Every new technology goes through a maturity cycle. Many start in the with buzz-word category and moves its way to a status of “reliable and proven.” As new technologies migrate through this cycle, Federal Government agencies must delicately balance between “bleeding edge” status (too risky) and “dinosaur” (too late) paces of adoption. Prudence has its place and should be exercised before widely adopting new technologies (remember the Apple Newton?), given the potential impact and buying power of most agencies. However, agencies shouldn’t wait too long as the expectation of constituents has the potential to outpace the agency’s ability to deliver services. In the not too distant past, the only way to access certain information was to wait until it was printed and distributed by the Government Printing Office? Today’s government customer sees this as a laughable notion. They demand secure, instant, fast access as they interact with the government.
So it is with the cloud. In a now famous policy announcement dated back to February 8th, 2011 then Government CIO Vivek Kundra detailed the Government’s Cloud First Policy. All of the basic arguments were there – speed, scale, security, economic, cost, etc. These factors have become more advantageous since 2011, and yet some agencies are still in a wait-and-see mode. This shouldn’t be the case. Cloud technology is mature, secure, and reliable. This concept was put to the test and proven during the first years of the pandemic. How many more orders did you place with online retailers like Amazon? How were so many local restaurants able to pivot and create an online ordering system with curbside delivery and services like Door Dash and Grubhub? The cloud is how.
Flexibility and scale are two attributes that were front and center when businesses came to the realization that they needed to change if they had any chance of surviving the pandemic. Many entered markets they traditionally shunned and catered to clients with whom they hadn’t already built a relationship. Covid has demonstrated one reason why IT systems should be flexible; and why we shouldn’t too late to adopt new technology.
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