October Minutes

ITAC MEETING MINUTES

Attendees:
Niamh Darcy and Reginald Brown

Due to work schedule conflicts, Lori Bush, Shannon Schelin, John Killebrew, Darryl McGraw, and Gloria McNeill could not participate in the meeting.

Wake County:
Bill Scanlon and Velvadine Wallace

The meeting began at 9:00 am and the Oracle Collaboration Suite and Meet Me Conference technologies were used to enable ITAC members to participate from remote locations. Bill Scanlon, IS Division Supervisor of Applied Technologies, introduced himself to the group. He stated that he would be giving a PowerPoint presentation on Strategic Thinking, which would be attached to the meeting minutes.

Bill gave a brief background history on emerging technologies and told the group where we are with technology and where Wake County is headed. He stated to the group that this meeting was going to be free form and that creative thinking is encouraged. Bill stated that Wake County values their experience and knowledge and would like to get an understanding from their perspective to where they think technology is headed because we would like to include those elements in our strategic thinking process.

Bill stated that this committee’s members work in Information Technology and are involved in researching emerging technologies. He asked as leaders and visionaries of IT what major initiatives would they be exploring over the next 3 to 5 years. Reggie stated that he worked for RBC and their applications functions were moving towards .NET applications. Bill asked Reggie if they used .NET for their development and applications. Reggie replied RBC used .NET for Quality Assurance, pre-production, production, and training using web-based HTML. Niamh stated that she worked with different foreign countries and their business line is different because it is more open-sourced and worked on the JAVA side. Niamh stated that they use Skype and VoIP for the means of communications since the overseas cost of standard land lines is expensive. She also stated that they use XML for development environments depending on the various applications.

Bill then stated that he would like to change gears and ask them as citizens what major services would they like to access via the web in the next 3 to 5 years. He stated that he was looking for feedback on where Wake County should be focusing their efforts toward providing services for citizens. He stated as examples that on the www.wakegov.com website, Wake County provides information for real estate, property tax, locations for solid waste, restaurant inspections/grading, and information on well contamination. He stated that Wake County currently does not offer information streaming meetings for the Board of Commissioners. Would that be something that the citizens are interested in?

Niamh asked Bill was there a way for citizens to pay their water utilities on-line. Bill replied that Wake County does not work with the municipalities on water utilities. Bill stated that the website does offer the citizens the capabilities of paying their tax bills electronically versus regular mail. Niamh stated that receiving bills electronically would also be a great feature because it reduces the waste of paper and that it comes in handy when you are traveling overseas.

Reggie stated for parents of Wake County it would be a good idea to have the schools lunch menus and the flexibility of paying before and after schools on-line that would be a great asset. He also stated it would be helpful if the principals/teachers calendars was available on-line for parent teacher conferences. He suggested that having a tracking system in place for billing and payment information would also be a great benefit for parents.

Reggie then asked if Wake County provided any information on trash pick-up for citizens. Bill replied that Wake County only provides information on the service providers but was not responsible for when trash was being picked up. Reggie stated that for newcomers moving into the area, it would be a great idea if Wake County could add a site locator to indicate where the landfills where located using their zip codes. Bill stated that was a good idea.

Bill then asked if they thought a tracking system for property taxes would be helpful to the citizens. They replied yes. Bill then asked the group if the citizens should be notified of changes on the website electronically via email notifications. Would that be helpful? Niamh stated that it would be helpful as long as the notifications were not sent out to frequently to the citizens, but maybe every 2 weeks if there were changes.

Reggie then stated that it would be great idea if the citizens would be notified of the County’s event calendar, such as social events, political committee meetings, Board of Commissioner meetings, etc. Bill asked the group how would the citizens ask for this information. Niamh replied that they could have a link on the main navigation page for citizens to subscribe and they would have to opt in for privacy purposes. She stated that if the citizens received a confirmation email then they would know that it was not spam mail. Bill then stated that email addresses become public information once they are provided to the County and asked if that would that be an issue. Niamh suggested that they should advise the citizens on the subscribe page, then the citizens would be able to decide if they would be prepared to provide their email addresses. Reggie agreed and stated that the citizens can always decide which email address they would like to provide. He then suggested that it would also be beneficial if Wake County could find a way to communicate to other citizens that may not have access to the website on social events. He stated that maybe this information could be sent out quarterly.

