WRITTEN ON September 12th, 2006 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Uncategorized

Here we are in Guadalajara, Mexico’s Silicon Valley, with 120 of us listening to opening welcoming speeches and videos from tables with little national flags as the fiery breakfast salsa fades on the palate.

It’s the 40th ICA conference, with reps from 25 countries. The theme is “Whole of Government: filling the holes”. I’m a keynote speaker, but I still need to work out the real implications of the conference theme. There’s a mood for consolidation, bringing functions in-house, shared services. Getting it together across the board is good, but we can’t get this agenda right without decentralisation, empowerment, and putting the customer at the heart of everything. I’ll focus on tat side and I think there’s a convrsation to be had.

I don’t think this community has tapped into the potential of blogs and wikis yet. They’re more than welcome to try it out here, so I’ll invite them on board. We could have an Ideal Government strand on the CIO/Minister relationship, how to engage with critical friends or what every government CIO needs to know about human rights.

I’m encouraged by many delegates who welcome an outside point of view but intimidated also – they’re smart people with weighty responsibilities, and this is their private hangout. I’ll treat the conference as Chatham House Rules except that the fact it’s happening is public knowledge.