Not long ago, my routine here in the northwest hills of Connecticut was fairly “normal.” While there was this black swan called COVID-19 out in the distance, it didn’t seem overly worrisome. I was working with government agencies across various mission areas to help them leverage cognitive transformation and hybrid cloud to better serve citizens. I was looking at my 401k investments and allowing myself to believe I might be able to retire in another ten years. And I was looking forward to spending time with my daughters when they came home from university for spring break.
That all changed almost overnight. My daughters are now home—not just for spring break, but for the summer. I can’t bring myself to look at my 401k retirement account. But most importantly, friends and colleagues are falling ill, and I can’t be there to sit with them.
We are living through an unprecedented moment for humanity that touches every aspect of business, technology, and society. Stable and effective government is at the heart of managing through this crisis, and what we do now will have longer-term implications for the health and safety of our families, our citizens, the economy, and even global stability. And I am gratified to see so many of the government leaders I have gotten to know so well over the years rise to the challenge.
The private sector also is stepping up to help governments become more efficient, resilient, and robust in delivering on their missions. You may have heard of the High-Performance Computing Consortium, where IBM is bringing together the US federal government, industry, and academic leaders to provide access to the world’s most powerful high-performance computing resources in support of COVID-19 research. You also may have heard we are helping cities and states provide mobility tools to support both government workers and students who have been sent to work from home.
Collectively, we are marshalling our resources and bringing the right communities of experts to work together: governments, scientists, developers, partners, academic institutions, health agencies, and IBMers. We’re managing through the COVID-19 outbreak doing what we do best—applying data, knowledge, insights, and even raw compute power to solve problems. Together, as a community, we can find our way through this.
In the past few weeks, we have been collaborating with many of our government clients and driving action across three critical aspects of their response strategies.
- Immediate response: How can we work together to most effectively manage the immediate crisis, and the impacts to our citizens and overall mission? The core issues governments are facing in the next 30 days center on situational awareness and emergency management, continuity of government operations, and citizen engagement and care. IBM is helping to address these three areas through:
- Cognitive analytics to understand what is happening right now, predict where the virus will spread, and match resources to demand
- Mobility tools and infrastructure to ease the intensifying strain on citizen services, coupled with a reduced workforce capacity resulting from work-from-home hurdles and restricted citizen movement
- Cognitive assistant and self-service tools so agencies can confidently provide services to help maintain physical and mental health, income and public safety.
- Recover and rebuild: As society moves past the immediate 30- to 45-day response, the next set of questions will cover a wide range of issues, including how we can rebuild agencies’ confidence, enable citizens to get back to work; get the private sector back to full output; and shorten the length of the downturn. Technology and process transformation have big roles to play in effectively making that happen. In support, IBM is offering expanded emergency operations, along with our social program management and healthcare capabilities.
- Optimize for the new normal: How can we help you as your business processes evolve, and you begin to seek better ways to operate? We are watching entire industries transform right before our eyes. As society moves down the backside of the curve, do we think government agencies and citizens will accept returning to the old normal? Probably not. Most likely, agencies will start re-imagining everything. They will ask, what happened and why? How will we avoid this in the future? What did we learn about how we could work remotely? What processes and systems helped, and which became obstacles? Which parts of my agency or business need to be redesigned completely? How do I evaluate my adaptability and resiliency, so I am better prepared in the future for unforeseen events?
Helping government agencies address these questions—and then putting the answers into action with design thinking, agile development, cognitive process automation, and Digital Reinvention®—is at the core of what IBM brings to government.
During times of severe and unprecedented crises, governments need to take prompt action in a decisive manner—even in the face of limited information. Given the complexity and dynamics of managing through this extraordinary global crisis, it is expected that priorities will quickly evolve. And the sharpest focus will be on the most immediate societal issues at any specific moment. These are the times when extreme collaboration and sharing world-class capabilities can quickly and effectively have the greatest impact.
A final note: During my time as a first responder, a mantra was drilled into my head: “The first rule of emergency management is, do not become part of the emergency.” I hope you stay safe in the days ahead and get time with your family and loved ones. At IBM, we know that those who work for the government fill critically important roles in our society, and it is essential that you take care of yourself and the teams you lead.
If you would like to hear more, please feel free to contact me or check out our COVID-19 Action Guide. We are in this together—and our joint commitment to accelerate society’s recovery will make it a better world.
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