The Governor-elect asked that our group concentrate on the following:
- A plan to implement statewide WiFi (or ubiquitous broadband)
- Using technology to rebuild communities
- Allowing for greater transparency in government
Who is here: Louis Gutierrez, Charles SteelFisher, Mike Noonan, Brian Burke, Keith Parent, David Lewis, Richard Rowe, Mark Waterbury, Matt Debergalis.
Please share widely!
Go around the state collecting information on what people want to use the state web site for. Then, figure out which of those things are actually possible, and which are easy and straightforward (very few).
Have any ideas of your own you want to share?
Online forms that work would be a great start. Most forms the State requires could easily be made into a ‘smart Form’ with the ability to fill out the form and submit online.
good idea to see what people would like on mass.gov, but my thing is that the state is already sitting on huge, and growing, body of information of great use for advocacy and community discourse. Instead of just asking, we should be publishing giant cross reference of what is already collected and now not quite available. I wrote up and sent in something with the themes that all state data collection projects should have a “public information impact statement” and that we spent a bit of additional money to make that data assessable to CBOs and such. I’d like to see the community economic development and education reform groups I have been active with get everything useful in easily usable form without having to beg, borrow or steal it.
You’re talking about this as if it were an either/or situation, so I fear I may not have been as clear as I intended to be. I’m not strictly referring to new information. I realize the state already has a lot of stuff there. The point is, we need to find out what people want to find, and organize the web site to make it easy for them to find it – whether that information is already on the web site, or already on a computer somewhere in the state house and not on the web site, or hasn’t been compiled at all yet.
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I think the problem is the direction of planning. Until now, I’ve felt that the state’s web site has mainly been based on “we’ve got this stuff, let’s put it out there” whereas I’d like to see “people want to do X, let’s make it possible for them”. X could very well be “find information Y” which happens to already exist in computer form. But let’s start with finding out what people want to do or find, and use that both to organize the site and to set priorities.
I totally agree. We want to have a commitment to making it possible for individuals and groups without large scale institutional resources to use data effectively. In politics and other organizing, we know “data rules” in so many situations. The new administration will face many battles ahead, and putting the tools in the hands of those who want to affect change could make a huge difference.
Post the bills the legislature votes on, with the content in a simple readable format (pdf or open doc standard), and provide a way for everyone to see what the votes were for each legislator. This is the ultimate transparancy. It should be advertised and highlighted regularly as the way people can easily follow whats getting voted on, when, and who voted for it.
Some hypotheticals…
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Just a quick & random brainstorm. The state web site hasn’t really been organized around what people might want to find. Everyday life, public policy, citizen activism, new residents… find people who would want to use the web site from all sorts of points of view, and see what they need from it.
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For example, the 5th one is very important to me personally. I know when Capuano was elected and I have those numbers, but frequently when I’m getting involved in a new campaign and start to research the background, I need to find out the election history of the incumbent, and if it’s a state rep I often don’t know. And usually, they way I end up getting the information is by spending a while on the phone with someone at the Secretary of State’s office, who reads numbers to me from a book, that I type by hand. Sometimes, I end up having to call several town clerks’ offices too, and going through the same procedure. How old-tech! And time-consuming, and can only be done during business hours, etc. Now, I’m definitely in a minority here – there aren’t many people who need this kind of information – but that doesn’t make it unimportant. It’s part of the infrastructure of democracy, to make this information available to those few who do want it.
these are great suggestions. They fall into two categories: finding out individual pieces of information to do my business with government smoothly, and releasing aggregate data in consumable form to open up discourse. everything non-personal about MCAS scores, state support of local education budgets, enrollment figures and the rest about public education should be out there for civic and political groups to use. –steve b
The goal shgould be to get the information to the citizen which is important to their lives, and to save them a trip to a government building (we all love going RMV for example).
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This saves the citizen time and saves the State LOT’s of money!
My name is Bob Tumposky. I served on Mayor Menino’s Wireless task Force this year and was the project manager for the existing downtown Wi-Fi hotspot in the City Hall/Quincy Market area. The city’s project got some initial funding from the Mass. Tech. Collaborative.
Getting Boston’s project going hasn’t been easy, but we have made progress and I would like to help the statewide effort get underway.
Clearly developing wireless hubs is a boon for cities, towns and residents/business. the more we can develop these as norms, the better for the state on multiple levels. I applaud Boston for doing municipal approach to wifi. Seattle has done some nice stuff too.
Our analysis shows us that if the municipality or a non-profit spun off from the municipality builds (or contracts to build) the mesh and leases unused dark fiber from outfits like NSTAR, the service can be delivered to residents for around $10/month for 1.5 MB symetrical bandwidth to the residence.
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The trick is to acquire the initial capital by donations, grants, and contributions from contractors that will allow the network to be built without excessive debt load. We think that’s possible in Boston, but a somewhat different model may be required for a statewide effort.
I am working on a project with Common Cause Massachusetts called the Massachusetts Campaign for Open Government. The project’s first goal is to persuade cities and towns to post key governance records online. In later phases, the project was going to turn its focus to state government as well. It would be helpful if the new Patrick/Murray administration would encourage posting public records online at the state and local levels.
I would take the Public Record idea one step further. I am on local School Comm. and its clear that while most public officials use email, the OPen meeting law is behind the times. If we want to open up public discussion, there needs to be serious look at how to encourage use of current forms of communication (email) and post to public web pages. But the law has to support it. Right now many public officials are casually breaking the law using email and yet the public doesn’t benefit from increased openness.
michael —
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i absolutely agree. do you have any particular recommendations for how email and online communication can fit with open meeting requirements?
I don’t see any wording in MGL39-23b which prohibits holding an open meeitng online.
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If as an official, you deliberate with colleagues via email, you are violating the law as surely as you would if you did so via phone or even in person outside of a public meeting. The technology isn’t the problem.
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Later in the thread, you mentioned an idea of posting emails to a website. That’s okay, but it still doesn’t allow deliberations to be witnessed as they happen, which is what I believe is the essence of OML. Online meetings though, which are posted and accessible, should meet the requirements set forth in the statute. In fact, I think they are even better than “live” meetings because they provide a verbatim transcript at the end.
