Government Bits

Tracking how technology is transforming interaction between governments and citizens.

This is a great way to showcase how Federal agencies use Adobe Connect collaboration services to educate the public.  Read below…

http://online.wsj.com/article/PR-CO-20130605-908886.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

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The key to creating a stirring conversation at an early morning meeting – aside from fuelling the participants with copious amounts of caffeinated beverages – is tabling a topic of shared interest in front of a vibrant group of professionals.

Such was the case when an impressive array of marketers and communicators from the Canadian Federal Government, Crown Corporations, and non-profits were brought together to discuss the challenges they face when attempting to engage citizens through digital marketing at a breakfast think tank held in conjunction with the 2013 Adobe Government Assembly.

With no fewer than 18 government departments represented at the table, the discussion commenced following introductions. Session moderator Mark Emond of Demand Spring kick-started the conversation by asking the group what digital marketing and the associated outreach meant to the departments in attendance.

An enthusiastic exchange of ideas

Very quickly, the group’s interest in the topic was evident and an enthusiastic exchange of ideas was under way. From a historical perspective, the initial mandate of government on the web was to move every print-available communication online – automatically – regardless of suitability. But, did we still need printed communication? And what of Canadians without online access to digital resources?

What was clear was that digital marketing wasn’t the end game, but a means by which the government could ensure its greatest reach and be inclusive to all its constituents, a notion tabled by Adobe VP of Brand Marketing John Travis and seconded by the group in its entirety.

A number of agencies I support have their own internal, Adobe Connect user group.  I was privileged to recently be a guest speaker at an agency’s user group meeting and hear how one organization was leveraging the tool.  Their thoughtful use of Adobe Connect technology to simulate their previous face-to-face summit blew me away, and I wanted to share it with all of you.

Bell Canada’s Private Cloud
Powers Adobe Connect

- outside of the reach of the US Patriot Act

I spent a few days working in the Bell Canada’s Private Cloud infrastructure, (Infrastructure as a Service from Bell Canada), setting up virtual machines, networks and firewalls. I setup the environment after meeting with some Canadian Government agencies where I quickly learned how important it would be to Adobe Connect available in the private cloud – all in Canada.

Now, the Canadian government will be able to test out this Adobe Connect deployment that is “all in Canada”. I’m pretty sure other governments around the world (and some individuals) will also be very interested in this new deployment option.

As Jerry mentioned in last weeks post, we have some upcoming webinars on the new Creative Cloud (CC) features, security and deployment for public sector customers. On May 21, we will talk about the new policy changes and product features for CC in the public sector. This webinar will give users some valuable insight into the changes in CC and some of the exciting new features they will want to utilize in their agencies.

Day 2 on May 22, is focused primarily for the IT staff, it will cover the policy changes, but will go more in depth into deployment, security and support options for the new CC offerings. We will also be covering the various purchasing options for CC as well.

This is a great opportunity to learn all that’s new for CC and have it focused specifically for those in government. If you were unable to attend Adobe MAX, this will be worth your time. To register or for more information, go here. Each webinar will start at 2 p.m. EST. I hope you will join Jerry and I next week online.

The following post was originally published in the Adobe LiveCycle blog.

We get many questions about Reader extensions. That’s not surprising really because there are numerous ways to use reader extensions in an enterprise capacity, as well as in a workgroup or consumer type of way. We also get many questions about the aspects of licensing reader extensions based on the fact that Reader extended forms can be created from our Acrobat family of products as well as our LiveCycle family of products. The licensing programs for Acrobat and LiveCycle are designed to serve different uses and organizational needs. They scale from desktop use to enterprise levels.

Before we go too much further though, let me explain what a Reader extended document is.

The Reader extensions capability digitally signs a PDF form or document to enable certain features in the free Reader product on a per-file basis. These are features otherwise found in the full Acrobat product.  Extending features in a PDF document allows the content creator to offer more advanced capabilities to end users with free Reader without requiring them to purchase the full Acrobat product.  Examples of the features which are enabled by Reader extensions include commenting, digital signatures, and saving forms and data offline.  We usually see customers take advantage of this technology to capture data in a form using Reader extensions based on the ability for someone to fill out a form inside of the free Reader product, save it to their desktop, and then email it to the person needing this information.

LiveCycle and Reader Extended Forms:

Here’s an example of a Reader extended form:  http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040.pdf.  This example was created using LiveCycle Enterprise Suite. LiveCycle is a server based product for automating form and document processing in enterprise organizations. The use of reader extensions in LiveCycle is targeted for large distribution use cases.  Other services available in LiveCycle can be used to generate PDF documents and forms and automate their processing in conjunction with other enterprise systems. LiveCycle’s Reader extensions capabilities are licensed on a per-document (or form) or a per-recipient basis. Its usage can scale to extract information from an unlimited number of documents or an unlimited number of recipients.   A LiveCycle customer can purchase more document or recipient licenses as their business needs require.   For example, a state that wants to develop a single tax form to collect information from its 2 million citizens might purchase a per-document license for their form.  However, a government department of 6,000 planning to develop several human resources forms might be better served with per-recipient licenses.

