How do you reach the most people in today’s world?  There is no obvious answer.  Informing the public has to use a wide variety of resources.  Last year, Catawba County started using Facebook and Twitter to reach the audiences using these media.  In a recent presentation to the NC3C conference, our efforts were spotlighted.  The article below is by Jason King of the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners.  My thanks to Jason for recognizing our efforts.

Tuned in to or turned off by SOCIAL MEDIA?

Counties could be missing an opportunity to engage citizens, particularly youth, via Web 2.0

By Jason King, Assistant Communications Director, North Carolina Association of County Commissioners

The world has embraced social media. Everyone from your kids to your hairdresser to the president seems to have hundreds of fans on Facebook or is sharing their thoughts with the world via Twitter. Well, everyone except your county government.

So just why are so many county governments passing on this golden opportunity to share information and services and communicate with citizens on these free and easy-to-use interactive Web sites? The North Carolina City & County Communicators (NC3C) organization recently explored this question during its spring conference, held April 1-3 in Catawba County.

According to Cord Silverstein, executive vice president of interactive communications for Capstrat, President Barack Obama set the new standard for government communications via Web 2.0. In a Web feature on www.whitehouse.gov, the president held a special online “town hall” meeting, taking questions and polling the public, then answering several of the more popular questions in a short video. The White House Web site incorporates a blog and RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed, and the president is on Facebook at www.facebook.com/barackobama and Twitter at twitter.com/BarackObama.

The biggest pushback from local governments and the corporate world, according to Silverstein, is due to a loss of control. Traditional Web sites allow the owner to completely control the message. They don’t allow the viewer to communicate and connect with the Web site owner and other users. Social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Blogger, LinkedIn, flickr and YouTube allow sharing of information.

 At least one North Carolina county government is embracing rather than running from Web 2.0. Catawba County has presences on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and the county’s official Web site incorporates RSS feeds to allow users to subscribe and receive content via their preferred electronic media, such as e-mail or Twitter.

“The whole concept of Web 2.0 is sharing,” said Terry Bledsoe, chief information officer for Catawba County. “It’s not just pushing information.” Bledsoe said. Web site managers today must think short-term - audiences are looking for fresh content daily - and sites must be agile and able to be accessed on multiple browsers and devices, such as iPhones and Blackberries.

“If what you are sending out won’t reach that device,” he said, “you’re missing a lot of your potential audience.”

Social networking sites can also be used as a means of retaining young talent in a county. By opening county government to forms of communication most popular to youth, you are empowering those citizens through engagement, Bledsoe said.

When developing the county’s Facebook site, Bledsoe met with officers in the county’s Youth Council to gather input on how the county’s information technology department could meet the needs of everyone - including youth.

Bledsoe said such outreach efforts will help talented students, such as then- Youth Council President Gavin Gabriel, keep their connection with the county if they leave for higher education. The hope is that connection will lead them back to the county when they graduate.

“If we don’t reach the Gavins of the world, they’re going to leave and go someplace else,” he said.

In the county’s first seven months on Facebook, 453 users signed up as fans.

So how do Catawba County employees find the time to update Facebook and Twitter? They don’t have to. By using an RSS service, Feedburner, the county broadcasts updates to e-mail subscribers and its Facebook and Twitter pages every time it updates the county Web site.

The county also allows community agencies that receive county funding to get set up to have their event listings automatically post to Facebook.

Implementing an RSS feed on a Web site isn’t too difficult, Bledsoe said, but he recommended that a county work with its IT department to set it up.

For counties that want to get started with Web 2.0 but don’t know where to begin, Bledsoe recommended they “go down your hall and find your two youngest employees.”

Those who aren’t ready to embrace social media will likely see current and future generations leave them behind, he warned.

“In the next 10 years, you will experience more technological change than you experienced in the past 80 years.”

