Metrics That Matter: How Does Technology Affect Government Outcomes?
CIOs need to develop better ways to measure the impact of technology. By Kevin C. Desouza as written on Govtech.com.
There's little doubt that government's already substantial investment in information technology is going to continue to grow as public agencies look for ways to streamline processes, engage with citizens and achieve social outcomes. Chief information officers are going to be required to show not only that IT funds are being expended effectively but also that these resources are driving outcomes that government and the public care about. Consider this question: If you were to invest $1 in a parks program and $1 in the IT department, which would provide a greater return?
Questions like that are going to take on even more importance with the emergence of new technologies (think about drones and self-driving cars), new platforms (consider bitcoin and the future of digital currency), and new tools (such as predictive analytics and the emerging field of algorithmic regulation).
Over the last six months, I have interviewed more than two dozen CIOs and other IT executives across all levels of government on the state of IT metrics for performance management in the public sector. The findings from these interviews are summarized in a new report published by the IBM Center for the Business of Government.
In the report, I offer three overarching recommendations to help CIOs begin to develop meaningful metrics for their organizations or to improve the ones they already use:
CIOs should engage stakeholders -- both internal and external ones -- in creating logic models that outline and trace the impact of IT assets to intermediate outputs and ultimately to outcomes that matter. In doing so, CIOs should engage with clients to develop client-specific metrics. They also should strive to gather input to gain a better understanding of how IT is perceived by stakeholders.
CIOs should develop networks to share data on IT performance, both internally and with other communities with similar populations, industries, demographics or needs. These networks offer CIOs an opportunity to gain insights about experiences, challenges and good ideas; benchmark or compare metrics; and gain buy-in for specific initiatives or projects. Currently, CIO networks at the local level are underdeveloped. Where we have seen these networks utilized, CIOs have used them as learning opportunities and are doing much better in utilizing metrics to improve performance.
CIOs need to work creatively to arrive at innovation metrics. In my research, I found a general lack of metrics to capture innovations associated with IT. CIOs are innovating and have anecdotal evidence to share, but they lack quality methods to measure those innovations. While metrics around innovation are inherently difficult to define and establish, they are needed more than ever. Creativity and constant refinement are essential.
As technology continues to develop, the level of IT innovation will become even more of a key differentiator among governments, particularly across local jurisdictions striving to streamline operations and create sustainable neighborhoods and resilient communities. A key question that will be asked of CIOs is how their investments in technology measure up. Clearly they are going to need to be able to answer that question.
This article was originally published by Governing.
Managed Solution partners with IT staff to offer consulting and government solutionsto improve IT infrastructure to reflect the latest technology.
Long Beach (Calif.) Evolves its IT Workforce, Platforms and Focus
Millennial workers without tech backgrounds and coding on their phones -- this isn't your father's IT shop.
By Steve Towns as written on Govtech.com.
With baby boomers gradually leaving the government IT workforce, public agencies are scrambling to attract a new generation of employees. Long Beach, Calif., CIO Bryan Sastokas says he’s working to attract millennial employees by adopting open source and cloud-based platforms, and emphasizing community-focused initiatives. Sastokas also is hiring more employees who lack traditional IT backgrounds, and the result of that, he says, is a shift toward agile, business-centric solutions. Sastokas talked about his department’s workforce evolution in an interview during Government Technology’s Los Angeles Digital Government Summit earlier this week.
Managed Solution is the premier provider of IT support services and technology recommendations for the government sector. For more information on government specific solutions contact Managed Solution at 800-550-3795 or fill out the contact form.
New Azure SQL Database offerings add capabilities to scale data up and out
As written by Tiffany Wissner, Senior Director of Data Platform Marketing on Technet.com.
At Microsoft we’re committed to meeting the needs of our customers by offering choices as they build cloud applications for scale and performance. Today we’re continuing to deliver on this commitment with two announcements:
•New high performance levels for Azure SQL Database, P4 and P11, with greater flexibility to start small and scale up as data grows
•Basic and Premium tier for Elastic Databases for more flexibility for SaaS developers looking to scale out with higher performance and more resource control.
