July 2008 Archives

I have had a few people comment (offline) about my entry singing the praises of the TSA.  There is such a negative vibe around air travel these days, I think many people are overlooking some of the steps the TSA is taking to make travel easier and their service better.

Here is a subtle example.

My drivers license expires this August 19 on my birthday.

On a flight to Indianapolis in June, the TSA agent noticed the upcoming expiration and said, "don't forget to renew your license."  I had no idea the license was about to expire.  I recently moved and changed the address on my license, but apparently that did not reset the clock on the expiration.

When I said, "thank you," she said, "we're trained to remind people when it's a few months until expiration since it can take a while to renew."  That's good training.  Probably makes the job more interesting too.

I applied for the new license last week.  At airport security this week in Minneapolis, I showed the guard my license and said, "it's clipped so I'll need to pull out the receipt showing that my new one is in the mail."  He said that TSA rules allow him to accept my license for a year after it expires with no extra paperwork.  Cheers!

So, TSA is taking it upon itself to remind me about my license and then is showing intelligent flexibility by still accepting the license as ID after it is expired... after all, they want to know who I am not that I have valid driving privileges and qualifying eye sight like the DMV.  This really makes sense!

On a more awesome note, they are actively trying to get rid of the "remove your shoes" policy which you can read about at their unusually good blog. 

I'm not selling TSA fan club t-shirts yet, but as someone who travels far too much, I really appreciate these efforts.

I heard the news Tuesday morning about California's 5.4 magnitude earthquake and instantly saw coverage on multiple communications channels - web, television, wireless, email, etc.  In today's world, information is instantaneous.  As I continued to read through other news of the day, there was a topic that wasn't a one-time event but a recurring one that we're all too familiar with - the budget crisis many states are currently facing.  In working with many government agencies, I've seen first hand how innovative leaders address the need for improved communication and services, while dealing with budget constraints.  They've done this by investing in solutions that are integrated with or complementary to existing solutions.

A good example of such an agency is the City of Riverside, CA.  The City uses an email alert system to notify its citizens of more than city information and services - it also sends out emergency notifications to the public and to its emergency operations CERT team members. In the case of Tuesday's earthquake, the city used it email alert system to immediately communicate with its 251 CERT members with the most up-to-date earthquake information.  Information included time of earthquake, location, CERT activation status and reminders to stay off cell phones and land lines.

Riverside utilizes its email alert service to update citizens on general topics and services, in addition to emergency related notifications.  Using existing resources like website content, they are able to provide more information and better service to citizens.  You can see the service in action by visiting their website at www.riversideca.gov.

Are you trying to understand your website traffic?

I am a big fan of a service called Quantcast. 

From their website:
Quantcast is a new media measurement service that enables advertisers to view audience reports for millions of sites and services to build their brands with confidence.