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That said, we should be able to accomodate phone conference type meetings, too, along the lines of a SkypeCast. Again, recording and transcription services are available.
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I guess I don’t think the law needs changing, and in fact, I think it’s better if it isn’t. It needs to be challenged. If we find modern practices don’t hold up to its standards, we need to improve technology to meet the standard, not change the law to accomodate technology. Afterall, OML has supported phones other technological advances since it was first written.
i suspect the law isn’t the problem as much as FUD about what forms of communication are allowed. the solution may just be a clarification.
In what way has OML supported phones and other technologies? Is a conference call by a board of selectman an “open meeting”?
The point I was trying to make was that the law didn’t need to be reworded in order to specifically address telegraphs, phones, fax machines, or any other communication tools. Therefore it might not need to be reworded to specifically address computer-based tools.
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A private conference call would not be an “open meeting”, but one that allowed free access to listeners perhaps would be.
The main challenge is that an open meeting means that the public can see it. Most public officials (esp. volunteers) email each other (even when not coming to a decision) but NO ONE sees this. So it is not an open meeting.
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Last year I researched this with Div. of Public Records and AG’s office. Based on these discussions posting email exchange to a public website is okay but most committees and town officials will not even think about this because there is no mention of it in the law and therefore requires a determination by an Asst DA, etc. If the law was updated and clear, AND if the administration vocally promoted this option – perhaps providing OPEN_MEETINGS.GOV, or the equivalent, towns officials which want to explore this would have some running room. Most towns are reluctant because its safer to stay with what is known and legal
I used to think that the law should be updated, too, and for just the reasons that you point out. But, I no longer believe that. The remedy for an OML violation is that the board or committee in question needs to put things right. That might mean having a subsequent open debate, releasing minutes, or even rescinding votes. In other words, violating OML is fairly low-risk.
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Imagine if a board or committee boldly posted their online Open Meeting. They might publicize it months in advance, and run their plans by the District DA’s office. They might also encourage citizens who object to such a format to file a complaint. In other words, force the issue and generate an advisory position.
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Worst case… they cancel the online meeting or better yet, hold it concurently with a “conventional” meeting. Or if objections are raised after its held, they make the necessary remedies. In this way, we learn something about what is and is not possible under existing law. Then, if warranted, the law can be updated.
How about a statewide solution?
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Instead of every city and town developing its own “open online meeting” area, the state could provide the framework and cities and towns could opt to use it.
Counties and Towns are making great progress getting there records on-line because tax-payers at the local level have demanded it. The same should be true of State records.
Can you send a copy of any reports or recommendations that your Project has developed? email it to Mark Waterbury, Technology Transition Working Group, mwaterbury@patrickmurray06.com
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Thanks.
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Dick Rowe
I will send a copy of it as requested.
I didn’t even know this was on Commmon Cause’s radar. Do now. Thanks!
Is the Patrick administration willing to endure lawsuits against statewide wifi, such as that of Verizon vs. Philadelphia? How would we avoid death by litigation?
Charley is sitting right here making sure everything works, but we just explained that we are concentrating more on making sure broadband access is available everywhere not necessarily that you can connect to a public wifi system.
Without some form of public/governmental initiative, affordable broadband with decent bandwidth and open access for economic innovation from multiple ISPs will not become available in many areas. The existing services are too slow, or too expensive, don’t encourage civic engagement, don’t provide for support for our increasing need for affordable wireless Internet access, and are a non-innovative monopoly/oligopoly.
Ther are a lot of parts of the State that Verizon and the cable companies refuse to service. WiFi and WiMAX offerthe possibility of providing broadband where only dial-up currently exists.
So how would it work for the state to provide broadband to these towns which verizon and the cable companies fail to service?
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I assume that we are not talking about the state starting to employ people to lay cable and act as an ISP? So would the state contract with third parties to do this? Is there precedent in another state for how to do this?
1) Use of data warehousing technology to better manage Medicaid costs. Some states are claiming very significant savings.
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2) Fiber backbones into economically disadvantaged communites tied to development of sites where companies can locate their backup/disaster recovery/help desk operations. Comprehensive program would include enhanced programs at local community colleges to train potential workers and targeted recruitment efforts at local college graduates currently living elsewhere because of lack of employment opportunities in their home towns.
Wi-Fi can help many cities get around the ridiculous costs now charged for cable internet or dsl. The digital divide in Attleboro is wide in many parts of the city despite having Comcast charge ridiculous prices. The city blew its opportunity to seek a better deal. Wi-Fi will force a better price for services as well as allow small businesses that have not been on the net before.
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Projects like this should start in this area, South Coast and west first before Boston as they would help stimulate the economies and help fill industrial parks with new businesses
that I tell this story here.
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Synopsis, Secy. of state and Executive Safety office don’t talk – for that matter, the DOR and the Secy of State offices (web sites) don’t connect – I just applied for my company “vendor” certificate and have to give them nearly all the same info I provided to incorporate…
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ANd while you are at it, why does it cost $500 to register an LLC by mail and $520 to register on-line? Seems to me you want to reverse that. (I think the RMV has incentives for on-line transactions vs face-to-face transactions)
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My LLC creation failed twice via paper and went through fine the first time when I did it on-line. How many staff hours were used to process my paper transactions vs the online transaction.
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And why does it cost $500 to register an LLP period? That, in this small-buinessman’s opinion, is a lot of money…
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Mark
What would State-wide WiFi do for the “public good”? It is definatly a nice to have, but not really a necessity.
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Providing access to all public schools and libraries around the Commonwealth would provide much more for the “public good” in dollars spent.
I agree that it would be better to try to get free wifi working at all public libraries ahead of trying to do statewide wifi for all homes and public places. Given the size and rural nature of much of the state, statewide wifi seems like too much of a reach. Hey I cannot even get a good cell phone signal at home.