As more customers build more powerful applications in Azure using Azure SQL Database, we've seen strong demand for more options to scale performance. We’re dedicated to offering a portfolio of data services for cloud applications that effectively scales up to support data growth from more users, and scales out to support growth from more customers and fluctuating resource demands.
To meet this scale up demand, we are announcing the release of new Azure SQL Database Premium performance levels, P4 and P11. With the introduction of both P4 and P11, we’ve expanded the range of throughput performance developers can leverage to scale their applications. Developers can quickly start with our basic or standard performance tiers and easily scale database performance up to 350 times greater with our premium tier as their data needs grow – all without code or application changes. This enables developers to match application needs with the right database performance.
On the scale out front, we have seen an increasing demand for Elastic Database pools since we announced its public preview. We’ve seen SaaS developers adopt and embrace elastic databases because it makes it easier to manage their growing number of customers. With Elastic Database pools SaaS developers can manage hundreds of databases for each of their customers, optimize the performance of each database, and manage the cost of these databases to support their explosive growth. This means their customers still get a great experience, even during peak usage periods, and there’s no need to over-provision resources during lulls.
One example is StudioPlus, which offers solutions for professional photographers. CEO Matthew Hunt says, “We are expanding our legacy on-premises solution with a SaaS solution. Azure SQL Database is a fundamental part of this journey because it allows us to leverage an existing code base and gives us a platform for unlimited customer growth. From a DevOps perspective, it’s simple to set up and manage Azure SQL Database Elastic Database pools to support the unlimited scale-out of a one-database-per-customer pattern.”
To support the increasing demand of Elastic Database Pools, we are now introducing a public preview of two additional service tiers for Elastic Databases, Basic and Premium. These new tiers give organizations and developers with SaaS applications greater options and flexibility for getting started with Elastic Databases and scaling out to meet new customer demands.
We are thrilled that we can support StudioPlus and a growing number of developers on their SaaS journey with Azure SQL Database.
Our announcements today add scale and performance options, and these releases are just part of our end-to-end data platform. We continue to make it easier for customers to maximize their data dividends with our data platform and services. It’s never been easier to capture, transform, mash-up, analyze and visualize any data, of any size, at any scale, in its native format using familiar tools, languages and frameworks in a trusted environment on-premises and in the cloud.
You will be able to watch Apple’s upcoming event live using Microsoft Edge only in Windows 10
Apple just announced its upcoming event, where the company is expected to release the next iPhone. Now, if you’re a Windows 10 user, you’ll be glad to know that you’ll finally be able to watch Apple’s event without using any media player like VLC. Yep, Apple has added support for Microsoft Edge on Windows 10 – the company’s live event page states:
Requirements: Live streaming uses Apple’s HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) technology. HLS requires an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with Safari on iOS 7.0 or later, a Mac with Safari 6.0.5 or later on OS X v10.8.5 or later, or a PC with Edge on Windows 10. Streaming via Apple TV requires a second- or third-generation Apple TV with software 6.2 or later.
If you’re planning to watch the company’s upcoming event, you’ll now be able to watch it “officially” using Microsoft Edge on Windows 10. To be honest, this is kind of surprising as the company didn’t allow Windows users (and Android users) to watch their live streams.
For those wondering, the company’s upcoming event is on September 9 at 10 a.m PDT.
For life's little interruptions, use Windows + F4 to mute yourself in #Skype4B.
When it's time to speak up, use it again to unmute.
Start an online presentation in PowerPoint using Skype for Business
You can schedule an online meeting ahead of time or start a meeting right away – all from within PowerPoint using Skype for Business. You need to have a microphone connected to your PC, so you can speak to your meeting attendees.
Important: This feature isn’t available in Office on a Windows RT PC. Want to see what version of Office you're using?
1. Slide Show > Present Online > Skype for Business.
Note: A list of active Skype for Business conversations and scheduled Skype for Business meetings (within 30 minutes) will appear, and you can also start a new meeting right away.
2.In the list, pick a scheduled meeting or start a new Skype for Business meeting, and then click OK.
3.In Skype for Business, do one of the following:
Begin your scheduled meeting.
To begin a new meeting, invite attendees by choosing Invite More People Add contact button.
i.Under Invite by Name or Phone Number, select contacts from the contacts list or type each name in the box, and then click Select.
ii.Begin your presentation.
