Municipal Interface

Featured in this Issue: Collaboration • City of Edmonton Deploys Video to Collaborate More Efﬁ ciently • MISA BC Fall Conference & Trade Show • La loi canadienne anti-pourriel (CAS L)

Municipal Interface

CANADA National Professional Journal of MISA/ASIM Canada

JUNE 2013, VOL. 20, NO. 3

MISA Prairies Spring Conference Points to New Value Statements for IT

The MISA Prairies 2013 Spring Conference in Banff, Alberta, more than lived up to its theme, “The Value of IT.” Page 12 Looking for Survey Plans? We’ve got them!

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In This Issue

MISA/ASIM News Across Canada 8 2013 Peter Bennet Award Nominations Open 9 IT Leaders from Large Municipalities Looking for Collective Solutions

Municipal News Across Canada 16 Nanaimo Recognized as “Best City” Vancouver Adopts Digital Strategy

Columns Keeping in Touch 7 National and Member Executives 17 12 Features MISA BC Fall Conference & Trade Show 9

City of Edmonton Deploys Video to Collaborate More Efﬁ ciently 10

MISA Prairies Spring Conference Points to New Value Statements for IT 12 La loi canadienne anti-pourriel (CASL) 15 15

Advertisers.com 18 Online Exclusive Governance Issues Websites Connect with Citizens

Access these and other online exclusive articles by going to www.misa-asim.ca and clicking on the link for the digital edition

Journal of Articles are subject to approval by the Editor Andrea Németh MISA/ASIM Canada Communications Committee. The views Marketing Lisa Palo Suite 309, 14845 – 6 Yonge Street expressed in this journal are those of the individual writers and do not necessarily refl ect Aurora, ON L4G 6H8 Publication Director David Evans 613.290.3941 those of MISA/ASIM Canada. Sales Representatives Published by: MISA/ASIM Canada Executive Bill Biber, Brenda Ezinicki, Jason Simmons, Executive Director Roy Wiseman Lana Taylor, Ralph Herzberg President Kathryn Bulko Naylor (Canada), Inc. Vice President Rob Schneider Design Sunny Goel 300 – 1630 Ness Avenue Past President Maurice Gallant Winnipeg, MB R3J 3X1 Secretary David Hennigan ©2013 Naylor (Canada), Inc. All rights reserved. www.naylor.com Treasurer Garry Bezruki The contents of this publication may not be reproduced by any means, in whole or in part, Publisher Robert Phillips without the consent of the publisher. Canadian Project Manager Kim Davies publication mail agreement #40064978 PUBLISHED JUNE 2013/MIS-F0313/8785

5 Visit www.misa-asim.ca and check out our digital edition for exclusive online stories.

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6 626588_Foreseeson.indd 1 15/03/13 1:52 AM MUNICIPAL Interface JUNE 2013

Keeping in Touch

By Dan Munns, President, MISA Ontario

ON THE HEELS of our recent annual conference, One of my goals as President is to clearly articulate “Collaboration: We’re in IT Together,” I am excited to and communicate an associate patron value proposition. embrace my new role as President of MISA Ontario. Nearly half of our membership is comprised of I also find myself reflecting on our conference theme organizations from the vendor community. This group and knowing that I’m not in this alone. Rather, our is a very loyal component of the association and they association is comprised of over 100 volunteers who invest significant financial resources supporting our actively participate on Committees, Special Interest various events and networking opportunities. In the past Groups (SIGs), the Board of Directors and the planning year, we have held virtual town halls and circulated a of regional events that benefit the membership at large. vendor survey, all in an effort to better understand how We really are in IT together! MISA Ontario can be more relevant to Over the past five years, I’ve our associate patron community. Over watched MISA Ontario mature As municipalities large and the coming months, we’ll be taking this and grow. With a solid strategic small deal with emerging feedback and formulating a plan that plan in place, we have worked technology and security will better engage our patrons and together to develop new initiatives issues in the work place, deliver increased value to them. and collaborate on projects large it behooves us to keep the I truly believe that the smaller and small that benefit municipalities communities in Ontario have the and citizens across the province. lines of communication open greatest opportunity to benefit from Internally, we have formalized our and be willing to share our being involved in MISA Ontario. In governance structure and adopted collective experience. 2012, we created a Small Municipality an open, transparent culture that SIG, which now has over 20 welcomes participation from participants who meet via conference members and associate patrons alike. In short, the call monthly. Issues facing this group of municipalities association is well positioned for the foreseeable are often unique and can be related to a lack of future. But what’s next? resources specific to IT. I am committed to reaching out During the past six months, we have seen a number to non-member municipalities who could benefit from of new working groups evolve from the grassroots involvement in MISA Ontario and the Small Municipality membership. Hot issues such as accessibility and SIG. We are seeing growth in this particular mobility have generated lots of discussion amongst membership category, but there are still many more that the membership and have become a focal point for are not aware of MISA Ontario or what we do. regional events and interactive sessions. I am pleased As I begin this journey as President, I do so with that MISA Ontario provides a forum for this type of a positive outlook and with great anticipation of collaboration and I expect that we’ll see more of this what’s ahead. Being “in IT together” is a great mantra in the months ahead. As municipalities large and small for MISA Ontario and will keep us focused on the deal with emerging technology and security issues collaborative approach and spirit of volunteerism that in the work place, it behooves us to keep the lines defines us. I look forward to working with all of you of communication open and be willing to share our and hope to see you at a regional or social event over collective experience. the coming months! ■

7 Visit www.misa-asim.ca and check out our digital edition for exclusive online stories.

MISA/ASIM News Across Canada Nominations Open for 2013 Peter Bennett Award

NOMINATIONS HAVE OPENED for leadership and working “beyond Participants in the Large the 2013 Peter Bennett Award, the the call” with humour and humanity. Municipalities Special Interest highest award in Canada in the Nominations for the 2013 award Group of MISA/ASIM Canada municipal information technology will close July 26. The nominating have decided to examine field. The award recipient will form can be downloaded from their budgeted information- be announced during MISA/ www.misa-asim.ca under the technology capital projects ASIM Canada’s MCIO Summit “About” tab. Nominators are to identify those with related in September at Whistler and asked to scan the completed or common characteristics, so the award will be presented at form and e-mail it to MISA/ASIM that municipalities might lend the annual conference of the Canada President Kathryn Bulko at expertise or resources to each recipient’s chapter. [email protected]. other. Roy Wiseman, executive Peter Bennett was a visionary director of MISA/ASIM Canada, municipal IT leader from Winnipeg IT Leaders from Large is preparing a framework to who died suddenly in 2005. The Municipalities Looking for analyze projects planned by award is presented annually in his Collective Solutions the cities of Brampton, Calgary, honour by MISA/ASIM Canada Edmonton, Hamilton, Mississauga, to one or more individuals for IT leaders from some of Canada’s Montreal and Toronto for outstanding contributions to the largest municipalities have begun common elements. municipal IT community and to an initiative to share information During the SIG’s most recent MISA/ASIM Canada’s mission about their capital projects, with the teleconference, the IT executives and objectives, while exemplifying aim of helping each other through identified several trends that are Bennett’s spirit of demonstrated difficult new financial challenges. exacerbating financial pressures faced by their departments and forcing them to seek new collaborative ways to operate: One trend is that vendors are developing next-generation products to be offered as cloud- based services rather than products installed on-premise. This means that municipal IT costs are shifting to operational budgets from capital budgets – so IT directors are faced with having to persuade councils that operational budgets should be increased. Also there are signs that some vendors who have traditionally provided important systems might be changing their business models to move away from the municipal market. ■

For more MISA/ASIM News, visit our digital edition at www.misa-asim.ca and access exclusive online content.