I agree that statewide wifi to exclusion of broadband to schools, public safety is insufficient. We can and should do both. Bottom line for me is that we can’t offer some Mass. residents the fastest and newest options when MANY rural communities still have dial-up (REALLY!)
I believe it wasn’t too far in the past that some rural areas in the country just got rid of party-lines. Should the Commonwealth subsidize or spend money for services that will see very little use?
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I realize we don’t want to leave anyone out, but to use a Spockism, “The needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few or the one.”
Why should those who happen to live in urban areas presume the rest of have no right to access?
I didn’t say they have no right to access, what I meant is that money should be spent where it will do the most good. The cost of fiber is static. Would it be more fiscally responsible to spend it where 1 person will use it or where 1,000 people will use it? You tell me
Perhaps those of us in Rural areas shouldn’t assume right to equal education? Our taxes help you.
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Another argument – all politicans cite small business as engine of American economy. RURAL Franklin Cty has highest percentage of self-employed people in the state. These folks need broadband access to grow their business to help the COmmonwealth. Is a small business in Brookline more important than one in Peru (do you know where this is?!)
QUOTE: “Perhaps those of us in Rural areas shouldn’t assume right to equal education?”
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Now that’s a slippery slope if I ever saw one.
The problem with your argument is that people in Rural areas (usually the wealthier ones) usually have superior services due to the lack of density and poverty. I’ll agree that isn’t the case for depressed rural areas, such as Orange.
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So until the education in urban areas is in fact equal to that in Rural areas, I think that all bets are off.
If you think of us as completely separate individuals, you have a point, but we’re all interconnected and we all benefit from connection. I live in Cambridge, but I benefit when my friend in Lanesboro or Fairhaven has broadband that they can use to communicate with me. I live in Cambridge, but I benefit from a web startup in Williamstown (did you know that tripod.com started there?).
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I benefit when the town clerk of, say, Cheshire, who I want to discuss hand-count voting with, has broadband… and if I’m working for a statewide campaign and blog about that discussion, then every voter in the state with broadband potentially benefits from that. Especially if the have broadband. And when every voter benefits from access to information about candidates or government and it informs their vote for statewide candidates – which affects who governs us.
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The telephone is a more useful tool because it’s everywhere, even rural places that had to get subsidies. Because goverment and business can assume all of their constituents or clients or customers can get access to a phone, they could shift to offerring more services by phone. That same holds true for the net: the more everyone can assume that everyone else has it, the more useful it will get for all of us.
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Both personally and politically, I benefit from rural broadband and wifi, even though I intend to continue living in the city.
Thank you COS. I started blogging because Deval came to Amherst, MA 2 years ago. I was impressed that he knew where W. Mass was and that he solicited our thoughts. Throughout the campaign I have been impressed that Deval sees this as a whole Commonwealth, not just within 128. There are many people throughout the Commonwealth who if they have the tools and the access can signficantly contribute to the betterment of our society, our economy, our government, etc. And the kids that grow up in rural areas will be better equipped for contributing to the next generation if we invest in them.
This is kind of a chicken-and-egg situation. How do we know these services will see very little use–because people exist without them now? That’s not necessarily logical, especially with the spread of the suburbs to more and more exurban and rural areas.
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We need at least a semblance of equality of access. We can’t keep some parts of the state 20 years behind other parts. This is the information age, and information is key to our economic growth. Government assistance to ensure equality of access is an investment in our financial future.
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karen
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I was actually referring to population. I realize 1 to 1,000 might have been extreme.
A key to note is the number of communities don’t have any broadband access at any level. Not in the schools, libraries, or town halls.
Check out http://www.boucher.h…. Congress provided $3M to run 160 miles of high capacity fiber into the predominately coal mining counties of SW Virginia. Once the backbone’s in place, it becomes much more economically feasible for the Verizon’s of the world to finish the ‘last mile’ installations.
I’m looking at a report on Broadband availability put together by the John Adams Innovation Institute that lists on the first page alone 16 different communities in Berkshire county that do not have ANY broadband access. The concept of just getting basic broadband availability as a means to get WiFi is something that we should be thinking about and pushing for!
So what is the suggestion? Subsidising the cable companies to go where there is not a commercial level demand?
The wrong approach is to use public money to pay for private benefit (Medicare Part D?). Use the money to provide loan guarantees and engineering plans for towns, regional govt, to do their own build out and create municipal owned network
Sounds good.
Are there examples of similar areas in other states that have done this? ie run cable to homes for broadband service?
Provo Utah uses a muni-based non-profit or somesuch to provide lots of access, IIRC. Telephone, cable, super-duper-broadband, and all cheap.
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If I recall correctly (and maybe this isn’t the Provo case), it works like sort of like rental car business model works. The rental car businesses couldn’t work without a massive public expenditure on infrastructure. Likewise, the municipality pays to install the fiber, which is useful for Internet access as well as cable television and telephone. Any media access provider then pays the municipality for access to the fiber. How does that work? I don’t know. But, it does seem to work — there’s tremendous competition and low prices, but the town isn’t going bankrupt.
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Check it, yo.
One of my best friends is from one of those towns, Savoy. When I stay over there, I may bring my laptop and cell phone, but the only connectivity is a telephone landline. They can’t get DSL or cable, and there’s no cell service.
I am an IT director on the Outer Cape Imagine walking into a police dispatch center an dhearing nothing but silence! That happened to every town fron Orleans to Provincetown. No Cell, No phone, No 911, No trunked emergency service, nothing!
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Verizon’s response? Seek an alternate solution. That’s why Open Cape is not a niceity it is an absolute essential.
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WiFi and WiMax are by products of broader wireless technologies which carry LOTS of other data.
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Most important, Town’s can use to offer ‘connectivity credits’ to attract new economic development.
So what was the problem here? Was Verizon the service provider for this list of services and their system failed? And during the down time they suggested “seek an alternate solution”? If so, how long were they down? If not, please explain what the situation was.
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Also, if the state had been running the system and their system went down … what do you think their response would have been?
