Information technology continues to revolutionize the way the federal government operates by increasing communication, collaboration and hopefully effectiveness.

This week we report that the Army, known for generals giving orders and privates doing the grunt work, has started an online wiki to get input on revising and improving seven of its manuals on strategy and procedures. The online encyclopedia Wikipedia has flourished in recent years, showing the power of thousands of contributors pulling together. The Army hopes it can grow and learn using the wiki approach, reversing the traditional top down, hierarchical structure. What an amazing development.

But the Army is not alone. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) adopted an idea by two CIA officers to create Intellipedia, a Wikipedia-like clearinghouse of intelligence expertise. U.S. Intelligence agencies are often stove-piped, and frequently do not share information with each other. The intelligence community was blamed for failing to connect the dots in the events leading to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Today, analysts are encouraged to fully engage on this secure network. After three years, there is now library of crucial intelligence information with more than 900,000 pages and 100,000 user accounts.

But that's not all. The Department of Homeland Security's National Cyber Security Center is planning to deploy a wiki to facilitate collaboration among federal agencies on cybersecurity. They hope it will provide for real-time information sharing on threats, attacks, and responses and serve as a repository for technical and standards information. The department also has opened on online website devoted to immigration issues on the Southwest border. As we report, this site is meant both to inform the public of administration policies and create a civil dialogue about a very touchy subject.

Slowly but surely, the federal government is embracing the 21st century technology in many different sectors, and figuring out how to use it to improve government performance, and in some instances, make us safer. This is just the beginning of a potentially innovative and exciting period on government. - Judi