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GCN Home > July 12, 1999 issue

Daley makes push for his ‘e-commerce department’ campaign

Officials say prospects for working via a secure intranet hinge on funding, departmentwide attitudes

By Frank Tiboni and Julie Britt
GCN Staff

Commerce Secretary William M. Daley’s plan for a paperless environment by 2002 is the culmination of more than a year of groundwork, but its success will depend on Congress’ willingness to fund the initiative and the department’s acceptance of massive change.

Daley announced the creation of Commerce’s Digital Department during a keynote speech that concluded the E-Gov 99 conference in Washington last month.

“I want to build a department that conducts personnel actions, and procurement, and as much internal business as feasible on a secure intranet,” Daley said. “I am setting a goal: By 2002, the Commerce Department will be truly an e-commerce department.”

Chief information officer Roger Baker and Karen Hogan, the new director of Commerce’s Digital Department, have 45 days to develop a plan that will guide the project for the next three years.

Baker said he was aware of Daley’s plan as far back as last July, when the secretary named him CIO.

Daley and other senior managers indicated the department wanted to embrace electronic commerce, Baker said.

“The biggest challenge we’ll have is establishing an intranet because we don’t have one,” said Baker, who helped build an online banking system for Visa member banks as vice president of marketing and product development for Visa International’s Interactive subsidiary in Herndon, Va.

Commerce needs $5 million to rewire its headquarters in the Herbert Hoover Building. For the past five years, Congress has denied the funding request, Daley said.

The $5 million is the estimated cost of the fiber-optic backbone needed to carry high bandwidth traffic for the intranet and other uses, Baker said.

“This project is a very small but fundamental piece of the secretary’s vision of a digital department,” Baker said.

The old wiring cannot handle the various media the agency wants to bring to desktop PCs, Baker said. The new wiring would let the department implement videoconferencing and training applications, as well as the intranet.

The Hoover Building was built in the Industrial Age, Daley said. “It needs to be brought in touch with the Information Age. Yet the process to get the money is still in the Dark Ages.”



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