Counties Lead the IT Way, Part II – The Four IT Priorities for Counties

// August 17th, 2011 // Comments // Government //

Last time I relayed some of the discussions and trends from this year’s Center for Digital Government Digital Counties award ceremony. While it may have sounded like county governments don’t have the budget for moving along current IT projects or starting new ones, that wasn’t true at all. In fact, in areas that ran the gamut from replacement cycles to the realities of the “new normal” of more with less, the counties I spoke with were focused on four specific IT priorities now and into the coming year:

1. County finance and administration departments across the country are focusing on replacing their ERP solutions. These solutions are the backbone of their purchasing, contracting and HR technology investments and because government buys in cycles, many of these systems reached the time when the systems either have to be replaced or upgraded. Either way, this requires a major effort from the folks in government who own these solutions. But they definitely think it’s worth it – they know that upgrade or replacement is necessary to achieve more automation, utilize enhanced compliance tools and connect data and documents for more efficiency. Importantly, these system replacements are also seen as a a direct tie to enhanced transparency and open government.

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The Datatel and SunGard Higher Education SIS marriage: It’s about more than the SIS

// August 12th, 2011 // Comments // Higher Education, IT //

Though seldom witnessed these days, it was once common practice for the minister or magistrate presiding over a wedding to ask if anyone objected to the unification at hand. Except in rare cases (and perhaps only in the movies), the offer to speak up was generally met with silence. By contrast, the recently announced marriage – er, merger – of Datatel and SunGard Higher Education is already resonating in commentaries and conversations across industry trade magazines, blogs and even Twitter.

While not necessarily negative, the responses indicate a certain degree of anxiety about the long-term implications of what some are calling an “arranged marriage.”

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Life without ECM: One credit union’s perspective

// August 11th, 2011 // 2 Comments » // Financial Services //

I often wonder how we at Anheuser-Busch Employees Credit Union survived in a world of paper and microfilm. Employees struggled to find information that was vital to do their jobs. And there was no central storage location to keep content in line.

But here’s what we did have: massive vaults, dusty file rooms and rusty filing cabinets. Our employees had to battle boxes and folders full of current and previous members’ documents to find what they needed. As a result, departmental processes – including lending, member service and HR – slowed down. Finding a single document could take up to five days! Our members deserved better.

Our credit union’s leaders knew we needed a solution to tie departments together, improve member service and ease reports processing at the same time. That’s when we turned to an electronic document management solution.

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Counties Lead the IT Way, Part I – View from the Digital Counties Awards 2011

// August 10th, 2011 // Comments // Government //

A few weeks ago, I sat amongst some of the most tech savvy counties in the U.S. at the Center for Digital Government’s 2011 Digital Counties Awards.

Each year, the Center selects county winners in population categories based on a survey of their IT efforts.

Because these counties span all different geographies and populations, the discussions were a microcosm of the issues facing county government. Based on some incredible conversations with people who are passionate about government IT, here are my “big three” on what is affecting county governments’ use of IT today:

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What is the correct definition of “The Cloud”?

// August 9th, 2011 // 3 Comments » // Cloud Computing, IT //

In my last blog post, “What’s Wrong With Today’s Definitions of The Cloud,” I discussed why I believe the term “Cloud” is so confusing to the average person. And it’s not getting any easier. Not only are we hearing about the Cloud around the office and in TV commercials – it’s also begun its infiltration into our pop-culture, too.

The July 2011 edition of the well-known technical and scientific journal, Entertainment Weekly, had an article called “Who’s winning the Cloud Race?” that caught my eye. In the article, this glossy entertainment magazine takes a foray into the Cloud discussion, specifically delving into the major players now offering music in the Cloud, comparing Best Buy’s Music Cloud with Apple’s iCloud and Amazon’s Cloud Drive.

But that’s just the beginning of the confusion. The article then goes on to say “the biggest threat to the iCloud isn’t a cloud service at all. It’s beloved Pandora radio.” Okay, so now you’re saying that music in the Cloud doesn’t include online radio?! How then are we supposed to understand the article on Forbes.com which describes Pandora as “Cloud Radio”?

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Microsoft connects business, consumer markets at 2011 Worldwide Partner Conference

// August 4th, 2011 // Comments // Enterprise content management, IT //

I’ve seen some crazy acronyms and lingo in the IT world, and though my mom’s a former English teacher, some words have even stopped me. Consumerization is one of them. In fact, as I type this, Microsoft Word is telling me that consumerization is not a word.

Ironic, as consumerization was the main topic of conversation at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC), which brought more than 15,000 Microsoft partner attendees to Los Angeles a few weeks ago.

Most of the time, the media and analysts talk about the consumerization of IT from the perspective that consumer technology is influencing how business technology works. But what I found interesting is that Microsoft really took it to another level – consumer hardware is driving business software.

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The Best Way to Review Admissions Applications? “Screen” Them

// July 28th, 2011 // Comments // Higher Education //

A recent front-page article in The New York Times provides a glimpse into the working world of those responsible for making undergraduate admissions decisions at selective institutions. In a verbal snapshot of the committee review stage at Rice University, the article captures a scene in which committee members are collectively viewing and discussing applicant files presented on a large plasma screen.

The description is brief, yet highly illuminating for anyone familiar or tasked with application review. The insight here is that the committee at Rice is not poring through piles of paper documents strewn across a table and covered with handwritten sticky notes. Instead, committee members are quickly, conveniently pulling up on-screen what are no doubt complete student application files. Clearly, these files are being stored, managed and accessed electronically.

For institutions at which admissions processing and application review still move through cumbersome, paper-laden steps, this glimpse into the electronic environment at Rice will no doubt be a source of envy. For Enrollment VPs and Admissions directors at those schools, it should also be cause for alarm.

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Frankenstein in the Courts – The Perils of Bolt-On Document Management

// July 26th, 2011 // Comments // Government //

At a recent conference about court technology, many of the users were considering adding document management functionality to their court case management databases.

They reasoned, correctly, that a connection between the high volume of paper documents and the case database record would be helpful to their staff. In fact, courts are facing budget pressures like every other governmental organization and these folks were concerned about how they could keep up with the workload, even though they have not experienced the same level of staff cutbacks as other departments.

This was an illuminating discussion because it showed several things. First, courts are embracing document management. This is critical. Courts depend on documents to operate, and they run better on electronic documents whose security and access can be controlled, and whose sensitive data can be redacted automatically if the documents need to be shared.

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