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VOL26 ISSUE2 | FEBRUARY 2013

govtech.com A P U B L I C A T I O N O F e . R E P U B L I C

Other

CIOThe

Will the chief innovation

officer really transform

government?

PLUS:Hawaii’s Tech

Overhaul

INSIDE: DIY Government: Smart civic engage-ment strategies

Picture This: Cops catch crooks with Pinterest

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®

©2013 NIC Inc.

Our book of 2012 eGovernment award-winning partners is a real page turner. NIC congratulates our state partners for continuing to use technology to increase efficiencies, reduce costs, and engage effectively with citizens & businesses.

The story continues at egov.com/awards

www.egov.com

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The inside pages of this publication are printed on 80 percent de-inked recycled fi ber.

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24 / DIY GovernmentEngaging volunteers delivers big results

— if you do it right.

By Jess Meyer Maria

Will the chief innovation offi cer

really transform government?

By David Raths COVER ILLUSTRATION BY ISTOCKPHOTO.COM

February 2013

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COVER STORY

12 / The Other CIO

Vol 26 | Issue 2

4 February 2013 // www.govtech.com

18 / An ‘A’ for CollaborationThe adoption of education standards spurs

states to create and share Web-based

curriculum and portals.

By Wayne Hanson

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govtech.comwww

DEPARTMENTS

30 / Catching Criminals on PinterestPolice departments are expanding their social media presence and enlisting the public’s help to solve crimes.

34 / Healthy ChoicesInteractive map lets California consumers compare hospital infection rates.

36 / Transformation in ParadiseA transparent process and public support drive a technology overhaul 30 years in the making in Hawaii.

COLUMNS

6 Point of View Living in a hyperconnected world means

that your competition is everywhere.

8 Four Questions Jon Walton, CIO, San Mateo County, Calif.

42 Gov2020 Can design thinking save government?

WWW.GOVTECH.COM

GT’s Top 25Meet 25 of government’s bright-est stars in our annual Doers, Dreamers and Drivers issue.

Playing NiceCook County CIO Lydia Murray talks about budding partner-ship with the city of Chicago.

Watch Your StepWhat your lawyer wants you to know about using social media in the public sector.

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NEWS

7 govtech.com/extra Updates from Government Technology’s

daily online news service.

10 Big Picture Solar trees generate onsite electricty at

the Discovery Place science museum.

38 Product News Samsung, Logitech, Timbuk2

40 Spectrum More research, more science,

more technology.

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By Steve Towns / Editor

RAISE YOUR

VOICEYour opinions matter to

us. Send comments about

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[email protected].

Publication is solely at the

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Government Technology

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submissions for length.

Competition Is Everywhere

A s this issue of Government Technol-ogy went to press, I had a chance to hear New York Times Columnist

Thomas Friedman speak at an event here in Sacramento, Calif. Among other things, Friedman is one of the nation’s most astute observers of how all of our lives are being changed by the combination of globalization and IT transformation.

The world, Friedman argues, has gone from being merely connected to hyper-connected — a place where citizens in the smallest villages in the most remote corners of the globe are linked to the Web via mobile phone, where revolutions unfold in real time on Twitter and YouTube, where even the summit of Mount Everest has 4G connectivity.

One implication of this new environment is a dramatic increase in performance expec-tations for nearly all of us, no matter what we do. “Average is offi cially over,” Friedman said. “Everyone needs to identify and nurture their unique value. Everyone needs to fi nd their ‘extra.’” In other words, competition for your job no longer comes from the person across town, it comes from nearly anywhere on the face of the Earth — and that’s raising the bar dramatically for education, creativ-ity, innovation, problem-solving and all the other skills employers fi nd important.

But the hyperconnected world isn’t just changing the game for individuals — it has similar implications for communities.

Increasingly, employees — especially the brightest and most skilled — can work from anywhere. The same is true for many businesses, which are no longer tied to a geographical area. More and more of these talented folks and desirable employers can choose where they locate, based on factors that are important to them. That raises the bar for cities and states, which will compete against global rivals on workforce readiness, infrastructure availability, quality of life and other factors.

All of this helps explain the emergence of chief innovation offi cers — and similar positions — in state and local governments. In Louisville and Philadelphia, for example, innovation offi cers are leading eff orts to modernize IT infrastructure to attract and support businesses. They’re also engaging and nurturing tech startups through various initiatives — often built around government data and solving community challenges.

Our cover story this month looks at where these new CIO positions are popping up, what they’re trying to do and why those activities are important.

Woody Allen’s famous line “90 percent of life is simply showing up” may have been true once. But that’s not good enough today — for individuals or communities. I would argue that the emergence of government chief innovation offi cers is one sign that cities and states are equipping themselves to compete in a hyperconnected world.

POINT OF VIEW


A N A W A R D - W I N N I N G P U B L I C A T I O N

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ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING WITH INFOR Effective Public Sector Solutions

In the public sector, change is some-

times hard — but when it comes to modernizing your old legacy systems, change can also be very good.

Government entities continue to rely on legacy IT solutions and busi-ness processes. These outdated tools and methods — some of which were “born” before the individuals who are

working on them — are insufficient to deal with the modern era’s financial and informational challenges. For one, they consume an inordinate amount of physical and electronic resources. Secondly, they confine important data to individual silos that are hard for workers outside the immediate depart-ment or group to access, making com-municating difficult and hampering

workplace productivity. While more and more data is collected daily, the lack of an integrated administrative platform makes leveraging all that information a difficult proposition.

In this environment, one way for agencies to deliver better services at a lower cost is to implement an inte-grated enterprise resource planning

A government technology® Thought Leadership Profile | Infor

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(ERP) system. An up-to-date ERP system can dramatically improve government operations by removing communication barriers, simplifying the reporting and transmitting of data, and reducing costs by putting several important administrative areas onto a single, easy-to-main-tain platform. Infor helps make this a reality.

A partner of over 1,200 state and local government agencies and 70,000 customers, Infor’s knowledge and wealth of experience with the public sector makes implementing a cutting-edge ERP system a more attractive option than ever. Infor Public Sector’s expanding portfolio, including solutions from acquisitions

like Lawson, provides the expertise and help government entities need to embrace ERP and reap the benefits of greater efficiency and lower costs.

Governments nationwide — from Long Beach, Calif., to Louisville, Ky., to Boise, Idaho, and everywhere between and beyond — leverage Infor technology to improve their processes, preserve revenue and deliver better services to citizens. The solutions can go well beyond ERP — Infor’s public sector tools encompass areas as wide-ranging as asset management, regulatory and compliance management, community development, public safety and more. And Infor middleware connects Infor solutions with outside third-party

applications, integrating them seam-lessly and providing an even simpler and smoother user experience.

Consolidating enterprise applica-tions with Infor offers agencies a plethora of benefits, including (but not limited to) improved operational efficiencies, greater transparency, bet-ter decision-making support and fewer manual processes. The following case study about Boise, Idaho, shows just how Infor solutions save public sector clients time and money by providing a more efficient, integrated user experi-ence with its innovative ERP services.

applications, integrating them seam-lessly and providing an even simplerand smoother user experience.

Consolidating enterprise applica-tions with Infor offers agencies aplethora of benefits, including (but not limited to) improved operationalefficiencies, greater transparency, bet-ter decision-making support and fewer

Public Sector Challenges: • Lower tax revenues and

ongoing fiscal difficulties leading

to shrinking budgets across

several critical areas

• Outdated legacy IT solutions

that waste time and resources

while impeding communication,

siloing information and hamper-

ing productivity

• Frustrated constituencies

demanding better service

provisioning

Infor ERP Solutions:• Serving over 70,000

customers and 1,200 state and

local government agencies

• Providing improved

performance through

consolidation and integration

of critical information channels

and processes

• Saving agencies revenue

through greater efficiency

2 ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT

“Why would you get more than what you need? By choosing a less expensive and less complex system, we decided that we could save $10 million over a 15-year period.” — Garry Beaty, CIO, Boise, Idaho

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A friendly and unassuming city located in the western portion of

Idaho, the city of Boise doesn’t neatly fit the term “large organization.”

With a population numbering just over 200,000 and a full-time work-

force of around 1,600, Boise — like most municipalities — lacks the

mammoth organizational structure of a metropolis like New York City,

Chicago or Los Angeles.

As a result, Boise’s administrative and organizational structure is sig-

nificantly different than those of larger cities. Unfortunately, the city’s old

enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution was designed to fit the needs

of a much bigger organization. It was a square peg jammed awkwardly

into a round hole, and the results were predictably disappointing. The

system’s complexity and difficult functionality, designed with the interests

of a Tier 1-sized enterprise, continually frustrated Boise’s workforce.

“If you were a casual user, it was a complex system to use,” says

Garry Beaty, Boise’s chief information officer. “We were looking for

something that was simpler.”

The system had another drawback — along with its size and

complexity came a hefty price tag, as all those bells and whistles

made it expensive to maintain. For a city of Boise’s size, the system’s

financial requirements were especially onerous. “I’m not sure a city

of 200,000 needed a solution that expensive or complex,” says Beaty.

Lastly, the system simply hadn’t been implemented very well in

the first place. Different components had been launched separately

and by various teams of IT personnel; as a result, its features were

not well integrated and functionality suffered even further. “We didn’t

implement it very well, so we found ourselves in a spot where we

didn’t really have an enterprise solution.

We had a human resources solution and an

accounting solution,” says Beaty. “And the

two systems were implemented at different

times and by different teams, so some of the

very basic stuff you would expect to get out

of it didn’t exist.”

Beaty and other Boise officials decided

that the city’s ERP architecture needed a

complete overhaul. After admitting the old

system just wasn’t fitting its needs, Boise

started again from scratch. The city sketched

out a comprehensive IT plan, a major com-

ponent of which was to find and install a

whole new ERP solution, one that provided all the functionality the city

needed without breaking the bank. “Why would you get more than

what you need?” says Beaty of the city’s new mindset. “By choosing

a less expensive and less complex system, we decided that we could

save $10 million over a 15-year period.”

After sending out RFPs, in November 2010 Boise selected Infor

Lawson, an ERP solution from Infor. The solution included three suites

to be integrated into a single final system: human resources man-

agement, enterprise financial management and supply chain man-

agement. The city subsequently contracted with Ciber, Inc. to perform

the implementation of the Infor Lawson solution. The implementation

project was dubbed “Vision 2020,” and began in early 2011.

During the proposal stage, Infor impressed the city with the func-

tionality and scale of its product, which were well suited for Boise’s

needs. The advantages allowed Infor to beat out several competitors

for the project. “We like the product we saw from Infor — and we

looked at several,” says Beaty.