Acrobat and Reader Extended Forms:

As I mentioned earlier, you can also create a reader extended form by using Acrobat.  Acrobat is a desktop product for producing and working with PDF documents on an individual basis.  The reader extension capabilities in Acrobat are intended for small scale distributions.    Acrobat provides capabilities to extract data into spreadsheets for further processing.

This week, Adobe made some exciting and industry-changing announcements at the MAX 2013 Conference in Los Angeles. Here is Adobe’s letter addressed to our Creative users across all markets and disciplines about these changes, and below is a quick recap of the key announcements:

1) Major Updates to the Creative Cloud: Adobe announced a significant update to Adobe Creative Cloud, our flagship offering for creatives. Available in June and packed with new features, Creative Cloud reimagines the creative process through a stunning set of “CC” desktop applications and sophisticated cross-device collaboration and publishing capabilities.  See the full press release here.

2) Accelerating our Shift to the Cloud: Adobe has seen enormous industry-wide adoption of its Creative Cloud solution, and we have decided to focus our creative software development efforts on that platform moving forward.  While Adobe Creative Suite® 6 products will continue to be supported and available for purchase, the company has no plans for future releases of Creative Suite or other CS products. Focusing development on Creative Cloud will not only accelerate the rate at which Adobe can innovate but also broaden the type of innovation the company can offer the creative community. See the full press release here.

Also released was a comprehensive description of Adobe’s Creative Cloud for Enterprise offering, as well as an Enterprise FAQ and a short, succinct Government FAQ section.

Adobe MAX Recap for Government

For our Government customers at MAX, the Adobe Gov team hosted a Reception (pictured above) and several lecture sessions, some of which will be available shortly on the MAX website for preview. In the meantime, make sure to catch up on the Key Announcements on video replay, take a look at some of the interesting Technology Sneak Peeks presented, have a look at my photo gallery, and check out this short explainer video about the Creative Cloud vision:

Adobe Government Webinars Coming Soon

Adobe Government also has a short series of webinars planned in upcoming weeks that will address the Creative Cloud vision, value, top features and integration points specific to our Gov customers, as well as new licensing, procurement, IT security and deployment considerations specifically for Public Sector personnel. Please stay tuned to this blog for dates, times and details.

Many times I refer to Acrobat as a Swiss Army Knife? Why? Like a Swiss Army Knife you need to have it with you always, it can help you in emergencies, and is a tool you can use daily. I use Acrobat daily in my work, even prior to joining Adobe. Many times it has been my life saver as I needed to edit a PDF file that no one could find the original document. Enter Acrobat, as my emergency rescue, I just export the PDF to Word and begin editing.

In state and local government, I find they use Acrobat the way we sometimes use a Swiss Army knife. We get out the knife blade or in Acrobat’s case the Create PDF blade and we forget there are other tools in Acrobat. In our post today I would like to explore some of the other uses of Acrobat or its other blades.

If you haven’t already noticed, Adobe recently leaked a whole bunch of Sneak Peeks of our core Creative Cloud applications, including refreshed versions of all the Professional Video Tools, plus Dreamweaver, Edge Reflow, and of course yesterday’s sneak peek into the future of Photoshop…

Law Enforcement, Forensics and Intelligence agencies across the world have been waiting for this feature since MAX 2011, when Adobe first revealed the above capabilities in an early private Photoshop beta.

This year, Adobe MAX 2013 will be the premiere venue to learn about the latest Creative workflows for print, web, video and mobile design. If sequestration has limited your travel, you might be able to convince your manager with this “Why Attend MAX?” list, which notes a complimentary one-year Creative Cloud subscription for all attendees.

If you can’t convince your manager, make sure to check out our upcoming Digital Government roadshows for the Defense Department, Federal Civilian agencies in Baltimore and Atlanta, as well as our ongoing Executive and Technical Webinar series. If you can’t attend MAX, we will bring it to you!

If indeed you ARE going to Adobe MAX 2013 and are a GovBits reader, you are cordially invited to attend any & all of the Government-specific events taking place at the conference!

You know that feeling you have inside when you are prepping for a virtual meeting and need one last item configured, but you don’t know where to turn?  Well, I’m here to tell you you are in good company.  I’ve done it myself…**blushing**…and I should know better!

I wanted to create a blog with a list of resources you can go to when you are in a jam and need quick assistance.  So, I have put this together below for your viewing pleasure.  I would bookmark this blog so you can quickly access this in the future.