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

When I press two fingers against my new digital watch after a good workout, it displays my heart rate within a few seconds. Similarly, there is a gauge in my car’s dashboard that tells me exactly how many MPGs I get on average as I drive around town.

Benchmarking is not a new concept. We all appreciate timely feedback on how we’re tracking against our goals. Then, based on that information, we can adapt our methods in order to achieve the best results.

When applied to a complex investment like Health IT, this concept provides the same value to enterprises but on a far greater scale. That may explain the excitement as we unveiled the Adobe Digital Enterprise Platform (ADEP) at the 2011 State Healthcare IT Summit recently. ADEP’s embedded tool for analytics, or the “real-time report card” as one state CIO called it, empowers enterprises to measure the effectiveness of their investment while continually optimizing the deployed solution.

As states prepare to implement Health Insurance Exchanges (HIX) throughout the US, CIOs and other executives are considering factors like customer experience when they evaluate solutions. But in order to deploy a truly effective solution, executives must consider experiences for EACH of the exchange’s stakeholders – not just the citizen applying for benefits.

For example, the HIX administrator will be responsible for identifying and resolving bottlenecks. It will be the administrator’s job to minimize abandonment rates among applicants once they begin the enrollment process online. Otherwise, the applicant would likely turn to a more costly and error prone service channel.

As the administrator leverages powerful analytics within the ADEP-based solution for HIX, her own experience is optimized. From behind the curtain, she will implement policy changes and confidently adapt content that affects her consumers’ experiences on the front end. This user-centric approach to immersive enterprise solutions can be summed up in three words: Make. Manage. Measure.

Let us know what you think in comments and on Twitter @AdobeGov and @AdobeCEM.

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.

Along with Federal Computer Week, we recently presented an event in Washington, D.C. focused on online analytics. The March 1 event was titled, “Leveraging the Power of Online Analytics to Elevate your Agency’s Performance”.

We were appreciative to have a great keynote speech by Bajinder Paul, Senior IT Advisor to the Associated Administrator, Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies, General Services Administration. And the event also included a panel discussion with speakers including:

• Phil Kemelor, Vice President of Strategic Analytics, Semphonic (Moderator)
• Tim Fullerton, Director of New Media and Web Communications, Dept. of Interior
• Mike Kruger, Director of New Media, Dept of Commerce
• Rob Pinkerton, Senior Director, Industry Solutions, Adobe
• Mike Evans, Senior Solutions Consultant, Adobe

We captured footage at the event, and spent some time with Rob to get his thoughts and perspective on the day. Check out the video below – and, as always, we’re interested in hearing from you in comments.