Government Bits

Tracking how technology is transforming interaction between governments and citizens.

.

The US Army in Afghanistan is using Adobe Connect to provide a place to meet 24/7/365 for the people and organizations involved in trying to keep the peace. This includes 20 or more base clusters and many NATO partners. The main room typically has 20 or more attendees in it at all times of the day – keeping in touch with what is going on. The main focus is sharing a map of current incidents and deployments. Breakout rooms are used when attendance in the main Connect meeting room begins to grow and various side conversations develop.

(The map gives all attendees on the team excellent situational awareness)

I’m the “cinephile” in my community. I have a regular email list of 10-20 guys whom I’ll ping for impromptu movie nights. When I travel for work, I’m always trying to “sneak in a movie” after hours. During Oscar season I am especially vigilant to try and see as many Best Picture contenders as possible before the Big Night.

This past weekend I saw Zero Dark Thirty. It was particularly interesting to me, as Adobe’s Digital Media solutions consultant for the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community (DoD/IC). As such, I was looking for any sign of Adobe software that might have been used to apprehend suspected terrorists — just as I do when watching Homeland — because hey, I might have sold it to them!

Of course, which specific software is leveraged by which specific agency for which purpose is often classified information. However, I can tell you that many of the latest innovations in Adobe software help keep America safer and more secure, whether it’s for rapid intelligence gathering, secure data dissemination, high-quality visualization, or forensically analyzing and reconstructing digital evidence.

As you learned in Jerry’s post last week, I am a designer by trade. I was excited when Adobe announced Creative Cloud last April because as most designers can attest, that although you work for another company you may do freelance or charity projects in your off time which utilize your design skills.

I decided to take advantage of the Adobe offer to existing customers to migrate over to the Creative Cloud for a low monthly or yearly price. I have been a perpetual license holder (I owned the software and then upgraded when the next version came out) since 1985, when I began in desktop publishing. I viewed the promises of the Creative Cloud offering as appealing, especially always current.

Here’s what I can attest to personally since owning my own Individual Creative Cloud subscription…

Hi folks! Jerry Silverman here…

Last year, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) outlined its Digital Government Strategy to build a 21st century platform to better serve the American people while saving agencies time and money. Adobe’s response to this Strategy outlines how our history, technical expertise and vision have been mission critical in assisting agencies in their efforts to implement such strategies.

The Adobe Public Sector team’s technical expertise and vision continues to flourish in 2013, and we’re thrilled to welcome two new team members to our ranks: Lisa Niday and Lisa Watkins! They will be regular contributors to this blog on subjects relevant to Digital Media in the Government space. Below is a brief introduction to our Digital Media team:

*This article originally appeared in the Healthcare IT Connect online magazine

Change on the horizon

The current transformation of the healthcare IT industry has been referred by industry experts as “a period of extreme standardization.”  The immediate need for adopting electronic health records to make the Meaningful Use benchmark of the US government is being traversed by pharmacies, clinics, medical practitioners, payers, and healthcare providers.

Fortunately for all involved there is one key ally in the field, blazing the trail ahead of the 2014 PPACA deadline.  Adobe is pioneering solutions, including LiveCycle Enterprise Suite 3, that are utilized more and more by healthcare professionals to ramp up and leverage staggering amounts of digital data capture.

Adobe’s Aaron Bird recently shared the company’s experience helping healthcare providers prevent fraud, waste, and abuse, using the enterprise-class suite of Adobe products.

Adobe’s current focus:

.
This week, with the commemoration of Veterans Day in the US (and Remembrance Day in Canada), we honored those who have selflessly served in our country’s military with honor and distinction so that the freedoms we cherish may endure.

As a veteran of the US Coast Guard,  I am proud to highlight a few of the ways that Adobe is collaborating with Veteran Affairs agencies in North America to improve access for disabled veterans and modernize administrative operations. In many cases, due to gains in efficiency, some resources may be reallocated to the actual care of the veterans these agencies are committed to serve.

• Streamlining workflows for management of benefits claims

US and Canadian VA agencies, including the US Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA), have standardized on multiple Adobe solutions, like LiveCycle for BPM, transforming processes to collect, track, and automate the millions of benefits claims they receive every year.

The organizations have since reported reduced data error rates and significant improvements in efficiency throughout their enterprises, achieving the simple goals of fewer administrative delays and more timely service delivery for our veterans.
.

2012.
.

• Extending usability of veterans’ health records and other critical information

Considering that most systems of record were implemented before today’s mobile revolution, it’s no surprise that many of them do not natively support remote usability of enterprise information and multi-channel functionality for self-service apps.

Continue Reading  >

.

Adobe Acrobat is widely used throughout the public sector, in federal as well as state and local governments, to harness the power of the ubiquitous PDF file format. Yesterday, Adobe marked a new milestone with the release of Acrobat version 11!

.

.

Kevin M. Lynch, SVP and GM of Acrobat and Document Services at Adobe, further describes some benefits of Acrobat XI in the article below which was originally posted to the Adobe Document Services blog.

.

October 1 marks a major milestone for the Adobe Acrobat business. We’re launching Adobe Acrobat XI. Acrobat XI software with cloud services is a powerful new solution that rises to today’s complex document challenges for creating, consuming, sharing and securing PDF content across devices and platforms.

.

The adoption of cloud computing has steadily become one of the most significant enablers of innovation in recent years. From providing mobile access to remotely synchronized folders, to delivering on-demand streams of new video releases, the cloud has transformed how consumers interact with their devices in countless ways (often quietly behind the scenes).

Further blurring the line between private and public sector innovation, government agencies are increasingly turning to the cloud for similar technical advantages that translate directly into business value for their enterprises as well.

.

.

In fact, IDC predicts that public IT cloud services will see gains at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 26.4 percent—five times that of the IT industry overall between 2012 and 2016. But despite promises of significant gains in agility, scalability, and reliability, most public sector executives commit to extensively crunching the numbers on ROI and addressing security concerns (at both agency and content levels) before taking the plunge into even the most popular cloud service models, including:

Mobile technology is no longer an optional luxury. Research shows that in 2011 more smartphones shipped than personal computers. Therefore, a truly effective Digital Government requires a strategy that moves beyond merely porting traditional web content to mobile devices. This post will explore why agencies must think about designing mobile service experiences from the citizen in, rather than from the system out; delivering personalized content and applications that are optimized for how citizens expect to use their devices.

.

The following article, written by my colleague Garrick Beil, was recently featured in the August 2012 edition of “Policy and Practice,” the magazine of the American Public Human Services Association (APHSA).

.
As more parts of our lives “go digital”, the collection of data related to our transactions, interests, and other preferences continues to grow exponentially.

Many commercial enterprises have demonstrated that the ability to manage and even monetize such data provides a powerful competitive advantage. In fact, it’s that principle of Digital Marketing which allows for the delivery of unique personalized experiences for consumers online.  Our health data is no exception.

The health care industry has been criticized for being a laggard when it comes to tapping the wealth of information that’s often locked away in terabytes of stored data, both structured and unstructured, compounding with every insurance claim or provider interaction.  That’s changing, however, as innovative solutions that have modernized industries like travel, financial services, and others are gradually being leveraged throughout the healthcare ecosystem.
.

.

Recently, at the Adobe-sponsored State Healthcare IT Connect Summit, I met with executives from state and federal agencies as well as leaders of private sector health organizations to explore the key role of IT in identifying trends, cutting costs, and saving lives.

Three recurring use cases for transforming this accumulating data into actionable knowledge emerged during our meetings: