22 September 2014 - U.S. Digital Service

U.S. government agencies understand that counting on your fingers is a proven digital technology, and are tentative about leaving it behind. When the Internal Revenue Service, which doesn’t know the word “backup”, found itself required by law to offer online tax filing, they bought the cheapest possible unusableware, punting the job to the private sector. And healthcare.gov—enough said. But now a new agency, the U.S. Digital Service, is charged with “removing barriers to exceptional Government service delivery,” which should turn things around for sure because “exceptional” is bureaucratese for “adequate”. Its goal will be to “delight the customer,” where the customer is the agency, which will be delighted to redefine “adequate” as “what we’re already doing.”