Infor also passed the all-important “people” test. “We felt that it

was a people-oriented company,” says Beaty. “It’s turned out to be a

good relationship.”

Now using the Infor solution, Boise is doing things more efficiently

— and more cost-effectively — than before. The new system has

facilitated smoother operations and limited the complexity and con-

fusion that plagued the old setup.

“We went back and looked at our processes and asked, ‘Is this

really the best way to be doing business?’ We had several receivable

Better Fit Boise, Idaho, makes big strides by switching to an ideal ERP system

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CITY HALL PLAZA IN BOISE, IDAHO

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Conclusion: The right solution for governments at all levels is within reach

Many cities and organizations are in a position similar to Boise. Their needs are impressive, but not overly expansive. A bare-bones system won’t work for them, but neither will a Tier 1-optimized system with myriad features requiring a high level of acquired operational expertise. A middle ground must be found that offers the right combination of straightforward day-to-day function-ality for casual users and sophisti-cated performance tools ready for use when needed.

The success Boise had with implementing such an ERP system is well within reach for other municipali-ties. With the right amount of planning and a productive relationship with a proven technology vendor/adviser, it is well worth making the move to a cost-effective system that provides all the functionality necessary without sacrificing performance and ease of use.

Infor Public Sector delivers a comprehensive suite of integrated, government-specific solutions that drive civic planning and permitting, citizen relationships, asset and work management, utility billing, and regulatory compliance monitoring. Infor solutions increase operational efficiency, citizen satisfaction, government accountability, and process transparency and are transforming how governments provide services to citizens.

For more information, visit http://www.infor.com/industries/publicsector/.

systems, a fairly complex set of rules around purchasing, so we tried to address

some of the process issues,” says Beaty. “It’s a little early to tell, but I personally

believe the new system is easier to use, and I’ve got a lot of people using it who

also think it is.”

Making employees’ jobs easier has been a major benefit of switching to Infor.

Financial reporting and tracking for all users is now easier than ever. “We’re very

decentralized in the city of Boise,” says Beaty. “There’s a broad range of people that

have to apply some fairly complex purchasing rules around how things get paid.

We’re trying to simplify those and have a broader cross-section of associates who

are able to use these tools.”

Additionally, switching to a properly integrated ERP solution also allows Boise

to improve its internal communication and decision-making ability. While the old

system’s structure led to siloed information and difficulty relaying information across

departments and technical areas, the Infor Lawson suite makes data sharing and

collaboration simple.

“In the old system, it was very difficult to find very simple stuff, like finding out how

many full-time equivalent people we had employed. That sounds ridiculous, but when

you have two systems [referring to the old solution’s HR/accounting divide], those simple

things are hard to reconcile. That should be very different going forward,” says Beaty.

“The same is true for financial numbers. We’re trying to eliminate the number of

‘shadow systems’ that are out there so that we have one system of record. We think

that’s possible with this implementation,” he adds.

Beaty believes the new system’s integrated setup and ease of use is already

allowing Boise to free up resources to deliver better services to its 200,000-plus

citizens, and will continue to do so going forward. “We have some of the baseline

system done internally, so now we get to focus outwardly,” says Beaty. “We’re paying

a lot more attention to our websites, to how people want to pay utility bills and those

kinds of things. A better ‘customer experience’ — that’s where we’re going now.”

With its new ERP system providing a solid “baseline” for future action, Boise is pre-

paring to keep moving forward. “I think we need to look at a continual investment in

this project,” says Beaty. “This isn’t a one-time thing. We’re going to continue to invest

in the product and try to grow it and spread it across the enterprise. We’re trying to

take a broad view.”

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Smart Planning

govtech.com/extra: Updates from Government Technology’s daily online news service.

reader/comments:

“ It’s funny how lean and agile prin-

ciples are seen as retro to government

when they are standard approaches

in private industry. While utilizing more

transparency and visibility into pro-

cesses is a giant step forward, it truly

must be coupled (within IT especially)

with the strategy of the agency so that

highest value items can be approached

instead of ‘spinning wheels’ of low value

priorities. … Utilization of frameworks,

such as Kanban, scrum, scrum-ban

or value-driven empirical approaches

allows so much more ability to meet

shifting needs of government.

Holden in response to IT Directors Go Retro to Improve Workfl ow in Virginia

“ I was in Amherst today and I

could not believe how quickly my iPad

connected to the Wi-Fi and updated

all my apps. There’s no excuse for

more towns not doing the same thing

as Amherst!

Sarah Knight in response to Amherst, Mass., Launches Fastest Muni Wi-Fi Network in State

“ Government raises revenue by

collecting taxes and fees. For-profi t

business organizations raise revenue

by off ering products and services to

potential customers. Taxpayers pay

for government to exist. You can’t ask

government to raise revenue like a

for-profi t business. Buying a hunt-

ing license is timed to when hunting

season begins. Raising revenue to

provide better service? Government

agencies and departments have bud-

gets. To provide better services is to

make sure people obey the laws and

have appropriate licenses — not just

for those hunting but for those who

are not hunting. Revenue generation

is diff erent for the public sector. I don’t

want government spending time on

how to generate revenue. I want gov-

ernment to do their job. Not everything

in the private sector is appropriate to

the public sector.

Pat Janenko in response to 9 Ways to Optimize E-Commerce Strategies

TOP-TWEETED STORIES

118tweets

62tweets

53tweets

Using Social Media to Enhance Situational Awareness Infographic: Big Data and Your Health 2012 Year in Review

HOT OR NOT?Most-read stories online:Boise Library’s Catalog

Emulates Google, Ama-

zon Search 3,092 VIEWS

Catching Criminals

on Pinterest?

2,634 VIEWS

Finding the

Next Facebook

1,252 VIEWS

Least-read stories online: Are Driving Laws Fit for

Driverless Vehicles?

185 VIEWS

Better Living Using

Open Data

184 VIEWS

Security Is Only a

Heartbeat Away

162 VIEWS


The phrase “planning for the road ahead” is something the

New Mexico Department of Transportation takes literally.

To assist with the development of infrastructure projects like

designing roads and highways, the department will roll out

AutoCAD Civil 3D 2013 modeling software this year to

generate 3-D visualizations of proposed plans. Because the

software is GIS-based, transportation staff in New Mexico

will be able to generate 3-D prototypes, build construction

sequencing and analyze “what-if” scenarios on projects.

The use of GIS data sets will also help the state prepare

for another trend: machine-guided construction, which can

reduce labor time and reap cost savings.

The amount of information that organizations world-wide collected in 2011,

according to TechAmerica. That number is expected

to double each year.

ZETTABYTES

1.8

WHO SAYS?S?O S S?S?WHO SAYS?S?“Now this is the superpowered — superfragilistic — Internet activity that will bring progress.”

www.govtech.com/quoteFeb13

Rethinking Government BusinessChicago says goodbye to three internal email systems and hello to cloud email.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s offi ce announced that the city is migrating all city

department desktop applications and email for 30,000 employees onto the

Microsoft 365 cloud service. That’ll reduce taxpayer dollars by $400,000

annually. The phased migration should end in 2013. “Should I as a city IT

department be in the email business? I don’t think so,” said Chicago CIO Brett

Goldstein. “I should get out of that business, free up resources, do it outside, do it

better, do it at a lower cost, and then shift to the other part, which is innovation.”

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1What would you say is the accom-plishment you’re most proud of from your work in San Francisco? I’m

most proud of setting up a really good IT

governance structure so all the depart-

ments felt like they had a voice; people

were very involved and engaged; and

we made some good progress internally

on a shared version. Externally the thing I

come back to most is we have this whole

program about connecting the community

to technology — like our Wi-Fi projects,

mobile app project, our hackathons and

our BTOP [Broadband Technology Oppor-

tunities Program], which is to put high-tech

homework centers in youth centers. It

is just all about connecting the com-

munity via technology and I think that’s

been really important for San Francisco.

2Why did you decide to make the move to San Mateo? I like chal-

lenges and I like change — that’s

just my personality. When I met with San

Mateo and talked about what they wanted

Jon WaltonCIO, San Mateo County

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FOUR QUESTIONS

After five years as San Francisco’s CIO, Jon Waltonleft the city on Jan. 11 to take a new job as CIO of San Mateo

County, Calif., and director of the county’s Information Services

Department. Under Walton’s leadership, San Francisco created

a citywide IT training program in partnership with employee

organizations; completed its first five-year Information and

Communications Technology Plan; and received many awards

for its mobile, Web and SFGovTV services. We asked Walton

about his legacy in San Francisco and his plans for San Mateo.

San Mateo, but I have a $1.1 million budget

gap at least in my department over the next

few years. So I am hoping to take some of

those lessons learned from San Francisco

to not only save money but to make things

better through technology and save the

county money.

4Do you have any ideas for things that you want to do in San Mateo County? I really want to get a high-

tech community going and build public-

private partnerships. I am a big fan of mobility

and cloud applications — I defi nitely want

to take a look at those and see if those are

applicable to San Mateo County as well. I’ve

already had some good conversations with

senior management and staff , and we’re

really looking forward to the next two or

three months — digging in and fi nding where

we are, coming up with a shared vision. I

told them that I am very vocal and public,

and I really want to engage their internal

users and see what their interests are.

— Jessica Mulholland, Web Editor

to accomplish, it really got me excited

because there’s so much opportunity there.

3What are a few ways that your experience in San Francisco will help you as CIO of San Mateo County?

From an operational standpoint, two things

we were able to do in San Francisco: [One

of them] was turn around the feelings of the

customers about the quality of service they

were getting from the IT department. Five

years ago, our scores were fairly low in cus-

tomer satisfaction, so we spent a lot of time

over the past few years trying to turn that

feeling around. One of the things I heard

when I came down to San Mateo was the

IT staff was working really hard, and even

though they were doing their best, the cus-

tomer satisfaction was just not as high as it

should be. The other thing, quite frankly, is

around cost saving. And here in San Mateo

County, we still have a bunch of defi cit we

need to close. In San Francisco in the last

fi ve years, we reduced the IT spend by

over $25 million. The gap is not that big in

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Data. If you can collect it, you can unlock it.With the explosion of mobile communications, data growth is unlimited, and government is seeking new ways to unlock its potential. No one knows how to better harness mobile technology to revolutionize citizen services than the experts at AT&T. Through any device, any OS, or any architecture, we can help you transform data to improve citizen outcomes. Interested in a Mobile Enablement Strategy Guide for Government CIOs? Visit att.com/govbigdata

© 2013 AT&T Intellectual Property. All rights reserved. AT&T, the AT&T logo and all other AT&T marks contained herein are trademarks of AT&T Intellectual Property and/or AT&T affi liated companies.


