Government Bits

Tracking how technology is transforming interaction between governments and citizens.

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Adobe Government Assembly (AGA) is our premier corporate event to demonstrate commitment to the US Public Sector community, announce product launches/pipeline, and highlight collaborative successes with our partners across the country in federal, state, and local markets.

This year, with speakers, panelists, and customers representing almost every segment of the US Public Sector, the 2012 AGA in Washington DC proved to be a dynamic forum for exploring trends that are clearly driving the federal government’s innovative technology agenda, including ‘cloud-first’ policies, Analytics for Measuring Agency Performance, data center consolidation initiatives, and Mobile Government.

AGA session tracks were designed around the following three pillars of relevant challenges that government agencies face day-to-day as well: engaging communities through new technologies, achieving efficiencies during a time of significant budget constraints, and the threat paradigm of data security.

For example, I spoke on a popular panel that delved into the topic of improving agency efficiencies by automating mission-critical business processes.  John Montel, a co-panelist from the US Department of the Interior, detailed how DOI recently implemented Adobe solutions to modernize ways citizens interact with his agency.

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Other AGA highlights included an insightful keynote presentation from LtCol Greg Reeder, Director of Marine Corps production for the US Marines, in which he demonstrated how the Marine Corps is leveraging Adobe technologies for apps that engage a new generation of service members, veterans, and prospective recruits.

From policy makers to agency executives, AGA 2012 offered something for everyone involved in government technology. We offer our sincere appreciation to all customers, partners, and attendees who made AGA 2012 the best one yet. And based on the incredible feedback, we’re already looking forward to repeating our success next month in Ottawa at the 2012 Canadian AGA.  See you there!

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Scroll to see the full US AGA 2012 agenda and links to several of the event’s most popular sessions:

Track 1: Engaging Communities – The Soldier, the Veteran, the Citizen

Connecting with citizens, soldiers and constituents is no longer about connecting anything – not telephones, computers or even devices. As federal agencies integrate new technologies like mobility and web analytics into the fabric of their infrastructure, they are breaking past the old paradigms of communication to reach people wherever they are – connecting the mission to those that make it happen.

Session 1-1: The Next-Generation Mobile Government Experience Part II

Session 1-2: Measuring Agency Online Presence to Improve the End User Experience

Track 2: Achieving Agency Efficiency

With the federal government facing unprecedented budget strains, the call to “do more with less” is becoming deafening. As the prospect of cuts accelerates, agencies are now turning to technology to bridge the gaps. New tools are enabling collaboration on an unprecedented scale, from the desktop to the battlefield, while advances in areas like training are redefining how agencies prepare their employees for the future. But these developments are not limited to internal stakeholders; citizens are reaping the benefits of more efficient data processing and forms management, cutting out the time and the paperwork that stands between them and efficient delivery of services. The sessions in this track will explore this new definition of efficiency and how significant savings can result from real performance improvements.

Session 2-1: Bridging the Divide: Collaboration and Training

Session 2-2: Reforming Forms: Accelerating Agency Performance with Data Management

Track 3: Content-Centric Security – Defining the Next Threat Paradigm

Securing information has always been a mission of government, but keeping data behind lock and key no longer cuts it. The value of information is now defined as much by how it’s exchanged as where it’s locked away. That’s why sharing information securely – across the agency, across the government or even across the world – and ad hoc analysis to identify a particular threat, have emerged as the most critical elements of today’s security challenge.

Session 3-1: Unknown Unknowns – A New Class of Analytics

Session 3-2: IT Security is Who You Are, Not Where You Are

Re-visit the most popular sessions. To see the full archived videos, log in as a guest:

• Leveraging Digital Media
• Content-level Security
• Analytics 2.0
• Performance-Enhancing Data Management
• Mobile Government
• Maximizing Online Presence

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Whether it’s for telework, town hall meetings, e-learning, telemedicine, continuity of operations, or mission critical collaboration, many civilian and military agencies rely on Adobe Connect.  To learn what’s to come in 2012 for this best-in-class solution, we had the opportunity to talk with Guillaume Privat, Director of our Adobe Connect business.

Q: 2011 saw several large government agencies adopt Adobe Connect or expand their deployment. What can you tell us about the plans for the solution in 2012?

A: In 2011, we rolled out Adobe Connect 8, which focused on ease of use and the ability for users to access their meetings, webinars or virtual classrooms on any smartphone or tablet.  2012 will the year of Adobe Connect 9.  We recently announced we were opening up the beta for Adobe Connect 9. We looked at how our customers are using the product and it’s clear that ‘screen sharing’ is not enough.  They are looking for solutions to their business problems.  How can they train faster and measure the effectiveness of that training?  How effective are their town hall meetings or citizen outreach campaigns?  Should they spend more or less money on these activities?  The focus for the future release is to create these end-to-end solutions that will help government organizations measure and report on productivity gains or cost savings.

