Transformation and Innovation in Public Sector has new hope

October 30, 2014 Leave a comment

I have seen many “transformations” throughout my work with governments: from punch-card Fortran programming to client-server computing, to web, to mobile and social media. Almost every presentation I have seen over the past twenty years speaks to the government’s need to transform: to do more with less and to innovate. So far there has been more of an evolution than a transformation in government IT. However, with new initiatives such as“Bring your own device” (BYOD), Cloud,“The Internet of Things”, “Appification”, Anti-“Skumorphism” User Interface Design(The word exists!), Big Data, Analytics and Social and Mobile, there is a growing shift toward transformation within government technology.

Specifically, there is a changing culture due to new possibilities for government workers to leverage technology of their own.This shift is driven by the changing spectrum of user expectations and the free availability of information.Let us take me as an example. I am my very own IT department, complete with location services, rules, process automation, the internet of things, cloud, big data and a large supply of apps at my beck and call. I can use IFTTT (If This Then This) for simple rules to control the light bulbs and thermostats in my house. The power I have as an end user is boggling. What can we take away from all this? IT and Central CIOs are now using this same technology and brainstorming about potential applications of similar techniques to meet end users expectations and demands. These thought leaders are pushing the government to empower end users in the same ways that these users are being empowered in their personal lives.

Despite movement toward transformation in Government, I hesitate to get too enthusiastic. Major road blocks to such progress still remain. Chiefly, procurement: due to the siloed government approach to selecting vendors there is limited ability for transformative technology use.

But don’t give up hope.  Together, we can work to develop creative and strong business cases and procurement vehicles that can bring in transformative solutions. To push Transformation in Government forward we must have government IT and line of business execs motivated and educated in order to advocate for better and more dynamic procurement policies that can pave way for the development of truly transformative solutions.

However; in my previous post of the infographic on Contextual Computing I believe since policies will be challenged in order to deploy that type of computing technology that in turn procurement will be challenged as well.  Here is the executive report on the study done by IBM on Contextual Computing

Empowering governments through contextual computing Exec Report.pdf

Filed under Contextual Computing, Government Tagged with , ,

Contextual Computing

October 30, 2014 Leave a comment

Contextual Computing unlocking the power of enterprise data Infographic

Filed under Context 3.0, Contextual Computing, Government, Information Lifecycle Governance, Open Data, Task Optimization, Work Optmization Tagged with , ,

Update and Observations May 2014

May 8, 2014 Leave a comment

I have been meeting with government and healthcare organizations over the past few months and it apparent that there is a general frustration with existing work based technology and applications.  I have discussed this earlier; that we are technically “rich” in our personal lives and technically “poor at work.

ERP, HRMS and CRM systems that have been deployed over the past 20 years had inherent user interface issues (i.e. they sucked).  We have done Business Value Assessments in the past where we found end users printing screen shots of the work they did in an ERP system because they did not trust the technology and feared being audited: that is fundamentally bad when you are supposedly using technology and reverting back to manual processes.

So with your personal life filled with smartphones, tablets, smart televisions, smart thermostats that talk to your smartphone etc.; and the “Appification” of everything where you the consumer have a broad choice of applications, data and platforms to interact with said software and content your expectations rise rapidly.

So when you show up to work on a Monday and look at multiple login screens to archaic and dysfunctional technology you get depressed (which I would argue affects your productivity ).  You have diligently documented how to get work done via the “Cheat Sheets” at your cubicle or work area and you plod along.  Juxtaposed with what is on your smartphone on your hip vs. what you look at on your workstation.  Things need to change you need to be able to have a richer work experience.

So, as  mentioned my discussions with clients in all areas of public sector have been interesting.  They want to be more effective in getting work done with technology that provides what they want when they want and on the platform of their choice.  So over the next few posts I will be covering:

Work Optimization – Think about what method you use to get work done.  Task Outcome or Time Sensitive work are done differently and there is always a process or workflow productive people stick to; so understanding how people work becomes more important in deploying technology.  

Open Data – What does this mean and how does ECM fit into this.  Since with Open Data Sets organizations have information in a format that can be repurposed and presented for constituents to be better informed or government agencies to enhance their decision making process in getting work done.

Contextual Computing – IBM has done a recent study on this new developing area and how it helps people work better with better decision making etc.

As always I look forward to questions of discussion.

Filed under Case Management, Context 3.0, Contextual Computing, Government, Open Data, Work Optmization Tagged with , , ,

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