Goodbye Choy Peng

I really enjoyed the final interview with Wu Choy Peng, Singapore's outgoing Government CIO. A very practical leader with an absence of airs and graces, she impressed me with her articulate grasp of the challenges facing government agencies in an increasingly broadband, rich media environment.

She was candid about the need for the government machine to embrace new tools and ways of thinking about government services and information delivery. Traditionally government agencies are geared to delivering content through worthy, and wordy, print media. This cuts against the trend for media consumers to opt for relevant, bite-sized information nuggets that can be digested easily - and is certainly far removed from the kind of multimedia content being offered by a new generation of content providers.

In a more mobile, more fractured media landscape, governments are going to have to contend with being just one voice amongst many - and they will need to form integrated alliances with third party content providers and aggregators in order to speak the language of consumer niches. Although she's just about to hand in her IDA access card, and head for greener pastures at shipping firm NOL, it's heartening to see that government 'gets' the challenge - and opportunity - of new media.

You can see Choy Peng in full flood in our forthcoming supplement celebrating 25 years of government computerisation in Singapore.