The April edition of CountyLines can be found at:

http://www.ncacc.org/documents/countylines/09_04.pdf

The Future Economy Council met Thursday morning and left invigorated, excited and challenged.  Rick Smyre, a futurist held an intriguing conversation with the council.  That conversation and the meeting was captured very elegantly by Thom Shell of the Hickory Hound.  My thanks to Thom for allowing me to share his post.  Thom’s blog is posted below and can be found at http://thehickoryhound.blogspot.com/2009/04/future-economy-council-meetinf-was.html.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Future Economy Council Meeting was awesome

James Thomas Shell

Here is my report on this morning’s Future Economy Council Meeting. Rick Smyre really got me to thinking about the possibilities for our community going forward into the future. We should be thankful that Danny Hearn has moved us in this direction.

Mr. Hearn made introductions of a few new members that will participate in our Future Economy Council: Mary Sizemore - Director, Hickory Public Libraries; Karen Foss - Director, Hickory Public Libraries; Patty Thompson, Mountain State University; Tom Alexander - Fire Chief, City of Hickory.

Mr. Hearn stressed the importance of utilizing library resources to get our message out. We have applied for a $10,000 grant from the Catawba Valley Community foundation. This money will go towards training 15 to 25 “Master Capacity Builders;” “Futures Institute Training at L-R, CVCC. and ASU;Improving the IT curriculum of Catawba County’s 3 school systems; Transformative Dialogue Groups - to involve and educate the citizenry; and for Incidentals. Mr. Hearn stated that even if we don’t get this grant, that there are other avenues available to raise the monies needed. We will know in 5 weeks whether we get this grant or not.

Mr. Hearn then introduced Rick Smyre. He was a CEO of a textile company in Gaston County and is a leading Future Development Specialist. He believes that we are in a period of Historical Transformation. He told us that he used to debate people, but now he has learned to listen and connect with what people are saying. He stated that everything he told us was an opinion and that he has no truth left in his body. One of the real challenges is to create a culture in communities where they can transform themselves.

His experiences led him to think structurally and linearly in the past. He used to debate upon what he heard. If he agreed with what a person thought, then he could carry on a discussion with the person. He said he really wasn’t listening to what people were saying.

We need to learn to not just reform, we need to learn how to transform. Transformation means something has not been around (existed) before. Reformation is just changing something that already exists. Transformation requires people to rethink what they have thought for years. These are fundamental issues.

Dialogue is communication in the form of questions and statements. Dialogue is not enough in the transformative times we are in. We have to find value (a connection) in what one another are saying. This can help us with our capacity to innovate. The skill to ask appropriate questions is going to be more important at times than to make a statement.

Traditional Leadership is project oriented and is focused on outcomes.Transformative Leadership requires that we use new ideas that create a futures context. New ideas do not have a model or template to go by. If we don’t open our minds to these new ideas, then we don’t have the capacity to make the changes necessary to transform our community. We must have a sense of what is emerging, instead of being fixated on the way that things have always been.

Work of the future will be mental. Biological Principle says that you do not have innovation, growth, or evolution unless you have diversity. Diversity alone is not enough, you must have processes that allow that diversity to take shape. Nobody changes unless we as individuals decide that we must change. This is the reason that Statements are no longer effective. We must build connections between individuals. Questions help us to evolve and develop ideas and processes.

We are seeing 3 different Economies emerge:
1) The Knowledge Economy - Thought to be taking place from 2000 to 2025. Creation of an environment in the culture that supports continuous innovation that is always open to new ideas.

2) Industrial Economy - The Industrial age. Peaked in the 1980s. This is still the focus of most leaders in our community.

3) Creative Molecular Economy (Open Source Economy) - When you cannot control where you want to go, because you don’t no where you are going, because things haven’t been invented yet, then you have to create productive capacities. Adaptive planning says that you must work and network together (as individuals) to respond and adapt to what is emerging. Connectivity (And/Both reasoning) is important in understanding context, structuring statements, and objectives. The two major components a) Technology and b) Organization of economy and society around individuals, global innovation networks, and small groups.

People resist change, because of comfort. That makes it hard to make positive transformations in society. If we want to have our economy be vital and sustainable, then we must be willing to take what are considered radical approaches in changing society. We must depend on one another to achieve higher objectives. This is a systemic issue and we must build parallel processes to achieve objectives in an exponentially changing world.

