofState Chief Information Officers. Nearly all states have someform of a portal, which in its optimal form is a multi-facetedWeb site that provides information and facilitates transactionsby serving as a “one-stop shop” for citizens doing businesswith the state or seeking information.

“We had the databases, they had the technology. It became a beautifulmarriage.”— Kansas Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh

PORTALSWhen citizens demand online access to their government, states turn to the experts.

THE CASE FOR

Why should a state construct an enterprise-wide portal? Isthere concrete value to be gained in terms of better servicedelivery or improved use of state resources? If the answer isyes, then there’s another fundamental question: Should thisbe done in-house? Or does the state need outside help?

“It’s quite common for different individuals in various agen-cies to say, ‘Why are we going outside to do this? Why don’t webuild it ourselves?’ ” says Harry Herington, president of NICInc., which manages eGovernment services for 21 states.

Agencies have specific missions, and it is often easier for athird party to facilitate cross-agency collaboration and deliveran enterprise-wide solution, Herington says. This approachallows state leaders to provide a consistent level ofeGovernment support across agencies and make the best useof state budget dollars.

The challenge for state governments, as for any large organ-ization, is to assess what they’re good at and what their corecompetencies are, explains Aneesh Chopra, secretary of tech-nology for the Commonwealth of Virginia. An outside entitycan tell the state what has worked and what hasn’t becausethe private sector has a broader perspective on how to designeffective online services, he says.

An outside perspective can also help to alleviate commonconcerns. “I remember the first time we had a discussion inour office about whether we should allow people to haveremote access to our data,” Thornburgh says. “It was anexcruciating conversation.” Officials feared what might hap-pen if data was corrupted or misplaced. Services could bedisrupted. Then there was the anxiety over hackers andother intruders.

Many states have found that a portal actually enhancessecurity and the integrity of data, in large measure because itrequires an enterprise-wide strategy that takes security intoconsideration at the outset. “In Colorado, one clear driver fora portal was security,” says Gregg Rippy, executive director ofthe Colorado Statewide Internet Portal Authority, and a formermember of the state legislature. It was possible to set upperimeter security around the portal itself, and the data sup-plying it, rather than individual perimeters for hundreds ofseparate agency Web sites.

Enterprise portals offer significant security advantages forprotecting sensitive personal and financial information. Whilecitizens and businesses expect states to offer online paymentoptions for eGovernment services, the cost of maintainingsecure and compliant payment gateways is daunting andshould not become a burden for every agency.

Many states have concluded that the best course of actionis to establish a single payment gateway through the portal for

all agencies and to align with a private sector provider whosesuccess depends on staying current with constantly evolvingInternet security regulations. The financial industry also main-tains aggressive security policies that govern online creditcard and electronic check payments and often imposes steepfines for violations. “Our state partners have recognized thatthe risk is simply too high to allow agencies to manage onlinesecurity on their own,” says Herington.

MEETING EXPECTATIONS This gets to perhaps the strongest and simplest reason forstates to launch a portal: Citizens expect more flexibility andopenness when interacting with government. Research indi-cates that states are meeting that demand.

“Collectively, states have made great strides over the pastsix years in organizing their portals along lines that are gen-erally accepted as being intuitive to citizens,” the NationalAssociation of State Chief Information Officers concluded ina March 2007 report on state governments’ Internet pres-ence. For example, most states allow citizens to locate aservice even if they do not know which agency provides it, thereport stated.

“Government is organized by geography. Where you live deter-mines what district you’re in, which describes the deliverymodel for services,” says Chopra. In the world of “Web 2.0,” thenext stage of online development in which portals play a centralrole, people are organizing themselves in new ways—for exam-ple, through social networking sites. “That compels governmentto rethink how it organizes services,” Chopra says.

DELIVERING VALUEAs states continue to enhance online services, the payoff willbe substantial. For example, among Kansas’ first electronictransactions was automating Universal Commercial Code serv-ices. “We thought we’d be successful if we could enhance ourturnaround times on transactions and get a few people to per-form transactions electronically,” Thornburgh says. Then thestate could free up state employees who usually manage theseservices to perform other tasks.

Kansas had twelve employees in the UCC division when theinitiative began, Thornburgh says. Today, the filing system isaccessible through Kansas.gov, and the division has one full-time and one part-time employee. Ninety percent of all UCCservices are performed electronically now.

It was a small step, one that in retrospect might seem“laughably conservative.” But the value for the state wasdemonstrable, and the portal made it happen.

This is the first in a series of three articles. In the next installment,learn about the building blocks of a successful portal.

An outside entity can tell the state whathas worked and what hasn’t because the private sector has a broader perspectiveon how to design effective online services

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The first step in creating a statewide Web portal isdeciding whether to design it in-house or hire outsidehelp. As discussed in part one of this series, manystates have found it makes sense to tap a tested and

experienced private sector provider to help construct and runthe portal.