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I guess all emergency services should be designed with full back up systems … but that usually doubles the cost. Did the outer cape contract with Verizon for a back up system?
The state has touted the Virtual Gateway as one-stop shopping for health and human service applications. Its a start. I would strongly advocate that Patrick admin open the door and allow third parties to tap into the Virtual Gateway. Current example is Real Benefits (a superior, non-profit solution) that was rebuffed by Romney after 2 years of meeting all specs. This can only encourage greater buy-in and better products
these are all helpful comments. any additional thoughts on how technology can play a role in increase our government’s transparency?
See my post (a few up). Need to update Open Meeting law so it supports and encourages public officials and agencies to follow the law and also experiment. Can and should be able to create email list (google groups) that automatically post to public website. I want to do this now in SHutesbury
The problem we have today in that the Open Meeting Law (OML)is old and doesn’t account for the technology available today. The internet brings new problems but also new solution. But the OML is stuck in 1970’s technology. If our Board of Selectmen wanted to have an online meeting, like we’re having now, with their constituents, they would be in strict violation of of the OML.
As a Town Councilor in the Town of Palmer I wholeheartedly agree with your ideas. It is amazingly difficult to get consensus on how to use mailing lists, yahoo groups, etc. I would love to have a session just like this online session right now with the voters in my town. Our own town councilors can’t agree on how or when to use electronic communications to effectively run our government.
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Thanks,
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Keith
I tried once to download the State budget into an excel spreadsheet.
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It was a nightmare. The format was text with numbers in the right column but some were sub-totals, others were totals.
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I gave up because it would have taken me hours to turn it into a useful spreadsheet to see where my tax money was going…
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–
Maybe this happens now:
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What if Mr. Patrick and his cabinet published agendas, attendees, and minutes of high level meetings. (for that matter lobbyist visits to our reps, senators and the executive branch would be nice to know about)
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M.
All Open meetings in Commonwealth require minutes. They are often in someone’s shelf somewhere. How about if there was a giant online catalogue of all minutes from state government posted. Talk about open meetings!
Last year at MMA a company showed a product which allowed a public hearing to be videoed, digitized, earmarked and placed on-line within 24 hours of the meeting…now that’s transparent!
I love the idea of video and audio online. This is another reason we need univ. access broadband in all 351 towns/cities
Barnstable has video on demand.
This is really a matter for the legislature, but perhaps could be kick-started by the administration: The timing of when legislation is considered and voted upon is pretty opaque to a lot of people; most people find out about new legislation only after the fact. I’d like to suggest a system that could send out email alerts (and perhaps even automated phone alerts) when hearings are scheduled on a particular bills that one can flag, like Google news alerts.
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This would serve to let people in on the legislative process as it happens.
That is brilliant. Right now I have to depend on either activist organizations alerting me, or the off-chance that I see it while browsing through the mass of news I try to get through every day.
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karen
Why should we have to go through the filter of the activist groups? Heck, isn’t BMG an activist group? And yet, we don’t have the lobbyists and full-time staff to keep track of this stuff. Why should we?
I laugh, not because I wouldn’t love this feature, but because it’ll take a lot more than technology to make it happen. I’ve been through trying to find out when a bill would be considered or voted on, before, and the answer often is that nobody knows.
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For high profile bills, they may schedule and announce in advance. But the way the house works, once something gets out of committee it goes to the rules committee and then the speaker puts it on the “calendar”. Despite its name, the calendar is not actually a calendar, just a list of bills that have reached that final status where they could be voted on. Each week, the speaker decides which ones they might vote on that week, but that’s usually a long list only some of which they go through, so many bills get picked week after week, only to be neglected. Even calling the House & committees every day to ask, isn’t guaranteed to get you the answer, because the speaker could just pull any bill from the calendar, any day, and put it up for debate and a vote.
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If we could have a web link to the inside of the speaker’s head, maybe…
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… or maybe the House needs to change its procedures.
I keep forgetting that politics is just so darn, well, human. heeheehee
for confirming my suspicion that this is done by caprice. Yeah, that should change, and I’m not sure what the Governor can do about it. But someone should try.
If they are charged with knowing the answer and don’t, then they shouldn’t be working under the golden dome….
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some staffers are really great, but in all my years of dealing with the legislature, (shock and surprise) many Reps. & Sen/s don’t have a clue what the content of their bills are…..the staffers and interns write and then get signed off….(disclaimer)
NOT ALL are like that but you learn immediately which don’t the second you start to discuss the meat and potatoes of the bill and the look on the Reps face is priceless…….
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But I too am one who is frustrated at not being able to track legislation and even keeping track of Bill #’s, they change like underwear, as they move through the process… You call about a bill # and the staffer breaks out in a rendition of “clueless in the Statehouse”‘
It’s not that people aren’t doing their jobs well, or don’t know things they should know. It’s that the Speaker of the house can pull a bill out at his/her whim to be voted on, and nobody needs to be told in advance. All they can know is, was it on the House calendar at the beginning of the week (in which case the speaker might call it up), or not (in which case we know it won’t be voted on this week). And since votes can happen on a Monday, even that is less useful than it might seem at first.
Massachusetts probably has the best educational system in the country, as measured by the NAEP tests (used for “no child left behind”).
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However, it seems to me that even our best-in-the-nation teaching is absolutely archaic in the age of ubiquitous computers and the Internet (or, “those Internets” if anyone on the Right is reading this).
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Why pilot a program to issue a laptop to each child (e.g., the $200 or so OLPC computers), establish ubiquitous Wi-Fi in our schools, and start exploring the ways in which we can take advantage of all of this incredible power and information?
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Our Commonwealth is probably better poised to do this than is any other place on the globe. It’s difficult to believe that this would not pay big dividends for everyone.
No improvement in student performance thus far.
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They get Apples for $289 each.
Manny,
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Not sure if this is exactly what you’re proposing, but I thought I’d clue you into it nonetheless.
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It is basically a collaboration between Mass. Tech. Collaborative, schools, and local business. The result is that a whole lot of kids have laptops. Could be a piece of what you’re talking about. This is a long thread already, so check out the link and you might find something useful.