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BIG PICTURE

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Hot StuffCharlotte, N.C., has hot, sunny summers and tied its all-time high of 104 degrees last July. The Queen City is taking advantage of this natural resource with the recent launch of two 20-foot solar trees atop the Discovery Place science museum.

The colorful structures consist of photovoltaic panels that harness sunlight to generate energy for an onsite electric vehicle station. It’s also educational: Museum visitors can learn about the real-time electrical output on a touchscreen kiosk.

The project cost $126,000 and is part of the city’s Power2 campaign, which focuses on energy-effi cient initiatives.

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The Other CIO

Will the chief innovation officer really transform government?

Cover Story

By David Raths / Contributing Writer

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Jayson White, who works at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard’s Kennedy School, has helped several cities create innovation positions. When the concept fi rst started taking hold in 2008, the focus was on education reform and sustainability, he said. But once the recession hit, that focus changed to how to deal with budget cutting, economic devel-opment and job creation. “They didn’t want to just manage decline but start an upward spiral,” said White, project manager of the Urban Policy Advisory Group, which leads a dialog among chiefs of staff and senior policy advisers to mayors in the 35 largest cities across the country.

One trend cities and states are targeting is better ways to use technology. “You see cities creating these ‘free safety’ posi-tions,” White said, using a football metaphor. “They can work on alternative ways to do procure-ment or broker deals across agen-cies or push for greater use of social media.”

But making changes to internal government operations remains an uphill battle. White said the

most fruitful approach may be to determine how to use technology to change underlying rules. “For instance, it’s OK to build a one-stop shop for business permitting. That’s great. But even better is to get at the underlying problem: that the 15 licenses don’t produce much value,” he said. “So you don’t want to use technology to paper over problems, but to completely re-create services.”

Robert Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation in Wash-ington, D.C., said it’s too early to say whether these positions will catch on, but the fundamental challenge facing these new CIOs is that most governments don’t want to change in a fundamental way. It is easier to throw some data together and create new apps than to really transform an existing function of government.

“We will know one has succeeded when a state depart-ment of motor vehicles has been transformed into the 21st century. But doing this is really hard work,” Atkinson said. “You have to take on unions and confront recal-citrant middle managers and agency heads.” The question he poses to public-sector innova-tors is: “How do you plan to take on entrenched interests to drive core innovations as opposed to innovation around the edges?”

Government Technology asked several chief innova-tion offi cers to describe their goals and experiences so far.

Chief innovation

offi cers are becoming

more common in public

agencies. Here is a

partial list of innovation-

related positions in state

and local government.

Adel Ebeid, chief

innovation offi cer,

Philadelphia

Jack Elsey, chief

of innovation and

incubation, Chicago

Public Schools

Brett Goldstein, CIO and commissioner

of the Department of

Innovation, Chicago

Nigel Jacob and Chris Osgood, co-chairs for the

Offi ce of New Urban

Mechanics, Boston

Rahul Merchant, chief information and


New York City

Jay Nath, chief


city and county of

San Francisco

Tony Parham, government innovation

offi cer, Massachusetts

Michael Powell, chief


Maryland

Ted Smith, chief of

economic growth and

innovation, Louisville,

Ky., Metro Government

Growing List

The Other CIO

PHILADELPHIA’S ADEL EBEID SAYS HE SPENDS MUCH OF HIS TIME LOOKING FOR WAYS TO DISRUPT THE STATUS QUO.

Move over, chief information offi cers. There is a new CIO in town. From Riverside, Calif., to Kansas City, Mo., and from Louisville, Ky., to Massachusetts, states and municipalities

are hiring chief innovation offi cers. Yet while several municipalities and states are creating

these positions, the job description, scope of work and relationship to tech projects vary widely. Some job descriptions sound like economic development agency executives, charged with promoting job growth and luring businesses to the community. Other munici-palities, like San Francisco, place a strong emphasis on transparency and open data initiatives. Philadel-phia’s chief innovation offi cer position encompasses the chief information offi cer role, internal business process transformation and startup tech business support.

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Montgomery County, Md.Montgomery County, Md.,

recently hired Dan Hoff man, a former project manager at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, to be its fi rst chief innovation offi cer. County Council President Roger Berliner, who pushed to create the new position, said the county held meetings with execu-tives from companies like Google and Twitter and asked what they look for when they want to move employees to a new location. And the answer, Berliner said, is that they look for locations that have embraced innovation. “That may sound trite,” he added, “but they said look at your own govern-ment data. That is a treasure trove if you let private entrepreneurs at it. They can create apps for you. That is an economic oppor-tunity we need to take.” Berliner said it will require a change in culture in terms of how the county does business internally.

“People have said to me you can’t shift the culture with a new department, but I don’t know how else to do it,” Berliner said. “Change is a hard thing. Maybe a beacon of innovation can begin to change things. I hope so.”

He noted that Montgomery County is in a fi erce economic devel-opment competition with counties in northern Virginia. “We have to work on our business culture.”

PhiladelphiaAs chief innovation offi cer of

Philadelphia, Adel Ebeid’s time is split between the traditional role of chief information offi cer and the new responsibilities as innovation offi cer. Before taking the Philadel-phia position in August 2011, Ebeid was New Jersey’s chief infor-mation and technology offi cer. “While that was exciting, much of it was back-offi ce work such

What did you do before, and what interested you about this position? I became deputy innovation offi cer in Febru-

ary 2012, working with Chief Innovation

Offi cer Jay Nath to form the offi ce and set

our road map. Previously I was at a startup

founded with a technology I patented while

in graduate school to monitor air quality

using a mobile phone. Having previous

experience working with government to

unsuccessfully get my technology piloted,

I Google-searched “government innova-

tion” and found Jay and the great work he

was doing and became inspired by the

opportunity to understand and change the

way government engaged with startups and

emerging technologies. So I’ve come into

this position with a not-so-secret agenda to

lower the barriers of entry to working with

government and to fi nd new ways for

government to support innovation and

entrepreneurship at the local level.

Is there anything that has surprised you since taking the job?I have been pleasantly surprised by how

fl exible and innovative government can be

when the right approach is taken. When I

tell people I meet about my role, they often

reply with terms like “professional suicide” or

questions like “government and innovation …

what?” as they conjure up the stereotypical

image of a bureaucrat. But once I describe

our work, the conversation changes. I’m

hoping our work inspires a new image of

the public servant so that others will come

and join us.

Let’s talk about some of your main focus areas. How about streamlining permitting to start a business? We will be launching this initiative early in

2013. While it’s a great opportunity to enable

our business community by streamlining the

business permit process, it’s also an oppor-

tunity for us to do some spring cleaning. As

permits are put online, we are also evaluat-

ing the necessity of the permit. Can multiple

permits be merged into one? Is there a need

for a new type? Do we need arcade permits

anymore? This will not happen overnight,

but we are beginning the process.

What is your approach to open data initiatives?The latest version of our open data

legislation, which we revised and reintro-

duced in October, calls for a closer partner-

ship with the private sector, so not only are

we making data available, but also we are

actually working with private-sector compa-

nies to include their data on our [application

programming interface].

The best example of this is a company

called MotionLoft, which operates a private-

sensor network that collects real-time

data on how people move around the city.

Whether that’s by foot, bike or car, MotionLoft

is able to collect valuable data about how

much traffi c passes by various storefronts or

neighborhoods. They’ve made a subset of

their data available through DataSF, which

gives app developers, building owners and

city departments a sense of when and where

congestion happens and how much foot traf-

fi c a building may have at various hours. You

can see how this data would be interesting

and valuable to government agencies, busi-

nesses and the average citizen.

I saw several references to hackathons on your website. What is appealing with this approach to civic problem solving?The appealing thing about hackathons is that

they bring new insights and a level of energy

focused on solving a problem. Recently

we have been considering what happens

beyond the hackathon. How can we set the

conditions for some of those prototypes

to scale from hackathon to market? Our

Municipal Transportation Agency is currently

testing Smart Muni, an app (that came out of

our Summer of Smart hackathon series with

the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts) that

allows operators to gather real-time data to

improve operations. So hackathons can help

government solve a variety of operational

challenges, but they also hold the potential

to create new products and companies to

strengthen our economy.

Bay Area InnovationMayor Ed Lee created San Francisco’s Offi ce of Civic Innovation in January 2012. Its focus is using innovation to drive economic growth and to improve government effi ciency with various citizen engagement initiatives. In an email Q&A, we asked Deputy Innovation Offi cer Shannon Spanhake to describe some of the offi ce’s eff orts.

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as data center consolidations,” he said. “I really was interested in civic innovation and commu-nity engagement, so I spend most of my time identifying ways we can disrupt the status quo.”

Ebeid recently hired a chief data offi cer, Mark Headd, to help develop ways to “liberate” city data and create matchmaker tools to help the local technology community grow. “In Philly we have something called Nerd Street — which is actually 3rd Street, stretching from Old Town to Northern Liberties — that has a very high concentration of early stage startups,” he said. They need government to help create demand for their services and they need the city to liberate its data. “So we regularly have hackathons and public-private cooperation on problem-solving,” Ebeid explained.

The city was selected as a fi nalist for the Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Mayors Chal-lenge, a competition to generate innovative ideas that can be shared nationwide. Philadelphia is proposing a public-private

partnership to nurture social entrepreneurship. Called the Philadelphia Social Enterprise Partnership, this initiative engages entrepreneurs in framing social challenges and seeking innova-tive solutions. “They are still for-profi t companies, but they would have a social agenda and the government and nonprofi t organizations would nurture that ecosystem,” Ebeid said. “I call it innovating with intent.”

Ebeid oversees a team of roughly 500 IT staff ers in a highly centralized IT group. He has led an eff ort to modernize core infrastructure and focus on eight core system upgrades or replace-ments. He said one of the biggest challenges is trying to get people in city government to adhere to an IT governance process. “When the problems are immediate and right at your door, the tendency is to focus on point solutions,” he explained. “It is diffi cult to resist that temptation and accept the governance process. But while innovation is important, so is sustainable innovation.”

Ebeid fi elds many phone calls from other municipalities curious about his job title. “I get as many as one or two a week,” he said. “I started calling it ‘innova-tion envy.’ One thing I tell them is that they should focus on solving a real problem as opposed to creating the position just to have an offi ce with that title.”

MarylandMike Powell left IBM Corp. to

become Maryland’s chief inno-vation offi cer in August 2012.

Powell sees his role as being the governor’s eyes and ears on several key projects throughout state government, including a health benefi t exchange and health information exchange, although other executives have ultimate responsibility for those proj-ects. His position helps agencies consider alternatives to traditional procurements, he said. There are now cloud solutions and Google Docs being deployed and gradu-ally rolled out to state depart-ments. “There is an RFP for a new personnel system,” Powell said. “In the old days, that would be for a traditional [ERP] system only. But now, at a minimum, cloud-based solutions will be part of the mix.”