Once a state decides to outsource, what does it take tolaunch the portal and ensure that it has the resources andsupport it needs to grow? Officials who have gone through theprocess say there are four essential building blocks: a cham-pion, an appropriate governance structure, a stable and long-term funding source, and the right private sector partner.

FIND A CHAMPION Ambitious portal plans are often met with initial skepticism. InColorado, lawmakers were concerned about investing scarcedollars in a relatively new concept, says Gregg Rippy, the exec-utive director of the Colorado Statewide Internet PortalAuthority and a former state legislator. When planning forColorado.gov got underway in 2002, “I wouldn’t say that [law-makers’] level of understanding on information technologyprojects was very high,” Rippy says. Nor was their confidence.“They had seen some previous projects not be as successful asthey could be and felt like throwing money at another informa-tion technology project could be a black hole.”

To move ahead, whether in the legislature or the executivebranch, a portal needs a champion, a key official or group tobecome the project’s chief advocate. This is usually a high-level official who provides visibility and accountability to theproject before the private sector provider is ever selected.

The job often falls to the state’s chief information officerwho can enlist the public support of the governor and otherhigh-ranking officials. According to former Kentucky CIOMark Rutledge, his predecessor was an outspoken proponentof portals and other electronic government initiatives. By

making the case that it was worth the state’s financial invest-ment to improve service to citizens, the Commonwealth’sfirst CIO, Aldona Valicenti, provided a solid foundation forRutledge and his team to rapidly expand Kentucky’seGovernment portal services.

In Kansas, it was a group who formally championed a por-tal and took ownership of its development. There, officials cre-

ated an oversight authority comprised ofpublic sector representatives, who con-

trolled access to the state’s data, and private sector technolo-gy leaders, who brought real-world business acumen to thetable, says Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh. This teamdecided what services to offer. They also developed a requestfor proposals, which laid out what the panel expected the pri-vate sector provider to do.

Champions are indispensable evangelists of the vision.Their involvement in planning is crucial for setting expecta-tions and creating benchmarks to measure progress.

ESTABLISH GOVERNANCE With a champion and an initial plan in place, the next step isto define the governance process for the portal. Who will man-age the site, secure sustainable funding and chart its futuregrowth? Laying out the lines of responsibility at the outsetavoids confusion and builds accountability.

In Colorado, lawmakers wereconcerned about investingscarce dollars in a relativelynew concept.— Gregg Rippy, executive director of the ColoradoStatewide Internet Portal Authority

BUILDHHOOWW TTOO A PORTAL

A successful site rests on a solid foundation.

Colorado and several other states followed a two-step gover-nance process. First, the legislature directed the state’sInformation Management Commission to evaluate the feasi-bility of building a portal. The commission identified the dif-ferent options, including outsourcing.

Once the state had decided to hire a portal contractor, thesecond step was to create a quasi-governmental authority toimplement and manage the site. This was essential inColorado, where tax laws strictly limit spending by existingagencies on new projects. To oversee Colorado.gov, lawmak-ers created the Statewide Internet Portal Authority, an inde-

pendent public body, governed by a board of directors thatincludes representation from key state offices as well as pri-vate sector leaders.

As in other states, the portal authority became its champi-on, holding face-to-face meetings with agency directors andCIOs in localities across the state. After the portal launched,the board conducted a 10-city tour to promote Colorado.govto local technology professionals.

The authority entered into a partnership with ColoradoInteractive, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of NIC Inc., whichmanages eGovernment services in 21 states. In other states,this kind of public-private partnership has proved to be thecornerstone of a successful portal. It allows the government totake advantage of the private sector’s expertise, and shift asignificant amount of financial and political risk from thestate because the private sector provider has a stake in ensur-ing the portal’s success in order to see a profit.

ESTABLISH STABLE AND LONG-TERM FUNDING SOURCES With a governing model in place, the next step is to securefunding. State officials stress that there is no one-size-fits-allapproach to secure enough money to provide services, pay theprivate sector provider, and grow the portal. But many havefound that a “self-funding” model helps stretch limited tech-nology budgets, creating a return on investment for the stateand the private sector provider.

Kansas, for instance, has opted to charge small fees for cer-tain commercial users of the portal, primarily business own-ers, physicians, nurses, and other professionals who have toregister with the state or obtain a license or certificate in orderto work. Kansas always collected a licensing fee for thesetransactions on paper and in-person. So by adding a conven-ience charge for issuing the license online, extra revenue wasgenerated to help pay for the portal’s development and ongo-ing upkeep.