621098_Cell.indd8 1 15/03/13 10:39 PM MUNICIPAL Interface JUNE 2013

MISA BC Fall Conference & Trade Show By Linda Hunter

THIS SEPTEMBER, THE Resort Municipality of Whistler will be proud to host the 19th annual MISA BC Fall Conference at the Fairmont Chateau Whistler. Located less than two hours north of Vancouver, this beautiful year-round resort community, which was the host mountain resort for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, will open its doors to conference attendees September 10–13. The Fall Conference theme, “Technology and the Cloud,” is designed to help governments understand how and where they Kelly Blunden, the Resort Nature beckons in Whistler can and should work toward cloud Municipality of Whistler’s manager so with indoor efforts complete, solutions. While in Whistler, MISA of information technology, is proud of attendees will move outdoors to BC invites attendees to live and the program he has designed, which enjoy golf, a tour of the 2010 work at the Fairmont Chateau will showcase the beauty of Whistler Winter Olympic venues, a Whistler where they will enjoy along with the amazing year-round Woodlands Terrace reception, the Chateau’s AAA/CAA Four outdoor lifestyle that he and many dinner on the mountain and a Diamond Award status, more than of his colleagues enjoy. With that village party. Back by popular 32,000 square feet of meeting in mind, attendees are invited to demand, the MISA BC Jam Session and exhibit space, and Fairmont- participate in a pre-conference will turn up the volume on the final standard accommodation and hockey game or bike ride, and night when talent will turn from cuisine options. companions will be offered all the keyboards to keys, following the An exciting program will feature best activities and outdoor pursuits farewell Cloud Adventure event. inspirational keynote speakers that Whistler has to offer, customized Don’t miss this opportunity including Captain Canuck, Trevor using an a-la-carte approach. to work, play, and stay in BC’s Linden, whose career includes a Also new to this year’s program ultimate resort village. Your chance host of Memorial Cups, World is a venue space designed to be to rekindle friendships and build Juniors and World Championship both dynamic and inclusive. The new relationships in the comfort of hockey games. Chateau’s trade-show space will the renowned Fairmont Chateau Andrew Hessel will expand incorporate seating and dining, Whistler and the spectacular minds with an explanation featuring not only the exhibitor Whistler Village awaits. See you in of exponential technologies, booths but also the keynote September! demonstrating how to change the addresses as well as group Registration is now open. Please way we think about life science breakfasts and lunches. visit us for more information at and prepare for future changes in This will open the door to http://conference.misa.bc.ca/ biotechnology. The third keynote, conversations in an atmosphere registration. Shaifali Puri, an executive director that is collective and interactive, Conference chair Kelly Blunden, of Scientists Without Borders, will where no one misses out. Manager of Information Technology speak on the worthwhile efforts of Conference programming will for the Resort Municipality of this global partnership that aims offer an array of networking and Whistler can be reached at to improve the quality of life in learning opportunities including [email protected]. ■ the developing world by linking, presentations, demonstrations and mobilizing, and coordinating workshops along with municipal Linda Hunter, event planner for the science-based activities, initiatives showcases, training sessions and MISA BC 2013 Fall Conference, can be and resources. case studies. reached at [email protected].

9 Visit www.misa-asim.ca and check out our digital edition for exclusive online stories. City of Edmonton Deploys Video to Collaborate More Efficiently

By Lawrence Moule

IF SOMEONE IN the City of an initiative called Workspace public Customer Service Centre Edmonton’s Information Technology Edmonton. It is designed to ensure transit stations and transit garages, Branch has a question to ask CIO that all City employees have access displaying information for riders Chris Moore, she doesn’t need to to the right office technology, as well as bus operators. The compose a memo or catch Moore productivity tools and services signs carry messages about in the hallway. She can ask the they need – any time and from schedules, driver shifts, road- question by live video. anywhere, now and in future. closure information, health and Every Friday, Moore hosts a It is through this initiative that safety messages, new products and 20-minute live webcast to all IT Edmonton is making its move to the community-involvement opportunities. Branch staff. It can be accessed by cloud, closely watched by other In the Community Services any City employee through a portal IT departments. In April 2012, department, more than a dozen called Show and Share on the Edmonton became the first Canadian digital signs have been deployed at corporate intranet. The webcasts municipally to announce that it Edmonton’s Terwillegar Community include status updates, important would migrate its e-mail and office Recreation Centre. Eight signs are in departmental information and applications to Google Inc.’s cloud. the arena complex and are heavily employee kudos, and speakers On April 15, 2013, Google used to display rink schedules and talking about specific projects. Apps were rolled out to about dressing- room assignments. To date there have been more 8,000 employees who already The signs are supported by an than 50 webcasts, produced and had e-mail addresses with the City. information network built on a videotaped for archiving by the IT Employees who don’t have e-mail Cisco platform for switching and Branch together with Edmonton’s will receive Google e-mail and routing. In 2010, when Moore and Communications Department. apps at a future date. his team decided to expand into “Video makes everyone more “About 3,500 employees don’t video, they implemented more Cisco connected,” says Steve Allison, have e-mail or computers; they’re technologies for compatibility. The senior technologist in the IT Branch. driving buses and trucks and webcasts are accessed through “During the webcast we encourage digging with backhoes,” Moore Cisco’s Show and Share portal and people watching to send in says. “Our move to Google will transmitted through its Enterprise questions and comments, and they make it very economical to create Content Delivery System. are answered live on the air. So it’s intranet accounts for them. With The technology will support not just a one-way conversation.” those accounts they will be able to further expansion of the video Moore says conversations with log on from home or at breaks and communications. “We can already staff members would be all but have access to information that they deliver the webcasts to both PCs and impossible for him without the video haven’t been able to get before.” Macs, and we’re planning to expand solution. “The reason we began Moore sees the cloud and video that to iPads, iPhones, Android doing webcasts really came from applications in the same light – all devices, you name it,” Allison says. my desire to have a connection part of The Way Ahead. One All of the webcasts are available with 343 people with whom I outcome of deploying the new in an archive on Cisco Show and cannot spend time every day.” technologies could be an enhanced Share for staff to watch at any time. But there’s more to it than that. strategic role for the IT Branch. Moore says the long-term goal is to Video technology has become an But first, back to the video make them searchable by keywords. important collaboration tool for webcasts. The idea for them Others in the corporation are Edmonton – in fact, a part of its originated with digital signs. For interested in the video technology, corporate vision. several years the IT Branch has been and the IT Branch has offered it for The vision is contained within helping to deliver information to use by other departments. When Edmonton’s strategic plan, The employees in transit and recreational the move to Google e-mail was Way Ahead. Its key principles departments by means of electronic being readied in the spring, training are integration, sustainability, signs displaying digital messages. videos were made available to all livability and innovation. Within Today many digital signs can employees through the portal. The that strategy, the IT Branch leads be found in Edmonton Transit’s IT Branch is thus seeing educational,