One of his projects is a central-ized business licensing system, an online one-stop shop for all business licenses and permits. Another is the Maryland Innova-tion Initiative to help universities in the state partner on research. For instance, researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine could partner across disciplines with engineering researchers at Johns Hopkins University on a solution.

“We can provide early funding to get an idea off the ground,” Powell said. “Mary-land has so much intellectual capital and patent creation.

The Other CIO

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Philadelphia’s Third St. has been dubbed “Nerd Street” for its concentration of tech startups.

INDY HALL, A THIRD STREET BUSINESS THAT PROVIDES CO-WORKING SPACE, IS A HOT SPOT FOR FREELANCE WEB DEVELOPERS AND COM-PUTER PROGRAMMERS.

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We have to do a better job of translating that into job growth and create the next great tech startup here in Maryland.”

Louisville, Ky.Ted Smith, chief of economic

growth and innovation for the Metro Government of Louis-ville-Jeff erson County, Ky., talked Mayor Greg Fischer into changing his job description after just six months on the job.

Smith was named director of innovation in July 2011 to serve as a one-person czar. “I asked him how far a one-person offi ce is going to get you. If we are going to take innovation seriously, we have to put it in context where we can get the highest value in each development sphere. We decided to merge it with economic development, rename it and I was named the executive to lead it.”

Smith oversees eff orts to make Louisville more attractive to global business (including creating a director of globalization posi-tion) and fosters the local small-farm movement. He’s interested in developing platforms and infrastructure so that the private sector can fl ourish. Smith cited Louisville’s partnership with Asthmapolis, which collects data

from sensors in asthma patients’ inhalers and feeds it back to patients and public health agencies to help identify communitywide triggers that can be improved or eliminated. A coalition of public- and private-sector stakeholders came together to provide the initial funding for the project.

Smith said that when politi-cians and the public ask about metrics and return on investment for stand-alone innovation posi-tions, they probably won’t like the answers they get. “When I was new at the job, people asked me if I could tell them when we could expect to schedule delivery of these innovations, but it is not that easy,” he said. “If innovations could be planned and scheduled, we wouldn’t have had this long recession. I see us as creating a petri dish where innovations can pop up. There is always going to be a crowd skeptical of govern-ment and that won’t want you to play that role. Unless you move the job into the economic develop-ment context, you are always going to have a target on your back.”

Colorado Springs, Colo.An executive who has pondered

showing return on investment is Nick Kittle, Colorado Springs’

innovation and sustainability manager. “Many of these offi ces are being created in more progres-sive cities, but we are in a fi scally conservative area,” he said. “I think innovation and sustain-ability pay for themselves, but we had to think about how to tell the story of innovation.”

Kittle’s four-person depart-ment set up some ways to measure the value of innovation. For example, the city’s streets division wouldn’t sell 20-year-old equip-ment because it didn’t know if it would get funding for replace-ments. Money from selling old equipment goes back into the general fund. “So what incen-tive do they have to sell?” Kittle asked. He came up with the idea to change the incentive. “We gave them a one-time shot to sell old equipment and keep the money to reinvest. They sold 69 pieces of equipment for $585,000. They reinvested that in new equip-ment and that led to $150,000 in maintenance cost savings alone.”

Another example involves IT. Departments were starting to use iPads and iPhones, but the IT department was worried about supporting all the apps. “We picked out 10 users, and working with the departments gave them scholarships to study apps,” he said. “We bought them the hardware. They picked the 10 apps most valuable to city depart-ments and that IT would support.” With all other apps users are on their own. Those 10 users also conduct group trainings. “I think what we are doing should speak to fi scally conservative people,” Kittle said. “This is what they want from government: getting $1.23 back for every dollar they put into this organization.”

[email protected]@govtechnews

In January, Philadelphia hired a director of civic technology to connect city departments with resources and ideas from the local tech community.

PHILADELPHIA MAYOR MICHAEL NUTTER HAS BEEN A CHAMPION OF CIVIC INNOVATION IN HIS CITY.

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THE ADOPTION OF EDUCATION STANDARDS SPURS STATES TO CREATE AND SHARE

WEB-BASED CURRICULUM AND PORTALS.B Y W AY N E H A N S O N | E D I T O R I A L D I R E C T O R , D I G I T A L C O M M U N I T I E S

Anfor

Collaboration

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A math question for eighth-grade graduation in 1888 in Indiana was: If you want a horse to graze on one-half acre of grass, how long must the rope be? But is this question too diffi cult for today’s eighth-grade student or even relevant for success in the 21st century?

Defi ning what students are expected to learn — for graduation, for testing student competence, evaluating teacher skill and as a goal of instruc-tion — is a complex and important task that has typically been developed by each state, school district or teacher.

Today, however, some 45 states and four territories have developed a set of uniform standards for math and English, called the Common Core Standards for Education. Surprisingly they were not mandated top down or pushed by the U.S. Department of Education. In fact, some educators cite the “bottom-up” development as a key to broad acceptance. These Common Core Standards were developed cooperatively by the states and localities. And since they are uniform across most states, curriculum materials can be aligned with those standards and then traded, shared and improved by teachers, districts and states regardless of location.

Michigan Takes the LeadMichigan was one of the fi rst states to

recognize the Common Core as an opportu-nity. “We had been working on our M.O.R.E. [Michigan Online Resources for Educators] portal since 2007-2008,” said Michigan eLibrary and Outreach Coordinator Deb Biggs Thomas. “These were pre-Common-Core days, and we were just working on our content expectations, our Michigan standards, providing resources that were aligned to those standards for K-12 teachers, that they could use in their classrooms.”

When the Common Core arrived, said Biggs Thomas, the state began holding workshops to align those standards to curriculum materials, following expe-rience from aligning Michigan state standards. Content resources included materials from the Michigan Teacher Network, Verizon’s Thinkfi nity, the Smithsonian, ReadWriteThink and Illu-minations. Content also was added by

Michigan eLibrary partners such as Gale Cengage, Proquest and Khan Academy.

“Currently we have about 20,000 resources that are aligned to the Common Core Standards and to the Michigan content expectations, but we have nearly 70,000 in the portal,” said Biggs Thomas. “So we’re working on getting those aligned and developing partner-ships to produce those alignments.”

Biggs Thomas said teachers can use the M.O.R.E. portal to fi nd content that they can use in their classrooms “because of the alignment piece that has been made to many of the resources. And they can search by standard or browse, look for particular topics, narrow it, etc., with a great advanced search, with very specifi c parameters. It’s quite robust, and we’ve been able to do this using open source software so it hasn’t been hugely expensive for us.” The site also hosts useful tools such as a resource locker for each user and a lesson-plan builder.

Since the Common Core Standards are the same across most of the country, Michigan decided to give away the store. The website code is available to other states and most of the digital content is free for the asking. But according to M.O.R.E. site manager Karen Hairston, educational technology consultant for the Michigan Department of Education, about 4,000 of the 70,000 resources on the site are available by paid subscription and thus are restricted to Michigan teachers.

The site itself was built using CWIS open source software from the Univer-sity of Wisconsin and the Scout Portal Toolkit, which is also used for the Mich-igan eLibrary, the host of M.O.R.E.

South Dakota Follows SuitSouth Dakota took Michigan up on

its off er and duplicated the M.O.R.E. site and most content with a minimal amount of customization, although


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the name of the site was changed to My Open Education Resources.

“Michigan was willing to make the code available to anyone free of charge,” said Julie Mathiesen, director of Technology and Innovation in Education in South Dakota. “So we copied that source code and took some of the sources their teachers had aligned within that. We reskinned the site to get a unique look for us, and then last July, we brought 80 teachers together for a week for math and a week for language arts. They curated … thousands of resources that are now available to any teachers anywhere.”

Mathiesen also wants to pass along the benefi ts to other jurisdictions. “There are about a dozen states categorized as rural and I was hoping we could work collaboratively so that all the states could use the site. With the Common Core Standards, it doesn’t matter if you are in South Dakota or North Dakota, if you’re addressing ‘8.1.1 whatever standard’ of

the Common Core, you should be able to use those same resources. So I wish there were some ways to collaborate better across state lines. Unfortunately it’s diffi -cult to put funding together and fi gure out how you’re going to do that because of the way that education’s organized.”

Consequently both Mathiesen and Biggs Thomas are eager to get the word out so other states and districts can use these free resources. They said it would be futile for each of the 45 states and four territories to duplicate the websites, when they can freely borrow and use one another’s right now.

Seeking AlignmentCommon Core is basically very simple:

A majority of states have agreed upon standards for what K-12 students should learn in math and language arts. Several states have begun aligning curriculum materials with those standards so if a teacher, for example, has a student who’s having diffi culty meeting a particular standard, he or she can quickly locate materials, lesson plans and other mate-rials to help the student. Most of the resources are freely available on the Internet, and the entire system is built on an unprecedented level of cooperation.

But Common Core Standards and the alignment of curriculum materials have some snags as well. First is that these stan-dards will be used to evaluate teachers and schools, so there are consequences behind them. That’s not necessarily new, but it does put more weight and importance on them.

The other snag has to do with the actual alignment of standards with content. Michigan’s Education Technology Director Bruce Umpstead is concerned about what system of alignment is used. “Part of the national conversation is around what metatagging standard will be used to categorize and align that content,” he said. “And then, the debate under that is can you use machine alignment to recommend resources more eff ectively than having teachers align the content? That’s a big debate whether you are using open education resources or using premium content that you pay for.”

A metatag, said Umpstead, is like a Dewey Decimal System for digital assets. Some 200 companies are contributing to a proposed proprietary metatagging system being developed by Academic Benchmarks. Thinkfi nity has its own proprietary codes, while most resources on M.O.R.E. and teacher-created videos and screencasts on MI Learning on iTunes U are open and freely available.

“Right now in some of our instruc-tional data systems, we can recom-mend premium resources — meaning for-cost resources — to students based on their test assessments because they are using proprietary codes,” Umpstead said. “I can’t do that out of the M.O.R.E. portal or the MI Learning on iTunes U, because those systems don’t use those proprietary codes. That’s what we are wrestling with: How do you make recommendations on the fl y?”

If data shows that a student is falling short on a specifi c math standard, he added, the system should be able to automatically recommend resources to help him or her. Thus, code sets should be driven by effi ciency rather than around being open. “It has to be some kind of a balance,” Umpstead said.

Several organizations are working on the metatag problem. The federal government has the Learning Registry, which Umpstead said is meant to capture usable data on metatags. “But it doesn’t accept proprietary metatags, it only accepts open metatags, and some systems read that, some don’t,” he said.