Barbara White of Worcester here.
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As an advocate for the disability community, many of us are just beginning to use the technology, the cost of adapting the sites and equipment has become so prohibitive financially. And with our many physical and other challenges harder to keep up with mainstream computer and other technology.
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Many of the disabled that do have it, are people that have already gotten a job and can afford to upgrade or have an employer willing to foot the bill.
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The rest of us, continue to struggle to read the print that is too small , or for the blind, does not include voice reading capabilities.
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1.
I ask the administration to continue to fight for the complete access of any and all sites representing or linked to the State website.
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Gov.- elect Patrick was the one who fought successfully for the access to the WW. initially, from the DOJ. We hope he continues to educate those employed in all aspects of State government that all citizens must be able to access the government equally without effort.
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2.
Encourage large business and others to “donate” their used computers to the disability community or neighborhood centers so that more persons can have access to the technology age.
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Create a statewide program to teach computer basics to the disenfranchised communities that can not afford to put a computer in every home. Using local college or high school volunteers to “teach” the basics. Emailing, keeping track of finanaces, doing resumes, etc. Cross reference it with the Civic engagement group and their activities.
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Thank you for your time.
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Barbara White
Advocate
Worcester
Thanks Barbara. Have you checked Section 508 from the Federal Gov’t. If so, what are your thoughts on it?
From the 508 website –
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Section 508 requires that Federal agencies’ electronic and information technology is accessible to people with disabilities. IT Accessibility & Workforce Division, in the U.S. General Services Administration’s Office of Government-wide Policy, has been charged with the task of educating Federal employees and building the infrastructure necessary to support Section 508 implementation
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Well, that’s taking care of the Fed…but i believe by the time it filters down to our level and gets mandated, it will most likely good only for dinosaurs…..
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I believe we have the great talents right here in the Commonwealth to out shine anything the GSAi s trying to do…..
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May i suggest that the Administration contact the adaptive technology division of EASTER SEALS of MA. they have been doing training of many of our more severely physically disabled residents. And have won many kudos for their work. One of my famous sayings of late, “you don’t hire a building contractor to pull a tooth.”
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If the Patrick /Murray Admin. needs to know what the disabled need from technology, come ask us…I know we will be glad to tell them. And share some interesting knowledge in the process. For the last 16 years NO ONE from under the Golden dome has bothered to ask, they just “knew” what we needed.
Thus perhaps the reason WE are so far behind.
Right now we have so little faith in anything that comes from Washington……I’d need a week…don’t let me get started….except on making things better for all….
Designing web sites to be accessible to the disabled has a lot of overlap with designing web sites to be accessible via PDAs and phones and text-only browsers, which affects a lot of better-abled people. Many’s the time I’ve been extremely frustrated with the MBTA’s web site because it’s so hard to find anything there using my cell phone – and it’s the MBTA, of course I’m going to try to find things there when I’m not at home!
From this discussion alone it is clear that innovation and expertise in technology abounds in Mass. ANd with the pace of change, staying connected with the people in the real world is only way to stay abreast. I would suggest that civic engagement and tech can meet – find a way to not “ivy tower” tech in the new admin but use grassroots expertise to feed ideas. Advisory groups, regular blogs/discussions, etc.
Last Thursday, Tech and Civic Engagement hosted a joint meeting at UMass Dartmouth to discuss many of the ideas you presented.
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But we appreciate the comments, keep’em coming
The point is using the technology to bridge the distance divide. For work I must drive 2 hours to stay “in the loop” in Boston otherwise folks forget W. Mass exists. I’m advocating for meetings ONLINE that allow for equal access and input
The difficulties arise when you try to allow the openness that we see many asking for at the same time as trying to secure the data.
This idea came up at last Tuesday’s civic engagement working group. Install rudimentary video conferencing facilities in schools/libraries/etc. connected back to the State House so that its easier for people outside Boston to ‘attend’ public hearings on key issues. Obviously this has to piggy back on providing the broadband access to these sites.
that can be viewed anywhere?
I love the idea of video webcasts, etc. One of the goals of the video conferencing idea however was to make the communication 2-way. It would allow a citizen in the Berkshires to actually testify at a public hearing on Beacon Hill without driving all the way into Boston.
Live meeting or Webex can help for so many efforts. I use it for training customers or tech support. There are probably many ways to make use of it for meetings in state government, legislative sessions, and to bring together distant resources and give them valuable input without the prohibitive cost of video.
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with IP phone or internet audio, its sometimes better than the phone…but even if the phone is used its still cheaper than video and the bandwidth needed for video
We started using tools like Webex and Live Meeting at work right after 9/11 because we had to cut back on a lot of our travel. The project review meetings that used to take two days of travel to Utah and back (with all the costs associated with that) are now Live Meeting sessions that last only a couple hours. Great for my productivity, not so hot for my frequent flyer balances :-(.
If the state were to build broadband backbones for video conferencing,that would provide nice mechanism for towns, regions to build off with local loops (wired or wireless). Definitely reduces the cost to locales and achieves goals for state govt
Someone mentioned this here once upon a time: Why not have blogs for various departments — with open comments?
Charley this is where tech runs into the wall of bureaucratic culture. No civil servant or political appointee will go online saying something that is not already vetted. Example- new Connector for health care reform. Many questions unresolved but it takes weeks for a single FAQ to be answered, if answered at all
There is a lot of information which can be blogged which promotes and carries out the Department’s mission.
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Online technical support systems provide the essentials of a blog which helps the user navigate the product. These are usually structured tightly around the companies product or mission.
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No reason why a Department blog can’t do the same thing.
As a public employee I think that is a great idea but who has time? It would take an FTE in each Department just to blog…
Does someone respond to the emails? Just do it publicly. But you’re right, I would expect that it would take more person-hours.
Require every agency listed on Mass.gov to also list their physical address and phone number. If you browse the websites for state agencies, you can’t get that basic info.
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High tech would be to one-day add chat function for quick questions to high volumne agencies- DMV, etc.