10 MUNICIPAL Interface JUNE 2013 productive and collaborative benefits of the video technology. Moore says it is producing cost savings as well because it reduces the need to accommodate in-person meetings. “Meeting face to face is still an important part of building a team, so we don’t intend to eliminate these meetings, but by supplementing them with live video sessions we expect to save a significant amount each year.” What about governance? That’s where the strategic element comes in, because the expansion of video technology is expected to coincide with increasing use of cloud-based applications. City departments and employees will need to know how, and for what purposes, the various new technologies should be used. “The City believes that we in IT have a responsibility to guide the direction for these productivity tools, and that’s fine, but I think we have to do that in partnership with the business units,” Moore says. Working with Edmonton’s chief communications officer and other leaders, Moore is preparing a governance plan for 622601_Intelliware.indd 1 11/01/13 3:59 AM all collaboration and content tools – what they will be, how they will be used, how they will relate to each other, and who will be responsible and accountable for them. “IT is not going off and figuring that out on its own,” Moore stresses, “We are doing that in partnership with the other leaders to provide direction for the entire City when it comes to collaboration and content. “That really takes us from the role of service provider to strategic partner, which is where all municipal IT leaders want to be.” A report arising from this consultative planning effort, recommending governance practices for the chosen suite of collaborative tools including video, will be ready for consideration by Council this summer. When it’s approved, Moore intends to share it with other interested municipalities, another step forward in the evolution of IT departments as collaborative leadership organizations. ■

628232_TheCreatech.indd 1 12/02/1311 11:05 PM Visit www.misa-asim.ca and check out our digital edition for exclusive online stories.

MISA Prairies Spring Conference Points to New Value Statements for IT By Lawrence Moule

THE MISA PRAIRIES 2013 Spring Conference in Banff, Halford explained that the dollar-sign logo had Alberta, more than lived up to its theme, “The Value of multiple meanings. “Money is always involved in IT.” It was a memorable event for many reasons. value,” he said. “But the logo is also about making use With 200 attendees, it was the largest conference of the different mediums available to us. So within the held to date by MISA Prairies. The atmosphere was dollar sign are a lot of social media icons, and icons warm and cheerful despite snowfalls on each of the that represent tablets and PCs. We are not just looking three days, April 14–16. The conference combined at one mechanism of delivery any more but multiple creativity, relaxation and fun with the serious business mechanisms. Our customers are pushing us to go of helping IT leaders define their future roles. faster, and IT is looking to be transformative now.” Expanding Value, Contracting Time The Value of Collaboration

As the event unfolded, it became apparent that the Numerous sessions demonstrated the benefits theme would be expressed in many ways. The initial achieved by completing projects with relatively idea was to explore how IT delivers tangible value to short time frames, and pointed out that IT internal and external customers, explained chair Corey departments deliver value by learning from Halford, who is team leader of data services at the City each other and bringing the knowledge home. of Airdrie. That idea was reflected in the conference Collaboration magnifies progress. The upbeat logo, a stylized dollar sign, that appeared throughout mood at Banff reflected this, especially with respect the conference – but not on paper. The conference to mobility issues. Many sessions and trade-show app designed by Purple Forge included all necessary displays were devoted to solutions for device information for delegates, including the program, management, BYOD strategies, field mobility solutions making this the first truly paperless MISA conference. and unified communications.

The Banff Centre’s Professional Development Centre served as Members of the conference organizing team are, from left: the registration Jeff Wood. City of Regina; Stefan Price, Town of Cochrane; and main Charlene Nagy-Gyorgy, Town of Okotoks; Jay Stoudt, accommodation City of Airdrie; Megan Lockhart, City of Airdrie; Rosaline building for Wood, City of Airdrie; Corey Halford, City of Airdrie; Chris the MISA Fisher, City of Regina; Sabina Visser, City of Lethbridge; Prairies Spring Delegates network in the trade show at Dan Newton, City of Red Deer; Monique Hunkeler, Town of Conference. the Kinnear Centre. Banff; Natalia Madden. County of Grande Prairie.

12 MUNICIPAL Interface JUNE 2013

“Last year municipalities were looking at mobile County of Grande Prairie Wins devices and bring-your-own devices for the first time,” Municipal Showcase Award noted Art Krutz, who retired in December as the director of IT services for the City of St. Albert, Alberta, The County of Grande Prairie, in northwestern and now owns consulting firm Praktical Solutions. Alberta, has won the Municipal Showcase “A year makes a big difference. award for 2013 from MISA Prairies by providing John Craig, vice-president of sales and marketing value through IT in overcoming the broadband for Purple Forge, observed how the MISA Prairies challenges of a rural municipality. event multiplied the effects of individual municipalities’ Delegates selected Grande Prairie over five achievements. competing municipalities to win the award for “We are seeing more presentations about what’s innovation, primarily due to a well-planned and been implemented, what’s been successful and can be charming presentation by Natalia Madden, duplicated,” Craig remarked. “Vendors like us are able information systems manager for the municipality of to present case studies, with success points and best 21,000, who told the story of how the County was able practices. Municipalities have a better understanding to solve its residents’ lack of high-speed Internet access of mobile solutions than a year ago. I get a positive by means of a public-private partnership to construct sense of momentum here.” 68 towers for a wireless network. Seventy-one per cent of residents now have access to high-speed Internet Exponential Change services and the remainder will be served when the last phase of the project begins later this year. The conference got an energetic start with the opening Other innovative solutions in keynote presentation by Tom Wujek, a Toronto-based the competition included: fellow with Autodesk, the author of three books on • The redesign of www.airdrie.ca, including creative thinking and a proponent of The Marshmallow the creation of its own content management Challenge (http://marshmallowchallenge.com), a system by the City of Airdrie, Alberta; game-like design exercise that has been presented to • Design of the CityWise intranet by the City of businesses and schools around the world. Lethbridge, Alberta, which has provided all With delegates sitting in small groups at tables, employees with a single comprehensive source Wujek presented a challenge: in 18 minutes, teams of information since it went live in February; were to build the tallest free-standing structure out of • Implementation of a permit-management system by 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of tape, one yard the Town of Okotoks, Alberta, which has improved of string, and one marshmallow. The marshmallow internal workflows and services to local builders; had to be on top. Organized chaos ensued, with • Creation by the City of Red Deer, Alberta, of a delegates completely engaged. The winning team of mobile solution for cemetery management, with Cary Buxton, Guillermo Ferrero, Tyler Johnson, Kevin a design that is easy to use by field workers and Peacock and Curtis Schneider built a tower 24 inches can be re-used for other business processes; high (the worldwide record is 57 inches), and Wujek • A coming move to the cloud for employee pointed out that they succeeded by first testing ways to applications by the City of Regina, beginning with support the marshmallow, the heaviest element of the the implementation of Microsoft-hosted e-mail this tower, and then constructing the base. coming September. Regina plans to report on its He told delegates: “One of the key lessons in multi-stage project regularly through MISA. fostering innovation is to work together to figure out the right prototype that you need to build and then to build it in a collaborative way. Designers call this Natalia Madden the prototype refine loop, and it’s the mechanism that holds the Municipal creates the best movies, the best running shoes, the best Showcase trophy she cars and the best marshmallow challenges in the world.” won for the County The exponential growth of technology is disrupting of Grande Prairie. industries and sectors everywhere, Wujek said in his She is flanked by presentation. Running shoes, for example, will be sold Corey Halford of within five to 10 years by inserting a customer’s foot the City of Airdrie, in a scanner, entering into a computer the customer’s completing his two- desired shoe solution, and then manufacturing the year term as MISA custom-made shoe by means of a local 3D printer. Prairies president, and Today, in comparison, it takes up to 18 months to incoming President design a new shoe, and millions of dollars are spent Sabina Visser of the each year shipping test shoes to the US from China. City of Lethbridge.