Under this approach, part of that fee pays the private sec-tor provider that conducts the transaction, and part is rein-vested in the portal to cover the costs of building new appli-

cations, enhancing the technical infrastructure, and maintain-ing the current portal.

“The financing was the absolutely crucial part to makingthis whole concept work,” says Kansas’ Thornburgh, echoinghis colleagues in other states. “Nobody had money to throwinto ‘what-ifs.’” As in most states that have chosen a transac-tion-based funding solution, the private sector contractor pro-vided the initial capital to build Kansas.gov.

Champions, Thornburgh says, must demonstrate that themodel will result in added savings. “You have to sit down with[agency officials] and talk about the cost savings,” he says. An

agency may see a reduction in spendingsince it does not have to hire temporaryemployees to run the portal to collectthose fees. “We have consistently beenable to show cost savings that come alongwith the portal,” Thornburgh says.

In many states, companies that regularly obtain state infor-mation are charged a small fee for obtaining it through theportal. In Colorado, funding comes from delivering drivers’license records to insurance companies, banks and otherapproved consumers of that data, Rippy says. The state’s por-tal provider reinvests a large portion of that transaction rev-enue to help Colorado deliver more services across the state,including online motor vehicle registration renewals.

SELECT A PARTNER With the plan and funding model in place, the final step ischoosing the private sector provider. It may be the most sig-nificant choice of all, and state officials say that outsourcinga portal constitutes a true partnership.

When selecting a private sector provider, states are strikinga long-term partnership that will make or break a portal, officials stress. It’s important to look at the company’s trackrecord of building successful portals in other states and to take advantage of the lessons they have learned, says Kentucky’sRutledge. “Whatever works in one state, with a little bit ofchange, can be adopted by another state.”

When state officials are contemplating a portal, they some-times look to neighboring states and select the functions they’dlike to replicate, almost in “a la carte” fashion, says Jeff Fraser,chief executive officer of NIC. If the state chooses functions orapplications that have already been built, they can be modifiedto meet unique business rules and implemented quickly intheir state portal. This “build once, use often” philosophy hashelped governments introduce proven online services thatdon’t have to be built from the ground up, Fraser says.

This is the second in a series of three articles. In the final install-ment, learn how to make a portal succeed.

[The] public-private partnership has proved tobe the cornerstone of a successful portal.

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art one of this series examined the benefits of out-sourcing a statewide Web portal to an experienced pri-vate sector provider, and part two identified the keysteps in building and funding the site. Once the por-

tal is up and running, how does a state ensure that it will func-tion smoothly, meeting the needs of citizens and the govern-ment for years to come?

TAKE AN ENTERPRISE APPROACH There are many different ways to measure success. “Adoptionis always a great benchmark,” says Gregg Rippy, the executivedirector of the Colorado Statewide Internet Portal Authorityand a former state legislator. If state agencies are using theportal, rather than trying their own Web sites, that’s one of thebest indications that the portal is meeting their needs.

To get those agencies onboard, it’s also important to marketthe portal as an online channel, Rippy adds. When his statelaunched Colorado.gov, managers personally promoted thesite in face-to-face meetings with agency directors,both at the state level and in various localities. Rippysays that if officials didn’t take the time to explainthe portal to those professionals, they’d be unlikelyto use it.

It’s important to find enterprise-wide opportuni-ties to grow a portal and to ensure that the site pro-vides value to all participants, says Aneesh Chopra,the Secretary of Technology in the Commonwealthof Virginia. The state’s portal, Virginia.gov, had earlysuccess bringing agencies under a single banner,using an enterprise approach to make the portalmore sophisticated.

Early in 2007, Virginia entered into a strategic agreementwith Google to enhance the portal’s search engine, whichscans for keywords and terms across individual agency sites.The search engine mostly worked well, but results were some-times incomplete. “Driver’s license,” for instance, didn’t callup the Department of Motor Vehicles page, which contains an

online license renewal application, because agency Web sitemanagers had not set up all their data to be searchablethrough the portal. Virginia.gov is now delivering more accu-rate results by allowing agency Webmasters to easily tag theirdata so it appears in enterprise portal searches.

Virginia Interactive is the Commonwealth’s portal partnerand a subsidiary of NIC Inc., which manages eGovernmentsites for 21 states. Virginia Interactive led the implementationof the portal’s advanced search tool and also arranged train-ing for agency Webmasters. The initiative illustrates two keyingredients of successful portal expansion: rely on partner-ships and provide users with continuous training. VirginiaInteractive is a real partner, Chopra says. “We initiate the pol-icy goals, they assist in the implementation.”

