Introduction

The cries for more computer expertise have sometimes resembled the cry for more switchboard operators when the manual phone systems first started to expand. Back then one was led to expect that there would be a bottomless need for swift-handed, cheery-voiced switchboard operators as the Western world got hooked up to the phone system. At the end of the 90s the general expertise predicted a bottomless need for people with web skills. Students with a minimum of HTML-experience quit college to take on high-pay jobs. The switchboard operators, however, were soon made obsolete by automatic switchboards – and the need for simple web skills is now replaced by a need for fewer, but highly trained editors and systems developers. Neither of the groups turned out to have sustainable skills.

We have to remind ourselves of this, because it is easy to forget: We need long-term understanding and sustainable competence as much as we need the more technical, up to date skills.

I have been asked to talk about the role of government versus the role of businesses in promoting eSkills. How can and should Government promote eSkills in a rapidly changing society?

Let me first say: The business community has a major responsibility in the transformation of the economy and in grasping the opportunities of ICT. They also have a major role in education and lifelong learning: They are the ones who actually have to make sure their employees have the knowledge and competence needed for a good job. This includes ICT. They have to spot their needs. They have to plan for new needs and new competences. Just-in-time when it comes to skills, might easily become just-too-late — as we have seen with private academies giving crash education in web mastery. We see today that too many of those taking the crash course ICT-educations are unemployed, while the ones going for a full university degree instead, have fewer problems finding a job even in today’s tight market.

Government, on the other hand, is and must always be a long-term player. The role of the public education system is to provide the long-term expertise needed by society. Government is responsible for the frameworks. Our business is providing the basis that make the other, and more ephemeral skills possible to learn quickly. Our main responsibility is the general level of qualifications in society.

Let us start by looking at an often overlooked, but important way that government itself is spreading knowledge and competence: By deploying eGovernment.

Deploying eGovernment services will promote eSkills.

Developing new services, improving the quality of existing services and increasing efficiency — these are all challenges for governments related to frameworks for businesses and people. Norway has a large public sector. It employs one third of the Norwegian work force. When we developed our eNorway 2005 Action Plan, efficiency and quality in the public sector were core areas of concern. Our goal is to deploy information technology so that we can boost efficiency and services in the public sector, to create an efficient framework for society.

Both industry and the majority of the general public in Norway have unusually solid foundations for using ICT. Norwegians are avid Internet users. 37 per cent of the population use the Internet daily, and 72 percent of the people have Internet access. This population is now expecting electronic services of high quality from the public sector. People expect services from the government at least as flexible and good as what they get from banks, airline companies, Amazon.com or other businesses. And people want these services available without having to study the government organization charts first.

With so many people working in the public sector, eSkills promoted inside Government administration spill over from the bureaucracy to the general populace – and on a significant scale. When those who use eGovernment services start making demands, when they want improved public e-service — then we are entering a positive feedback spiral. Improving public e-Service is an important way of improving society’s general level of skills.

But deploying eGovernment also teaches us a lot about what is needed to make the always-on, ultra-connected society work.

Experiences

I am proud to say that several Norwegian public agencies are quite advanced in terms of ICT, like the Tax Administration and the central register authorities. Still, the development is going too slow. We are not as coordinated as we should. Commitment and knowledge among employees and management are not — too put it mildly — evenly distributed throughout the offices of the public administration. The advantage is that these differences give us a large and varied body of experience to draw lessons from.

It is vital that the public administrative services draw on experiences not only from their own sector. We need better standardization – another word for making systems for cooperation. We need better coordination of initiatives, so that efforts are not spread over too many areas. Overstretch leads to poor results.

So we learn that in order to make eGovernment work better — we need better skills in how to manage experience, evaluation – and organization. Especially managers need to upgrade their skills. These are lessons learned from deploying e-government.

But I will add this: Governmental IT projects and initiatives have not always been success stories. Too often we have failed in planning and implementation. This has inevitably led to a certain hesitation in launching new ambitious projects and in harvesting the benefits of new solutions and new ways of working. There is still room for ambitions and visions but more than anything, there is room for better accomplishment and stronger will to harvest the benefits.

This leads to discussing the need for organizational changes. The most important recognition is may be that ICT investments do not by themselves lead to improved services and a better Government.

Making ICT work - organizational change

It is when we combine ICT investments with organizational changes, that we reap the highest benefits. Organizational changes may be new strategies, new internal processes and new organizational structures. Today, workers need many and changing skills. They must be able to thrive in different social setups. The organizations often need flatter management structures, better employee involvement and better management of informal information flows. There is an unlimited need for Leonardo da Vincis in the modern work place, only with better social skills. In Norway, we are creating a bachelor study in ICT organization skills this very autumn, as one of several new dual studies created in our new university reform.

In order to apply technology well, the users must also trust it. And trust comes from mastering. Trust is too often overlooked. Skills and mastery are the foundations of trust.

The important aspect for policy makers to note, is that these complementary investments are typically much more costly than the initial outlays for ICT investments. To make ICT work, OECD studies suggest, that for each Euro invested in ICT, we have to follow up with 9 Euros of investment in intangible assets such as Human Resources and organizational practices. This is an important realization. It tells us that the major challenges are non-technical. They are within the organization.

And then, one might ask: Taken into account the tremendous cost of organizational development and change, will it then be worth it? Can we afford it? In my view, the answer is obvious. The cost of not investing is much higher: It may easily be failed projects, organizations in disarray and lost investments.

The new basic skills needed most are those that combine the traditional skills taught in the educational system with the new ones that we have seen the need for during the last decade. The new basic skills are the skills of change, of combination. We need people with a strong foundation of knowledge that can adapt quickly and learn from experience, people that can evaluate their own experience and change course when the course needs to be changed.

It is with these same skills we can make ICT work for as many as possible.

In Norway, we like to think of the Information Society as a triangle. The triangle has three corners: Competence, Infrastructure and Content. In the private sector, different businesses work in different corners: Telecom companies, publishers, media houses, academies and consultancies. But they are all closely connected and they all depend fully on each other to make viable businesses. I have been talking about frameworks. Government’s role in this triangle is to provide the framework, so that the triangle works and will continue to work; so that the interaction needed to keep up the triangle takes place. An important part of this framework is building basic, long-term, sustainable skills, that ensure trust, that can thrive in changing times. Skills that hinder failed investments and make sure that new investments are even better managed than the last ones. Long term, sustainable skills for the connected society. These are the skills that Government is building, both through education and through deploying eGovernment.

Thank you for your attention.