13 Visit www.misa-asim.ca and check out our digital edition for exclusive online stories.

It will be up to the IT department, negotiation skills and well known to levels are so much tighter, and they Wujek suggested, to lead municipal MISA audiences, Eaves spoke of the are able to learn so much more governments in adapting to a world emerging need for IT leaders to be quickly from their users. We need to in which such “astonishing growth” leaders in cultural change. “Right drive toward that in municipalities. in technological change is still at an now we’re working on 10-year This is a leadership role for the IT early stage. cycles, thinking we are going to department that municipalities are replace systems in 10 years,” Eaves not recognizing. It is totally nuts not The Value of Data said in conversation. “And there’s to have IT at the executive table!” just nobody I know working in IT In his characteristic blunt, rapid- David Eaves, the keynote outside of government who works in fire speaking style, Eaves urged speaker on Wednesday, had 10-year cycles any more. delegates to help their municipalities a complementary message. A “Video gamers are doing code add value to their data as a consultant on government policy and deploys every week! Their iteration strategic asset. Municipalities should not merely publish open data but aggregate it across jurisdictions so it can be analyzed to predict future service and infrastructure needs of citizens. “What we are really talking about is culture change,” he declared. “You should be leading the conversation about data-driven decision-making. I’m worried that you’re not pushing this the way you could be.” Moving Forward

Thought-provoking sessions and conversations such as this could be heard throughout the Banff conference. The message in summary was that the value of IT is its ability to guide municipalities in adapting to the potentially overwhelming pace of change. Many delegates remarked that they would be taking action items home for that very purpose. One was Adele Frizzell, IT project manager for the Town of Banff. The Town recently launched an open-data portal, and Frizzell picked up some ideas from Eaves’ presentation. “The next important step for us will be to find people who are using our open data and have provocative conversations with them about how they are using it, what their experience is like, and how we can improve on the experience.” Frizzell said she found her first MISA conference to be inspirational. “It’s been wonderful having the MISA Prairies conference here and to see it so well attended with so many great seminars. We hope that everyone will come back next year!” ■

617665_Info.indd14 1 24/12/12 12:18 PM MUNICIPAL Interface JUNE 2013

Report from RIM-Q

Par Gaston Huot, Villes de Boucherville, Brossard, La loi canadienne Saint-Bruno et Saint-Lambert anti-pourriel (CASL)

ABSTRACT: The Canada Anti- LA LCAP SERA l’une des plus Spam Legislation (CASL) will come sévères au monde. La plus sévère into force in 2014. The CASL en ce sens que la loi américaine will probably affect the way we permet de facto l’acheminement communicate by electronic means non-autorisé de MCE jusqu’à ce to our citizens and the way we que le destinataire demande qu’on manage the link with them. le retire alors que la LCAP exige QUE CEUX QUI savent ce que sont une autorisation préalable, à des MCE lèvent la main? Je ne quelques exceptions près. vois pas beaucoup de mains … Finalement les organisations Ceux qui ont levé la main savent devront modifier leur façon de possiblement ce qu’est la LCAP, transiger avec leurs « clients » et mais je sens qu’ils sont encore actualiser leurs bases de données moins nombreux. de gestion des relations clients Commençons par le dernier (CRM) afin de se conformer au acronyme, nous pourrons ainsi modèle de consentement plus strict mieux deviner le premier. La LCAP de la LCAP. est la « Loi Canadienne Anti- En somme Pourriel ». Qui veut maintenant 1. les organisations devront s’essayer à décoder MCE ? désormais obtenir le Vous là-bas! Oui, des MCE sont consentement exprès du des « Messages Commerciaux destinataire avant de lui envoyer Électroniques », une famille de un MCE en lui proposant une consentements explicites pour messages dont sont issus les option d’adhésion. chacun des « produits ». pourriels (SPAM). 2. le destinataire devra exprimer un Il faudra aussi s’assurer Pourquoi parler de cette loi consentement affirmatif exprès de conserver au dossier les aujourd’hui ? Tout simplement en cochant une case à cet effet informations relatives à ce parce que la loi est adoptée et ou en inscrivant une adresse de consentement explicite, ce que la règlementation afférente courriel dans un champ de saisie qui pourrait exiger quelques est presque complétée, et que par 3. le destinataire devra donner son modifications à certains systèmes conséquent la LCAP entrera en consentement relativement à d’information. vigueur en 2014, et que pour nous chaque cas prévu par la LCAP. Pour plus d’information vous y conformer nous devrons modifier Fini les « consentements « urbi et pouvez consulter les sites suivants: nos façons de faire et possiblement orbi »… www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/ecic-ceac. quelques-uns de nos systèmes. En quoi la LCAP risque-t-elle nsf/fra/gv00521.html La loi canadienne anti-pourriel d’affecter nos façons de faire ? Bien http://combattrelepourriel.gc.ca/ (LCAP) s’appliquera bien sûr que les municipalités soient toujours eic/site/030.nsf/fra/accueil aux courriels, mais aussi aux de bonne foi dans l’expédition de textos (SMS), aux microbillets, MCE, et que de façon évidente elles Gaston Huot, ing. pour le RIMQ aux messages transmis par les soient dans une relation « d’affaires 514.823-7202 réseaux sociaux. En fait la LCAP en cours » avec ses citoyens, et [email protected] ■ s’appliquera à tout message qu’elles puissent ainsi profiter électronique transmis relativement pendant six mois d’une exception Références : Conférence à une « activité commerciale », et portant sur le consentement tacite, donnée par la firme Deloitte et ce même si le but visé n’est pas de il faudra prendre les mesures documentation produite par la réaliser un profit. par la suite pour obtenir des même firme.

