Wednesday, February 05, 2003

Sweet Weblog I just discovered another Utah weblog.  Although Brian Sweeting works at Novell, he also writes about e-government 12:48:13 PM

Technology in Rural Education Vicky Dahn of the Utah Office of Education shares some of the greatest accomplishments and looming concerns of Utah's technology in education community during a rural education retreat.  Ken Munford addresses security issues and concerns.  Jim Stewart, who attended the retreat voices my frequent feeling: "I enjoy playing with technology. It's just that too many management issues distract me." 11:59:40 AM

Spinning Straw into Gold I just finished meeting with the Utah Product Management Council.  We had some lively discussions about things like a new face on the portal, logo design, agency services, utilization metrics, search engines, and enterprise projects.  We have some great PM's who in this environment of constant budget reductions will help spin straw into gold.  I shared my preliminary plan to evaluate agency activities and products in the following areas: Compliance with Utah.gov standards Use of technology and interoperability Accessibility Online services Reporting Future plans / Roadmap & strategic vision Overall design and presentation Creativity and innovation Partiicipation in enterprise initiatives All of this with the object of realizing the goals that were discussed with the Council in January and achieving Governor Leavitt's dream of online government. Over time, I will focus on a variety of resources available to help achieve specific results in each of these areas.  To begin with, since several agencies have been very interested in accessibility issues lately, I would refer them to Anitra Pavka's Accessibility Weblog.  Anitra provides regular helps and ideas on improving accessibility. 11:48:54 AM

Privatization This morning's Salt Lake Tribune broke the story about the potential privatization of the Workers Compensation Fund of Utah.  Senator Bramble is sponsoring legislation to effect the deal.  Historically, the director of DAS has sat on the board of the Fund to represent the State's interests after it became a quasi-government entity.  The fund now controls more than $780 million in assets.  The issue that is driving this is the current budget shortfall and WCF is willing to pay about $50 million to get completely out of the state's control so that it can do business easier in other states. 7:14:00 AM

Rock On I am looking forward to reading Rock Regan's insights now that he has joined the blogging community.  Rock was the immediate past president of NASCIO and is an advocate for enterprise computing and electronic government.  And he certainly hasn't been one to avoid controversy as these stories will attest: Between a Rock and a Hard Place - CIO Magazine Connecticutt: Rebuilding a Dynasty or a Dinosaur - CIO Magazine Vendors Chase Wealth of New Opportunities in Connecticutt - Washington Technology Rock's testimony to Congress on Health and Homeland Security The New Deal - Context Magazine And he has to be dealing with some real challenges right now in conjunction with the recently ordered layoff of 2,800 Connecticutt state employees. 6:54:21 AM

© Copyright 2003 David Fletcher.