An advantage of aligning with a private sector provider isimmediate access to an array of industry-leading solutions,says Harry Herington, president of NIC. For example, NIC’seGovernment portals are enhanced by strategic alliances with

Microsoft, Cybertrust, Electronic Clearing House,Inc. (ECHO), and Google, among others. “Our por-

tal offering includes outstanding solutions from other compa-nies, which benefits states by eliminating the time and hassleof issuing multiple procurements,” says Herington.

States find that their private sector partner can bring themthe best technology and implement it at a lower cost and inless time than the state could on its own. “States do not havethe luxury of running a research and development shop,” says

“It’s important to find enterprise-wide opportunities to grow a portal,and to ensure that the site providesvalue to all participants.”

— Aneesh Chopra, Secretary of Technology of the Commonwealth of Virginia

An eye forenterprise anddialogue withcitizens helpsmaintain and growonline services.

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Herington. Government leaders have also learned to avoidbuilding agency-specific applications that consume scarceresources and to instead adopt technologies that many agen-cies can use.

Applications on Kansas.gov, for instance, are designedusing an “extensible format,” which means they can be easi-ly scaled for multiple purposes and environments. “By creat-ing that extensibility, we’ve been able to roll out online servic-es easily to other agencies,” says Kansas Secretary of StateRon Thornburgh. “You don’t have to reinvent the wheel.”

TALK TO CUSTOMERS A portal’s ultimate customers—citizens and businesses in thestate—are often the best source of insight into opportunitiesfor growth. “The most important thing is finding out what yourcustomers want,” Thornburgh says. As one of the earliesteGovernment pioneers, Kansas has made it a top priority toengage in a constant dialogue with business owners, who helpprovide much of the revenue base of user fees that keep theportal running.

The state launched the Kansas Business Center after cus-tomers said they wanted a one-stop destination for licenseapplications, filings, tax payments, and other transactions.Today, users are telling officials they want to create more valuewith the information they obtain through the portal. This is anopportunity to deliver customized information to banks, whomight want to receive automatic updates about importantevents in the lives of their borrowers. “It makes sense that abank with a lien against ‘ABC Corporation’ would want toknow of a change in officers or company name,” Thornburghsays. Ordinarily, banks have to ask for that information. Now,it can be delivered automatically through the portal.

FROM eGOVERNMENT TO eDEMOCRACYStates have grasped the power of portals to deliver valuableand vital services to citizens. But what comes next? Innovativetechnology officials are eyeing their portals’ ability to makegovernment more transparent and participatory. The nextphase of eGovernment, they say, is eDemocracy.

This next stage can take advantage of the proliferation inonline communications, particularly through social network-ing sites, blogs and wikis, to create more avenues for dialoguebetween citizens and government officials. One need only lookat the significant number of people who are voluntarily joiningsocial networks to see the future of online communication.“We should think of citizens not by their geography, but bytheir membership in [those groups],” says Virginia’s Chopra.“If there’s a boating community, they might need a boatinglicense, or a fishing license,” he explains. “There are five orsix agencies that could congregate within that social networkand provide services to this group.”

Thornburgh says the next big challenge for portal managersis, “How do we push information out to the public, and moreimportantly, receive feedback?” This relationship goes beyondonline tax and license filings. Thornburgh thinks that social-

networking tools and blogs in particular, which are popularamong the next generation of voters and taxpayers, can helpthe state engage in a more nuanced conversation with citizens.

State officials agree that collaborative technologies willattract the younger generation of citizens to the portal. Thosefuture voters are in constant communication with each otherthrough social networking and instant messaging. Officialssay that is how those citizens also expect to interact withtheir government.

In the meantime, states can take advantage of collaborative

tools to deliver more timely information to citizens.Government portals already are used to deliver updates andinformation to specific user groups, either through e-mail orRSS feeds, to which citizens can subscribe and receive cus-tomized Web-based information updates. This can be expand-ed to the population as a whole. One example: “I look atElection Day, and the kind of information we can start push-ing to people either about their voter registration or theirpolling place,” Thornburgh says.

MAKING GOVERNMENT INVISIBLEUltimately, the greatest benefit of portals may be somewhatironic: they may make government invisible. As governmentsmore seamlessly deliver services, they effectively make them-selves appear less bureaucratic, and as a result, less obvious.The premise of a portal is that citizens are more likely to inter-act with one central site rather than seek out individual agen-cies. As agencies unify under a single banner, they effective-ly create “invisible government,” says Herington. The contri-bution of individual agencies is no less significant—indeed, itis more imperative. But their separate roles are less distinctand less visible. For NIC, this is the direction in whicheGovernment has always been heading.

“When people said ‘eGovernment,’ they meant electronicgovernment,” Herington says. “We always saw it as ‘efficientgovernment’ that, when implemented properly, becomes‘invisible government’ to citizens and businesses.”

This is the third in a series of three articles.

Citizens and businesses in a stateare often the best source of insightinto opportunities for growth.

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