Everything on Mass.gov should look like everything else — as much uniformity as Amazon.com, or BMG, for that matter.
Just take Deval’s one standard form proposal one step further to include technology too.
If you browse through the Operational Services Division (they manage the purchasing contracts for the state) web page, you can find the names and phone numbers for each department. It can be a big help, but it’s not easy to find.
Sort of like the Pres.’s weekly radio broadcast except you don’t have to listen to the radio on Saturday morning to hear it. He could talk about whatever he wanted to. You could connect it to a page where people could provide feedback.
I like that. Maybe also internet chats.
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karen
From inside the Governor’s office.
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I’ve been here more than half a century and I can honestly say, i don’t know what the inside of the Governor’s “inner” office looks like……heck, we know every crannie of the Oval Office….what gives?
I went to a bill signing with my father during the waning days of the Weld administration…
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Incredible view, nice desk, portraits of former Govs (chosen by the current occupant…fun fact, Bill Weld had a portrait of James Michael Curley). It is very befitting of the Governor of the Commonwealth. I even like the somewhat hokey “EXECUTIVE” above the outer office door.
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Why not let people take a spin through during the inaugural week? Gov doesn’t have to be there, just let them see where the magic happens?
Towns need support so they can get more features on their websites. It would be very helpful in trying to get important information if some of that were easily accessible to websites. Perhaps the state could offer support in that regard, as it tries to better its mass.gov website.
Other States have tried that, including this State. What a MESS!
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Town’s HATE being homogenized by a State web site template .
Forcing cities and towns into a particular service or web template may not be such a hot idea, but I didn’t see that being suggested. The state could offer services to cities and towns that they could choose to use. For example:
Again, just a brainstorm. You can add to the list. These sorts of things would be very unlikely to upset any city or town.
Oh, and add video hosting to the list! Once a city or town has made a video of some public meeting or event, give them a place to host it that the state will pay for and maintain indefinitely, so they can keep it available (and integrated into the city web site if they want).
These are the exact things I was thinking of, especially your third suggestion. I don’t think we should force towns in a box, but say a town needs help with a design element. Rather than hiring out to get that element, not doing any design (or something lame) or hiring a staffer when there really isn’t the need… they could call up the state web office or something similar and ask for a little help.
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There’s a lot of need for hosting, for expertise on how to do things, etc. etc. etc. We could have the state create a training seminar that would equip some willing people at town halls to upload the sort of information many people would want on a town website.
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I think there’s a lot of potential for the state and towns to work together on town websites so we get the best possible products that offer important information, are helpful and actually could help build a town community (a good website for the town has almost limitless potential).
To do this?
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Provide consulting? The product? The tools? Other?
Yes, provide money for consulting and tools. For example, when I raised the idea of email distribution for town committees to be posted on the web, the town web committee was for it but we don’t have the expertise or the money to do it right or at all. So the only option is ad-laden Google Group, which is not appropriate for a Town function. Build tools that can be used as separate accounts by Towns, they can opt in or not. This would allow for maximizing for funds as well as consistent TA at central source.
Is Massachusetts a brand? Do we want some sort of continuity in state and local websites–colors, icons, logos, type of information?
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This is a big usability project. I think there should be more people assigned to help cities and towns. Let’s be realistic–right now websites are often built by staff with other primary responsibilities (like administrative assistants) and/or volunteers–talented, but not able to put all their time into creating and even more importantly, maintaining and updating sites.
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The state could provide basic tools–assistance or access to courses (get someone like New Horizons to give classes to city/town officials charged with web work, provide webcasts, etc. Heck–if the state decides to go with specific products, eg, Adobe/Macromedia, they’d probably provide some free training. They have user groups in companies–why not in government?); buy software with a big group license or maybe someone would donate/build (Pace?); sugggest not so much a template but elements that local websites could use (build useful links into one cut-and-paste box like blogs do, build a calendar into another, etc.) and also mandate elements local websites would need to have in order for the state to subsidize/provide tools (things like state logo, maybe legal information, etc.).
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Cities/towns would also have to maintain their sites in order to keep the tools coming.
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Just a few examples–frankly I’ve lost my train of thought. . . . (it’s the MBTA–it’s not lost, it’s just late . . . )
The Department of Revenue has a Division of Local Services to assist communities. Among other things, it helps ensure uniform application of state laws and provides technical assistance. They will even send a project team to a town to address a specific issue, at no additional cost to the community.
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I would like to see a similar offering from the Information Technology Division. Help cities and towns with purchasing power, consulting, infrastructure and best practices. Provide state-selected portal designs and incent communities to adopt them by providing support services and code sharing, similar to an open source development project.
The Romney administration did a lot of outsourcing for IT services for Departments such as Labor. Those Departaments now have LOTS of badly performing, orphaned products running on web pages throughout the States web sites. Those need to be fixed by insuring the Departments have the IT staffs in-house who can design and support their own systems.
Another dimension of this is that departments tend to do their own sites, rather than create a unified presence of functions and information that is organized by function/topic area.
Agree that Departmental and State web-site structure need the same look and feel. But each Department has rules and mandates which are unique to their environment, function and systems, Those unique functions need to be maintained by the IT professionals who work with them everyday, not by outsourcing contractors who are fulfilling a single contract.
Hmmm… from the ITD website, I would have thought just the opposite — that the state IT dept was actually supporting other state departments.
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How are the plans in the 2000 and 2003 reports progressing? Are they still viable? It would be a shame to have a technology plan overhaul for every change of governor.
I read the 2003 plan recently. It was full of good ideas, probably cost a lot of money, but there was no document that described how implementation was or was not going. If anyone knows of such a report, I’d like to see it.
…there’s been significant progress on Mass.Gov, but still quite a ways to go, and still examples of situations where a department goes it alone. The 2000 and 2003 eGovernment and IT Commission reports are still useful sets of recommendations. ITD tracks progress against the latter, in particular, so you’re right – it’s good not to reinvent ground already covered.