M.O.R.E. website manager Hairston said that Jes and Co., which is mostly grant funded, provides identifi ers for all the Common Core Standards and the Michigan state standards. She said they are free and the company keeps them updated. “That’s another way we mini-mize our cost. People think that they have to license the code, or use vendors that have collections of resources that are aligned, and that they have to charge because they are charged to license these codes. Jes and Co.’s stuff is free. It used to be free only to school districts and nonprofi ts, but now it’s free to anyone.”


Standards in the StatesForty-fi ve states, the

District of Columbia and

four U.S. territories have

adopted Common Core

Standards for education.

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govtechexchange.com

Share Your Expertise onGOVTECH EXCHANGE

of state and local IT offi cials think that tablets will eventually replace desktops and laptops.

What do you think?

30%

JOIN HERE

Another organization tackling the metatag problem is the State Educa-tional Technology Directors Association. Executive Director Douglas A. Levin is intent on resolving the metatag situa-tion, although he takes a slightly diff erent approach than Umpstead. “Instruc-tional materials, textbooks and increas-ingly digital content can’t be ‘just sort of aligned,’ it has to be tightly aligned. In fact, Louisiana just announced that it is delaying adoption of any new textbooks in the state for Common Core subjects because they simply were not aligned.”

He provided textbooks as an example: Schools purchase textbooks but don’t analyze how useful they were for a class. “But we will start to do that and then based on how well students perform on the test, we’ll be able to target professional development to teachers. It’s one thing if Johnny can’t divide by fractions, but it’s another thing if half the class of a specifi c

teacher can’t divide by fractions. The fi rst issue is a Johnny issue, the other issue is a teaching issue and a target for profes-sional development. And the reason we are able to do that is the content standards.”

And Levin seems to lean a bit more toward open alignment standards. “In the black box world using proprietary solutions … you’re setting yourself up for paying a licensing and consulting fee forever and always. If that is done in an open and transparent way, it may be that you still need to have consultants come in and help you, because this is technical work and states or districts don’t have the capacity to do it.” But once that’s done, it usually costs much less to maintain the system. In addition, being open and transparent allows smaller companies and startups to enter the marketplace, increasing competition among vendors.

Above all, said Levin, the chosen stan-dards must work. “So when a teacher

does a search for ‘divide by fractions’ — and this is standard 12.4.3 — the system needs to return relevant results. Those codes need to work, and they need to be at a grain size that is specifi c enough for the kinds of questions that teachers have, and that will aff ect instruction.”

Levin said districts can provide translation between standards, but that increases cost and “internal friction.” So he recommends transparent, open stan-dards developed by the same people who publish the standards. Currently, he said, the standards are like a Google Map view from 10,000 feet, and the next step is to get the materials aligned down to the “Street View” level and thus more useful for teachers and the various assess-ments that will fl ow from these.

[email protected]@DCommunities

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BECAUSE I DON’T JUST WEAR THE SHIRT, I LIVE IT.GIVE. ADVOCATE. VOLUNTEER. LIVE UNITED®

Michael Cleveland is part of United Way’s ongoing work to improve the education, income, and health of our communities. To find out how you can help create opportunities for a better life for all, visit LIVEUNITED.ORG.

INSTEAD OF JUST HANGING OUT ON SATURDAYS

I HELP KIDS HANG IN THERE

AT SCHOOL


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GOVERNMENEngaging volunteers delivers big results – if you do it right.


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By Jess Meyer MariaContributing Writer

igh occupancy express lanes added a few years ago to a busy

stretch of Interstate 85 in Atlanta were designed to reduce driver frustration. But a clunky notifi cation process initially had the opposite eff ect for some motorists.

Using a small vehicle-mounted tran-sponder known as a Peach Pass, Georgia charged drivers a sliding fee for access to the new high occupancy toll (HOT) lanes based on the amount of traffi c congestion. Vehicles carrying at least three people could use the HOT lanes for free, but drivers had to notify the state that they met the occu-pancy requirement by phone or via the Web at least 15 minutes before using the lanes.

Although the notifi cation process worked, it was cumbersome to many drivers who wanted a quicker and easier way to alert the system. State offi cials knew a mobile app made sense, but creating one through normal channels would be neither fast nor inexpensive.

“We had wanted a smartphone app, but didn’t have one ready in time for the launch,” said Chris Tomlinson, deputy executive director and general counsel for the State Road and Tollway Authority (SRTA). “There was too much work just negotiating with vendors and calling third parties, and we were being quoted anywhere from $30,000 to several hundred thousand dollars for the app development.”


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Chris Tomlinson, deputy executive director and general counsel for the Georgia State Road and Tollway Authority

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Then one Thursday afternoon, a frus-trated driver called customer service because the Peach Pass app he’d downloaded from iTunes wasn’t working properly. “What app?” asked Tomlinson’s team.

Some quick research confi rmed the exis-tence of the app, and its creator — one Karl Goodhew, a Georgia resident and software developer. Goodhew’s sister was a regular HOT lane user and had complained to him multiple times about wanting a more fl ex-ible way to register her toll status. Using screen scrape technology, Goodhew had mapped relevant fi elds from the SRTA website to an app he created for the iPhone.

By the following morning, Goodhew had been located and was invited to lunch by SRTA legal counsel and management. “The app didn’t work 100 percent, but we were just amazed he’d done it so quickly,” Tomlinson said. “We were still stuck getting quotes.”

Goodhew off ered to clean up the app and develop a second version for Android. The SRTA agreed to market the app — dubbed Peach Pass GO! Mobile — and handle any complaints or queries from HOT lane motorists. The entire engage-ment cost the SRTA less than $5,000.

“We licensed the code from Karl, with rights to modify and edit the app as we saw fi t. He sought recognition more than fi nancial gain. He did us a favor,” Tomlinson said. “We were going to do this

anyway, once we got past the roadblocks. By the time he came along, we were still planning a procurement, trying to write specs. We released a fully functional app at a time when we otherwise would have still been reviewing drafts of the RFP.”

Today, the app — both iPhone and Android versions — is managed by American Roads Technologies for the SRTA by a staff of dedicated developers who handle all life cycle maintenance.

“The experience colored our interac-tions with customers in a real way,” said Tomlinson. “Even complaints can be real opportunities.”

The creation of Peach Pass GO! is a quirky story that shouldn’t be as unusual as it is. In an era of ever increasing open data, digital media and tech engagement, more and more citizens are creating tools that can be used by governments to make smart IT decisions, create new pathways to innovation and forge cost-eff ective, community-based partnerships.

The partnership between the SRTA and citizen Karl Goodhew may have been unlikely, but city and state govern-ments around the country are realizing the benefi t of such arrangements during the economic downturn, and are taking steps to encourage and promote citizen engage-ment in tech projects, where appropriate.

Mary Lynn Perry, volunteer coordinator of Sacramento, Calif., has recruited and managed volunteers for the

city for about 10 years. Her reach covers all departments and programs associ-ated with the city, as well as nonprofi ts, such as the Sacramento Zoo, that fall under the capital city’s jurisdiction.

Sacramento has long recognized the benefi t of an organized, offi cial volunteer

program, which it runs under the general budget of human resources. In an IT capacity, volun-teers are regularly brought in to assist with an ongoing GIS program, in IT support/help desk roles and with special projects, such as soft-

ware code development and website design.A weakened economy, said Perry, is a

boost for volunteer programs. “Things are improving, but there are still a lot of unem-ployed people,” she said. “Graduates just out of college can struggle to fi nd work in their fi eld of study, often due to a mismatch between their actual work experience and their degree focus. Volunteer work can help bridge that gap. Then there are the workers who have found themselves without

26

We released a fully functional app at a time when we otherwise would have still been reviewing drafts of the RFP.

1 Not making volunteer manage-ment part of someone’s job. Organizations with successful

volunteer programs have staff who dedicate time to being the center point for volunteers by recruiting, screening, placing, tracking and appreciating volunteers. A great way to retain volunteers is to be well organized. Staff support is needed to make that happen.

2Pitting staff against volunteers. For some staff members, adding volunteers can be threatening.

There’s fear that volunteers will take over paid positions or be a burden to work with. Staff members need to be part of the planning and execution of the volunteer program so they view volunteers as helping enhance the great work that is already being done.

3 Failing to write a duty description. Volunteer posi-tions should be treated like a

paid position — with a specifi c de-scription of what needs to be done, requirements for the volunteers, who they’ll report to, etc. The planning process is critical to a successful outcome and helps all parties clearly understand the volunteer role.

4Not providing a valuable expe-rience. Volunteers are bringing more skill and knowledge to

the table and are looking for valuable, meaningful and challenging ways to contribute to their communities.

5Thinking volunteers will save the organization money. The time volunteers give has a

value that can be calculated into a dollar amount, but they require staff time and other resources to manage. The biggest reward governments get for a relationship with volunteers is ownership from our residents.

BY LEIGH BRITT Britt has worked with Columbia, Mo.’s volunteer program since 2000 and is a certifi ed volunteer administrator. She’s also president of the National Association of Volunteer Programs in Local Government.

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5 MISTAKES TO AVOID

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regular employment, but want to keep their skills relevant, and the retiring baby boomers with a solid workforce history and current skills who want to contribute. There is a very strong talent pool out there right now, and it’s a good time to try utilizing volunteers, if you aren’t already.”

Perry advises starting by closely exam-ining your needs. Volunteers should be used to supplement staff , not to replace them. Figure out tasks that can be turned over, then write a thorough job description.

“Traditional volunteer recruitment works best when assigning well defi ned tasks relating to projects that people believe in,” agreed Lea Deesing, former IT director for San Bernardino, Calif., and current associate vice chancellor of information services for the River-side Community College District.

But Deesing, founder of Save Four Paws, a volunteer-based group that uses social media to help animal shelters spread the word about lost or adoptable pets, said the rise of crowdsourcing means some tasks can be less defi ned. “When we use volunteers to help save shelter animals through Save Four Paws, they spread the word via social media,” she said. “We really don’t need to ask them to do this, and we certainly don’t need to tell them how to do it. They already know how to use social media to advocate initiatives they care about, so we don’t have to train them. It’s an ideal model.”

Maryalice Crofton, executive director of the Maine Commission for Commu-nity Service, added that professionals like

those sought for IT projects will expect realistic time frames and guidelines. The way tasks are approached from the beginning can impact success as well. For instance, does using the term “pro bono” instead of “volunteer” change attitudes?

“Be very clear about what you want a volunteer to do, as well as what training you will provide and what you will do if the product or outcome doesn’t meet expectations,” Crofton said. “Some of it is about your specifi city. Some is about where you look.”