We need to build relationships with cutting edge individuals that can help our area. These people might come to this area, if we are supportive of a Creative Molecular Economy. We must learn to collaborate and cooperate. Leaders need to develop environments where others can come to their own conclusions. We should not limit ourselves, because we are not willing to listen to others who might have different ideas than our own. That expands the mind.

Marching Orders - Lead and talk to one another. Ask questions of one another. Design a 6 month strategy. Bring our own ideas to the table, so that community transformation can emerge over the next 5 to 10 years. Build connections with people that we know virtually or personally and collaborate with them so that they can see the value in what we are doing.

This morning I attended an exciting meeting at the Catawba County Chamber of Commerce. This meeting was the first meeting of the Future Economy Council.  So what makes this council different and exciting?  Catawba County has always been pro active in looking to the future and what we need to do to meet the challenges.  However, changes in world, cheaper labor in other countries, and the current economic situation has left us questioning how we position ourselves as a community.

Danny Hearn started the meeting by showing the latest version of Did You Know to the group.  If you have not seen this video, you need to watch it carefully and think about the implications for the future.  It is clear that the world has changed significantly.  Part of this is the result of the technology we have today and the power that goes along with it.  Part is the move to a global society as opposed to local. Part is due to rapid change that allows for the next big advancement to happen before we even know about the previous one.   

The council will have a lot of work to do.  Areas that they will be addressing include: Building capacity for community transformation; How we understand the world and how we relate to each other;  How we think and how do we educate and learn so that our citizens and their children can enjoy a good quality of life;  What type skills do our leaders need and how do we govern in this new world;  The list goes  on but the major discussion will center around how we understand and work within a global economy.  To be competitive, to be relevant, Catawba County must have and continue to have these discussions.

In closing, I noted a few words used in the material.  They include alternative, creative, innovative, collaborative on, non-linear, adaptive, transformative and diversity.  Over the past year I have given a lot of presentations on Web 2.0 and about Digital Natives.  Seems these terms come up a lot when we talk about our youth and the social networks they are using to communicate.  To encourage our youth to live and work here in the future, we must understand and embrace these words and the concepts they represent.

Last night I had the honor of presenting a report to the Catawba County Commissioners on the status of our strategic plan for technology.  Catawba County’s Strategic Technology Plan provides a continuing framework for the effective management of Information Technology (IT). The primary goal of Technology is to support the business objectives of the County and to facilitate departmental efforts to provide efficient and effective services to the citizens, businesses, and visitors of Catawba County.  The plan also provides a foundation for an enterprise-wide approach to the management of information technology. Catawba County is a leader among local governments as it has moved from a silo approach (department-specific) to a process-oriented environment (cross-cutting services focused on the clients of government) with some of its recent projects.

The Strategic Plan was first presented to commissioners in June of 2007 and contains six strategic initiatives:

Strategic Initiative 1

Empower the Public: Enable the public to interact with local government by providing secure access to information and the ability to efficiently conduct appropriate business 365/24/7.

Strategic Initiative 2

Improve outcomes, efficiency, responsiveness, and agility of services by transforming the management of information technology through best practices and shared resources.

Strategic Initiative 3

Transform key business processes through the effective use of innovative technology and state-of-the-art software.

Strategic Initiative 4

Leverage innovative partnerships to offer better services.

Strategic Initiative 5

Empower the Workforces: Enable personnel by increasing the efficiency and agility of the systems they depend on.

Strategic Initiative 6

Improve public safety by leveraging modern information systems and technology.

Highlights of the report include the following projects:

Web Site Redesign: In coordination with the Public Information Officer, the current Catawba County web site is constantly evaluated and upgraded to offer new services to the public.  The Technology Department works with each department to review the services that each department offers and how to best present those services to the public.  The changes are incorporating many of the Web 2.0 design concepts.  Along with this redesign, Catawba County is taking advantage of Web 2.0 services including Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Due to the dynamic nature of the web site, work will continue indefinitely on this project. Recently updated department sites include:

•          Animal Services - http://www.catawbacountync.gov/depts/es/animal.asp
•          Finance - http://www.catawbacountync.gov/depts/finance/
•          Geospatial Information Systems - http://www.gis.catawba.nc.us/
•          Human Resources - http://www.catawbacountync.gov/depts/pers/
•          Social Services - http://www.catawbacountync.gov/dss/
•          Tax - http://www.catawbacountync.gov/depts/tax/

