I spent the better part of my 20-year career in technology engaging with state governments. I worked for major corporations selling software and consulting services to governments. I managed teams that did the same. I was a research fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. I have done consulting, systems integration and project management through a nonprofit corporation I ran for the sole purpose of supporting government technology efforts. I could argue no one outside of government was more intimate with state government IT than I was.

Despite all that, when I became the first CIO of Georgia, I was amazed at just how different government looks from the inside.

In the 2000 legislative session, two years after being elected to office, Gov. Roy E. Barnes introduced legislation that created the Georgia Technology Authority (GTA). His intention was to establish a central IT organization that would become the centerpiece of his effort to transform state government into a state-of-the-art public management model by melding the best of what he could find from both the private sector and other state government IT management models, sprinkling in ideas to address the unique circumstances of Georgia.

In January 2000, everyone's attention was on IT. Because of Y2K remediation, the Georgia Legislature learned the scope of the state's annual IT expenditures, which were huge. Lawmakers were angry because no one was managing the expenditures, and no one could be held accountable for letting the Y2K bug bite them.

This led the Legislature to overwhelmingly support the governor's proposal for the new GTA governance model, despite its usual reluctance to provide the executive branch with the kind of concentrated authority the GTA would possess.

In fact, the scope of the GTA authority was so complete that in terms of IT budgets, projects, operations, standards and practices, it eclipsed the level of control delegated by any other state.

That's where I came in.

Through my nonprofit, Public Interest Breakthroughs (PIB), I provided no-cost consulting to the Georgia Department of Human Resources (DHR) on its child welfare system efforts. While engaged with DHR, I met the governor's policy director, Renay Blumenthal, on several occasions to explain why DHR had so much difficulty.

In March 2000, shortly after the legislation passed, Blumenthal asked me to meet with the governor about the new job of state CIO and executive director of the not-yet-formed GTA. I instinctively said no. I was not interested for three reasons. First, I was making really good money -- twice what the state would pay. Second, my family was happy and comfortable living in northern Virginia, and I could not imagine telling my wife we were going to move again. Finally, I just could not see myself as some ineffective bureaucrat. There was no way I was going to be a cog in the giant machine that was the nation's 10th largest state government.

Most of the folks I knew in government IT positions were lifers. They lived in the state capital, liked living there and didn't want to move even for a "better job." I had always been willing to do whatever it took to move my career forward, and CIO often stands for career is over.

When I hung up the phone I turned to Mark McGowan, my partner in the pro-bono work PIB was doing for DHR and one of my very best friends. "You are never going to believe the call I just got," I said. His reaction surprised me. He said I would regret not looking into it.

Mark reminded me that I "got off on making a difference," and although we felt like our nonprofit work was rewarding and important, the states we worked with continuously fell short of their goals. Although they were