Editor's Notebook

o attend the annual General Services Administration's annual IRMCO technology conference in Virginia Beach, as I did in early September, is to be reminded of how hard it is to make the government's huge agencies work smoothly, and how important it is to have good people--top managers as well as technical specialists--paying close attention to the technological underpinnings of important programs.

The difficulties of which I learned at IRMCO seemed far removed from, yet also linked to, President Clinton's difficulties, which were rising even as I drove back from IRMCO. Listening to a radio broadcast of Sen. Joseph Lieberman's condemnation of the President, I thought that Clinton has made it all the more difficult for government to succeed. His dissipation of his Presidency will surely end the encouraging rise, in the past two years, of public trust in government.

Distrust fuels efforts in Washington to shrink, or terminate, agencies and their budgets. It saps agencies' ability to recruit the people they need. It demoralizes current workers. And heaven knows it's already hard enough to make government work. At the IRMCO conference, agency chief information officers and other senior technology workers were wrestling with daunting problems. Year 2000 issues were front and center, and it was clear that large concerns remain as to whether agencies can fix their own systems and make sure they'll work together with corresponding systems in state governments and private sector entities.

People at the conference were concerned with staffing issues that will be just as difficult to fix given government's poor reputation these days. In a survey, they were asked: "Within the next five years, how confident are you that your agency will retain its core institutional skills and knowledge?" Fully 70 percent were pessimistic, with 56 percent saying they were "not at all confident." Nor is there optimism about agencies' ability to replace departing workers, especially in technology specialties: nearly three-quarters of people surveyed think that their agencies' work will be harmed by shortages of IT professionals.

My years covering government have convinced me that its performance, and thus reputation, hinges on its mastering of modern computer and communications technologies. Yet as essential as these systems are to the functioning of modern government, their characteristics and potential are poorly understood by the executives in charge of programs and administrative systems. Sixty percent of the IRMCO attendees said they see a great need to educate these executives on the contributions technology can make.

Nancy Ferris' insightful coverage of trends in agencies' use of technology has enhanced Government Executive's contribution to meeting that educational need. And last year, in cooperation with the National Performance Review, the Brookings Institution and the Senior Executives Association, we also started the Government Technology Leadership Institute, whose December conference attracted 150 senior federal managers interested in learning more about technology's promise and pitfalls. This year's conference is scheduled for Dec. 1-2 at the Reagan International Trade Center in Washington.