Hunter: May 2008 Archives

Imagine a new hire going missing in action.  You approved a telework agreement with her.  You thought shes was going to work from home.  But she ends up with a group of self selected freelancers who work alone, together.  (This video was produced by American Public Media's Marketplace and provides another clue to the future of work.)

Since its debut on April 22, the presentation has change a little but all the best parts are in this PDF file.

I have been picking up stuff all my life,  some of it was even legal.  I'm not really a conference kinda guy myself bit it seems to me that you go to conferences to pick stuff up -- maybe a little something overheard in the hall, or something smart somebody said.  Anyway, those are "nuggets" -- collect enough of them and all of a sudden it is a good day.  I've collected a bunch for you ... look for the little nugget boxes all around my blog ... feel free to add more by using the Comments link at the bottom of this or any other post.

What have we learned?

What a finished portal should be and do:

• Approachable, Findable (Search) and Actionable (Transactions)
• Clean and crisp design that helps users confront complexity that lays behind it
• Integrates a wide universe of providers (Central supply and vast network of interdependent stores)

What have we learned?

Listening as an act of governing:

• Dare to open all channels to listen.
• Provide privacy notice at point of collection.
• Make sure the basics work.  If they don’t, fix them.
• If they do, take a fresh look at search, look and feel, media, folksonomies and social.
• Rethink portal as the non exclusive front door to the information, applications and transactions behind it.
• Give tools and templates away in a subversively helpful way.
• Use maps as the ultimate WYSIWYG interface – extending value of your GIS and making mash-ups routine.
• Solve intractable problems (land reform and use, regulation) through geospatially aware applications that are available to everybody, all the time.

What have we learned?

Opening up communication:

• Make connections (Call centers and web draw from common data)
• Make connections (211, 311, 411, 511, 811, 911 more than the sum of the parts)
• When it becomes mission critical, it better be recoverable. In developing call centers, get FTEs rather than existing employees because customer service experience doesn’t always come naturally ….

What have we learned?

Toward data-driven decisions:

• Open expert systems to new universe of users.
• See to the edges of your organization and extend value of formerly discrete data by dashboarding it for decision makers, case managers and project teams.
• Remember this is not a toy: The dashboard is the “same page” you’ve been waiting for.
• Share common directories for the mundane (address changes) to the sublime (who knows how to do what?)

What have we learned?

Alphabet Soup: Choose Your Recipe – then make some soup.

• Face up to the fact it gets harder in a networked world and a federated government
• Build on 40 years of big iron discipline
• Choose your religion (EA, SOA, ITIL, COBIT, ISO, PMOs)
• Integrate into consolidation efforts

What have we learned?

The Thing about Information Security:
* Find a Friend; Don’t Go It Alone
* Use Time Zones to Advantage

What have we learned?

A Green Hue from Consolidation and Virtualization

Commonwealth of Virginia

• Replaced 60,000 PCs and laptops with Energy Star-rated machines
• Energy consumption reduced by 32 percent
• Hard dollar savings estimated at $12 million each year

State of New York DMV

• 277 servers have been virtualized across 11 physical machines
• Realized more than 25:1 savings in server acquisition, power, AC, UPS, floor space, security, support and maintenance costs

City of New York

• Virtualization has raised server utilization rates from 10% to 60%
• Capacity increased by the equivalent of 400 servers
• Avoided the need for implementing an additional 350 servers
• Cost avoidance estimated at $7.9 Million

For an overview of a few steps in the right direction in IT sustainability, see the Center for Digital Government's green paper, Simply Green.

What have we learned?

The Thing about Technological Advances:

• Your next priority may come out of nowhere!
• Legacy still heart of the matter but there are new renewal options
• Voluntary, Non-Solicited, Outside Developers and Actors
• Help and inspiration comes from the ‘darndest’ places

What have we learned?

Serving an increasingly Transient Society

• It is not about place as much as people.
• Design Matters
• You can learn a little something at Hard Rock Café: “Serve All.”

What have we learned?

Just who is your audience?

• You can learn a little something at Hard Rock Café: “Serve All.”

What have we learned?

What we can learn from the first government produced Slacker Video?

• Being relevant but not always viral … only 6,610 views in its first six months (as of May 17, 2008).

What have we learned?

Talking about my (kid's, grandkid's) Generation:

• Change behaviors to change culture … and bring snacks!
• Make public service appear “bright and crisp” … in this life (Social Networking) and the next (Second Life, that is).

What have we learned?

The Evolution of Social O/S

• Take advantage of folksonomies.
• Begin to rethink the platform mix…

What have we learned?

"We have no money so we must think" - Lord Rutherford

• Going off budget is out of the box but within the law…

1. Share Platforms and Services
2. Be Somebody’s Venture Capitalist
3. Use Somebody Else’s Money
4. Buy Like Costco, Operate Like Southwest
5. Run Cheap, Turn Green

See the Center for Digital Government white paper Be IT Resolved.

What have we learned?

Five things to do today to build the tomorrow we want:

1. Play your own position

• Be credible across, up & outside the org
• Staff will not be braver than you are

2. Seize the Disruptive Moment

• Focus on the breakthrough, not the incremental improvement
• Use technology to change the rules, cost structure, and the way the public’s business gets done

3. Be Clear on Intent

• Know the specifics of “As Is” vs. “To Be”
• How much, long, difficult? & what difference?
• Understand how things will be better when you are done (and how it fits with priorities)

4. Think about the next Platform

• Standardize, standardize, standardize
• Cost, management, security, performance

5. Steal Liberally

• You’re organization is not that special
• Somebody else has probably already done it