Permit Center Application Replacement: The current Tidemark system used for permitting and inspections is over 10 years old and cannot provide the services that are expected by the building community.  The current software cannot be modified to provide these services and is not supported for upgrade by the vendor.  The County Commissioners have approved funding to replace the system and a vendor has been selected.  The new software will allow for builders and the public to apply for building permits online and then to track the progress of the permit through the approval and building process.  The software is a comprehensive package that covers all aspects of the permitting process including, permit management, plan review, inspections, scheduling and cashiering.  The software provides for integration with the GIS system, electronic plan review, and for access for all of the municipalities.  A programmer analyst has been hired to work on the project and came onboard in August 2008. Target date has not been set and is based on contract negotiations and conversion timeframe for the vendor.

Unified Electronic Payment Processing System:  Catawba County had limited electronic payment options for the public.  Citizens could pay their tax bill online but could not use credit or debit cards at the counter.  The Register of Deeds accepted debit cards and Permitting accepted credit cards over the counter.

To give the public more payment options and to provide a consistent approach across the County, department heads requested a payment system that could be used with all departments over the counter and online and provide a consolidated bill and payment method for citizens.  Research for the County’s website revealed that online payments was a high priority.

A vendor was chosen to provide services. Now the Tax Department, Register of Deeds, the Permit Center, Libraries, Emergency Services and Public Health offer over the counter payment.  Social Services, will soon have the services available.  The Tax Department and Permit Center have online payments available.

Online payments for consolidated bills was made available at the end of 2008.  With this, the public can go online and make one payment for all of their county obligations: taxes, permitting and landfill fees.

Virtual Technology/ SAN (Storage Area Network) Project: The Disaster Recovery Plan revealed that a redundant data center was needed to provide for recovery in case of an incident in the main technology center.  It also revealed that the current server structure and replacement model could not be maintained at current funding levels.  A SAN solution was purchased and installed.  A redundant SAN was also installed at another location in the county. The virtual environment reduced the county’s 70 plus physical servers to 10 physical servers running 100 plus virtual servers.  In 2008, an additional 15Tb of storage was added to both sites to address the growing demands for storage space. Besides providing the security of a redundant system, replacement and operating cost where reduced. Completed May 2008, virtual technology and the SAN will save the County over $400,000 or the next few years.

800 MHz VIPER System:  This project is to enhance our ability to talk to Public Safety officials in our county and surrounding counties. We have some coverage issues in the county with the current VHF system that must be addressed. VIPER is already established here and the build out of tower sites is taking place in our area.  By partnering with the North Carolina State Highway Patrol, Catawba County plans to upgrade its communications system using the infrastructure provided by the state.

Catawba County is moving forward with plans to connect to the VIPER network.  In 2003, the Board of Commissioners partnered with the North Carolina State Highway Patrol to build a tower on Riverbend Road.  During 2008, land was transferred to the NCSHP and the tower was constructed. Currently it is nearing completion.  At that time, Catawba County will have excellent 800MHz coverage across the county.

Equipment has also been ordered for the 911 Center.  It is scheduled to be installed Spring 2009 and will provide 16 talk groups to be used across the county.  At that point, all agencies can begin the transition to the 800 MHz VIPER system.  EMS is scheduled to be the first agency to come online.  This is due to the high volume of traffic they have outside of the county while transporting patients to Winston Salem and Charlotte.  The current system does not provide communication back to the county.  The VIPER system will ensure constant communication anywhere in the State of North Carolina.

The current VHF system will be left in place as a backup to the VIPER system.  This is being done for two reasons.  First it provides a transition pathway for agencies to convert to VIPER over a period of time and second, it provides a redundant communication system for Public Safety.

Build out timeframe of the entire county will depend on funding.

Other Projects:  The report and the presentation cover numerous other projects that were guided by the strategies laid out in the Catawba County Technology Strategic plan.  The plan can be found on our website at http://enewsletter.catawbacountync.gov/ITC/strategicplan061107.pdf . The report  can be found at http://enewsletter.catawbacountync.gov/ITC/presentations/Report_boc_Jan_2009.pdf.

