Software as a Service (SaaS): November 2008 Archives

This post from Chris Dorobek at the DorobekInsider.com and Federal News Radio is an interesting look at Gartner's 10 Technologies to watch.

Find the post here

Here are the technologies listed:

• Virtualization
• Cloud computing
• Servers -- Beyond Blades
• Web-Oriented Architectures
• EnterpriseMashups
• Specialized Systems
• Social Software and Social Networking
• Unified Communications
• Business Intelligence
• Green IT

We've talked about the Web 2.0 concepts (Social Networking, Enterprise Mashups, and Web-Oriented Architectures) in this blog.

Chris points out that Cloud Computing is a challenge in government.  I think this is true, but I believe that government can find certain areas where Cloud Computing provides real benefit for minimal risk.

We have been working with a government agency on allowing them to tap into our email delivery infrastructure for messages they need to send out regarding new rulings.  Rather than force them to manage all of the data on our servers, we simply accept the email address(es) of the recipients and the message content when it is ready for distribution.  This information has to go out over the Internet anyway, and by using our email delivery infrastructure, our client has better assurance that the information will get to the inbox of the intended recipient in a timely manner.  If the email bounces, we take care of it.  If the client needs to send a lot of emails, they leverage our scale.

Cloud computing is just as powerful for government as it is for others, but we need to work hard to find the right opportunities to make it work well without risking secure data.

There is a lot of interest in this topic.  Yesterday, we had 80+ people on a webinar discussing the work we are doing in cloud computing through our On-Demand Mailer which allows any government agency to use GovDelivery as its mail sender for any important email (we used to just offer our service for mass email communication.  The interest and the fact that no one dropped off during the whole presentation or the case study by www.nlrb.gov was a good sign to me.  You can signup to get a recording of the Webinar and our presentation here if you're interested.

One of the challenges for us with Cloud Computing is figuring out how to explain it to our clients.  In our webinar, everyone kept asking us to "explain again how this is different from what we already do."  I am hopeful that is people get more used to the concept the explaining will get easier.

Citizens crave information, but they are also busy and difficult to reach.

Blogs, social networks, and other Web 2.0 capabilities can help you reach citizens with critical information how and where they want to obtain it.  But, are any government agencies really using these tools?  We've provided examples before, but here are some new findings.

In April, a ScienceLogic survey found that more than 65 percent of government IT workers surveyed said Web 2.0 tools are important to their operations and 20 percent were using tools like wikis, blogs and RSS feeds. More than 50 percent said they are planning on having these tools in place by next year.

In some cases, such as the Intelligence Communities' wikopedia project, Intellipedia and the Navy Department CIO blog, the Web 2.0 tools are internal communications tools.

But other applications face the public such as those at USA.gov where they use social media applications to reach the public, including blogs, RSS feeds, podcasts and microblogs.

A recent article on Read Write Web, "To 2.0 or Not 2.0? That is the Governments' Question" (http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/government_20.php), provides additional examples of how the government is using social media to reach the public.

In a recent blog post by Daniel Mintz, chief information officer for the U.S. Department of Transportation, states, "The second generation of Web access will change the way government delivers services and its relationship with the American public."

While there are many examples of government embracing Web 2.0, I am now looking for more examples of how this embrace of technology is resulting in positive change and efficiency in how government interacts with the citizen.  The changes instituted following comments on the TSA blog are very positive examples.  I hope to find more and document them here over time.

One thing we do see is that content that challenges and engages the citizen (what we call, "Compelling Content") seems to be more successful in Web 2.0 which is fundamentally an environment where content faces a lot of competition for attention.

We will be discussing these issues at the Proactive Communication Roundtable at the Department of Treasury where we will talk about embracing new channels, leveraging channels that have been with us for longer (mainly email), and how different agencies use compelling content to engage users.