Got one? Let us know. And, if you're working on one, or know someone who is, join us May 22-24 at Harvard. Click here for more (http://3ecompass.net/public/May_2006_Description_and_Agenda).

The problem I was thinking about is responding to homeland security disasters - situations like the World Trade Center or hurricane Katrina.

Disaster response is clearly and important problem, given that security is a first-order goal for any society and -- unfortunately -- we've recently demonstrated we are NOT secure. It is also urgent, given the frequency of disasters over the past decade. "Two hundred year" hurricanes or fires seem to be happening every other year rather than every other century. Terrorism has become a global threat that continues to grow.

But is it truly feasible to improve how first responders handle disasters? It OUGHT to be, since much of the challenge is coordinating people who have an overwhelming desire to work together effectively -- or at least they do once disaster strikes. Further, as we work on these issues, technology should be our friend in coordinating responses to infrequent, jurisdictionally dispersed, and unpredictable disasters.

However, if these problems were easy, we probably would have solved them already. The threats of weak levees and strong hurricanes around New Orleans were known well in advance, but we couldn't get it together to act in time. As we failed for Katrina, will we also fail for avian flu? If the bombs of Madrid, Baghdad, or London hit Boston, will we respond effectively? How can we get prepared?

To answer such questions we ran a workshop last month with about 70 first responders and researchers. Our focus was not on the federal and state governments, but instead on the institutions that actually show up during the critical first 72 hours -- i.e., local governments along with the local community groups and businesses. We were working with police and fire chiefs, hospital administrators, mayors, business leaders, and others.

We organized the workshop along with the National Council on Readiness and Preparedness - a group led by former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore. Governor Gilmore had earlier headed the the Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction (known as the Gilmore Commission). Through this work he became among the very first to see the need to organize disaster preparedness from the ground up, and NOT to rely primarily on the federal government (and certainly not on the Department of Defense, except as a truly last resort).

At the workshop I learned that front-line practitioners see huge room for improvement in first responder performance. One in four saw risk management overall as poorly handled at present (the lowest grade on a four-point scale), and almost no one gave first responder performance overall a top grade (on the same four-point scale).

One area that the group identified as both important and feasible for improvement was transportation and logistics -- our ability to stage and move personnel and materiel during emergencies.

The workshop focused heavily on five particular initiatives to be further developed as NCORP continues to pursue these issues at other workshops to be held around the country. The five priority initiatives and the activities at Harvard are described in a recently published magazine article. Click here for "Ready America" by Dan Verton

Click here for a video of the keynote address by Governor Gilmore, and here for the text of that address

From my work with the group, I personally thought that a highly leveraged possibility would be to develop versions of the table-top games now used for disaster planning into report cards that could be used to measure with some objectivity and depth the degree of preparedness of various regions. I have a daughter who is a junior in high school, so I naturally considered this possibility as sort of an SAT test for regions. If it were clear that Boston was NOT as well prepared for disasters as Atlanta or Columbus, and if this information were communicated clearly to the public, institutions that now find it hard to prepare in advance might have a stronger motivation to come to the table and work things out.

I'll perhaps report some more on those ideas later.

Meanwhile, I'll keep an eye out for the cross-boundary challenges that you see as important, urgent, and feasible.  Keep those cards and letters coming…

Regards,

Jerry

Please join us:
May 22-24: "Portfolio Management and Communications" for cross-boundary implementations: http://3ecompass.net/public/May_2006_Description_and_Agenda

We're looking for people seriously into cross-boundary reforms -- i.e., reforms involving more than one reasonably independent institution seeking to coordinate their work in some new technology-enabled way.

Much of health care reform meets this criterion. If electronic medial records are to be well-designed and used, doctors, nurses, hospitals, labs, insurers, governments, and patients must all change how they work together. Homeland security raises similar challenges. So do reforms in education and even basic back-office services like the HR services that could be more efficiently offered on an enterprise-wide or even broader basis (Nova Scotia, for example, is implementing the same ERP applications for the province, the municipalities within the province, the hospitals, and the universities -- cross-boundary to the nth degree.)