Most of the techies on line tonight are used to going to a software vendors website and searching their online knowledge base for solutions to technical problems. Could you take that concept and adapt it to the types of questions citizens need help with. It would also provide a mechanism for capturing a lot of the expertise of our more experienced state workers in solving complicated problems.
why not start a commonwealth of mass wiki paralleling the structure of mass.gov and then city and towns divisions. let knowledge on how things work and where to go for access just accumulate (with oversight). BMG could start that tomorrow.
would have to have better oversight and security.
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karen
Steve, that would be you. Get on it.
I’d think about it if a few people wanted to work on it. creating the wiki site is easy. making it come alive…
Does anyone know the status of the existing fiber that runs along the Mass. Turnpike? Is there bandwidth available for applications that would increase transparency in government or could the fiber provide backhaul for municipal/regional broadband in rural areas? Are there runs beyond the Turnpike right-of-way?
Rep. John Olver got money to run fiber up I91 from CT to VT. This was last year (?), not sure of status. No money for building out from there however.
Wasn’t the Mass Pike Fibered in the mid ’90’s
Transportation is creating a project to extend the fiber that runs along the MassPike to Rte 290 (Springfield, Worcester, etc) and there are other dark fiber options out there. I believe UMass owns dark fiber that has at least 80% available capacity at the moment.
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This comment came from an email that we got detailing Broadband Comments from Bethann Pepoli, the acting CIO for the State of Mass.
I may be wrong on this, but it appears that technology is less an issue than the bureacratic roadblocks that projects like this faces.
Projects utilizing some of the Mass Pike bandwidth were proposed in the Mid ’90’s, but ONLY for Mass Highway programs such as rest area tourist information.
He is sitting in for Brian Burke who just had to drop off.
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If it was a “real world” meeting you’d have seen him walk in the door.
What ideas do people have for creating more high tech jobs in the state. Many existing high tech companies in the state have offices and labs in India and China and are adding new jobs there. I dont expect that trend to reverse, but we do need a way to grow the job base here too.
Any task which is made up of reproducable steps is gone… and they won’t be back. The first Bush administration pushed to have that happen and it has. Support calls to India for example cost nothing thanks to a fiber link which was established just for thate putpose.
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We need to create opportunities at the development end of the spectrum be it electronic, bio or any other kind of high technology.
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That involves investments in infrastructure and environment. We already have many of the components of the best high-tech environment, we need to rebuild the critical mass and let synergy do what it did in the 80’s along 128, for example.
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What we don’t have is the infrastructure and incentives to return/start in Massachusetts. That where we need to focus.
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That’s why I like the concept of the ‘connectivity credit’ to entice technology businesses to come back to Massachusetts.
Using technology to rebuild communities…
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It can’t only be access? Any other ideas?
I don’t know that technology can directly build communities, but accessible technical infrastructure can stimulate the emergence of new commercial enterprises that create jobs and economic movement. It can also be a support for improved civic engagement, a potentially powerful force for change.
I believe that technology can built communities, but it is not necessarily tied to a geography like a state, or town, or city. With the technology in place today, one can be anyplace and work, technology. We are building a community now…with people presumably from all over the state.
When I taught online for a couple of years with the University of Phoenix, I had sudents in my online class from all over the world. They also had team assignments and had to work together to get the assignments done.
In an earlier post I mentioned the Coalfield Coalition broadband fiber project down in Southwest Virginia. When my company won the State of Virginia IT outsourcing project, part of the winning proposal was that we planned to locate the backup facility in one of the communities served by this fiber. This created about 400 new jobs that needed to be filled. The company worked with UVA and Virginia Tech to identify recent graduates from the area and went out of its way to recruit these graduates, using the sales pitch that they could now return to their home towns and work in their chosen career.
and geographic communities that we are talking about.
connecting neighborhoods within a larger urban city; Springfield, Worcester, Holyoke, Lawrence, Brockton, Fall River.
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Supporting local Cable access TV stations, getting them connected to the inner neighborhood groups being formed to rejuvenate many of the older, abandoned parts of many of them.
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Allowing us to produce our own programs, geared to what the need of the particular neighborhood is, and broadcasting these city wide on the local access channel. Contact Mauro DePasquale in Worcester at WCCA, TV 13, for more infor…they just celebrated 20 years on the air producing citizen driven technology
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In a thousand different ways technology has the opportunity to provide better services at lower cost to the citizens of the state.
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In the Past it was the boiler maker who kept the plant running , today it’s the IT Managers…
Tell my CFO that!
Just remind him of it the next time you’re out sick and the network goes down.
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Unless he’s a complete moron he already knows it! How else could so much work get done by so few?
We’ve seen ideas about sharing data with the public, but what about sharing data between departments and agencies?
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We’ve all seen the stories of drunk driver X who had his/her license revoked umpteen times . . .
As the clinton administration found out and as we see every sickening times it happens, just because its data doesn’t mean it can be interchanged (with out a LOT of massaging).
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One system puts in a date as mm/dd/yy and another system requiresit as dd/mm/yyyy you’ve got a problem.
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Magnify that by running these applications on mainframes which haven’t been upgraded in years, in many cases with code that was only patched for Millenium problems and whose programmers retired 10 years ago and you can begin to visualize just how bad the underlying problem actually is!
