Wednesday, February 05, 2003

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    comment []

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    comment []

© Copyright 2003 David Fletcher.