The commission has in the past engaged in a successful two-year collaboration with an online teaching expert, who trained commission employees to conduct eff ective webinar presentations. “She was quite good at it, and it’s a great example of managing the needs of a state agency with the skills and interests of a potential volunteer. New to Maine, [the volunteer] wanted a way to plug into her community. She was coming from a major metropolitan area to a very rural state, and volunteering gave her a chance to get connected,” Crofton said.

T echnical, civic-minded citi-zens can help create the tools to facilitate citizen interaction with government agencies, and

have already done so by way of grass-roots-style application development eff orts. “Many mobile fi eld reporting applications were originally created by third parties, without the involvement of government

agencies,” said Deesing. “These applica-tions were being used by the masses long before government agencies sponsored them. That sponsorship came later, once agencies realized these tools were not going to go away. It was critical for agen-cies to become proactive in this area, so they could integrate these reporting tools with their back-end systems.”

Philadelphia is home to a real, thriving, early stage tech community, said the city’s Chief Innovation Offi cer Adel Ebeid. Tech-savvy individuals and startups are constantly looking for demand to develop apps, demand that the government can provide. Ebeid’s team hosts, sponsors and attends hackathons and tech meetups to rally and inspire the tech community and help the city government solve problems.

Tech-forward from the top down, the city’s government looks to continually create ways to engage with citizens through innovative IT. The local tech community has helped the government develop apps for funding, planting trees and for texting. In a city where 41 percent of the population does not have access to the Internet, texting is a resource that is heavily leveraged.

“The best role a government can play is the role of convener, enabler or supporter. And data is the actual match-maker between supply and demand,” said Ebeid. “Resist the temptation to follow old processes or very old systems. Take the time to under-stand community sentiment. Focus heavily on open environment, open API and open data. Encourage everyone to be involved in


A Georgia resident developed a handy mobile app for state toll roads. Georgia’s State Road and Tollway Authority licensed the code.

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the solution. And, most important, don’t be afraid to say what we’ve done in the past isn’t working. That isn’t failure; it’s courageous.”

Sol Villarreal, community engage-ment coordinator for Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, said it’s important to be radically transparent in order to break down barriers between communities not traditionally involved in government.

McGinn’s offi ce has made a concentrated eff ort to engage with the Seattle tech scene, particularly through events such as hack-athons, and has looked to well established

models already in use in cities like Chicago and New York to plan eff ective events.

In April, Seattle, King County and Washington state hosted Startup Weekend GOV at the Seattle City Hall, an intense 54-hour event that focused on building credible Web and mobile applications. The weekend brought together software developers, graphic designers and business people to build apps and develop a commer-cial case around them, crunch government data sets, improve public safety and work alongside local government offi cials.

The Evergreen Apps Challenge was launched at Startup Weekend GOV and wrapped up on Oct. 1. The challenge was a cooperative eff ort among the state of Washington, King County and Seattle to

encourage economic development and job growth by encouraging local entrepre-neurs to build mobile software applica-tions that could help people create useful experiences from government data. More than $75,000 in prizes were awarded for the best apps in a number of catego-ries, including a $20,000 grand prize.

“App contests are a great way to amplify work already under way,” said Villarreal. “These events have been very successful for us. Primarily handled by our IT depart-ment, we help to promote them. We

source event sponsorship and prizes from various companies, so there is not a huge fi nancial outlay to the city government.”

Best Overall App and Best State App prizes at the Evergreen Apps Challenge were awarded to the Living Voters Guide, fi rst released in 2010 by Travis Kriplean and a team from Seattle CityClub and several departments of the University of Washington (Computer Science and Engineering, Political Science, Communi-cations and Human-Centered Design).

Kriplean, a graduate of University of Washington, is now launching a startup based on the voter guide technology. “The Living Voters Guide operates on a simple but powerful model. It is new technology that engages citizens in constructive

dialog on ballot measures and political issues. Governments are a great example of organizations best suited to use this kind of technology,” he explained. With a background in computer science and social science, Kriplean said govern-ment is not his primary focus. However, “it just so happens that government is at the center of so many critical issues.” Wise words that should serve as a moti-vator to other city and state governments looking to extend their resources.

“There should be more collaboration between government and the people it serves. A lot of it comes down to leadership and fi nding people in positions of power willing to collaborate and try something new. The barrier isn’t so much about metropolis versus rural or small versus big. It’s being able to identify the people in positions of power within the govern-ment who are willing to engage,” he said.

Indeed, hackathons and other events that use open data sourced from governments can be powerful. They can “remove the veil of how government works,” said data mapper Chris Whong. “The more engaged a city’s government is with its local tech scene, the more willing its citizens will be to give back.”

When it comes to citizen engagement, and the utilization of volunteers for tech-nical purposes, sustainability should be at the heart of every project or job. Rapid innovation, while positive and invigorating, must also be sustainable and fruitful.

Nonprofi ts are a good place to look for inspiration and examples. While govern-ments will certainly have diff erent restric-tions and accountabilities, there is much that can be learned. Starting small, such as using volunteers in an intern capacity, allows you to set fi rm restrictions and have a built-in safety valve — there are set time limits, expectations and structural require-ments, as well as clear models to follow.

“Engaging citizens as volunteers allows a government to build bridges with the people it serves,” said Maine’s Crofton. “Governments have an incen-tive for people to be able to see up close and personal how they work.”

[email protected]@govtechnews


TIME IS MONEY: What’s the dollar value of using volunteers in your agency? Created by volunteer advocacy organization Points of Light, the Economic Impact

of Volunteers Calculator does just that. The tool, located at www.handsonnetwork.org/tools/volunteercalculator, estimates the appropriate wage rate for volunteer time based on the value of tasks according to market conditions as reported by the U.S. Department of Labor. The calculator includes a broad array of jobs — ranging from actuaries to zoologists — and lists the hourly rate and benefi t for each. Add the two hourly fi gures together and multiply that by the number of volunteer hours to determine the value of volunteers’ time.

TECH-RELATED EXAMPLES INCLUDE:

Job title Hourly rate Hourly benefi t

Computer information $55.03 $6.60systems managers

Computer software $41.89 $5.03engineers, applications

Computer $34.14 $4.10programmers

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Overseeing services and infrastructure requires a lot of effort and planning. The Cooperative Purchasing Network (TCPN) helps simplify your steps and reduce your costs. TCPN’s contracts leverage the purchasing power of over 30,000 actively engaged government entities. All contracts are competitively bid and awarded by a single entity – Region 4 Education Service Center. TCPN monitors contracts through third-party audits and regular reviews to ensure vendor accountability. You can rely on TCPN’s ISO certified processes, 100+ combined years of government purchasing experience and 50+ combined years of auditing experience – we know what it takes to keep a community running.

Keep your service responses on time and on budget. Go to www.tcpn.org and sign up today.

TCPN saves municipalities moneyon all their community services.All in a Day’s Work.

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Catching Criminals on Pinterest

PUBLIC SAFETY


“By Noelle Knell / Assistant Web Editor

Social media is the most recent evolution in communica-tion technology. I don’t think

there’s a choice as to whether or not law enforcement uses social media.”

So says law enforcement consultant Lauri Stevens. Founder of Massachusetts-based LAwS Communications, Stevens works with police departments all over the United States and Canada, and says that while many agencies are getting social media right, there is ample opportunity to improve.

Those with the most successful implementations, according to Stevens, understand that social media can eff ectively engage citizens as active partners in keeping communities safe. And in a major incident involving the police, an established following on social media can help keep rumors at bay and contribute to a more positive outcome.

A recent international study by tech-nology consulting fi rm Accenture found that 88 percent of citizens want to help the police fi ght crime. Perhaps more telling is the fact that 84 percent of respondents “feel only minimally informed of local police activities.”

So how can social media help bridge this gap?

The Toronto Police Service used Twitter to communicate about an incident in 2010 where a gun was fi red on a high

school campus. The police communica-tions offi ce created a hashtag and used it to broadcast timely updates about the event. In addition to providing accurate information as it unfolded, tweets about the event informed local news stories. Information was timely and directly from police sources, helping diff use worry from parents and the broader community.

Many other law enforcement agencies have built an eff ective presence on social media, using it as a successful extension of their community relations and crime-fi ghting eff orts, Stevens said. Government Technology recently reported on Seattle’s “Tweets-by-Beat” program, for example, that provides hyper-localized crime infor-mation in near real time via Twitter.

The bulletin-board style platform Pinterest received a lot of attention in 2012

for its rapid rise to the No. 3 spot in the most popular social media triumvirate, behind Facebook and Twitter. Govern-ment agencies at all levels are creating boards on Pinterest, and now, even police departments are establishing pages.

A local newspaper in Pottstown, Pa., started a Pinterest board featuring mug shots of people wanted by the local police for off enses like theft, fraud and sexual assault. While not the typical Pinterest fare, a platform known more for crafts and decorating ideas than catching crimi-nals, the strategy is paying off . According to a report on NPR, tips started pouring in right away, and police say their arrest rates have increased by 57 percent.

Roughly 40 miles southeast of Potts-town, the Philadelphia Police Department, led by Commissioner Charles Ramsey,

#haveyouseenthisman?

Police departments are expanding their social media presence and enlisting the public’s help to solve crimes.

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has an aggressive social media strategy. Cpl. Frank Domizio explained that the department posts recovered surveil-lance videos on YouTube, enlisting the public’s help in identifying perpetrators unknown to police. The department’s blog, promoted via its Facebook page and Twitter accounts, links to the surveillance videos.

As of December 2012, Domizio reported that the department secured 112 arrests from the approximately 200 videos that it posted in this manner. A social media enthusiast, Domizio read about the success Pottstown was having using Pinterest. He created a presence for the department on Pinterest that features screen shots taken from the videos of unidentifi ed criminals, hoping to replicate Pottstown’s success.

“I think their success is enough to let us know that we should at least try it,” Domizio said. “We won’t know if it works unless we try it.”

On the site for about two months so far, Philadelphia has boards repre-senting individual neighborhoods, allowing residents to follow only the areas where they live and work.

Stevens points out that many agen-cies have posted mug shots on Face-

book for several years, but Pinterest’s format may give it an edge. Pinterest keeps photos in a highly visible loca-tion, rather than relegating them to a less prominent spot in a Facebook time-line once timelier content is posted.

“[Pinterest] works a little more cleanly for this,” Stevens explained. “Facebook is awesome because there are a billion people on it. There aren’t a billion people on Pinterest yet, but there are a lot. And the people on there are mostly women, who just really want to put bad guys behind bars.”

Whether or not Philly sees a corre-sponding spike in arrests resulting from Pinterest, it’s clear that the city’s social media strategy will continue to grow and evolve. Police are looking into broadening the reach of their commu-nity meetings using Google Plus Hang-outs, as well as establishing a presence on link-sharing portal Reddit and social aggregator site RebelMouse.

