About the website and business plan
Overall summary
The website entitled “Electronic government – a recipe for failure?” is a non-governmental website. The site is intended to serve as an online knowledge repository for e-government related information, best practices and case studies. The website aims to present various sources of ideas and opportunities for learning further about the subject. The primary focus of the website will be geared to e-government in developing countries, on which there is particularly limited amounts of literature available, the majority of which is not available in an online format.
Much of literature available reveals that the forces of globalization have advanced the orthodoxy of neo-liberal, democratic forms of governance. Indeed, the experience of a few Western countries has been universalized and is forcibly applied the world over. However, the literature on ICTs for development and e-governance in developing countries runs counter to this trend, stressing the importance of the particular and the contextual. This website aims to investigate particular case studies as well as the general literature on the field with the aim of disseminating factual information without apparent bias.
Mission Statement
The website is intended to help companies and governments interested in implementing e-government solutions. Furthermore, the site is primarily academic in nature, and so that some of the issues raised on the website will lead to further research into the field. For instance, recent research has suggested that 35% of e-government projects are total failures (e-government was not implemented or was implemented but immediately abandoned), and 50% are partial failures (major goals were not attained and/or there were undesirable outcomes) (Heeks in Most eGovernment-for-Development Projects Fail: How Can Risks be Reduced? iGovernment Working Paper Series, Paper number 14. 2003)
It is imperative that governments of developing and developed countries realize the importance of recognizing that for most e-government applications in developing countries, context is crucial for determining the success of the case. This is of particular issue if developing countries continue to attempt to implement and consume homogenous technological solutions based on Western ideals and forms of democracy
The website aims to inform its users of the numerous pitfalls involved in e-government applications. While there are certainly benefits to such systems, research suggests that context of the country is crucial to the success of any e-government systems, particularly in developing countries.
Target Audience
Academics, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) interested in development and e-government, governmental bodies considering implementing such solutions within their own countries and even potentially members of the general public who are interested in learning more about such systems that could affect the way they live.
However, it is not assumed that all visitors to the site will be familiar with the notion of e-government. Thus, a simple overview of the topic will also be provided.
Competition
There is surprisingly little competition to the website as the moment. The World Bank dedicates a small part of their website to e-government and various small, individually maintained websites such as egovblog.com offer limited amounts of information. However currently there is no single comprehensive website relating to e-government in developing countries. Furthermore, the majority of websites relating to e-government are government sponsored, with the aim of promoting their own e-government technologies, rather than provided unbiased forms of information.
Maintaining a competitive advantage over time will be difficult since it will require continual updating of the website. However, perhaps the website could become acquired by the World Bank or partner with smaller websites such as egovblog.com to form a single, unified website on the topic. The website could be modified to allow multiple webmasters to post relevant information on the topic and update the website so as to keep the information current.
Business Model
The website will follow a non-profit model, and will not charge the user a fee for accessing the information. Since the website will primarily be hosted on Kamil Dada's personal webspace at Stanford, hosting costs should not be an issue in the early stages of the website's life-cycle.
Should funding be required in the future, such as employing a user to maintain the website further or should website traffic increase so dramatically that hosting the site on external webservers is required, there is the ability to gain funding through a variety of formats.
While the possibility of gaining revenue through small text-based ads similar to Google's AdSense or banners exists, such a solution is not considered to be appropriate for the nature of the website.
A better means of funding can arise from sponsors, foundations or even government grants. However, costs are not likely to be an issue at the early stages of development, and if they are required in the future, a loan from the Stanford Credit Union would cover the costs incurred until an appropriate grant was found.
Initially, the only costs incurred by the website will be of the personal time of Kamil Dada. While he has agreed to work without a fee, creating the site I will require the investment of hours of work. Since once of the goals of the website is as a project for the CS – 73N class at Stanford, time constraints are unlikely to be an issue during the first month the website is launched. However, in the future, the need to hire an employee to update the website may be necessary.
Marketing Plan
The first steps will be to advertise the website within the Political Science Department at Stanford University. Since part of the need of the website is to aid research in the field, the department is particularly interested in the outcome of the website. Further, advertisements could be placed on other websites relating to e-government on the Internet. The website address will also be provided to online “bloggers” in the field with the hope that they will find the website useful and start to use it and blog about it.
Measurement of success
Since profit cannot be considered as a measurement of success in such a website, the website can be considered successful once it contains an almost comprehensive bank of information on the subject. Setting targets such as the amount of users to visit the website would not be relevant, since it would be simply be random number. Furthermore, one of the goals of the website is to aid personal research in the future. Thus, if it can contain relevant information in an organized matter on the field, then the website can be considered successful. Additionally, the website would not have a large user base, as the field is relatively narrow, and only specialists in the area would require the information. Alternatively, if governments across the world are interested in the website, or request further information through the website, it can be considered successful as well.
Qualifications and experience of the team members
The website will initially only employ Kamil Dada, a freshman at Stanford University as the only manager of the website. Kamil has extensive experience in creating website solutions and so will serve as the webmaster. He is currently pursuing a double major in B.A. Political Science and a B.S. in Science, Technology and Society.
While he may not have extensive knowledge in the field of e-governments, he is very interested in the field and has recently received a grant from the Political Science Department to pursue independent undergraduate research on the area, starting in the next 5 months. Furthermore, the majority of information available on the website will contain research information and case studies based on pre-existing research undertaken in the field.
Page last updated: June 02, 2008