15 Visit www.misa-asim.ca and check out our digital edition for exclusive online stories.

Municipal News Across Canada Nanaimo Recognized as “Best City” for Delivering Municipal IT Services THE CITY OF Nanaimo has been recognized as the Canada for IT Services,” said Mayor John Ruttan. best Canadian city for using technology to deliver “This acknowledgement confirms that we are municipal services. The City announced March 19 providing outstanding service to citizens and that Backbone Magazine has rated Nanaimo as the businesses, both in terms of quality and cost.” top city to effectively adopt information technology to “This is great recognition for the innovative work improve city services while saving taxpayers money. of all City staff,” said information and technology Nanaimo in the mid-1990s became the director Per Kristensen. “Implementing and adopting first Canadian city to begin making its data new technology is a corporate team effort.” available to the public for free. The City has Kristensen was also named by Backbone also received acknowledgment for the voter as Canada’s top municipal CIO (please see and election system it created; a system www.backbonemag.com/Magazine/2013-03/ that is now used by other local governments backbone200-best-canadian-tech.aspx). throughout the province and across Canada. That was followed by Nanaimo’s integration Vancouver Adopts Digital Strategy of its mapping services with Google Earth. And more recently, the City has created popular The City of Vancouver has adopted a four-year citizen-facing applications such as “Public Art” plan to enhance digital connections among its and “What’s Building in my Neighbourhood.” citizens, employees, businesses, and government. “We are extremely pleased to have Nanaimo “The popularity of smartphones and tablets, recognized as one of the best municipalities in the pervasive use of social media and the growth of data, analytics and the cloud are all creating opportunities to improve City services, expand digital infrastructure and strengthen Vancouver’s growing digital economy,” Vancouver announced Think 365: on its website as Council adopted the plan April 10. Bringing Enterprise Voice to Office 365 in Canada Based on a staff report entitled City of Vancouver Digital Strategy, the $30-million plan includes expansion of an open-data program, promotion of digital access to services and establishment of a Experience all of the advantages of Microsoft Lync in the cloud digital incubator program for local businesses. with full telecom support and The plan’s nine priorities are: integration into Office 365. 1. Enable the provision of City services Voice-enabled Lync across digital platforms; for Office 365 2. Expand the open-data program; Full Lync experience including IM, presence, audio/ video/ web conferencing, PSTN voice and 3. Promote digital activity through Exchange communication and engagement tools; Seats on demand: scalable licensing on a month- 4. Expand digital access throughout the city; to-month basis 5. Establish a digital incubator program Sophisticated online management & reporting tools for digital companies; 6. Create a favourable regulatory environment Contact us today and enjoy the benefits of using voice- that supports the digital industry; enabled Microsoft Lync for Office 365! 7. Work with partners to support an agile proof-of-concept program; 1.855.434.0134 8. Establish digital services governance; [email protected] 9. Implement a mobile workforce strategy. The City of Vancouver Digital Strategy can be downloaded at http://vancouver.ca/your- government/digital-strategy.aspx. ■ Hosting www.thinktel.ca Silver Midmarket Solution Provider Communications For more Municipal News, visit our digital edition at www.misa-asim.ca and access exclusive online content..

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CANADA National and Member Executives

National Ofﬁ cers MISA Atlantic TREASURER Chris Mazzotta PRESIDENT PRESIDENT Regional District North Okanagan Kathryn Bulko, City of Toronto Maurice Gallant, City of Fredericton 250-550-3775 416-397-9921 506-460-2830 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] SECRETARY VICE PRESIDENT VICE PRESIDENT Chris McLuckie, District of Rob Schneider, Strathcona County Donna Davis, Halifax Regional North Vancouver 780-464-8052 Municipality 604-990-2308 [email protected] 902-490-4417 [email protected] [email protected] TREASURER MEMBERSHIP Garry Bezruki, City of Waterloo Joanne Henry, City of Vernon 519-747-8726 MISA Prairies 250-550-3488 [email protected] [email protected] http://misa.bc.ca SECRETARY PRESIDENT David Hennigan, Sabina Visser, City of Lethbridge The Capital Regional District 403-320-3880 250-360-3141 [email protected] Réseau de [email protected] VICE PRESIDENT l’Informatique www.misa-asim.ca Steve Jeffery, City of Regina 306-777-7234 Municipale du MISA Ontario [email protected] Québec (RIMQ) TREASURER PRESIDENT Dan Newton, City of Red Deer PRESIDENT Dan Munns, Town of Whitchurch- 403-342-8283 Yves Seney, Ville de Sherbrooke Stouffville [email protected] 819-823-8000 x 6030 905-640-1910 x 285 [email protected] [email protected] SECRETARY Tracy Archibald, VICE PRESIDENT VICE PRESIDENT County of Grande Prairie André Labonté , Christine Swenor, City of Burlington 780-532-9722 x 155 Ville de Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu 905-335-7600 x 7776 [email protected] 450-357-2435 [email protected] a.labonte@ MEMBERSHIP ville.saint-jean-sur-richelieu.qc.ca TREASURER Kelly Kaban, City of Yorkton Garry Bezruki, City of Waterloo 306-786-1729 TREASURER 519-747-8726 [email protected] Michel Hurteau, Ville de Sorel [email protected] www.misaprairies.ca 450-780-5600 x 5714 michel.hurteau@ SECRETARY ville.sorel-tracy.qc.ca Catherine Baldelli, Town of Milton MISA BC 905-878-7252 x 2162 SECRETARY André Robitaille [email protected] PRESIDENT www.misa.on.ca Ville de St-Bruno-de-Montarville Guillermo Ferrero, City of Nanaimo 450-653-2443 x 2911 250-755-4486 [email protected] [email protected] www.rimq.com VICE PRESIDENT Barbara Davey, City of Surrey 604-591-4803 [email protected]

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Municipal News Across Canada

LOLA Achieves Incorporation, Eyes International Municipal Projects

A BRITISH-BASED ORGANIZATION with a goal of Enhanced Version of BizPaL promoting municipal IT progress worldwide has Coming for Municipalities embarked on some new initiatives that could produce benefits in Canada. Municipalities will soon have an enhanced version of LOLA, the Linked Organization of Local Authority BizPaL to offer their citizens and businesses. Industry ICT Societies, was incorporated as a not-for-profit Canada has developed new technology to improve the organization February 12 after operating informally BizPaL user experience and has a pilot project under for several years. MISA/ASIM Canada is a member of way to enable businesses to make online payments LOLA, helped defray the cost of its incorporation and for the permits and licences they require, as identified was host of the LOLA annual conference in Niagara through the BizPaL service. The developments were Falls in 2010. announced at a recent meeting of the Joint Councils Harry Turnbull, who is executive director of IT for in Halifax, attended by representatives from MISA the City of Windsor and the MISA/ASIM Canada organizations. representative to LOLA, and was the lead organizer BizPaL is a web-based service that provides of the 2010 conference, commented: “It is important a customized list of permits, licences and other for Canada, through MISA/ASIM, to be part of the requirements from all levels of government to start or conversations that help shape the future of municipal expand a business in Canada. An interjurisdictional IT. Looking around the world at what others are doing partnership launched in 2006, BizPaL is available in is much easier when you are all working together and 650 communities. LOLA brings like-minded IT associations together for The chair of the Joint Councils’ Service to Business that purpose.” Task Force, Paul Pierlot of the Government of On its website, http://lola-ict.org, LOLA has Manitoba’s Department of Entrepreneurship, Training announced its intention of contributing to the and Trade, told the Joint Councils that an application development of international technology standards, programming interface (API) has been created to codes of good practice and cross-national projects. A enable BizPaL partners to display BizPaL content on priority in 2013 will be projects to promote municipal other service-to-business websites. open data, maximize its socio-economic impact and This means that municipal partners will be able to encourage its use by application developers. better integrate BizPaL content with other business- Other member organizations of LOLA are ALGIM focused information on their websites, enhancing the in New-Zealand, KOMMITS in Sweden, SOCITM in user experience for business clients. the United Kingdom, GMIS in the US, VIAG in The The API is being implemented now on the BizPaL Netherlands and V-ICT-OR in Belgium. server, for which Industry Canada is the host. Pierlot The 2013 LOLA international conference will be said Industry Canada will be initiating contacts soon held in Charlotte, North Carolina in conjunction with with municipalities to invite them to use the upgraded the GMIS annual conference in August. “MISA/ASIM BizPaL service. Canada will be well represented at that event to Pierlot also reported that Industry Canada is continue the dialogue on furthering international sharing conducting a pilot project to explore the possibility of municipal IT efforts,” Turnbull said. “Of particular of using Canada Post’s epost service in conjunction interest will be an update on the work being done in the with BizPaL to enable the electronic submission and European Union concerning open-data standards.” payment of permit and licence applications. ■

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Governance Issues

By Roy Wiseman Executive Director, Here Comes the MISA/ASIM Canada Cloud - Again ONE OF THE benefits of being an “elder statesman” in • Allows the vendor to upgrade the underlying the IT community is that we get to see many old ideas platform with minimal client involvement or impact. re-emerge in a new guise. • Avoids requirement for extensive client technical From the mid-1970’s until the late 1990’s, Peel installation assistance; Region was one of a few municipalities who relied • Can focus installation on the business requirements, primarily on commercial service bureaux to provide often dealing directly with the end users of the much of its data processing needs. Our position was application and avoiding the need for substantial that managing IT infrastructure and data centres client IT involvement. (Not all IT organizations was not a core competency and that we preferred necessarily see this as a benefit.) to focus on developing/acquiring and implementing • Substantially reduces implementation time, meaning applications that met the business needs of our that clients can be up and running much more organization. quickly. The client-server computing and the personal Notwithstanding these benefits, there are a number computer revolution gradually led to the virtual of factors and risks to be taken into consideration, disappearance of commercial service bureaux especially during initial discussions and contract (Canada Systems Group, Data Crown/Crowntek, etc.) negotiations: from the landscape in Canada. • Public sector IT procurement and contracting But service bureaux are now coming back, dressed practices, developed around the installed software up in new “cloud services” clothing – infrastructure- model, will need to be adapted for acquiring SaaS as-a-service (IaaS, platform-as-a-service (PaaS), applications. For instance, how do we evaluate application-as-a-service (IaaS) or software-as-a-service SaaS-based proposals against others based on the (SaaS). traditional model? • IT budgets, also built around the traditional model, Software(Application)-as-a-Service may include the initial cost of proposed new applications in capital budgets. The SaaS model Perhaps the most familiar of these is software/ moves most or all costs to the (client or IT) operating application-as a service – essentially, externally hosted budget, where there is frequently more budget applications. In recent years, a number of primarily pressure. niche vendors have been providing applications in this • Privacy and security are often raised as concerns for way. While some have offered both client-installed and applications containing personal data on municipal “hosted” options, vendors in certain product markets clients or employees. In my view, the security concern are increasingly providing to an only-SaaS option. is over-stated. In general, it seems likely that data Nor is this any longer restricted to niche markets. will be better protected when stored off-site with a The former owner of Victoria-based Municipal vendor whose business requires significant attention Software created a spin-off business called BasicGov, to security. I have written previously (see “Data providing cloud-based municipal software to 33 Privacy – Location Counts, Municipal Interface, communities, 31 in the United States and 2 in Canada March 2011) on the privacy risks associated (Red Deer and Dryden). ERP vendors, from Oracle to with storing personal data outside Canada and SAP to Microsoft Dynamics, are now providing cloud- continue to feel that this is a real concern. However, based offerings. New ERP vendors are entering the I expect this issue to be addressed over time, market with exclusively cloud-based services. through international agreements - since the future From the vendors’ perspective, SaaS has a number of the cloud service model may depend on it. The of advantages: alternative is that governments will rely primarily • Avoids requirement to support the product on on cloud service providers within their own borders a variety of platforms and versions (hardware, – which seems an inefficient business model in a operating systems, databases, etc.). In fact, the users global economy. of the application may not know the underlying • While it may seem extremely unlikely, municipalities platform on which the application is running. should consider what happens if the SaaS

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application provider ceases operations. If a provider While I still install standard productivity applications of locally installed software goes out of business, the (word processing, spreadsheets, presentation software) impact is serious - but not immediate, as it would be locally on each device, this is making less and for a SaaS provider. It would therefore be prudent less sense as an operating model. Accessing such to have some form of contingency plan – as we are applications through the cloud avoids the multiple expected to have for locally installed applications. installs, as well as the annoying requirement to For instance, we should ensure access to an up-to- constantly patch and upgrade to the latest version. In date version of our data if the supplier ceased a perfect world, I would have device independence operations. so that such applications could be used from any of • Under a SaaS arrangement clients may have my devices, regardless of operating system (Windows, reduced control over the timing of system upgrades IOS, Android, BlackBerry). – which may require users to adjust to changes in While the above relates to personal use, many system features at an inconvenient time. of the same factors will apply to corporations (or • It can be more difficult to integrate data between municipalities). How many resources are dedicated SaaS applications and others installed locally to maintaining our email systems and deploying and (or with a different SaaS supplier). For instance, updating office software? Is this a core competence Peel wished to link projects in its Project Portfolio and a good use of our resources? Why not a cloud- Management software to business cases and based software model? other project documents stored in its document management system. However, linking from an Infrastructure/Platform-as-a-Service externally hosted PPMS to an internally hosted DMS would introduce significant complexity and security While Infrastructure-as-a-Service is, perhaps, closest concerns. Unfortunately, our applications are not to the old service bureau model, it is, as yet, still in stand-alone islands, as sometimes implied by the the early stages in Canada. However, this can be SaaS model. expected to grow over the next 1-3 years, as major suppliers like Bell and Telus enter the market – along eMail/Office Software-as-a-Service with traditional IT vendors, like IBM and HP, as well as many new entrants, including some Canadian- Another variant of software-as-a-service relates to based services, promoting the benefits of data being email (email-as-a-service) and office productivity maintained in Canada. software (Microsoft Office 365 or Google Docs). It will be interesting to see which Canadian Decisions by the City of Los Angeles and, more government or municipality is first to take the plunge recently, the City of Edmonton to implement Google’s into the IaaS market. gmail and Google Docs have generated significant interest. I am not aware of any Canadian municipal Summary implementations of Office 365, although there are some US and UK examples. Notwithstanding the substantial interest and discussion Security/privacy can be, again, a significant around cloud computing, Canadian municipalities have concern, especially for email, as evidenced by a yet to make a large scale move in this direction – other subsequent Los Angeles decision to pull the plug than isolated SaaS examples for specific applications. on gmail deployment for the Los Angeles Police Some analysts feel that Canada, including Canadian Department, citing FBI and police security concerns. government, is lagging in our adoption of cloud One factor driving renewed interest in cloud service services. However, a combination of technological offerings for email and office software relates to the factors and squeezed budgets and resources are need to separate the software and the data, from the likely to make this evolution inevitable. Both the US device that we are using to access them. and UK governments have already announced a On a personal level, like many of you, I now use a “cloud first” policy for major IT projects. While the desktop computer, notebook computer, tablet computer Government of Canada has not yet taken this step, and a smart phone. It no longer makes sense for me to it has acknowledged the need to “integrate more to store my files on any one device, since I may want to cloud-based service delivery as …a cost-effective way access them from one of the other devices. As a result, to standardize and modernize our portfolio.” I have migrated from Microsoft Outlook (in which Discussion of the cloud will be featured strongly in emails are typically downloaded from the mail server the upcoming national Municipal CIO Summit to be to the local device) to Microsoft’s Windows Live Mail, held in Whistler on S eptember 9–10, 2013. This will which, like other cloud-based mail services (gmail, be an excellent opportunity for Canada’s municipal IT yahoo, etc.) leaves the email in situ and accessible leaders to share experiences to date, as well as plans from any device. for the future. ■

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Municipal News Across Canada

2013 Municipal CIO Summit Aims to Strengthen Relationships

FIRST COME, FIRST served! Only 50 registrations will Progress Reporte on Open Data Licensing be sold for the third annual Municipal CIO Summit, which will build on the close relationships formed Significant progress has been reported in governments’ among municipal IT leaders at the events in 2011 efforts to make open data more accessible and and 2012. valuable for municipalities and their citizens. Officials The Summit has become a high-demand event of the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat have presented by MISA/ASIM Canada. It will be held reported that a draft Open Government Licence at the Fairmont Chateau Whistler, at the base of has been created to support open-data activities. It Blackcomb Mountain in the Resort Municipality of appears likely that this licence for the private-sector use Whistler, BC, on September 9–10 in conjunction with of government data, with terms acceptable to all levels the MISA BC Fall Conference. of government, will be proposed for national adoption Registration is available through the News and this year. Events section of www.misa-asim.ca. This would mean that application developers in the “The 2013 MCIO Summit will provide an excellent private sector could make widespread use of the data opportunity for the heads of the IT department and published by municipalities on their websites in open other senior IT executives to collaborate and continue formats, rather than having the data or the applications discussions on national issues of common interest,” usable only in local areas because of a lack of contract says Kathryn Bulko, manager of client relationship uniformity. management with the I&T Division of the City of Approval for the proposed national licence will Toronto, president of MISA/ASIM Canada and chief require a multi-step review process but there are organizer of the Summit. grounds for optimism because an organization is in The program will feature presentations by research place to lead it, reports Kathryn Bulko, president of organizations on future directions for mobility and MISA/ASIM Canada. big data, as well as sessions on talent management Formed in September 2012, The Open Data and and the alignment of project portfolios with Information Working Group of the Joint Councils has strategy. These will be interspersed with roundtable a mandate to be the governance body for common and group discussions, all under the theme of open-data and information tools shared across “Peak Performance.” jurisdictions. With support from several corporate sponsors, the The next report from the working group will come registration cost for delegates is being restricted to in September when the Joint Councils next meet. The $500 (plus tax). Xerox Canada and Info-Tech Research Joint Councils comprise the Public Sector CIO Council Group have made early sponsorship commitments. and the Public Sector Service Delivery Council. MISA/ASIM Canada has also secured a low Municipalities have been represented within the Joint nightly hotel rate from $179 for Summit delegates. Councils since 1999. To reserve a room at the Fairmont Chateau Whistler, please visit https://resweb.passkey.com/go/mcios2013. Municipalities Gain a Seat at Influential Table Alternatively, call the Reservations Department at 1-800-606-8244 and refer to the Municipal Chief For the first time, municipalities have gained Information Officer Summit or group code 0913MCIO representation at an influential meeting of senior to receive the group rates. government officials planning strategies for client-

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centred service delivery. When officials met May common directions and priorities for enhancing 28–29 in Winnipeg at the Deputy Ministers’ Table service delivery to citizens through the application of on Service Delivery Collaboration, they welcomed information technology. Harry Turnbull, executive director of IT for the City The invitation was extended in February as Turnbull of Windsor, as the first municipal representative ever began a two-year term as co-chair of the Public invited to join the group. Service CIO Council, reports MISA/ASIM Canada The deputy ministers from federal and provincial President Kathryn Bulko. ■ governments conduct an annual meeting to discuss

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Websites Connect with Citizens By Jane Morgan

