Thursday, June 19, 2003

DMV Online Chad Dickerson writes about his negative experience with California's online vehicle registration.  Vehicle registration is typically one of the premier online applications for a given state and is prominently featured on egov portals.  I've been registering my vehicles online for several years with nothing but good experiences.  I wonder if California did as much user testing as we did in Utah.  If you have had a negative experience with Utah's Renewal Express system, please let us know.  Hopefully, 24x7 live help (our new portal will be available later today) will make this type of experience less frequent. 1:24:22 PM    comment []

Network of the Future Government Technology magazine and the Center for Digital Government are sponsoring a half-day executive lunch briefing in Salt Lake City next month entitled Network of the Future. This event will discuss how states can make technology work for them by using networks that create solutions to serve citizens, the state, and other agencies or local governments. We have several related initiatives going on in the state right now.   Obviously, UWIN is about network convergence.  In addition, I mentioned Jim Stewart's regional conference scheduled for September. According to the (Network of the Future) invitaton: The trend of merging voice, data and video networks has become an irreversible tide that will soon envelope all type of public, not-for-profit and private organizations.  If you are not actively moving in this direction, you should be looking at what it means and making decisions today that will keep your options open in the future.  In this session, we will highlight organizational efforts underway, provide you a glimpse of the future and suggest ways to ensure you are ready to employ the latest technology when you are ready. Keynote Speakers: Paul Taylor- Chief Strategy Officer, Center for Digital Government Joel Katz- Qwest Communications Corporation 11:21:54 AM    comment []

Space The primary industry in French Guiana is space.  The country has become the primary launch site for European spacecraft.  The European Space Agency has even announced a decision to develop a Soyuz launch site there.  Earlier this month, the Mars Express launched on a Soyuz rocket from Kazakhstan. This will be the first European mission to Mars. Two days ago, the agency announced that agreement had been reached on a new mission to Venus.  The FAA provides this quarterly report on space launch activity. In 2001, Utah presented one of several proposals for a new Spaceport and passed a bill creating the Utah Spaceport Authority within the Department of Transportation.  Members of the Spaceport Authority include Stephen Draper, Frank Redd, Richard Leyba, John L. Quick, Richard Rollins, Gene Roundy and Mark Whitney I have not seen much materialize from that initiative.  The Transportation Commission has not addressed the spaceport issue in its minutes since the 2001 session.  Budget for the activity was removed during the 2002 budget cuts.  On the otherhand, the California Spaceport Authority has created a robust vision for enabling a variety of space-based services for education, agriculture, homeland security, transportation, energy and environmental management and Space Adventures is offering tickets aboard a Soyuz mission for $20 million.  Several other states have spaceport agencies or commissions.  The Florida Space Authority is the most successful.  Following the Columbia disaster, the future of space travel still needs to be clearly defined. 11:03:40 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2003 David Fletcher.