Tips for using other options in Skype for Business:
Note: These button images will change color. For example, dark grey means that you’re not performing an activity at the moment, but you can click it to start one. Blue means you are engaged in an activity. Light grey means you don’t have functionality for that option.
Microsoft Recognizes Managed Solution as a Top West Region Small and Midsize Business Cloud Partner
San Diego, CA - August, 25 2015 - Managed Solution, a highly honored and tenured managed services company and pioneer in managed, utility-based cloud computing, recently announced its participation in the Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider Program. The program is designed to strengthen customer relationships and expand cloud sales opportunities by enabling partners to provide direct billing, sell combined offers and services, as well as directly provision, manage and support products and services. In appreciation of this program and their long term partnership, Microsoft awarded Managed Solution to recognize them as a Top West Region Small and Midsize Business Cloud Partner.
"Managed Solution is honored to be recognized as a Top West Region Small and Midsize Business Cloud Partner," says Sean Ferrel, president and CEO, Managed Solution. "Our long term partnership with Microsoft and participation in the Cloud Solution Provider program allows us to build stronger relationships with our customers and provide them with the best cloud solutions to empower their business,” says Ferrel.
Managed Solution makes moving to the cloud simple, with industry specific solutions designed to meet the compliance, security and performance needs of regulated organizations.
About Microsoft
Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) is the leading platform and productivity company for the mobile-first, cloud-first world, and its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.
About Managed Solution
Managed Solution is the premier provider of outsourced IT support and managed services for small to large size businesses. Founded in 2002, the company quickly grew into a market leader and is recognized as one of the fastest growing IT Companies in Southern California. Managed Solution continues to deliver award-winning services paired with leading business technologies to assist clients in running their business efficiently.
Details of the next round of incentives for Office 365 (O365) adoption have been released, and there’s one big change for customers.
Microsoft has unveiled the Fiscal Year 2016 incentives, which will kick in for customers who purchase new licenses after Sept. 1 of this year, in order to spur O365 adoption and deployment. For customers who purchase O365 licenses from July 1 through Aug. 31, a bridge period with similar benefits is available as well.
Here is what you need to know about this year’s FastTrack offer, and why you should prepare your IT environment before you contact Microsoft.
Remember those incentives?
This isn’t the first go-round of O365 incentives. They’re very similar to benefits Microsoft offered last year, with a few tweaks.
Historically, because the previous fiscal year’s FastTrack offering expired on June 30 and the next incentive round didn’t begin until September, customers that purchased O365 licenses in July and August found themselves in limbo. To remedy that problem, Microsoft developed an “early bird” incentive, and has set aside money to help organizations offset the cost of their deployment.
In essence, customers that purchase at least 150 eligible O365 licenses, and in that two-month window, can work with a Certified Microsoft Partner to manage their deployment of O365 workloads, and in doing so can offset the total cost of moving to an O365 environment. Once the customer and partner complete the due diligence of the deployment, the partner will submit a funding claim to Microsoft to partially offset the costs of the organization’s O365 adoption – a process that could save organizations five figures off the total expense, for example.
After this round of “early bird” funding, FastTrack Adoption Offer benefits launch Sept. 1, and customers who purchase a minimum of 150 licenses between Sept. 1, 2015 and March 30, 2016 are eligible. Once a customer activates its tenant, Microsoft will contact eligible customers within 30 days of the O365 license purchases to discuss the FastTrack onboarding options, which help activate core workloads such as Office Pro Plus, SharePoint, and Skype (to name a few) into the cloud. Like last year, Microsoft will offer offsetting funds to reduce the total cost of deployment to qualified customers.
Finally, a marriage of FastTrack and Mail Migration
A key change in this year’s incentive program is that Mail Migration is now a core service offering as part of an O365 FastTrack deployment; Microsoft’s engineering teams will migrate mail accounts and data to the cloud for qualified customers, in addition to onboarding key workloads such as Office Pro Plus and SharePoint.
But take note: Customers need to do their own preparation for the mail migration, which may include a cleanup of Active Directory, streamlining on-premises and cloud mail services, or remediation of other third-party applications. Microsoft will migrate a qualified organization’s mail to the cloud, but organizations are responsible for completing certain checks and processes before the migration can begin.
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