For more information or questions, please use the comments section and I will be glad to contact you.

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It is always a challenge trying to predict the future and a real danger in writing down what you think may happen in the coming year.  It is however, the role of the CIO to peer into the crystal ball and try to determine what changes may occur and how to address the changes in the most responsible way for the citizens.  Local governments have a special challenge addressing the many diverse functions and services they are expected to deliver and at the same time, taking advantages of new technologies.  Here are some areas that bear watching in the New Year.

• The Economy: Everyone knows the economy has sufferred and that revenues will decrease. But this could be an optimum time to make changes to the organization. It is a good time to quit looking at the way things have been done in the past and focus on how they could be done better in the future. It is a good time to review programs that need to be discontinued but a few people insist on keeping them. It is a good time to negotiate everything with vendors. Let them know that budgets are being reduced and their services may be discontinued if they are not willing to renegotiate items such as service contracts and maintenance agreements. It is a good time to invest in new technologies that provide for a lower total cost of ownership. The economy will be a major player in 2009, how we respond should be proactive and not reactive. It is up to us to make the best decisions for our citizens.
• Obama’s Technology Plan: With presidential changes come new plans and opportunities. President elect Barack Obama has released his technology plan and there could be positive opportunities , as well as challenges, for local governments. Highlights of the plan include: High speed Internet available to “all of America”, Electronic medical records, Net neutrality, Government data online in universally accessible formats, a Chief Technology Officer, and higher level of technical literacy to the classroom. Local government needs to pay very close attention to high speed internet opportunities. America’s infrastructure is falling behind other countries and this may provide the funds to improve that infrastructure. Two areas that may prove challenging are the electronic medical records and the universally accessible government data. While both of these are going to provide great services to citizens, making them a reality is going to take a lot of time and resources.
• Virtualization: This has been on the list for the last few years and will continue to grow. Virtualizing the server environment offers many positive returns on investment. It allows for maximum utilization of resources while reducing the physical number of boxes needed to maintain services. It also provides a better path for disaster recovery in that setting up and maintaining redundant sites is easier and less costly. Virtualization also allows for government agencies to reduce their power and cooling requirements thus becoming part of the green IT movement.
• Virtual Desktop Interface: VDI brings virtualization to the desktop. Citrix has brought applications to the desktop for years but VDI goes a step further. Using a client on the computer, the user can choose an operating system and an application. VDI requires a good connection to the backend equipment but can run on machines with very little computing power since most of the processing takes place at the backend.
• Less Techs in the Field More on the Back End: This is a result of virtualization and VDI. If all of the applications and operating systems are running on the backend and very little on the user machine, there is less to repair in the field. This shifts the technical support to the backend. Don’t count on this to reduce the cost of staff. While the number of techs may decrease the skill level on the backend will increase requiring higher compensation.
• eDiscovery and Document Management: Government has always produced a lot of documents and a lot of electronic data. How to store all of the documents and data is a continuing challenge and will keep document management in the forefront. Adding to this challenge, local government is just beginning to realize the impact of eDiscovery. Providing the tools to search and retrieve data will be an area that must be addressed.
• Email Archiving: Email archiving is related to eDiscovery. Once documents are requested, how do you find them and make sure that they are not erased? This provides a place for all emails to be stored, searched and retrieved for as long as retention laws require. A secondary benefit of email archiving is better storage utilization. The process only stores one copy of an email and the attached documents.  For instance, if an email that was sent to 500 employees with two attachments would result in three files being stored rather than 1500 files.
• Data Deduplication: Storing data requires a lot of disk space. Many of the documents that local government produces are duplicated several times. For example, a file sent to all department heads who in turn store their copy on the network drives. Data deduplication scans through the stored files and reduces the number of copies of a file to one. Thus reducing the amount of storage space needed.
• Mobilization: The more mobile that a workforce becomes the more agile it is in responding to the public. Mobile workers offer benefits in terms of savings in office space and in terms of time in the field. Mobile workers now have access to everything they had in the office. This allows them to complete their tasks with the information they need and submit information back in real time. It also allows the organization to be flexible with work schedules. This is an area that will continue to grow rapidly.
• Green IT: Local government must be a model for purchasing and recycling green products and IT’s role in this can be significant. Local government should be recycling all of the obsolete electronic products that are being discarded. None should be going to the landfill. Soon, purchasing computers made from recycled material will become a priority as manufacturers move more to green IT products. Reducing energy cost in data centers by moving to a virtual environment, encouraging users to reduce printing and to shut down idol machines all will be steps to go green.
• Disaster Recovery: Disaster recovery has always been a priority but the methods are changing. As storage becomes cheaper and with everything connected and software being offered as a service, more vendors are going to be offering to store your data or a copy of your data as part of the maintenance agreement. This is good for small operations that may not be able to build redundant systems but it is also great for all in that it moves data to a remote site. This offers both flexibility and security for your data.
• Is it Really a Phone: Today’s new mobile devices are so much more than phones and should be viewed by officials in a different light. So much information can be sent and delivered via a phone today that their true potential is only limited by our imagination.
• Social Networks: Local government sometimes shy away from Web 2.0 concepts and social networks is one area where that is especially true. Most avoid social networks because of things they have heard, not because of true facts. In reality, local government should embrace the tools of social networking. Sites like Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube provide opportunities for local government to share information and ideas at almost no cost. They provide a good area to recruit new employees and to involve young adults in government. Internally, tools like SharePoint, provide a place to carry out all phases of projects in a very open and user friendly environment.
• More Government Information Being Shared: We are just beginning to realize the power of taking data and combining it with another source like Google maps to create a product. As tools become easier to use and companies see the potential for selling the information, local government will be asked to provide more data. Requests for this data will not be a one a year data build but a continuous real-time requests. Systems need to be designed with this in mind.
• Customer Experience as Opposed to Customer Service: Local government has always prided itself on providing good customer service however, that may no longer be enough. The next level is the customer experience. For example, when I went online, I did not just find my tax bill and see that it was correct but I expected the experience to be good as well. This is tough to do in our business but expected in a world of high competition and online services.
• Security, Risks and Compliance: Virtualization, virtual desktop interface, email archiving, data deduplication, mobilization, data stored by vendors, phones that reach out and touch, social networks and other Web 2.0 tools, more information being shared, and let’s not forget the users with all types of USB devices. Need I say more? Security will be a challenge.

Terry L. Bledsoe

Chief Information Officer   

Catawba County Government

PO Box 389,  Newton, North Carolina 28658-0389

CIO Blog http://enewsletter.catawbacountync.gov/ITC/?page_id=36

TBledsoe@catawbacountyNC.gov      Visit Our Website

One of the pleasures of my job is occasionally having the opportunity to work with the Catawba County Youth Council.  The Youth Council is a standing committee of the Catawba County Board of County Commissioners.  It is comprised of student representatives from each of the high schools and representatives from community organizations.

During a meeting in the Fall, I asked them about some of the features on our website and how we could improve it.  I asked if they would be willing to review the site and give me some thoughts. A young lady responded, “I didn’t know that you would want my opinion.”  I asked why she thought that I would not want her opinion and she responded by saying the nobody ever asked youth about government and they felt that their involvement was not really wanted.

This statement reflects a real issue with citizen engagement, or at the very least, a real communication breakdown.  This particular young lady was not old enough to vote but her ideas about government are forming and will definitely influence her in the future.  The fact is that our youth have a lot to offer local government besides a vote.  They see things in different ways. They have different perspectives on everyday issues. They question things that adults have quit questioning even though they know things could be better.  They bring creativity to the table.  They see the environment and earth’s resources as their future.  They live and breathe the new technology and use it in ways that older adults never imagined.

Does their opinion matter?  Yes! Local government can learn so much from the youth in the community and we should take every opportunity to do so.  They are our future, but working together in the present will take the journey to new heights and lead to a better future for all.

You can visit the Catawba County Youth Council’s Facebook Group at: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=30409116365&ref=ts   

You can visit the Catawba County’s Facebook page at: http://www.new.facebook.com/pages/Newton-NC/Catawba-County-North-Carolina/25829482210?ref=ts