GONE ARE THE days of confusion for citizens in Here’s a look at three sites. Airdrie, Stratford and Waterloo. Each municipality has launched a new website City of Airdrie (www.airdrie.ca) targeting citizens and their information needs in a smart, accessible format. Now, when citizens want information, they can find it easily, minus the endless scrolling to finally find one piece of information. These websites and more like them are reaching out to citizens, on whatever device or browser they use, and delivering the content they want. It’s one of the key trends in municipal websites right now, says Karen Mayfield, President at eSolutionsGroup Limited in Waterloo. “Municipalities are recognizing the importance of content that is current, easy to access and web-friendly. Sites are user-centric and present information in a way that aligns with how people look for information. Ontario municipalities must also deliver content that complies with the accessibility standards set out in provincial legislation. “Another trend is municipalities’ increasing use of social media to get their news out interactively on multiple channels. Others are thinking of implementing social media so they are working on policies.” Other big shifts, says Mayfield, are mobile-friendly sites, which feature tools that work well on a variety of mobile devices, as well as sites that offer responsive Citizen engagement is a priority for Corey Halford, design and adapt to different screen sizes and devices. Team Leader, Data Services at the City of Airdrie, Mobile apps are also being used to deliver geo- Alberta. specific information using data sources provided by the “Governments often don’t seek out people. But we municipality. have to engage our customers just like a Starbucks or McDonald’s. Our customers expect the same service.” Municipalities are recognizing Airdrie has lots of customers to think about. Located 10 minutes north of Calgary, it’s one of the fastest the importance of content that is current, growing communities in Canada with 45,711 people. easy to access and web-friendly. Yet the previous website was not meeting community needs. Ashley Fruechting, Director of Strategic Initiatives at Visitors were infrequent and irregular. The site was Vision Internet, also explains: “Government websites organized around departments, hard to navigate are becoming open-government portals that offer and written by staff for staff – leading to duplication, citizens more accessibility through interactive content information overload and frustration for citizens. “More and transparency. Several new sites being launched than 50 per cent come for four reasons – to register for by Vision Internet this summer follow this new model, business licenses, obtain dog licenses, pay taxes, and including Swift Current in Saskatchewan, and Fort contact the building-inspections department. Citizens Saskatchewan and Lacombe in Alberta. In British couldn’t find what they wanted easily.” Columbia, Port Moody is implementing a video- In designing a new site, the top priority was streaming solution. accessibility “to people and information – it had to be “Another trend is the use of a robust content- aligned with customers.” management systems, which makes it easy for Work began by engaging those customers. After governments to keep their site information current.” conducting two surveys and inviting citizens to an open

6 MUNICIPAL Interface JUNE 2013

meeting, the result was a site with simplified design and a new action-oriented menu that is easy to navigate. The site uses Google site search; departments maintain the content, and a website-content adviser establish standards and ensure consistency. Developing a mobile site with simplified user interfaces was not a focus of the project, explains Halford. “Due to available technologies and not wanting to limit what our customers have access to, we chose to develop a site to work with most major browsers.” While Airdrie is trying to raise awareness and develop a social-media presence, no plan is underway to integrate social media. The biggest challenge is staffing and support. Twitter and Flickr were simply moved over from the previous site. Halford suggests that the pressure to go to social media is out of synch with what citizens want. “Government can’t do everything; it has to pick investments that will deliver value. Our degree of Twitter users is low. Out of a population of 45,000, 3,000 are on Twitter, mostly ages 45 or younger. People get to Twitter via smartphones, not websites. Feedback has been excellent, says Khan. “We had The main difficulty is tracking usage. How do you more than 10,000 page views in the first three days, know your investment is paying off?” and more than half of the first 2250 visitors returned to Launched February 2013, the site is getting positive the site.” reviews from citizens. And the secret to that success? They still are, particularly to use “News and Public “We engaged our customers. Everything we built Notices,” a citizen-engagement tool that lets citizens was in response to what citizens wanted, even our own subscribe to news and “like” on social-media sites. user-friendly CMS which was the most significant thing “This is a great tool, and we’re assessing how we we did. We built detailed requirements and evaluated want to communicate and use social media on top other CMS systems based on these. Not one met more of this.” than 50% of our requirements.” Integrating social media in the right balance and providing e-services are also priorities for Stratford. City of Stratford (www.stratfordcanada.ca) Facebook and Twitter are displayed on the homepage with interactivity or automatic refreshing to keep Last December, Naeem Khan, Manager of IT & it current and easy to access. Some e-services are Business Systems at the City of Stratford, decided it provided now that allow citizens to fill in forms, and was time for a change. Stratford needed to redesign its the City is working toward developing more integrated 10-year-old website and keep pace with its new stature and streamlined applications. as an Intelligent Community. Just five months later, on Involving people from the beginning and April 19, the new site was launched in what Khan says encouraging a culture change are the keys to must be the most efficient process ever. Stratford’s success, creating a dynamic online “Our old website framework didn’t work. community engaging citizens and employees. Information was out of date, and IT was managing and “With departments posting content, there is no posting content. Our aim was to find out what citizens barrier to information, and people are keen to provide wanted and provide a new design delivering content, ideas that will lead to more e-services. We’re in good easily and efficiently. We also wanted to create a shape to grow.” culture where each department took ownership for its information and posted it directly.” City of Waterloo (www.waterloo.ca) A website committee was established, and eSolutionsGroup was enlisted to facilitate the citizen- Befitting a high-tech hub, Waterloo delivered a full- engagement process and website redesign. Three out strategy when it began to research, develop, and public focus groups got impressive community response launch its new website. – even younger members of the community showed up. Unveiled January 6, 2013 at the New Year’s levee, The result is a website with a clean design that appeals the website was driven by community needs – the result to all age groups and is easy to use by departments of an engagement process that showed what residents and citizens. wanted.

7 Visit www.misa-asim.ca and check out our digital edition for exclusive online stories.

Other features include a mobile website that’s easy to navigate, available on any device and in 20 languages, and accessible to all age groups. New apps were rolled out and functionality increased, including an automating process for minutes and agendas. The site has logged 311,980 visits. “We rewrote all the content, and built and acquired new applications and technologies. Departments are accountable for content creation and management. As part of the project, a decision was made to outsource the hosting of the website to eSolutionsGroup – their offering was cost effective and freed up valuable IT staff time. We’ve had great feedback from local citizens and individuals in other countries.” Ping Street, a revolutionary municipal app, is one innovation that resulted from Waterloo’s power-to-the- people strategy. This first-of-its-kind mobile app – an initiative between the City, eSolutionsGroup and BlackBerry – facilitates seamless interactions between citizens and government. It provides Waterloo citizens with real-time access to local information including waste-delivery schedules, road closures and civic “Waterloo was one of the first municipalities with services. New features and functionality are being a website,” explains Garry Bezruki, acting general developed and incorporated for future releases. manager of Corporate Services and CIO at the City of PingStreet launched for the BlackBerry in February, Waterloo. “But as a tech-centred community, demands and there have been 1484 downloads. On May 1st, began to outpace what we were delivering.” Ping Street was available for Android and IOS devices, Issuing an RFP in November 2011, a huge public with 93 downloads from the Apple App Store and 44 engagement and marketing campaign followed, built from Google Play. around surveys, focus groups and the use of ideation Waterloo officials and citizens were already avid technology that is, seven months later, still being used users of social media, and the home page displays to elicit feedback from residents. live links to Facebook (2,409 Likes), YouTube (72 “The constant dialogue created opportunities subscribers) and Twitter (5,785 follows and increasing to engage with the public in a by-the-people, for- daily). the-people interaction, which then created new Creating and managing Web content is an evolving opportunities because we listened.” process, and Waterloo has worked hard to ensure If the conversation was rewarding, so were the compliance with Ontario’s new accessibility legislation results. “Public engagement assisted the whole (Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act). spectrum of open government. One agency like a “We succeeded by actively engaging with the hospital would push out some data, and another would community,” Bezruki concludes. ■ pick up the ball.”

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