The FT has just published an article that outlines how several public sector organizations have seen dramatic cost-savings and other benefits through increased collaboration - the SSN Program gets a mention as well!

I am starting to see a lot more of this kind of effort across the globe, and there are some very innovative ways of approaching the issue.  The other day, I even came across a clause in the State of Texas legislature that aims to 'SOLVE COMMON BUSINESS PROBLEMS THROUGH SHARED APPLICATIONS'...but what is the motivation to do this, and why does government care about it enough to create a policy like the Texans?

Reinventing the wheel is not a new concept (or cliche), yet despite the fact that everyone know what it means, we still do it over and over.  I believe the perception of 'double effort' is one of the reasons it happens.  Scenario: That spreadsheet/tool/widget that your friend in another department sends you is just too difficult to understand, and sometimes trust, whenever you have the added problem of trying to understand the problem you need to solve as well...so you build a new solution, tweaking it along the way as you get to grips with the problem.

Perhaps another motivation is that there is intellectual satisfaction in the build process - how exciting is reworking someone else's stuff?  Where's tke kudos in that?

The value in sharing IP, whether it is code, a presentation, or in the case of the State of Illinois, procurement information, comes at a number of levels:

• Taxpayer value - the development costs are reduced.
• Pockets of expertise can be harnessed and output made available more broadly.
• New innovation comes faster - less time is spent doing the 'bread and butter' tasks, and more time can be spent on driving new innovative capabilities.

...to name but a few.  I would be interested in hearing more stories if you have them either here or on the forums.