This is a great question. Some laws make it harder to share data between parts of the federal government, for example. That might make spotting fraud, spam, or improper payments harder. At the same time, many folks might not want the government combining data across silos without a strong vetting process.
Or to take another example, there's a misconception that the Paperwork Reduction Act makes it illegal to talk to users: https://medium.com/@ErieMeyer/user-research-is-not-illegal-u... . In that case, the law might be reasonable, but you might have to tackle misconceptions or lore to make forward progress. A favorite hack to make forward progress is to ask "Show me where exactly in the law (or regulation or policy) it says that we can't do this?"
Going back to your question, the U.S. government is one of the largest organizations on the planet: millions of people. Veterans Affairs has about 380,000 employees alone. Meanwhile, Google just passed 100,000 employees.
Is it harder to infuse tech in government compared to a private company? Absolutely. But you also have to grade on the curve that the government is really big. And the flip side of that is that if you make a change in government, the scale means that you can affect millions or tens of millions of people with your change.
Or to take another example, there's a misconception that the Paperwork Reduction Act makes it illegal to talk to users: https://medium.com/@ErieMeyer/user-research-is-not-illegal-u... . In that case, the law might be reasonable, but you might have to tackle misconceptions or lore to make forward progress. A favorite hack to make forward progress is to ask "Show me where exactly in the law (or regulation or policy) it says that we can't do this?"
Going back to your question, the U.S. government is one of the largest organizations on the planet: millions of people. Veterans Affairs has about 380,000 employees alone. Meanwhile, Google just passed 100,000 employees.
Is it harder to infuse tech in government compared to a private company? Absolutely. But you also have to grade on the curve that the government is really big. And the flip side of that is that if you make a change in government, the scale means that you can affect millions or tens of millions of people with your change.