“Using the social media formula that we’ve come up with, we’ve arrested two cop killers and an old lady that was stealing silk fl owers, so it kind of runs the gamut,” Domizio said. “People are tired of crime in their neighborhoods and they really do want to help.”

[email protected]@GovTechNoelle


PUBLIC SAFETY

The Pottstown Mercury, a local daily newspaper in Pennsylvania, began posting mug shots of suspected criminals on Pinterest, which quickly generated leads for police. Now police departments around the country are copying the idea.

Philadelphia police post surveillance video on You-Tube and ask citizens to help them identify suspects. The videos have led to more than 100 arrests.

The Seattle PD’s Tweets-by-Beat service gives residents nearly real-time information on criminal activity in their neighborhoods.

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Learn more about registration and sponsorships:emergencymgmt.com/2013summits

where do they fi nd the solutions?

Aligning Solutions For Police, Fire & the Whole Community of First Responders

Complimentary to the public sector!

2013 Host Cities

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August New Orleans

September Atlanta / Boston

October Denver / Los Angeles

November Minneapolis

December Houston / Miami

Photos by David Kidd/Shutterstock/FEMA

Emergency Managers & First Responders are expected to have all the answers…


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By Hilton Collins / Staff Writer

Patients in U.S. hospitals experi-ence about 290,000 surgical site infections annually. These infec-

tions are the second most common health-care associated infection in the country.

California’s Department of Public Health (CDPH) educates more than 36 million residents about health dangers like these, but it’s not an easy job. Anita Gore, deputy director of the depart-ment’s Offi ce of Public Aff airs, strategizes ways to inform citizens so they make intelligent health-care decisions. Unfor-tunately taxpayers don’t always under-stand the intricate health information that the department provides online.

“It’s complicated information,” she said, referring to the data tables that present the information on the public health website.

Reading hyper-detailed Web pages is challenging. The department’s Health-care Associated Infections program posts information about surgical site infec-tions and blood-related infections, but the voluminous data may exhaust readers’ patience. Dozens of pages contain para-graph after paragraph describing sophisti-cated, hard-to-pronounce infection types, and there are long lists of links to reports and other health-related websites.

“We have major pieces of data and charts and information on our website, but not necessarily user-friendly,” Gore said. “When we started releasing these reports to the public, we were criticized for them not being consumer helpful.”

The CDPH created the Healthcare Associated Infections interactive map to deliver infection information to consumers that’s less confusing. The map displays more than 300 California hospitals with symbols representing surgical infection rates for about a dozen procedures. Users click a symbol to generate a pop-up box disclosing the hospital’s stats for diff erent surgeries. Data reveals whether the facil-ity’s infection rates are lower, higher or equal to state or national averages.

Gore and her colleagues designed the map to package data in ways that will have fewer Californians scratching their heads.

“This is an attempt to take the infor-mation we were being given and make it usable for people,” she said.

Healthy ChoicesInteractive map lets California consumers compare hospital infection rates.

CASE STUDY


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Exploring ChoicesThe map off ers general infection data

about common operations, supplemented by more detailed information elsewhere on the CDPH website. For example, say Diane, a 30-something offi ce assistant in Sacramento, learns she’s pregnant and wants to know more about infection rates for C-sections.

Diane visits the interactive map to view C-section infection rates for local hospi-tals and weigh her options. A main menu sorts the data along multiple infection categories. One is for general surgical site infections (SSI), and the others involve bloodstream infections. The surgical site infection button has a dropdown menu with a “cesarean section” option, so Diane clicks that one to sort accordingly.

The legend under the map says, “Rates of infection per hospital are compared with the U.S. national average for SSIs.” This is represented by four symbols: A green square means a hospital has lower-than-average infection rates, a purple circle means it’s equal to the average, an orange triangle means it’s higher, and a gray circle means no data’s available for a comparison.

Diane sees that most hospitals in Sacra-mento and nearby regions have purple circles, which means their C-section patients don’t get infected at higher-than-normal rates. However, she’s excited when she sees two hospitals with green squares, University of California Davis Medical Center in Sacramento and a Kaiser facility in the nearby suburb of Roseville. These hospitals’ C-section infec-tion rates are lower than she expected, so one of those would make her feel much safer when she delivers her baby.

But Diane won’t fi nd detailed numbers on infection rates unless she visits other CDPH pages. Links beneath the map lead to Web pages featuring specifi c infec-tion data. If she digs around, she’ll see that one of her choices, UC Davis Sacramento, performed 351 C-sections from April to December 2011 with only two infections. The other, Roseville’s Kaiser, performed 629 with no infections during the same period. In this case, the map was a great starting point for infection data, but the data’s real substance lies elsewhere.

“The map is an extra added value to make the information easily available and understandable to the consumer,” Gore said.

An Inside LookSuccessive events led to the map’s

creation. They began with a 2006 California law requiring the CDPH and general acute care hospitals to create programs to monitor diseases and prevent health-care-associated infections. This prompted state hospitals to provide the CDPH with infection data.

The CDPH unveiled the map’s fi rst iteration in January 2012. The California Healthcare Foundation supplied $75,000 in grants for the project, and designers from Stamen Studios, a San Francisco-based design studio, worked with state staff to create the map and Web page. The most recent version debuted in August 2012 after a relatively quick imple-mentation period that began in May.

Nabil Fares, the CDPH’s CIO, is proud of the teamwork between the state’s busi-nesses units, his IT staff and the California Healthcare Foundation. “It’s really a model for collaboration among diff erent stake-holders and diff erent entities,” he said.

The map was developed in Flash and is embedded into the site using JavaScript to embed it on the site. The application, roughly 367 MB in size, is self-contained and doesn’t interact with the server. The Web page itself was developed in Microsoft SharePoint.

California law requires hospitals in the state to submit infection data to the CDPH quarterly. Hospital researchers deliver the CDPH infection data in multiple spreadsheet formats, including delimited and comma-separated values. CDPH personnel feed the data to the map in comma-separated values and populate it with infection data.

The interactive map is a young appli-cation, but it’s already gaining attention. In summer 2012, the project garnered the CDPH a Best Public Sector App award in the People’s Choice Category at Govern-ment Technology’s GTC West conference.

But despite the accolade, it may be years before the CDPH assesses the map’s usefulness in reducing hospital infections and educating citizens.

“Because of the newness of the application, it’s a little bit hard to predict,” Fares said.

For now, they will support their creation and wait to see what develops.

“It certainly is the goal as the reporting continues, that we will see steps taken to decrease the number of infections that occur related to hospital stays,” Gore said.

[email protected]@HiltonCollins


The CDPH’s interactive map compares surgical infection rates for California hospitals.

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By Noelle Knell / Staff Writer

A ccording to the E-Government Satisfaction Index, conducted by consumer analytics fi rm ForeSee,

three out of four citizens prefer to deal with their government online, as opposed to in person. Several federal agencies actu-ally outrank well known private-sector e-retailers like Amazon on consumer satisfaction with online transactions. “By any measure, many government agencies are now outpacing their private-sector rivals, which is a development that very few thought likely,” the report concludes.

Those are the kinds of results Hawaii CIO Sanjeev “Sonny” Bhagowalia hopes to bring to the state by implementing his “online versus in line” vision for service

delivery. Named the state’s fi rst CIO in summer 2011, he brings a resumé that includes 14 years at Boeing, as well as key roles in the federal government, most recently leading e-government programs for the General Services Administration.

For a small state, Hawaii has some signifi cant challenges ahead. Leaders confess that the fragmented physical nature of the islands has led to a disjointed system of technology infrastructure. Service delivery relies on disparate legacy systems past their prime with business processes to match. With maintenance costs for these aging systems growing every year, most agree that Hawaii is in desperate need of a technology over-haul. The good news is that the state seems well positioned to deliver.

Seeking the Best IdeasAn avid proponent of open government,

Bhagowalia last year released a 1,432-page document designed to make up for 30 years of underfunding for technology. The Technology/Information Resource Management Transformation Plan sets an ambitious agenda stretching over the next 12 years, focusing on the transformation of Hawaii’s business processes, informa-tion resource management and IT.

The plan was opened for public comment, in order to gather some feed-back on the strategy going forward.

“I feel like when you put the ideas out there, you benefi t from clearly articulating a vision, but also incorporating changes and ideas from citizens, academia, industry and other government agencies,” Bhagowalia said.

Transformation in ParadiseA transparent process and public support drive a technology overhaul 30 years in the making in Hawaii.

LEADERSHIP


HAWAII CIO SONNY BHAGOWALIA

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While offi cials expected more comments than they actually received, Bhagowalia said it was indicative of island culture, where people tend to be more comfortable conveying their ideas behind the scenes. While some reviewers expressed a pref-erence for a certain type of technology architecture over another, the state chose to keep the plan vendor neutral. Most people who commented, publicly and privately, relished the chance to weigh in on the plan and validated that its contents repre-sented a solid foundation for the state.

Business Processes TransformedAs its name would imply, Hawaii’s

Technology/Information Resource Manage-ment Transformation Plan takes on more than just technology. In order to eff ectively transform, hundreds of business processes across 18 state agencies will be modernized, using off -the-shelf technology whenever possible to keep costs under control.

But the technology is a means to enable more effi cient business processes, rather than the end game — an important distinc-tion, according to Bhagowalia. “My job is to help the purveyors and the consumers of information get it from the providers of the information, and technology is a vessel to make that happen.”

Shared and Consolidated ServicesLacking a statewide Chief Informa-

tion Offi ce until Bhagowalia’s appoint-ment, technology services in Hawaii have until now been fragmented and spread ineffi ciently throughout the state. The transformation plan pushes shared IT services and infrastructure. Ultimately Bhagowalia envisions something akin to initiatives in Michigan and Utah, where technology functions operate like a utility, reducing duplication and complexity while enhancing reliability and service levels.

Transparent GovernmentIn line with Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s

vision for open government, the transfor-mation plan outlines several strategies to improve transparency. The state’s recent launch of an open data portal, as well its participation in opendata.gov, the federal government’s multi-jurisdictional data site, provide evidence of this commitment.

An open data initiative aims to also encourage citizen engagement in problem-solving.

Service-Oriented PortalToday the state provides 150 diff erent

citizen services, but less than 5 percent of them are online. Bhagowalia would like to see all citizen-facing services online. A new state website, my.hawaii.gov , will allow Hawaiians to completely customize how they interact online with the state, based on the services they need. Mobile devices also factor heavily into Hawaii’s strategy, as the plan lays out the intent to have all services and informa-tion available securely, from any device.

