Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 25, 1993 TAG: 9307250230
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: D-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By GARY CHAPMAN 1993 TECHNOLOGY REVIEW MAGAZINE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Not only did the offices feature few personal computers and no electronic mail, but anyone picking up the same telephone line as the president could eavesdrop.
George Bush, like many executives of his generation, was unfamiliar with the marvels of the personal computer revolution, and the office he left to his successor reflected that style.
Clinton, on the other hand, not only ran as a "high-tech" candidate but also introduced computer technologies to the presidential campaign that promise to change the way the White House does business.
For example, Clinton was the only candidate to tap into the power of computer networks to get out his message.
Using CompuServe, a popular computer network, the campaign staff in Little Rock distributed copies of Clinton's speeches, press releases, white papers and schedules. They also responded to electronic messages sent by those using any computer network with a "gateway" to CompuServe.
The Clinton administration recently confirmed this interest in computer networks when it hired Jock Gill - a network maven who managed Clinton's E-mail during the campaign - as director of public access, E-mail, and electronic publishing. It's a new post in the White House Office of Communications.
Since Gill's appointment, the administration has been doing a great deal of electronic outreach.
Connections to the White House are now available on CompuServe, America Online, MCI Mail, Prodigy and the Internet. The universe of people connected to these services is more than 13 million.
Computer networks are carrying daily White House releases, including press statements, summaries of Clinton proposals, the full text of speeches and position papers and even announcements of government appointments, complete with biographies.
Computer network users can also send E-mail to the White House. On CompuServe, the command "Go White House" prepares a message for the president.
MCI Mail offers the "VIEW WHITE HOUSE" option, and on America Online users can send mail to "Clinton Pz." Prodigy has a "Write to Washington" feature, and Internet's address is 75300.3115CompuServe.COM.
The White House receives about 800 E-mail messages per day that cover a wide range of issues and opinions, says Gill. But, because of a shortage of computers and communications software, the Executive Office cannot respond electronically.
Electronic messages are delivered to the White House on disk, printed on paper, and then handled as regular mail by correspondence officials. E-mail correspondents are even asked to send their postal addresses if they want a reply.
Eventually, say both Gill and Jeffrey Eller, the White House director of media affairs, the administration wants to have the capability to respond to E-mail over computer networks, as well as route mail electronically to the most appropriate recipient in the executive branch.
"A lot of people think that because we're the White House we can wave a magic wand and have a state-of-the-art system with the best workstations and a roomful of people," Gill says. "But we're trying to build something in the midst of a White House that is trying to cut spending by 25 percent."
To deal more effectively with a high volume of electronic mail - an amount that Gill predicts eventually could jump to tens of thousands of messages per day as more people go online - the White House has called on a group of researchers from MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory to develop a computer program that will analyze the content of a message and forward it to the appropriate department.
The researchers propose that each message sent to the White House should comply with a standard electronic form that would request the user's name and address as well as more specific information, such as whether the sender is writing as the representative of an organization or requesting copies of pertinent government publications.
Once a formatted message is received, a program would analyze responses to specific questions, search the text for key words, and route the message accordingly. For example, repeated mention of "Bosnia" might automatically forward the message to the State Department.
This seemingly simple plan presents several thorny technical challenges. Most important among them is the assortment of incompatible transmission standards and protocols required by the various networks.
Translation programs would be needed to automatically format text regardless of its source so that it could be sent over any given network.
Also, because E-mail messages can be segmented easily, with parts routed separately, guidelines would have to be drawn up to ensure that a message does not become something other than what the sender intended it to be.
Finally, notes Eric Loeb, an MIT team member, if the Clinton-Gore plan for rewiring the nation with high-bandwidth fiber optic cable takes effect, people will be sending the White House not just text and telephone messages, but video and graphics as well, making information management an even bigger challenge.
Despite these challenges, Gill is bolstered by the fact that other organizations have dealt with many of these nagging technical issues, albeit on a smaller scale.
He also believes that the administration will make this project a priority since "connecting the government and the people" is one of its tenets.
"If the White House can learn what citizens want and can process the information more intelligently and more interactively," he says, "everyone wins."
Gill wants to make the Clinton administration the first to routinely include E-mail addresses on its business cards. Just as telephone calls to the White House are considered a fundamental part of American democracy, he hopes that computer messages will someday be just as common.
by CNB