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Celebrating 25 Years

GCN Home > 10/11/04 issue

Meet the 2004 GCN Awards winners

By Thomas R. Temin, Editor in Chief & Senior Vice President

Want to renew your faith in the ability of government to get things done? Then keep reading about the winners of the 18th annual GCN Awards.

Reviewing the stories of the 10 agency and four individual award winners for this year’s gala reinforced for me how much the application of IT has changed and matured over the last 15 years. New tools have enabled new thinking, which in turn drives better tools.

The winning projects show that the government can adopt commercial software when that’s the most logical way to go, integrate legacy systems or develop whole new systems.

Spurred in part by the President’s Management Agenda, in part by the needs of our highly engaged military and in part by the possibilities of n-tier Web technologies, agencies are applying IT in ways that matter, measurably.

At one time IT was aimed purely at automating manual work, later at increasing efficiency. Now people try to revolutionize their mission delivery, achieving step-function improvements in service. For example, a goal of the Air Force Knowledge Services project is giving a better picture of how much of the air fleet is mission-ready.

Said CIO John Gilligan, “We used to have several people analyzing data for six months, and now one person can do it in a few minutes.”

Similarly, the Environmental Protection Agency’s Budget Administration System at last ties finances to activities and goals in a way that program managers and others can use meaningfully. What a concept. Said chief financial officer Terry Ouverson, “We are using financial management data to support our day-to-day work.” How many agencies can say that?

Our award winners show an uncommon degree of attention to what end users really need. Once the Marine Corps gave troops and officers Marlboros. Now they get MERIT—the Marine Corps Equipment Readiness Information Tool. In a word, it tells people who need to know the status of units and supplies they’ll need. The system was inspired by a number of grassroots tools Marine units had developed on their own.

More news on related topics: The Community, Executive Center, Great Managers, IT in Action, Management