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.
This weekend was, of course, a huge event–so if you didn’t hear, the groundhog predicted an early spring this year!
(No one asks the squirrels what they think of the weather…)
But there was also another big event this weekend as well that you may have watched with several billion of your closest friends. Whatever team you rooted for (and whatever you thought of the game’s outcome), it had some lessons that we can all learn from. Here are a few:
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…
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.
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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.
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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.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) is the largest philanthropy in the United States devoted exclusively to health and health care. The Foundation works with a diverse group of organizations and individuals to identify solutions and achieve comprehensive, measurable, and timely change. For 40 years, the Foundation has been dedicated to producing, synthesizing, and distributing knowledge, new ideas, and health policy expertise that will help to improve the health and health care of all Americans.
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Looking for a way to enhance its web presence through a dynamic, easily managed website, RWJF engaged the services of Velir, a full-service web design and development agency—which turned to Adobe CQ, part of the Adobe Marketing Cloud, to meet the challenges of actionable engagement.
As baby boomers in the US reach retirement age and Health Reform extends affordable coverage to many newly insured citizens, healthcare facilities are staying competitive by optimizing workflow efficiencies and hiring the best medical professionals.
This also places significant pressure on healthcare staffing leader CHG Healthcare Services. With a goal of engaging the best-qualified recruits and matching them with corresponding needs, the agency turned to Adobe Digital Marketing Suite to optimize its online presence and convert site traffic into business results.
“Adobe Digital Marketing Suite offered solutions that helped us look closely at our online interactions, create quality experiences, and drive conversion,” says Kyle Power, director of online marketing at CHG.
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!
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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.
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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.
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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:
