- Make an attempt to solve a mundane problem having to do with a government function - the computerized standardization of US postal addresses, for example.
- Sell it to companies that do a lot of mailing.
- Get the government interested in your solution.
- Get the government to issue standards for the process, hopefully based on your solution.
- Get the government to form a committee, on which you sit, which will issue periodic updates to the standards.
- Somehow ensure that the government never compiles and reconciles the original standards and the decades of updates into a single comprehensive document set.
- Do this for 20 years.
This way, nobody in their right mind will try to implement their own solution because the rules are labyrinths built inside other labyrinths with labyrinths on the walls and ceilings. It will always be cheaper to just buy your solution. Ta-da! You win!
This is all in theory, of course. I don't know if this is precisely why my current job is so mind-bendingly difficult or not. But, something similar must have happened.