Phased Process with Built-In WinsWhile the plan stretches over 12

years in total, it recommends a phased yet fl exible approach that off ers oppor-tunities for successes at regular inter-vals. Transparent progress tracking throughout the implementation process will measure customer satisfaction and allow for midstream course corrections.

Bhagowalia emphasized that the most signifi cant and transformational change is impacting the organizational culture of the state’s 41,000-strong workforce. A change of this magnitude requires constant internal communication, and a commit-ment to empowering the workforce to assume ownership of its business areas and help advance a customer-focused vision of positive change.

Feedback on the plan while still in its draft stage underlined the need for a cultural change to implement the transformation successfully.

“The stumbling block to transformation in Hawaii is culture, not just in government but in the community in general. I’m glad to see that the IT/IRM Strategic Plan recog-nizes that it is proposing a cultural shift,” one reviewer noted.

Budget BumpModernizing the business operations and

technology operations of a state is bound to be a costly proposition. Bhagowalia secured a $25 million budget allocation in 2011, a supplemental budget year, which went toward plan development. Support from Abercrombie as well as the state Legislature is critical to the plan’s success, and Bhagowalia is optimistic that it will continue through the next phase: execution.

He explained that IT has been grossly underfunded in Hawaii for the past three decades, and transformation will require an increased share of the state’s $11 billion budget. Historically 1.4 percent of the budget has been devoted to IT. While he said an industry best practice is a funding level of 3 to 5 percent, implementation of needed changes for Hawaii will require an increase to about 2.4 percent, sustained over the duration of the implementation period.

“Thirty years of under funding can be fi xed in 10 years of at least funding at an appropriate level,” he said. Despite tough budget times across the board in state government, he remains opti-mistic that it can be achieved, admitting that failure to fund at that 2.4 percent level will impact implementation.

“I believe the plan will survive and endure,” Bhagowalia concluded. “I think the people of Hawaii want this.”

[email protected]@GovTechNoelle

$11 BILLION state budget

1.4 MILLION residents

41,000 government workforce

TRANSFORMING

HAWAII:743legacy systems

108attached agencies

36lines of business

220 business functions(150 of which are citizen services)

18 State departments


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product news By Miriam Jones | Chief Copy Editor

For more product news, log on to explore Government Technology’s Product Source. govtech.com/products

Send product review ideas to Miriam Jones: [email protected], twitter@mjonesgovtech


TabletbookUsers can switch between a clamshell notebook PC

and tablet PC with the Samsung ATIV Smart PC 500T,

which runs on Windows 8 and has an Intel Atom

Z2760 processor. The 11.6-inch LED high-defi nition

touchscreen off ers 1366 x 768 resolution. A 64 GB

solid-state drive contains 2 GB DDR2L memory, Wi-Fi

and Bluetooth 4.0. The device is equipped with S Pen

and pen-optimized apps, such as S Note, S Memo

and S Cloud. www.samsung.com

Light it Up Logitech’s Bluetooth illuminated K810 keyboard

lets users change easily between three devices

(e.g., PC, tablet and smartphone). The wireless

keyboard is rechargeable via USB and works with

iOS, Android and Windows operating systems. A

motion detector senses a user’s hands as they

near the keyboard, and illumination automatically

adjusts to surrounding light — the darker a room,

the brighter the illumination. www.logitech.com

Bagtastic Messenger Bag Timbuk2 created the Commute Messenger bag 2012 with

a TSA-compliant laptop compartment that unzips to lie fl at

for airport security. The bag consists of durable ballistic

nylon fabric, with a thermoplastic polyurethane front fl ap

and waterproof hypalon rubberized bottom. There’s a

high-density foam laptop sleeve with quilted tricot fabric,

and a separate padded area for a tablet. Additional pock-

ets are available for a water bottle, phone, cords, keys

and other small items. The bag also has loops for attach-

ing carry-on luggage and a bike light. www.timbuk2.com

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Register Now for

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To register contact Jeremy Smith Registration [email protected] 916-932-1402

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Early-bird discount for Beyond the Beltway valid through February 11, 2013.

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Hear from education CIOs and K-12 and higher education leaders on current and future IT plans, programsand new initiatives.

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spectrum More research, more science, more technology.


HARVESTING TORNADO ENERGY:Picasso wasn’t referring to tornadoes when

he made this statement, but the case could be

made for an invention that creates tornadoes and

harnesses that energy to generate electricity.

The process, known as the atmospheric vortex engine (AVE), works by capturing energy that’s

produced when heat is carried upward by

convection in the air (a.k.a. an artifi cial mini

tornado). The AVE could increase the power

output of a thermal power plant by converting

its waste heat into energy.

SOURCE: VORTEXENGINE.CA

What are they doing?• Listening to music

• Texting

• Talking on their phone

• Dealing with a child or pet

• Talking to someone else

Some unsafebehaviors:• Disobeying traffi c lights

• Not looking both ways before crossing

• Crossing mid-intersection

SOURCE: INJURY PREVENTION

Send Spectrum ideas to Managing Editor Karen Stewartson, [email protected], twitter@karenstewartson

WATCH SPECTRUM AT www.govtech.com/spectrum

Distracted PedestriansNearly one-third of Seattle pedestriansobserved during a recent study were distracted

by a social or technological activity while crossing

the street. Texting was associated with highest risk,

according to researchers, who said pedestrians

spotted texting were four times likelier to display

an unsafe behavior than undistracted pedestrians.

The study observed roughly 1,100 Seattle residents

using some of the city’s busiest crosswalks.

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Kickstarter Cities: Have a project idea and need fi nancial backing? Destination: Kickstarter.com. Last year, 18,109 projects received a com-bined dollar amount of more than $319 million. Here are a couple of U.S. cities that got a slice of the pie.

Athens, Ga., got a love shack! A national art com-petition called You, Me & the Bus invited participants to dream up cool designs for bus shelters in Athens. The 2008 winner was the Love Shack Bus Stop (inspired by The B-52s song Love Shack), but con-struction stalled because of lack of funding. Thanks to Kickstarter, the project was completed in 2012, giving bus passengers a place for huggin’ and a kissin’ — or at least wait for their ride.

“Every act of creation is first an act of destruction.”— PABLO PICASSO

Chattanooga, Tenn., became the fi rst

city to have its own typeface. Called

Chatype, the designers hope the font will be used to brand

Chattanooga’s roads, recycle bins, destina-

tions and more.

Chatype:

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April 8-10, 2013Boston, MAwww.BigDataTechCon.com

The HOW-TO conference for Big Data and IT ProfessionalsDiscover how to master Big Data from real-world practitioners – instructors who work in the trenchesand can teach you from real-world experience!

Register Early and SAVE! A BZ Media Event

Big Data TechCon™ is a trademark of BZ Media LLC.

Big Data gets real at Big Data TechCon!

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Come to Big Data TechCon to learn the best ways to:• Collect, sort and store massive quantities

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• Learn HOW TO integrate data-collection technologies withanalysis and business-analysis tools to produce the kind ofworkable information and reports your organization needs

• Understand HOW TO leverage Big Data to help your organization today


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Imagine the Possibilities Can design thinking save government?

Have you ever looked at a stand-up toothpaste tube or an ATM that returns your

card before starting the transaction and thought, “What a great idea”?

You are not alone. In a recent 60 Minutes episode, Char-

lie Rose interviewed David Kelley, CEO of IDEO on the power of design think-ing. His company has created thousands of breakthrough inventions, including the Zyliss kitchen tools that are easy to use, Apple’s fi rst computer mouse, TiVo’s thumbs up/down button, and a better Pringle for Procter & Gamble.

Design thinking is an innovative approach that incorporates human behav-ior into design by using observation and cross-discipline teams. At it’s simplest, it is focused on solving problems and discover-ing opportunities through a threefold approach — technology, business and human values as they look at the feasibil-ity, viability and usability of solutions.

In the last few years, it has gone from a small idea to mainstream — from 60 Min-utes episodes to whole conferences dedi-cated to design thinking. Stanford created a school dedicated to teaching design think-ing as a tool for innovation — the Hasso

Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford led by David Kelley of IDEO.

And now it’s coming to government.

The UK Government Digital Service used these

design thinking principles in its technol-ogy manifesto, which among its many items, recommends starting with user needs, designing with data and focus-ing on iteration. The fi rst major release from the Government Digital Service is Gov.uk, a one-stop shop for govern-ment services, such as renewing licenses, fi nding out about pensions, registering deaths and a host of other things. Based on its design process of talking to users and alpha and beta releases, the site has focused on a key goal — absolute simplic-ity with which information is presented.

Further, the U.S. Offi ce of Personnel Management has launched an Innovation Lab with courses on design thinking. The D.C.-based Design Thinking DC group was founded by Jenn Gustetic of NASA and includes co-organizer Stephanie Rowe, former TSA executive. It has grown to more than 850 members and held 17 meetups in less than two years. IDEO it-self has spun off a public-sector group that has worked with numerous agencies from the Social Security Administration to the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau.

So how can design thinking help you save government? At its simplest, it encour-ages us to focus on the basics of what our citizens need and how can we resolve these needs in the quickest and simplest ways.

So here are 10 design thinking questions that you can use to reimagine government services.1 / Where are people getting stuck in thecustomer service process?

2 / What is the citizen experience on fi lling out your forms?3 / What hours should you really be open in your buildings to meet citizens’ needs?4 / Does the language make sense to citizens?5 / How can design thinking reinforce employee behaviors you desire (healthy behaviors, customer service behaviors)?6 / Why are people not doing items you want, such as paying parking tickets? Is there a design fl aw that could fi x the problem?7 / How are people fi nding out about you? How can you optimize that?8 / What is the normal behavior of citizens when interacting with government? Alone or with family? If online, at home or at the library?9 / Where are the biggest pain points and frustrations in the process? Where can you decrease it? How can you increase delight?10 / What assumptions are you making in this government service? Are they still valid in 2013 with your current stakeholders and modern behaviors?

Remember when you had to wait to get the ATM card at the end of your transaction? Every day thousands of folks left their cards in the machine. One small change inspired by observing thousands of bank customers changed the process — now ATMs give customers their card back right away, saving thousands of frantic bank customers hours of getting their cards back.

I can only imagine the possibilities as we begin to use this approach to solve public-sector problems.

Steve Ressleris the founder

and president of

GovLoop, a social

networking site

for government

officials to connect

and exchange

information.

By Steve Ressler


GOV2020

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Setting the Standard.d.

Find out WHO they are in the March 2013 issue.

25TOPDOERS, DREAMERS& DRIVERS

GOVERNMENTTECHNOLOGY’S

Doers: Making Government Work

Dreamers: Changing Convention

Drivers: Improving Lives of Citizens

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www.rittal-corp.com/makeITeasy

Make IT easy.The new TS IT rack with snap-in technology.Quick and easy to install.


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