Q: Are you going to continue your focus on mobile?

A: Yes, a key value proposition of Adobe Connect is its ease of access from virtually any device.  With Adobe Connect Mobile 1.7 released last fall, we offered the ability not only to attend meetings from mobile devices, but also to host meetings, webinars or virtual classrooms on iOS devices, Android and Blackberry PlayBook.  Along with the Adobe Connect 9 beta, we also launched the beta of our mobile applications version 2.0, which will push the envelope even further.

Q: In November 2011, Adobe announced some major strategic decisions that will focus the business on opportunities in Digital Media and Digital Marketing.  How does this impact the Adobe Connect business?

A: As I communicated in my blog post in November, we’ll be providing even more focus with Adobe Connect on key vertical markets like Government.  Otherwise, the main changes to the business were with our commercial go-to market, which we’ve organized to be channel centric.  Our agility to innovate and to release new versions of the product remains.  What our customers can expect is to see more innovation, such as leveraging unique capabilities from our Digital Marketing Suite for reporting and analytics or Web Content Management.

Q: Can you tell me more about Adobe Connect’s focus on government?

A: Over the years we have built a unique ecosystem of resellers and solution partners that work alongside our direct sales and support team to ensure the success of each of our customers. This ecosystem enables government to have the flexibility to purchase an off-the shelf-product but customize it quickly to meet unique requirements they may have, like FISMA compliance.  As the product continues to evolve, we are paying close attention to some of the challenges government organizations face in order to secure the private information of citizens.  We offer each of our government customers the choice to host their solution in a public cloud, in a private cloud, or behind their own firewall.  This choice of deployment options is unique to Adobe Connect, and designed to balance the government agencies’ budget constraints with their security and confidentiality mandates.

How do you Connect? Let us know on Twitter @AdobeGov and @AdobeCEM, or on Facebook.

Please join Adobe for its annual Adobe Government Assembly, February 8th, at the National Press Club.

The AGA is a forum for federal, state and local IT, acquisition and security professionals to discuss strategies and actionable tactics for meeting today’s challenges and revolutionizing tomorrow’s government operations. You’ll hear from public sector leaders and industry experts on the key issues of advancing citizen engagement, implementing innovative technologies and protecting critical information.

Keynote speakers include GSA’s David McClure, Associate Administrator of the Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies, and best-selling author Peter Sims.

Click here to register.

New Brunswick has a reputation for being a technology leader. The Canadian province uses the Adobe Web Experience Management solution to elevate the quality of its diverse websites to provide citizens with engaging web experiences. For the government’s inventive Communications team, Adobe solutions became the cornerstone for a web revitalization project to enable technical and non-technical users across departments to quickly create and publish online content. Already, New Brunswick has adopted the more streamlined web content workflows to accelerate updating over half of its 22 department websites.

Government managers across teams and disciplines are pleased with their newfound ability to better manage and publish digital assets. To make it even easier for staff, New Brunswick is using standardized templates created with Adobe’s WEM solution to help ensure a consistent, branded feel to its website.  

The Adobe solution not only quickly delivers relevant content to key audiences, but is also stable and easy to use. With enhanced citizen services, government managers anticipate they will draw more traffic and encourage visitors to spend more time on the site. To reach as vast an audience as possible, New Brunswick plans to integrate social media and mobile capabilities for improved communication with citizens.

To learn more about how New Brunswick is transforming the look and feel of its website, read the case study on the Government Technology site here.

In a recent conversation, Mark Whitmore, the Deputy District Attorney at the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office, told us how the organization accelerates Juvenile Court proceedings using Adobe Acrobat Pro in a Microsoft SharePoint environment. The organization, together with its partners—San Diego Juvenile Justice Partners, the County Technology Office, the Probation Department, and the Office of the Public Defender—uses advanced PDF capabilities in Acrobat Pro and SharePoint document management. The digital case file environment, known as the Justice Electronic Library System or JELS, was developed by the County Technology Office and serves all county juvenile justice stakeholders in the DA’s office, Probation, and other areas.

By using Acrobat to convert case files to searchable PDF files integrated into its SharePoint environment, the division saves administrative staff from having to sort, collate, file, retrieve, and photocopy countless case files on paper. The improved case file management has already freed up time for 10 staff members to devote to other critical activities. Deputy DA’s and other participants with access to the JELS system can go over case documents electronically prior to each hearing, greatly accelerating case file review.

