2014- 2015

Online Services Strategy

Information Systems Department Sonoma County 11/12/2014

Information Systems Department Sonoma County Created: 11/17/2014 Last Revised: 3/4/2015

Overview

In 2013, Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project found that about 85% of Americans use the Internet. “Internet use has increased steadily since Pew began doing the survey. In 1995, only 14 percent of Americans said they went online. By 2000, half were online and by 2007, three-quarters.”1 Additionally “this year, for the first time, Americans used more mobile devices than PCs to access the Internet. Smartphones and tablets now account for 55 percent of Internet activity, according to the research firm Enders Analysis, and the number of users with mobile devices will only continue to grow. In 2014 alone, smartphone adoption is expected to increase by 19 percent, according to tech research firm IDC.”2 The County of Sonoma is already taking steps to close the digital divide (http://sonomacounty.ca.gov/EDB/Access-Sonoma-Broadband/Project-Overview/). As the community continues to go mobile, it is important the County adopt an online services strategy to meet the growing demands for information, online access to services, and ways to engage as a community.

Online Strategy The County of Sonoma’s mission is to enrich the quality of life in Sonoma County through superior public . It does this by focusing on four strategic plan goals: 1) Safe, healthy, and caring communities. 2) Economic & environmental stewardship 3) Civic service & engagement 4) Invest in the future The Information Systems Department’s vision is to maximize public service and financial savings through the implementation of technology solutions that support and enhance current and future service delivery systems in Sonoma County. Superior public service involves and supports residents, communities, and partners. The Online Services Strategy focuses on helping the County achieve its objectives by aligning itself with the four strategic plan goals through tools and

1 http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/09/25/pew-survey-finds-that-15-percent-americans-dont-use-internet/

2 http://www.governing.com/topics/mgmt/gov-utah-mobile-websites-services.html

Cover page image is courtesy of Sujin Jetkasettakorn at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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technologies that promote civic engagement, performance measurement, and transparency. Underlying these three online services strategies are increased access by the residents, business communities, and government partners to County information and services.

Access: Ease of Use. Part of enhancing access is focusing on ease of use. The Information Systems Department has been deploying its new content management system (CMS) to departments over the past few years. The CMS enables departments, agencies, and ISD technical staff to create, deploy and manage web content. The CMS makes it easy for subject matter experts and business users to easily publish and update their content regularly. ISD is continuing to expand the use of the CMS to all departments. In order to expand the visibility of the County’s online Services, ISD will create an Online Services tab on the home page, which will facilitate constituents in finding 3

the services they seek. The Online Services tab will take users to a new webpage which centers around three main groupings: Find It, Pay It, and Report It. The Find section will focus on helping constituents quickly locate services, events, and information. The goal is to display the services most often searched by the public the most prominently on the web page. Currently the County accepts online payments from a number of different systems. There is no centralized place where residents can go to pay their property , parks pass, and traffic tickets. As a Phase I effort, ISD will create a single web page where users view a list of all services available for online payment as URL links. The public may then click the link to get to the page where they can execute that transaction. The City & County of San Francisco utilizes this model (http://www6.sfgov.org/i ndex.aspx?page=6#se c2). ISD will send out a request to all departments asking them to provide a list of available services and how constituents can access those services (online, in person, by phone, etc.) in addition to how constituents can pay for these services. The reporting section centers around the County’s service request submission application, SoCo Report It, further described below. Here users will be able to quickly enter a service request and track the status of their issue as it is assigned and resolved by the appropriate County department.

Barking Dog Track requests Graffiti 311 Report It Pot Holes

Fallen Tree

ISD will link back to these services through its various social media channels and applications. In addition, the goal is to create as many strategic partnerships with local

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jurisdictions and other organizations to share information and technologies to further enhance access and ease of use by constituents.

Device-Agnostic Software. The County’s online strategy focuses on improving access to County programs and services in a multitude of ways. As the use of the internet and smart phones grows, the County will work to ensure access to services are available via the traditional website as well as on apps. The Information Systems Department (ISD) recommends focusing on offering the County’s services in a multitude of ways with ease of use for the public being the primary focus. When reviewing vendor tools and offerings, the County should select options that offer both mobile and web options. Social Media. Access to information and County services will also be available through multiple social media channels including Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc. The County’s Facebook page will contain links to County information and services and other social media channels in use by the County. Additionally, information needs to be presented in multiple languages and provide accommodations to individuals with disabilities. For example, ISD recently added Google Translation services to many of its main County website pages, which makes the website instantly available in 60+ languages. Branding. ISD recommends creating a brand for Sonoma County which would be used consistently by all departments when creating new apps and services. A strong brand aids users in connecting with those services and confirms the credibility of the services being offered. Both the standard image and naming protocol should be thoroughly reviewed and evaluated. “Human beings are wired to react to pictures more than text alone… This also explains why our attention has shifted so dramatically over the past few years from blogging and text status updates to picture updates, and why social-media sites such as Pinterest, Instagram and Snapchat have burst on to the scene and become our favorite social sites. In fact, Instagram will soon surpass Twitter in the number posts per day.”3

3 Capture, Engage and Convert Customers with Visual Branding. Entrepreneur magazine. November 17, 2014. http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/239789 5

Transparency: “When we have all data Transparency in government is vital in online it will be great for garnering public trust, public participation humanity. It is a and collaboration. Openness promotes prerequisite to solving accountability and provides the citizens of many problems that Sonoma County with necessary information humankind faces.” – Robert about what their government is doing for Cailliau, Belgian informatics them. Transparency should provide engineer and computer scientist unencumbered access to information for who, together with Tim Berners- both the public and the ; Lee, developed the World Wide Web. Transparency can:

• push government organizations to become more efficient and effective with their resources; • enable the citizens of Sonoma County to become self-empowered and participate in their community in new and interesting ways; • providing public officials the ability to harness information to help guide decision and policymaking; and • lead to ground-breaking private products and services, spurring innovation and job growth. The County will invest in new tools and technologies that allow it to provide data and information to the public that can be used by everyone and republished as they wish, without restrictions. Currently, the public must make records requests to gain access to much of the County’s information. The County is beginning to shift its focus from being reactive to these requests and proactively publishing this data online.

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Civic Engagement: Civic engagement means working to a make a difference in the civic life of our communities and developing the combination of knowledge, skills, values and motivation to make that difference. It means promoting the quality of life in a community, through both political and non-political processes. 4 On December 2, 2014, the County Administrator’s Office presented its Community Engagement Framework to the Board of Supervisors, in line with Board’s 2014 Work Priority. Sonoma County is currently implementing many promising practices in community engagement through the Board of Supervisors, County initiatives, and individual staff efforts. The County seeks to more comprehensively and uniformly institutionalize community engagement practices. In doing so, the County can increase the effectiveness of services and support the well-being of the broader community. One of the actions identified in the framework is to “Provide web-based community engagement for utilization by departments.”

5The County wants to engage citizens in new ways, outside the traditional phone surveys and In business, words are town hall meetings. New technologies allow for words; explanations are online discussion forums and surveys, reaching a explanations, promises are broad audience and allowing citizens to participate and communicate on relevant promises, but only subjects. Government agencies can poll citizens performance is reality. on their opinions for new bills and measures -Harold S. Geneen prior to them showing up on any ballot. Citizens can report on issues that are affecting them, from potholes to .

Performance Management: The key components of high performing organizations are: 1) Employee involvement 2) Self-directing work teams

4 Excerpt from Civic Responsibility and Higher , edited by Thomas Ehrlich, published by Oryx Press, 2000. 5 “Join” image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net 7

3) Integrated technologies 4) Organizational learning 5) Process improvement

In order to understand what we do well and what needs improvement, we need to measure and monitor our work. High performing organizations integrate the use of information technology into most aspects of their operations, enabling them to streamline efforts and actively assess their performance. With performance analytics tools, data is transformed into valuable information which can lead to new insights and decisions. Gathering this data allows for benchmarking against other organizations, and allows the County to provide these metrics to the citizens. For example, the International Organization for Standardization has created ISO 37120 which provides a set of standardized indicators for city services and quality of life in order. This ISO standard was developed to provide a holistic and integrated approach to sustainable development and resilience. It provides a uniform approach to what is measured, and how that measurement is to be undertaken. Data-driven decision making enables better and outcomes. Providing this information to the public enables the County to display the value of its work and builds trust. Performance management should encompass not only displaying the County’s performance metrics on things such as “911 answer speed” and “street pavement condition”, but also measure the effectiveness of the online services themselves.

Key Technology Recommendations Listed below are a number of key technology recommendations which will provide increased services and information to the public. Some recommendations will require the acquisition of new software and services, while others are minor adjustments to the current path. Many of these recommendations are already underway.

1. OpenData Initiative. The definition of open data is data that can be freely used, reused and redistributed by anyone – subject only, at most, to the requirement to attribute and share alike. The County has already contracted with a company called Socrata (http://www.socrata.com/products/open-data-portal/) to host its Open Data Portal. A pilot project is already underway to post datasets from different departments within the County to the web which will be available for public consumption. The goal of providing this data to the public is to empower citizens, improve operational efficiency, increase government engagement with

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citizens, and spark . See New York City open data website for an example of the tool in use (https://nycopendata.socrata.com/). ISD recommends the following course of action: a. Continue to Gather Datasets. ISD will continue to work with departments to import as many datasets as possible to the Open Data portal, fueling transparency and accessibility. The focus should be on datasets we believe would be of particular interest to citizens and , which are generally not static in nature. Also, it will be beneficial for departments to post those datasets most sought after in Public Records Requests. b. Fiscal Transparency. Another module the County has purchased within the Socrata tool is the Budget application. See http://budget.data.montgomerycountymd.gov/#/ for an example of the tool in use by Montgomery County, Maryland. This tool provides for fiscal transparency, allowing users to easily drill down into charts summarizing how County dollars are being allocated and from what types of funding sources. It also provides information on the capital projects currently underway and displays them visually to users on a map. Work is already underway to import the County’s budget into this tool. The Auditor’s Office has also expressed interest in the Socrata Expenditures app which would allow the public to see how County dollars are actually being spent. c. Promote the Creation of Applications and Visualizations. Once the County has made a sufficient array of datasets available, the County should promote the creation of applications and visualizations through the local high schools and colleges, various community partners, etc.

2. Performance Measurement. Socrata offers another tool called GovStat which provides a way to measure the performance of government programs and share the results with the public. The City of L.A. (https://performance.lacity.org/) and County of San Mateo (https://performance.smcgov.org/) are successfully using the tool to track their progress on a number of key success measures. 3. Community Engagement Software. The County Administrator’s Office will be drafting a request for proposal for the implementation and hosting of an online civic engagement surveys and discussion forums. The County’s goal is to reach a broad audience to allow citizens to participate and communicate on relevant 9

subjects; increase interactions between citizens and the County; and have robust tools for reporting and analysis on the information collected. 4. Accessibility. The Web Team has put a lot of effort into ensuring its websites are as accessible as possible to persons with disabilities. However, for computer users whose vision loss prevents them from seeing content or navigating with a mouse, it still may mean the constituent needs to purchase a screen reader (like JAWS) to have the content read to them, which can run around $500 - $1000 per license. There are a number of other tools and technologies the County could employ that may minimize or remove the need for constituents to individually purchase these costly tools. For example, BrowseAloud6 is currently being used by the Federal Government on its websites. It provides text-to-speech, spoken translations in 35 languages and written translations in 78 languages, text magnification, MP3 generation, and other customizable features. The County should research what new technologies are available in this area and have them reviewed by the County’s ADA consultants.

5. Report an Issue Service. Transportation and has engaged a company called Public Stuff to serve as the County’s service request tool. It allows constituents to make service requests via a website and mobile application. Users can track their request through to resolution. This service should be expanded to other departments within the County. General Services, PRMD, CDC, Parks, and Water have already expressed interest. It should be viewed and utilized as a county-wide application, allowing our enterprise to monitor how well we respond to requests; as a means to provide critical information to our constituents about hot topics, like voting, 211 services, emergencies, etc. This tool will also allow us to measure the quality of the services we provide in terms of response time and customer rating, and should be utilized to spur continuous improvement in our processes. It may also help guide budgetary and resource allocation decisions within the organization.

6. Expand Online Payments – Phase II. The County should conduct a Request for Proposal for a centralized online payment tool where are payments could be funneled through a central services allowing the user to visit one website to take care of all of their payment needs. Services such as Paymentus

6 Any tool purchased would need to be reviewed by the County’s ADA consultant for conformance with the County’s standards.

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(www.paymentus.com) allow users to pay via the website, app, text, or by phone. Reminders can be set up to alert the public that a payment is coming due. It may take some time to integrate all county services. Some departments may face charging constituents two fees depending on the payment structure of their current technologies or be faced with moving to new software. For example, Parks is in the process of implementing a number of modules in a new piece of software called ActiveNetwork, which will allow the public to purchase day use passes, parks passes, and register for classes. ActiveNetwork’s fee structure is transaction based. Paymentus is also fee-based. Discussions would need to be held about how to best move forward in these scenarios. 7. Centralized Records Request and Self-Service Features. ISD should investigate options to centralize and capture public records requests through a common tool. Constituents could submit a request and have their documents be made available to them electronically. This would also assist in our efforts to determine the data that is most often requested and guide work on the open data portal. 8. Frequent Technology Reviews. ISD should conduct technologies reviews every 12-24 months to spot new trends and technologies that could advance the organization.

Next Steps Based on the County’s adoption of this Online Services Strategy, ISD will work to identify specific roles for staff, resources needed for the implementation and organizational impacts as part of the County’s 2015-20016 and 2016-2017 budget process. The focus will initially be on quick wins, such as the release of a single online payments page, the release of the SoCo Data open data portal and SoCo Report It service request tracking tool.

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