Last week I attended a meeting about Green Initiatives.  The discussion started with what Catawba County is doing now to promote “Green” and I think we should be very proud of things that came out in the discussion.  For a current list, you can go to http://www.catawbacountync.gov/greena.asp.

Next we discussed carbon footprint.  From WIKIPEDIA - A carbon footprint is “the total set of GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions caused directly and indirectly by an individual, organization, event or product”.  For more information and resources about carbon footprints, you can visit the Green Team Blog on our website.

So what is my carbon footprint? Following the links on the Green Team Blog, it led me to www.carbonfootprint.com .  Using their calculator, my carbon footprint for the year is 27 tonnes, a little higher than the 20.5 tonne average in the US.  Not sure why except that I really got a lot of negative points for driving a 10 year old car.  There are a number of ways to offset the footprint so maybe the trees I planted last summer will help.

But this is a technology blog and the survey didn’t ask me about my computer and all the tech gadgets that we Americans carry around.  How do they add into the carbon footprint formula?  Doing searches using my favorite search engines did not reveal much about the carbon footprint of my computer or my Blackberry but it did reveal that every search I performed created between 0.2 grams to 0.7 grams of CO2.  That’s a big range and highly disputed but the fact is, every search you do on the Internet adds CO2 to the atmosphere.  Scientist do agree that power and cooling requirements for data centers in the US contribute about the same amount of CO2 as the airline industry.  That is a fact that I found surprising.

For all of you with mobile devices like Blackberrys and IPhones, there is an application that will actually keep track of your carbon footprint as you move around day to day.  A UK company has created a mobile phone application called Carbon Diem that uses GPS to track your carbon footprint. The GPS tracks the speed you’re moving at, and from that information, the software figures out if you’re walking, driving or in a train or airplane, and estimates fuel use accordingly.

Whatever technology you use, the point here is, we all generate a lot of CO2.  That’s the bad news, the good news is there are ways to offset the amount of CO2 that we generate.  Watch our web page, especially the Green Team Blog, to find out ways you can make a difference.

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