I’m working on a project with that will introduce innovation in a user-friendly way via an interactive Citizens’ Panel where people from all walks of life have the capacity to share, compare and actively participate in solving local and global problems. I’ll be writing about the activities of the Citizens’ Panel on-line at eworkstyle.com as programs take place so that people aren’t overwhelmed by new information. My vision is to make available open access, on-line symposiums in a virtual conference venue designed to build solutions. If done well, citizens will be able to meet live, on-line, to participate in learning and problem solving with as many as one-hundred people. I’m in the process of testing how large format conferencing can be modeled and facilitated to organize engaging, informative and supportive dialogue with photos, slides, audio, video web links, chat blogs and texts. I want the Citizens’ Panel to be different from internet, radio and television as we now know it so that people move beyond one-way and analog communications to interactive, solutions oriented, digital participation. This venue can help citizens comprehend their regions and comparatively connect that knowledge back to their local communities and professions, as well as to other regions and countries. I believe the Citizens’ Panel is a vital tool that can empower citizens by helping them expedite innovative solutions across a wide variety of disciplines and needs. The Citizens’ Panel can also offer project alliances and joint activities that help citizens increase awareness and broaden their reach. The Citizens’ Panel in my vision will contribute to individuals, classes, organizations and institutions meeting on-line by creating a place where presenters and experts can share their findings; listen to feedback and compare perceptions, ideas and problems. From these events, I’d like to cultivate solutions for testing, modeling and development through eworkstyle.com. Citizens’ Panel discussions will focus on sustainable development topics such as community organizing, urban sprawl, environmental health, eco-economy and smart growth. Results will be archived and posted to create on-demand access to publications, curricula and multi-media materials. See http://www.eworkstyl…
An extra . is at the end of the link..
The link works if you remove the extra . at the end. It’s because he just typed a URL in, raw, rather than an HTML anchor tag, and it happened to be the end of a sentence, so there’s a period at the end, and the SoapBlox software didn’t know that period wasn’t part of the raw URL.
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(I only clicked the link, I didn’t read most of the text, because I find long dense blocks of text with no whitespace or paragraph breaks very hard to read – so I’d appreciate a repost that’s more accessible.)
Remove the period from the end of the linked URL to make it work.
wasn’t allowed on.
Where I live, the City contracts with the local cable company for services like Community Access Television and Cable in the schools.
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Perhaps some sort of state subsidy to cities and towns to help entice companies like Verizon or Comcast to bring the infrastructure to the more rural areas.
The Cable Companies have no desire to service the rural customer, they are allowed to red-line those areas and include the red-line in the 10 year contracts. Federal law allows them to do it and they are not about to give that up, the cost/benefit just doesn’t make it worthwhile.
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These are areas where WiFi and WiMax can and should provide a better solution be it Government or ISP provided.
something to be aware of when encouraging increased keyboard use: incidence of RSI (repetaative stress injury) will also increase. RSI includes carpal tunnel syndrom and related pain syndroms resulting from repetative use of hands from keyboarding, mousing, jackhammering (yes, really!), knitting etc.
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sadly, the medical community can neither predict who will get RSI, nor can they provide a cure other than recommending that the injured person stop the offending activity. so right now, prevention is key. because there are no objective medical tests for RSI, our workers comp system doesn’t handle it well at all.
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i’m not trying to pick any fights or throw any cold water on wifi initiatives. just throwing this concern out there. technology does sometimes conflict with health care rather than advance it. it pays to bear this in mind.
everything interacts with everything else. unfortunately, the best treatments (IMHO) for RSI are usually not covered at all or covered well by health insurance: chiropractic and acupuncture. otherwise we’re mostly getting bandaids to treat symptoms, not really relieve the problem.
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also ties into the need for professionals to have a union so we could negotiate for better preventive care (health insurance has never been good at that), like the one Barbara Ehrenreich founded, United Professionals.
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hmm, isn’t this a technology discussion? 😉
We were supposed to shut down, but some of us are keeping around for another 15 to 20 minutes to give more time for some of the ideas…
Shouln’t End tonight. The ideas are just beginning to flush and merge.
We’re gonna leave this open and check back in frequently. Just that people might not comment tonight.
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Charles
What can expect after tonight in terms of what we discuss. Will we receive a summary report of what?
But, we only talked about the digital world! Beside citizen services and connectivity we are old hat…
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If we as a State are to regain our position in high-technology we have to think beyond our own digital experience and into the brave new world of bio-tech, genetic-tech, energy-tech, enviro-tech and on and on…
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Not a single thread tonite dealt with any of those…
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Without the those new frontiers we are but one hand clapping…
As Requested, Citizen’s Panel Shorter Text & Working Link.
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I’ve actually been working on a model called the Citizen’s Panel. It is also a public forum but it is simple to use; it’s without techno babble; enables collaboration; keeps channels of communication open; is capable of providing tools and resources for all committees to participate on-line and can handle blogs, lectures and forums.
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People who have never used a computer before can write, chat and lecture. I designed it so that individuals can take leadership in discussion on changing trends in industry to help citizens move forward in their thinking and actions.
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The site location is http://www.eworkstyl…
Thanks! I will take a look at what you have here.
We have discussed some great ideas in the hour and a half, I have been online. I want to summarize what I got out of it.
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I initially was going to interject concerns about the great digital divide and how this online process was not sufficiently inclusive enough. I don’t think that anymore, it may be true, but Rome wasn’t built in a day and the use of technology to achieve inclusivenss is just beginning to happen.
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My sense is that the Patrick administration will advance the process (using technology to achieve inclusiveness) by making it necessary and available. That the culture of the Patrick administration will display technology as a real value to the citizenry as oppose to a hindrance to getting things down. So I applaud this effort and appreciate the opportunity to participate.
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Thanks
Thank you for all the comments. We’re going to eat, but please, keep the thoughts coming. We will check back in over the week. No need for you to stop now.
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Again thanks for this and also be sure plug into the other meetings as well.
Are people aware of the regional library organizations such as NMRLS (Northern Mass), CMRLS (Central Mass), etc? These organizations allow our tax dollars to do more for us by bringing technology and expertise to all kinds of libraries. And libraries can act as “community centrals” providing places and tools for people to come together.
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For example in the central region, people who were concerned about Peak Oil came together at the Groton Library to discuss alternative and renewable energy options and sustainable local economies. As a result a number of local businesses and individuals working on renewable solutions such as solar roof shingles were discovered and have entered the dialog.
(Late to this party) Under the Rockefeller-Snowe amendment to the 1996 Telecommunications Act, the federal Universal Service Fund provides money for broadband access by schools and libraries. The administration could provide technical assistance and pooling of efforts to go after these funds aggressively.
To Cam’s suggestion, I would note that Boston hired a person to go after those funds back in the mid-90’s and at one point, was 4th in the nation in E-rate funds received.