James Smith

RESOURCE CENTRE

Tax and Revenue Management: A government’s lifeblood

IT has provided the opportunities for governments to remodel the entire process of tax collection over the last decade. It is, however, a continuously evolving process and governments the world over need to constantly upgrade their tax systems to optimise their revenue workflows.

Unlocking Public Value

A recent SAP study confirmed that those organisations which adopt best practices in the areas of scope and adoption, process standardisation, technology and customer governance, do perform better, and do so as their best practice maturity increases.

Governments and Socialising

The advent of social media has seen governments hopping onto the bandwagon in a bid to further engage citizens.

Editors

James Smith

Managing Director

Tel: (+65) 6324 7612
Email: james.smith@alphabet-media.com

James Smith is the Managing Director of FutureGov, and oversees the editorial direction of both this online community and the print magazine.

He established the original publication back in 2003, and has been closely involved in its development since that time – spearheading new areas of focus, particularly in the fields of local government, digital inclusion and national policy.

James enjoys interviewing senior policymakers from Asia Pacific and the wider world, discussing the machinery of government and the changing expectations of what the public sector’s role is.

He has a degree in Modern History from Oxford University.

His background is in journalism, where he has worked for a range of different publications in London, San Francisco, and for the last 10 years Singapore. He dabbled a bit in History at Oxford, likes kicking footballs round the office and wears stripey socks. He spends way too much time on books, and hopes to write a few of his own one day.

22 March 2011 | Feature

The perils of vanity publishing

Anyone can put up a web site these days, which is why everyone does. There’s a plethora of web sites which have a pretty logo, aggregated news feeds, and an uncertain grasp on who should be reading them, and why. You can spot them a mile off: a skeleton crew of irregular contributors supplemented by automated trawls of press releases and other web flotsam and jetsam. It’s a form of content, certainly - but it’s never going to amount to much. Somebody should tell those responsible, but truth is - nobody really cares.

20 July 2010 | Interview

Delivering u-govt in Korea

The introduction of technology has been critical to transforming the way Korea’s public sector operates, says Jung-Hyub Kang, the country’s most senior information officer. Interview: James Smith. Edited: Robin Hicks

7 June 2010 | Interview

Australia's GCIO reveals priorities

In the wake of major reviews of the cost structure of government IT, and the use of social media by government, FutureGov sat down with Ann Steward, Australian Government Chief Information Officer, and General Manager of the Australian Government Information Management Office.

10 July 2009 | Interview

Birmingham: a new model for city administration?

Glyn Evans, Corporate Director of Business Change with Birmingham City Council, explains how England’s second city is embarking on the country’s most far reaching local government transformation programme.

27 May 2009 | News

GCIO to deliver keynote at Government Information Forum 09

Hong Kong’s Government Chief Information Officer Jeremy Godfrey is delivering the keynote presentation at this year’s Government Information Forum in Hong Kong.

13 November 2008 | Research

Asia’s leading government agencies announced

It was an exciting evening at Asia’s 2nd annual Government Technology Awards in Bali, Indonesia – the “Oscars” of Asia’s public sector modernisation efforts – where outstanding government projects across Asia were recognised and rewarded at a regional ceremony in front of an invited guest list of senior government officials from 15 countries.

13 November 2008 | News

Brunei GCIO candid about e-govt inadequacies

Over ambitious moves to e-government led to ‘fragmentation’ of effort, says GCIO and Permanent Secretary of the Prime Minister’s Office in Brunei.

9 October 2008 | Interview

Hong Kong GCIO in conversation

Jeremy Godfrey, appointed Hong Kong’s Government Chief Information Officer earlier this year, met up with James Smith for a chat. This is an abridged selection of his comments.

25 September 2008 | News

New Zealand varsity upgrades backbone

With 22,000 students and 2000 staff on four major sites, Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, needs top grade communications. Efficient access to knowledge resources, administrative systems and educational applications all depend on reliable, high speed data connections throughout the campus.

24 September 2008 | News

Seoul inks plan for telephone services

Mayor Oh Se-hoon of Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) has announced an ambitious vision to provide advanced telephone-based citizen services, modeled on popular government call centres in Europe.

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