We're looking for real-world cross-boundary initiatives, where something is being planned or already underway that would be of interest to others.

We plan to make these initiatives the subject of "charette" or problem-solving sessions at our May 22-24 workshop. At the workshop we will, in particular, explore portfolio management as a way to hedge risk, and communications programs as a key for cross-boundary success.

If your initiative is selected, you will get a full scholarship to the workshop -- a $2,100 value.

To win, simply send me an email with a brief description of what you are doing:

What are you trying to accomplish? Who is involved and why is it a cross-boundary effort? What are the risks and/or communications problems you are facing?

Keep your description to a page or less (although you can send supplemental materials along separately if you'd like).

I hope to hear from you soon. We'll announce the winners by Friday May 5.

Best regards,

Jerry
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jerry Mechling, Kennedy School of Government , 617-495-3036

Please join us:
May 22-24: "Portfolio Management and Communications" for cross-boundary implementations:
http://ksgexecprogram.harvard.edu/lnwportfolio
 

However, in a workshop last week on shared services, Canada was a leading example of where things may be heading next. (workshop agenda: http://www.3ecompass.net/public/Shared%20Services%20Agenda)

[For info on our May 22-24 workshop on Portfolio Management and Communications for cross-boundary implementations: see: http://ksgexecprogram.harvard.edu/lnwportfolio]

Until recently, "shared services" meant internal administrative work -- e.g., payroll, personnel, accounting (information-intensive services), or vehicle maintenance (a physical service). The key benefit was economies of scope and scale. High-volume production for multiple departments could offer lower unit costs - and potentially higher value per unit - than if each department provided for itself.

The downside to high volume services - at least for the departments served - is loss of local control. Outside producers, especially those with monopoly power, have a poor reputation for customer service and innovation.

In analyzing where shared services are now in the public sector, the workshop came to several general conclusions: 

1. Major opportunities for efficiency remain to be harvested. Good numbers have not been adequately documented and shared, but practitioners and researchers are convinced that the benefits are real. If you haven't been planning for and investing in shared services, you should be.
2. The hard part of implementation is the soft part, not the technology: i.e., leadership and governance are the big challenges, and are not getting the kind or amount of attention they deserve. We need to design shared service projects primarily as organizational change efforts. We need to carefully design incentives for operational responsiveness (service level agreements are important, but not supported by everyone).  We need to reinvest efficiencies into new opportunities for innovation and improvement.
3. The future of shared services will embrace face-to-face customer services and outside organizations. Here is where Canada provided the leading examples. Service Canada is implementing face-to-face services as well as telephone, mail, and Internet interactions under a one-stop/no wrong door design. While portals have been getting serious attention around the globe, Canada is clearly a leader in face-to-face customer service on a shared services/multi-department basis. (See link: http://servicecanada.gc.ca/.)

Canada is also aggressive on standardizing shared services for improved productivity and transparency across multiple independent institutions, not just multiple departments within a given government enterprise.

I'm old enough to have participated in the Planning-Programming-Budgeting Systems (PPBS) work of the 1960s, looking to standardize financial management across programs and departments. Talk then was that DoD should not think of itself only as an aggregation of Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines, but rather as a capacity for nuclear deterrence while also fighting multiple conventional battles. PPBS was developed for analyzing such management and policy issues. While the financial and personnel numbers were huge, the focus was department by department within the larger DoD structure.

That's different from what Nova Scotia is trying to do today. Shared services for Nova Scotia extend across 15 departments in the Provincial Government, 8 separate School Boards, 55 separate Municipalities, 9 Health Departments (with 40 hospitals), and also the colleges and universities of the province. The dollars managed are smaller than for DoD in the 60s, but it's amazing to see all those programs and semi-sovereign groups using the same standardized ERP software. (Here's some detail: http://3ecompass.net/library/view/compass-library/Gartner_-_Nova_Scotia_Uses_Shared_Services.pdf)

*   *   *   *   *

Are Service Canada and ERP in Nova Scotia interesting but essentially aberrations, depending on a political culture and legal frameworks that will not travel well to the south? Or are they the leading edge of the next wave of reform needing only some new legal language, interpretation, and leadership?

