Trends with Mapping

Data Let on Delivery States of

Focus Services

It is very trendy these days to slap a “2.0” on the back of any term and declare a new movement, a modern approach, or reinvention of some aspect of government. The 2.0 moniker conveys a sense of “new and improved” while linking the modern digital aspects of our personal lives.

Over the last decade,

RICHARD LEADBEATER Web 2.0, with its improve

Esri Global Solutions Manager ments in delivering ap

State Government and plications over the Internet,

Trade Association was applied to government work functions and business practices merging with e-Government to produce Gov 2.0. More recently, the term Gov 2.0 has faded and devolved into a cluster of terms like performance, transparency, innovation, big data, citizen engagement and so on. But even these terms, as trendy as they may be, are not immune to version creep. The latest and one of the more interesting terms is “Delivery 2.0.”

Delivery 2.0 is just an outgrowth of the terms previously listed but with an important twist. By focusing on the delivery of government, the attention is orientated away from the business process and its measures. The delivery of government is focused more toward the customer—the citizen—and assumes a successful interaction between the two.

Why does government care about performance, transparency, innovation, big data, citizen engagement? It cares because it needs, and is required, to provide proof that it delivers value. Focusing on delivery confirms a two-way relationship, that the outcomes and measures are meaningful; the results are measures of the outcome and not just measures of the work itself.

The promise of measures and the ability to collect and track more data describing governments’ operations is not new. Kansas, Maryland and Washington, to name a few, have had active performance efforts for some time. What is new is the effort to open this data for public consumption and use. One sees this in “civic hack-a-thons” and the recent National Day of Civic Hacking initiated by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Maine was one of the states that took up the challenge.

Three years ago, I said GIS software, applications and tools being purchased and built by state legislatures in support of redistricting efforts they were about to face was a “means and not the end.” I saw where some

legislators and staff were looking for a new approach to the problem, an approach that could add more transparency and reduce some of the negativity associated with the process. I saw the GIS tools, analysis techniques and, especially, the data used to support redistricting would become an important outcome of the process in itself. I think it is fair to say because of these tools, analysis techniques and, especially, the data, this latest redistricting cycle was the most inclusive of citizen input and involvement.

Within the redistricting process, the best example of this movement toward citizen involvement has to be the state of Utah. By providing citizens with the same tools and data as the legislature, Utah, along with a number of other states, started to change the idea that policy analysis was too difficult to deliver in an open and easy manner.

If you take the time to search the app stores provided by Apple, Microsoft and others, you will see more and more apps created by—and for—state governments. In addition, in state-by-state searches of both legislative and executive branch websites, you can find a growing number of services and apps directed toward delivering information and processing transactions for citizens. All these apps and services are intent on delivering information, enabling citizens and generally involving citizens in the business process— often allowing the state to get out of way.

For instance, the governor of Maryland has used tools like StateStat to communicate and involve citizens on budget spending to promote environmental programs, the creation of a statewide master plan, and even the launch of health awareness programs. StateStat is a data-based management approach to make Maryland's government work for state residents.

The governors of Colorado and Utah followed suit and made data a centerpiece of their portals.

NASCIO has created a Library of Apps created by states—though a number of apps that I have on my phone are not listed. A quick review of the list tells you that recreation and tourism are most common.

Esri has created a guide showing how you can use GIS to improve citizen engagement.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR As the global solutions manager, state government and trade associations industry for Esri, Richard Leadbeater focuses on the development of tools and solutions addressing government administrative functions with attention on GIS support of policy issues and government business processes.

Going Virtual Can Have Big Rewards

INVE ST NO W.

In Delaware, an agency’s servers are moved to the private cloud when it’s time to upgrade its servers, Sills said. About 80 percent of Delaware’s individual servers now use the state’s cloud, with the rest expected to be on it by 2015. “It cost us between $2 million and $2.5 million to get this environment set up,” Sills said. “We’re saving currently almost $4 million a year, every year. … You’re saving on electricity, you’re saving on space, you’re saving on software licensing and you’re also saving on hardware.”

INVO LVE TECHNO LOGY EXPERTS.

In Delaware, the state technology department must review and authorize any purchase orders more than $10,000. That gives the technology department a better chance of seeing who is ordering new servers. “With the Cloud First policy, we could say, ‘Hey agency IT director, instead of buying a new physical server, why don’t you move that into our private cloud,’” Sills said. “It’s kind of unusual. Most state governments, from a purchasing standpoint, are very decentralized.”

CHANGE THE CULTURE.

One of the hardest things for agency leaders to get used to is the idea of giving up managing and purchasing new technology, Sills said. With the private cloud, state agencies rent the virtual servers rather than pay for new hardware every four years. “It’s kind of like leasing a car,” he said. “With our model, there’s no upfront capital dollars. You’re just leasing the infrastructure within the private cloud to host your applications. It’s a pay-asyou-go model. Culturally, it’s difficult for people to get their head around the concept initially, but then they catch on.”

TOUT th e BENE FITS.

Using a private cloud has some advantages for the state’s technology department too. “You’re more efficient from an IT management perspective,” Sills said. “Instead of managing 1,000 different servers and worrying about them, we are monitoring one or two racks that are the equivalent of those thousand individual servers. Think how much more efficient we are in terms of agility and application up time. … We just have better control of the environment.”

KEE P YOUR EYE ON THE FUTURE.

While the private cloud is good for Delaware now, Sills doesn’t think it is the only answer to the state’s server computing needs. You need to keep one eye on the horizon. “I think eventually we’ll have a hybrid cloud,” Sills said. “We’ll have our private cloud, but we’ll have some of the public-facing apps—or nonpersonal data—in a public cloud. It could be an Amazon or Google cloud or another vendor’s cloud. That information would be public (and) wouldn’t have any personally identifiable information. At the present time, the culture here is if it’s personally identifiable data or top secret data, they really want to keep it within our private cloud environment.”

Delaware’s Cloud First Initiative is saving millions each year and has one of the best returns on investment for state government, according to Jim Sills, the state’s secretary and chief information officer for the Department of Technology and Information. With a private cloud, an organization owns the entire infrastructure necessary to provide computing resources to its end users. Instead of running hundreds of individual servers, Delaware operates one large private cloud that is partitioned off as multiple virtual servers. Sills offers some tips for moving to the cloud.