The JELS system has dramatically enhanced collaboration in the office and the courtroom. Based on its success, the California County Information Services Directors Association (CCISDA) awarded San Diego County a first place Innovation Award in the collaboration category.

To learn more, check out the full story on the San Diego County DA’s office here.

You can keep in touch with the Acrobat team on Twitter @Acrobat and, of course, keep up-to-date with all things Adobe in goverment on Twitter @AdobeGov.

In my last post I discussed the concept of customer or citizen experience in government and focusing on how we as citizens want to engage with our government on our terms, and on the device we’re currently heads down on (unless, of course, we’re driving!). So where do you begin if you’re a government employee trying to focus on your “customer”?

While simple, you should begin by focusing on the outside in. Truly focus on that citizen first and not on the sometimes byzantine rules and stove-piped systems you may already have in place. Easier said than done, I know, but it really is how you begin to transform the way your agency deals with its customers, both internal and external.

How many times have you been to a doctor’s office, motor vehicle agency, or applied for a permit and had to write your address down more than one time? How many times have you had to read the manual of instructions on how to fill out the form or wait in line to discuss with someone the process to determine eligibility for a grant, license, or benefit? Compare this to the first time you used a social media application like Facebook or LinkedIn. How hard was that? Was there an instruction manual you had to pore over before you got online and started sharing photos and stories with all those “friends” in your network? Of course not, that’s what makes it so fun (perhaps dangerous in some cases!) but most importantly that’s what keeps people engaged and online, and coming back for more. I’m not sure we’re ever going to make renewing your driver’s license or applying for unemployment benefits “fun” but we can make the process more intuitive and keep more and more people online rather than in a line. That’s where the savings come into play.

Last year 70% of the individual tax returns in the US were filed electronically. Do you know how much money that saved the IRS? Hundreds of millions of dollars according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO).  For every electronically filed return the IRS saves $3.10. “In addition to reducing costs, e-filing provides higher accuracy rates, improved convenience, and faster processing and refunds for taxpayers.” To me, that sounds like a great customer (and agency) experience. How is this happening? Most of this electronic filing is taking place with the assistance of great software from Intuit and H&R Block that takes users through a complex (sound familiar?) tax code/business process and breaks it down to a nice and easy interview. They have essentially broken down a tax code that is thousands of pages of not-too-easy-to-read instructions and have made it a breeze (for most) to complete their taxes.

Government agencies are beginning to see this kind of experience is just what they need to do in times of budget reductions. Adobe has helped many government agencies follow this same approach. We look forward to sharing some examples with you as we move forward. In the meantime, let us know if you’d like to talk with us more about it. You can reach me via comments, on Twitter @alec_chalmers, and also connect with the Adobe Gov team on Twitter @AdobeGov.

I recently had the opportunity to speak at FedScoop’s Citizen Engagement and OpenGov Summit here in Washington DC (if you haven’t, check out this brief video we shot directly afterward) It was a great event and I followed the GSA’s Director of the Center for Customer Excellence, Sheila Campbell, and her great presentation on customer experience.

“Hold on a second”, I said to myself after Sheila began her remarks. She just used the words “customer” and “experience” together, in the same sentence, at a government-focused event. As you may know, we’ve been talking a lot about Customer Experience Management (CEM) at Adobe. And I’ll admit I’ve been a little skeptical about use of the term “customer” in terms of government (ie, governments don’t have customers, they have citizens). Not so fast! I was now being corrected by Sheila and she wasn’t even 30 seconds into her discussion. I was sitting up straighter in my chair, paying very close attention now, and I was positive Mrs. Gregg, my favorite teacher of all time, would have been very proud of me and amazed at how far I have advanced since the 10^th grade.

Luckily I had the opportunity to adapt some of my presentation after Sheila’s and it was good to really talk about CEM from the customer’s point of view. For governments it really doesn’t matter whether you call it Citizen or Customer Experience Management, the important part is that you focus on that experience.

But who really has the budget right now to worry about experience when you have so many other pressing issues in front of you: Budget deficits, do more with less, mission accomplishment, and the list goes on. Oh yeah, and while you’re doing all that ensure your citizens, employees, and soldiers are fully engaged in the process and make sure that “they’ll tell two friends, and so on, and so on.”  Well, here’s what I think: You can and should focus on that citizen and customer experience now more than ever because it truly can ensure you do more with less while delivering on those ever-rising expectations.

Today’s citizens (just like every dot com customer, and really, aren’t they the same person?) have the expectation their experience with their government will be (or should be) similar to the experience they just had where they learned about a cool book online and then purchased it on their smartphone on the way to work. They want to interact with their government on their terms, when they want and need to, and on the devices (desktop, laptop, tablet, phone, TV) to which they have access.

Great, but how does all of this save governments money? Maybe I’m being simple, but if you can educate your citizens on the services they’re entitled to while they’ve stumbled upon your website, then begin them on the path to an eligibility process on a smartphone (all while enabling them to avoid a call center or brick and mortar government office) you’ve saved money in at least a few places right there.

You also just made your process a heck of a lot more efficient while delighting your customer…oops, I meant citizen.

How can you start down this path? That’ll be for my next post…

As we’ve posted about in the recent past, the Adobe Gov UK team has been holding a monthly webinar series focused on the public sector.

Recent webinars have focused on Delivering and Designing Intuitive Online Services and on ID and Authentication for Online Services.

The latest in this webinar series took place last week, on May 12, and was devoted to Simplifying Service Transactions & Business Processes. The event included a strong panel:

• Glyn Evans, Socitm President, Corporate Director of Business Change at Birmingham City Council and CIO Council member
• Peter Bole, Director of ICT at Kent County Council
• Alan Banks, Managing Director, Adobe UK
• Helen Olsen, Managing Editor, ITU and UKauthorITy

The group addressed that public services are moving inexorably online, and the UK population is becoming ever more digitally savvy. But how do we take advantage of the best in technology developments to meet the needs of both the organization and the citizens it serves? Efficiency is essential, but is agile development the key? Does new technology solve old problems and deliver joined up processes and services? Or does the public sector silo mentality block the holistic thinking needed for a step change in performance?

An on-demand version of the webinar is now available; you’ll find it here. It runs approx 45 minutes. We hope you’ll check it out.

The next in this series of webinars is scheduled for June 14 and will be focused on Collaborating for the Future – Joined up Thinking and Joined up Working. You can register here.

Have you ever researched a product or service at a particular website, and then bought it someplace else? Used a mobile device to compare the price of a product online while shopping in a store? Been influenced by the opinions of others in a social community when selecting a healthcare provider or learning more about ailing symptoms?

That list is just a small sample of behaviors that illustrate how customers are educating themselves beyond the information that traditional organizations are providing, and transforming the consumer lifecycle. When coupled with heightened expectations for personalized service after a commitment is established, this environment presents a unique opportunity. Leading enterprises understand the correlation between creating loyal customers and driving performance.

Conditioned by immersive digital experiences in the private sector, citizens now expect more from interactions with their government in the public sector as well. As a byproduct of powerful user-centric citizen experiences, government agencies have discovered they are also able to realize significant cost savings. For example, by making it easier for citizens to dispute inaccurate medical claims, Medicaid agencies could save millions of dollars annually by helping to reduce fraud.

Adobe’s “Experience Delivers” tour recently stopped in Washington DC where the focus was Customer Experience Management (CEM) in government (see the event video we created above, including our conversations with several of the speakers). Attendees from federal, state, and local agencies learned more about our CEM platform, and ways that it can be leveraged to build “brand” differentiation and improve citizen engagement across multiple channels.

Presenters from Adobe and our featured partners, Deloitte and SapientNitro, shared their perspectives and set the stage for CEM industry luminary speaker Bruce Temkin, Managing Partner of the Temkin Group, who articulated the measurable benefits of an effective CEM solution. Bruce further engaged the audience as he identified the following four competencies required to effectively leverage CEM in the enterprise.

1. Purposeful leadership
2. Compelling brand value
3. Employee engagement
4. Customer connectedness

Preliminary feedback from this event has been overwhelmingly positive. Other US cities in the Experience Delivers Tour include San Francisco, New York, and Chicago. European cities include London, Stockholm, Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels.

Here at Adobe, we’re passionate about CEM and very interested in your feedback and general thoughts. Is there an opportunity to improve engagement with your agency’s constituents? Let us know in comments and on Twitter @AdobeGov and @AdobeCEM.

How can we address digital exclusion and encourage the mass channel shift to low cost online service delivery that we all need?

Digital Champion, Martha Lane Fox, is calling for ‘e’ Revolution not Evolution with online becoming “the first point of contact” for public services. And the new Government ICT strategy states that the government “will work to make citizen-focused transactional services ‘digital by default’ where appropriate” – but enable a network of ‘assisted digital’ service providers for those who are unable to access this brave new world.

There is, however, much work to do in understanding the user’s needs and experience of online public services with the goal of making them simple and accessible to all.

On the panel:

• Graham Walker, Government Director for UK Digital Champion (Martha Lane Fox)
• Dr Lorna Peters, Connect Digitally, Department for Education and Hertfordshire
• Gilles Polin, Adobe’s European Head of Government Solutions
• Helen Olsen, Managing Editor, UKauthorITy and ITU magazine

An on demand version of the webcast is available from this link.