If ever there was a compelling impetus for change in federal government, it was the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Federal agencies--said the 9/11 Commission, said agency leaders, said just about everyone--needed to change from a "need to know" holding back of information to a "need to share" presumption of sharing.

So, it was disappointing to read this week that the FBI-led National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force--meant to provide a venue and a means for sharing information among participants--still adheres to need to know obstructions.

I mention this not so much as a matter that needs immediate rectification, although obviously it does, but as an example of how hard it is to get federal agencies to change.

It's a reality I'm not sure the current leaders of the Office of Management and Budget fully understand. Their actions seem to follow an assumption that just because the president orders it, agencies will do it. But look at the FBI. Nearly 10 years after the worst terrorist attacks on American soil, and the FBI still is holding jealously onto its information. If not even 9/11 can fully penetrate agencies, what good does the much weaker method of presidential fiat have?

Richard Neustadt long ago noted that presidents have influence rather than power--or rather, that their power is influence. Change in federal agencies requires concerted effort, a leveraging of influence and its repeated application. Flitting from one attempt of change to another disperses, wastes and dissipates influence--and the Obama administration's OMB is giving the impression of doing so.

It began boldly with an attempt to create a more transparent government. What resulted was a fair amount of transparency theater and some federal agencies outright ignoring some transparency-related deadlines. But rather than (at least publically) reinforcing the need for transparency, OMB is launching a new "customer service" effort, on top of its 25-point plan to change federal information technology.

An executive order for agencies to improve their "customer service" (by which is meant public interaction and, by the way, I'm a citizen, not a customer) will not necessarily improve anything at all. It will generate a lot of paper, waste a lot of staff hours in preparing that paper and maybe result in some marginal improvement. But by itself, any executive order will achieve little.    

Compounding this sense of short-attention span has been the short deadlines OMB has attached to its initiatives. Did anyone really think it was going to convince Congress to institute a new budget model for IT within six months (as called for by the 25-point plan)? In telling agencies to rush to create open government plans, did anybody expect anything other than a lot of hedging from many agencies? In now telling agencies to create a "signature initiative" within 180 days that uses information technology to improve service delivery, does OMB really think it's going to get great improvements?

In short, is OMB serious about change, or just serious about looking like it wants change? - Dave