Bill thanked the group for their feedback thus far and said he wanted to change gears and asked the group as government advisors, what are the major services that you think would benefit from automation technology? Bill stated that Wake County is currently implementing AVL (automatic vehicle locator) in the Sheriff’s vehicles so the dispatch unit will know the location of each vehicle literally when a call comes through. Reggie stated that anything to do with emergency services where you can communicate with video cam would be helpful. Maybe having this automation technology they could tell a person what to do with CPR maneuvers until the dispatch unit arrives on the scene. Bill stated that this was a tough question for the group to respond to on the spot. He asked them to be looking around at other technologies that are being used in other countries that maybe beneficial to Wake County.

Niamh stated that the only thing that comes to her mind would be text messages and how they are being utilized more for cell phone bills. Bill agreed that the younger generation is familiar with using text messages. He then asked the group if they knew how Wake County could interact with all the citizens that may not be literate to text messages. Niamh asked Bill if he would send the question out to the entire group to get more feedback. Bill asked Vel to send the PowerPoint Presentation to the group and stated that they would revisit this topic more in the future. He also stated that the group could send their feedback to him and Lib Wanner.

Bill then asked to shift gears again and in the group’s perspective as geeks, discuss what major technology shifts does Wake County need to prepare for the near future. He asked what do we need to prepare for besides VoIP. Reggie replied that he believes desktops are becoming more mobile and that notebooks will eventually become our standard PCs. Reggie stated that there is a paper-thin client with a LCD read out on the market now. He stated that it gives the end user the mobility of a desktop with features such as voice, applications, email, text, etc. He also stated that he noticed that people would carry their desk with them, which means taking technology with them to their home or various locations.

Bill asked the group in terms of disaster relief, if they knew a way to make the Business Continuity Plan for the workforce to work anywhere with technology. Reggie replied that an off-site access would be helpful if something happens they could switch everything to another site. Bill replied that we currently have a disaster recovery site in New Jersey. Reggie then asked if all the employees did not have access to their applications would it be cost effective if they had notebooks. He also suggested that Wake County look into utilizing PDAs more to have everything downloaded in the next couple of years for the end users.

Bill stated that notebooks would be useful for travel, employees telecommuting, and for presentations but how many employees would actually have it at home in case of a disaster. Reggie replied that he used to work for a law firm and everything was web-based and a snapshot was made of everything so that the users could go to the web site and log on as usual. He stated that worked even for those employees who were out-of-town would have access to the Internet. Niamh stated that there could be a trade-off of costs and risks for web enabling. She stated that all the applications and the file storage could be utilized remotely with specific VPN access.

Bill then asked the group did they think the citizens would expect to be able to still operate as usual in the case of a disaster. Niamh replied yes, but they would need to prioritize the services and then provide a minimal survey of the critical services that would be needed. Reggie stated that the more services provided the less panic it would cause for the community.

Bill then mentioned the emergency incident with Apex. He stated that most citizens don’t understand that there are different roles within a disaster response. He stated that there should be a strong collaboration between Wake County, City of Raleigh, municipalities, etc., for example: road closure and being familiar with tools and what information should be provided to the citizens. Niamh agreed and stated that the citizens want a one-stop shop. Reggie mentioned the Katrina disaster and stated that there were many state web sites that gave information on which roads were open, gave information for missing people, and what numbers to call. Reggie stated he would check to see if there were more information available on those sites to share with the group. He stated that sometimes officials don’t know who is in charge but in the Katrina incident the New Orleans newspaper and reporters helped locate people.

Bill stated that there is a push in Wake County for a collaboration effort to share information across multiple levels. He stated that currently there is limited communication outside of Emergency Management for disaster events. Bill stated that a system should be in place by next spring for the Emergency Management System that will enhance Wake County’s ability to communicate with other jurisdictions. Reggie stated that sometimes it is necessary to have another outside organization that can tie everything together. He stated that at RBC, he acts as a mediator for client servers when they need a contact person or if there is a change to take place. He stated that sometimes the IT technicians don’t have the patience or use the correct lingo with the end user so they will understand what is going on.

Bill asked if there should be a non-emergency number for the citizens to call in cases of disaster events. They agree yes.

Bill thanked the group for the input and valuable feedback. He asked them to keep Wake County in mind of any different initiatives that they need to be focusing on. Bill stated that he would talk to Lib about scheduling a follow-up meeting but if they had any ideas to feel free to send either him or Lib an email.

Bill asked if there were any other questions or comments. There were none. Meeting adjourned at 9:50 am.