esp the conclusion:
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The Gov2.0 projects have introduced us to an era where we do see governments adopting technology that we would have considered emerging and unstable in previous years, and they are adopting those technologies with a great deal of both success and a great deal of support from their citizens.

We have a new form of standardization that happens in real time.
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I could not agree more. We are actually seeing (for the first time) the idea of the Government as a thought leader(as opposed to traditionally as a laggard)

However, there is a precedence. Thats with defence. many of the innovations that we now take for granted are originally from a defence/military background (ex GPS)

To me, the real qs is: As the dynamics of power shift and become more complex (USA/EU/China/India etc) .. which government's 'standard' will prevail(if any) beyond their own boundaries and how does that get decided? The big emphasis in future(and I am biased) will be on telecoms standards which require global connectivity – hence already we could see this scenario of competing government standards playing out sooner rather than later!

kind rgds
Ajit