I think I see a wave forming. Trickle down could soon become a flood. To catch this wave, better get your board ready…

The URL for the earlier traffic congestion view of London was cut off. Let's hope this one gets through:

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/travel/jamcams/camloco/548850.shtml

What if vidocams like this were prevalent in Neighborhood Crime Watch organizations, also linked to mapping databases?

 Regards,

 Jerry

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jerry Mechling, Kennedy School of Government , 617-495-3036

Please join us:
April 19-21: "Shared Services" in government: http://www.3ecompass.net/public/shared_services

May 22-24: "Portfolio Management and Communications" for cross-boundary implementations:
http://ksgexecprogram.harvard.edu/lnwportfolio
 


 

They're doing it in Chicago with http://www.chicagocrime.org/. The site shows police crime data via pins on Google maps. You can see what's happened by police beat, location type (ATMs, taxis, sports arenas), or your normal commute path to work.

More recently, you can also see police blotter stories supplied by the Chicago Sun. For example: http://www.chicagocrime.org/2006/feb/27/2am/hm203109/

An impressive element is ease of implementation. Once the application program interfaces (APIs) were made available from the Police and Google databases, journalist Adrian Holovaty and designer Wilson Miner quickly put it together.

Private sector examples funded by advertising are booming. You can use maps even via cell phones to find restaurants, ATM locations, movies, and more things to buy than you'll ever be able to afford.

What will and should happen with these cross-boundary possibilities for government collected data? Starting with crime data in Chicago, videocam data of traffic from lots of locations in London, and the real-time public transit planning services we found a few weeks ago, where should we go from here?

Should we worry about privacy invasion if housing prices are listed on maps? And will any U.S. cities feel comfortable making the videocams as prevalent as they are in London? 

For views of London traffic right now, by the way, try: http://www.gmaptrack.com/map/locations/24/44h

Let me know what you think...

Jerry

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jerry Mechling, Kennedy School of Government , 617-495-3036

Please join us:
April 19-21: "Shared Services" in government: http://www.3ecompass.net/public/shared_services

May 22-24: "Portfolio Management and Communications" for cross-boundary implementations:
http://ksgexecprogram.harvard.edu/lnwportfolio
 

Governments seek IT scope and scale benefits largely by extending "shared services" to additional government departments -- e.g., consolidated/shared data centers and server farms, consolidated/shared payroll services across multiple departments, consolidated/shared environmental data, etc.

The USPS Moversguide has broadened this concept to gain extra benefits by extending shared services to private partners.

Here's how it works.

The USPS requires a change of address form from the roughly 20% of individuals and firms that move each year. The old way relied on paper forms. It cost more than $50 million per year (rough estimate) to transcribe the often hand-written forms into the database needed to make the system operational. Imagine the data entry errors. 

The USPS saw that a self-service web-based system would eliminate some transcription. Whether to invest would normally be determined by how many people could be enticed to use the new self-service site, and how much it would cost to build it.

In this case, USPS got a vendor to agree to build and operate at a price much less than full cost. My sources suggested the price was effectively zero. The reason was that the information was to be shared with other firms, but only when the parties changing their address approved such sharing. Since moving requires giving many new institutions the new address, movers were usually happy to share their information. In this way, the USPS got a system that was paid for by utility companies, phone companies, newspapers, banks, groceries, etc. Movers got a more convenient moving experience.

The savings to the private firms were enough that the USPS paid much less than it would have had it built a stand-alone system.

To explore this cross-boundary application in more detail: http://www.usps.com/moversguide/

There are important issues about when and how the public sector should negotiate such deals, of course. And there are lots of "life event" activities where public regulation could be bundled with private services. I'd like to hear your views...

Cheers,

Jerry
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Please join us:
April 19-21: "Shared Services" in government: http://www.3ecompass.net/public/shared_services

May 22-24: "Portfolio Management and Communications" for cross-boundary implementations:
http://ksgexecprogram.harvard.edu/ProgramDetail.aspx?programID=220&sessionID=440