A great post by BBC Click online, on Cloud service offerings..From floppy disks to USB memory sticks, now the cloud is where people might be carrying their data. Cloud computing doesn’t mean only accessing your data, but also interacting with it via the internet. Google Docs and Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) are just to name a few of the cloud-based service offerings. Dropbox is a fantastic desktop that you can tag along on your PC ,laptop, mobile device, and simply drag and drop your data on to a cloud-based storage area. It has more than 4 million users, who sync their data across multiple devices.

Other services don’t provide sync option, rather use the cloud alone, similar to Writely  a free, collaborative tool that lets users, primarily students, use the document collaboration features, however, if the internet is down/infrastructure outage/etc. then on-time assignment submission would be a problem.

Mint has gone a step further in the cloud, a free service that can let you log on anywhere/anytime, to get an instant snapshot of the health status of your financials – including mortgage payment, credit card payments, investments, etc.  It has 2.3 million users and growing – and was bought by Microsoft Money in 2008 – what’s remarkable is that the site is read-only, you can never move/withdraw money. CC No’s are never revealed.

A quick post to announce a fantastic alliance between us and ESRI NeA to deliver geo-enabled public service solutions..

” ITWorx and ESRI NeA will deliver a joint framework that empowers citizens with advanced Geo-Portal Services and Location-Based Services (LBS) through the web and mobile devices. On the business process management (BPM) and customer relationship management (CRM) levels, spatial analysis will help define workflow turnaround time and improve response time with respect to location, as well as identify bottlenecks and areas of improvement with regards to process re-engineering. Civil servants will benefit from the geo-enabled Building Permit that enables surveying and spatial data submission, tracking, and visual monitoring and reporting of urban development progress, as well as field observation”read more

A great article by Andrea DiMaio, if you are not following his blog, I strongly recommend you do, on Gov1.0 (eGov) and Gov 2.0 and how do they differ. The article emphasizes on Gov 2.0 values of transparency and openness that have never been part of eGov agenda.  DIY is the name of the game; “While e-government 1.0 was about integration and rationalization and planning, open government is about throwing data out, asking people how to solve problems, engaging them in policy-making or service delivery, at most setting some (relatively porous) boundaries” and by building on what eGov has achieved the way forward in Andrea’s views is “ a blend of openness and integration, transparency and prescription, collaboration and compliance.”A fantastic approach of building up on the good old eGov and not replacing it;  blend the 2 approaches in one port, while reserving citizens electronic service delivery at the heart of things.

What is the open government act is all about? One can think it is meant for the  American citizens be that individuals, private sector, institutions- to have better access to information and to have a say in policy making and service delivery. Apr 7^th date is drawing closer, by when all US federal agencies are meant to  issue their first draft of their open government plans. Will these plans make these agencies more effective and efficient through vendors/individuals who can actively make use of the agencies’ opening data; the rest of the world will wait and see the outcomes of this initiative as other counties are considering their options.

BBC has launched a new ad campaign early Mar illustrating the power of internet users, and how they are shaping up the future in such an appealing way that made me reflect on what Gov 2.0 is and what are its  possibilities. The ad features an extraterrestrial figure representing “the people of the internet” sending a message to the people of Earth, pointing out the importance and integrity of the internet to civilization.

In the Middle East, Bahrain announced a new eGovernement blog “We Listen to Improve” sponsored by eGovernment Authority, which is working on a new strategy for the eGovernment 2011-2014 and is inviting the public to share their views and suggestions in shaping the new strategy. The blog was launched on the eGovernment portal and has a one- on- one communication channel with the public.

On the road to Gov 2.0, many keywords flash by: Citizen Empowerment, Improving Electronic Service Delivery, openness, transparency, collaboration, engagement and many more – I like Gartner sleek definition:

Government 2.0 has seven main characteristics:

It is citizen-driven.

• It is employee-centric.
• It keeps evolving.
• It is transformational.
• It requires a blend of planning and nurturing.
• It needs Pattern-Based Strategy capabilities.
• It calls for a new management style.

Generation Y reaches the polling stations- More and  more politicians and governments are trying their hardest to meet the expectations of this tech-savvy generation. Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi features in a new iPhone application named iSilvio, , queen Rania of Jordan has a highly popular YouTube  video blog, the US president is leveraging innovative tools of technology to build and maintain his voters base.  All of them, despite their differences in background and political orientation, are building on the potentials of engaging citizens, particularly voters.

Would this ever become a reality without the citizens themselves? Australian city of Victoria has recently issued an application to inspire Victorians to create web and mobile applications for Victorians, AppMyState . The data is made available to application developers  and the bounty is Generous –  what is of special interest is the criteria of selection:

Judging Criteria
Application Criteria

• Usefulness to Victorians – will this be of value to the community
• Design and development – the presentation and the code
• Innovation – the uniqueness and initiative demonstrated
• Usability including accessibility – is it easy to use
• ‘The vibe’ – the overall appeal

Ideas criteria

• Usefulness to Victorians – would this be of value to the community?
• Innovation – the uniqueness and initiative demonstrated
• Practicability – how readily the idea can be implemented?
• ‘The vibe’ – the overall appeal

Challenges that face governments, in pursuit of better citizens services, are many; among which and on top of which is cost saving while improving citizen (“customer”) service quality. One of the leading areas to address this problem is cloud computing – but would governments ever consider this? Well, the concept of “pay-as-you-go” is appealing, where government agencies are out to disseminate information to the general public; while no data collection is required,  hence security and privacy are not a worry –  think of all the informational multi-lingual portals that governments, around the world, built to inform citizens about H1N1 and to send health-related (e.g. vaccination) alerts and notifications. The cloud here would have been a perfect fit to tackle these issues efficiently, quickly and cost-effectively. But would this ever entail exposing sensitive data of citizens?

 Microsoft announced on Wed Feb 24^th in Redmond its Secured Cloud Offerings for Governments, tackling the 2 most barriers to cloud in governments: security and privacy.  Based on Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), it is built on an exciting hybrid model,  using which government agencies can choose which data is to be on-premise and/or on the cloud. http://www.govtech.com/gt/articles/747050

ITWorx Citizen1st Brochure _ English

Welcome to ITWorx Citizen1^st official blog, the place where we discuss and share our experiences in delivering the full spectrum of Microsoft Citizen Service Platform (CSP) services to government organizations. Our discussions will focus on cost-effective approaches to enable government bodies to establish connected e-governments, build a reliable environment for citizen interaction, improve service delivery to citizens, and boost collaboration and efficiency in the workplace.

We are committed to be a catalyst to governments, working with government organizations of different sizes to support their initiatives to drive change and adapt their infrastructure to continue to deliver the level of service their constituents expect of them.

ITWorx Citizen1^st is a multilingual, scalable, and robust platform that accelerates the e-transformation of local, regional, and national governments in the EMEA region, creating far less costly, automated, optimized, mobile, and secure operations and processes. Putting people at the heart of the e-government transformation, it helps create efficient government internal portals that increase the productivity of civil servants and citizen portals that empower citizens with world-class e-services and superior customer service. Based on Microsoft Citizen Service Platform (CSP), Citizen1^st offers a range of ready-made and customisable solution areas that adapt to the specific IT and budget needs of governments of different sizes.

With over 650 employees, ITWorx is a global software professional services organization offering Portals, Business Intelligence, Enterprise Application Integration, and Application Development Outsourcing services. ITWorx actively engages in delivering efficient and effective public sector software to prominent governmental agencies in the Middle East. For further information please visit citizen1st.itworx.com.