North Coast Connections

Governor Schwarzenegger signed a milestone executive order last week that removes several barriers to deployment of high speed Internet connectivity throughout California. Among its provisions, the order promotes broadband networks, establishes a task force and simplifies regulations to make connectivity more accessible. Here in Humboldt, this means a likely acceleration of a second fiber optic line into the county, which will have a BIG impact on our community.

Three groups that I call the three R's have been working together to secure a second fiber optic line into Humboldt County. These groups are the Redwood Coast Rural Action committee (a collaboration between HSU and CR), the Redwood Region Economic Development Committee and the Redwood Technology Consortium. One of the significant achievements of these efforts was a county-funded "Living in a Networked World" study in which Tina Nerat managed contractors to assess the current state of local broadband usage, and explore options to secure a second fiber optic line.

While there was much hoopla a few years back when then-SBC (now AT&T) battled with CalTrans over right-of-way fees to pull a fiber optic line from Willits to Humboldt County, with some of the route being contiguous to Highway 101. With all the statewide budget constraints, CalTrans, like many government agencies, was looking for revenue sources and decided to impose right-of-way fees for projects such as these. While these fees may have appeared reasonable to some, they were self-defeating in several ways:

(1) They hindered economic development and widened the Digital Divide by making it more difficult (meaning less cost effective) for telecommunications companies to provide broadband to rural communities with small population bases.

(2) Even local telephone connectivity was in jeopardy without a fiber optic line since the microwave link was at a saturation point.

(3) CalTrans, themselves, needed this fiber optic line to fulfill their own mandate to provide highway condition and Amber Alert warning sign capability on Highway 101 and other major thoroughfares.

A second local fiber optic line is not a luxury, it is a necessity. A single line can easily be disrupted by a winter storm washout, or a errant backhoe. We need redundancy for back-up and competitive pricing on connectivity.

And in our brave new information age, high speed Internet connectivity has become a necessity for economic and community development. Access to broadband affects a wide spectrum of community interests such as education, government, business, healthcare and the arts. The bottom line is that rural regions are at a competitive disadvantage if broadband infrastructure is inadequate.

Governor Schwarzenegger's executive order quashes government-imposed right-of-way fees such as those collected by CalTrans, and takes a giant leap toward ubiquitous high speed Internet connectivity statewide. This was a bold move worthy of note.

Chris Crawford
www.justiceserved.com

Posted by Chris Crawford at 04:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

An interesting article in Government Technology Magazine spoke of a growing dependence on libraries by those with few resources for public access to government services that increasingly require high speed computer connections. This is a counterintuitive reality check that defies those who say that libraries are dying because no one will read paper books in the brave new e-world.

To be sure, several large government initiatives of late were highly dependent upon computer access. The new Medicare drug program (Plan D), for instance, pushed potential subscribers to the Internet instead of having to field a lot of telephone calls or serve clients at the front counter.

I found this odd at the time because I was unsure whether seniors as a demographic group had as high a computer literacy rate compared to the population as a whole. Moreover, too many seniors live paycheck-to-paycheck on Social Security and pensions, and would not be likely candidates to buy computers or high speed connection subscriptions. To be sure, seniors are migrating to the 'net at a high rate, and use email a lot to communicate with family (especially grandkids), and in so doing are in some way reviving the lost art of letter writing. Still, we are talking about a segment of the population that includes 60 year olds and 90+ year olds.

The next example was the FEMA outreach to victims of Hurricane Katrina in which public inquiries and applications for relief were offered via the Internet as the first choice of customer contact. Since the New Orleans area devastation included severe damage to the telecommunications infrastructure, this did not look like a wise policy decision.

But the bottom line is that more government services are migrating to the Internet in the form of E-government, and those customer without computers or high speed connections are increasingly told to go to their local public library. Yet libraries are facing fierce budget battles and barely survive, mostly reacting with reduced hours of operation. With this new burden of safety net to an increasingly isolated tech-have-not public, libraries also must invest in computer upgrades and tech staff support. Out of necessity, library staff must also be conversant in the subject matter of public E-government access, answering questions ranging from student loan applications to traffic school.

I worked on a project with the Seattle courts and came across an innovative program in which the justice community worked to get email addresses for the local homeless population so that it would be easier to contact them for social services and to reduce missed court dates. While the libraries bore a large part of this burden, the Seattle area is also rich in alternative email access through public Internet kiosks and low and no-cost commercial outlets.

Unless communities invest in alternative Internet access, the need is very real to adequately fund public libraries. Luckily, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and others are conducting studies into the phenomenon and hope to make recommendations that could include a shared funding of libraries by those government agencies and initiatives that cause the burden.

This is a small but compelling example of the "Digital Divide," in which an increasingly digital world creates a chasm of digital haves and have-nots. Locally, we are struggling to obtain a fiber optic connection to the area in order to improve competition (affordability) and provide redundancy for back-up in case of cut-off of the one current line. In my view, this dialogue should also consider the impact on our local libraries that serve as our first line of digital defense.

Chris Crawford
www.justiceserved.com

Posted by Chris Crawford at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Once again, Tech Republic online magazine came through with an excellent short article on 10 ways to be a better blogger. I highly recommend this free e-newsletter, which only requires online registration and a wide choice of customizable subtopics related to the world of technology. They sure have saved my bacon by providing interesting blog topics, but they have also helped me in my profession by passing along project management tips and even power user articles on how to maximize the use of Microsoft Word and Excel.

So how does a blogger get better? According to Tech Republic:

Pick a purpose and stick with it
First figure out what you're blog topic is and stay true to it. Blogs run the gamut of social, political, technical and regional topics. Readers visit and even subscribe based upon a "truth in advertising" promise that the blog author will deliver on a specific topic. It's a huge turnoff when your Feng Shui blog starts weighing in on presidential politics.

Use good HTML and design
Visiting a blog should be a pleasant experience in which colors, layout, choice of font and use of hypertext and electronic formatting enhance instead of detract. Even if you're using a free blog service, you still have some choice of design and it's up to you to learn enough about HTML to format and insert hyperlinks.

Provide good navigation
If you're using a free blogging service, you may be stuck with what they offer, but understand the importance of good, clean navigation. This includes clear instructions on how to subscribe to an RSS feed and how to post comments. Your blog site should also be searchable for key words and phrases. Even if your blog host doesn't offer a search feature, you might be able to co-opt Google's search function. Finally, getting around your site is important, but it's more important that readers can easily get TO your site; don't flit around experimenting with multiple blog servers because if you do, each time this means you have a new address.

Stick to a schedule
If you say you publish daily, publish daily. Those who track blogs are frustrated by subscribing to a promising blog only to see it wither from neglect. I try my best to keep to a weekly schedule, though I do have occasional lapses. When I do fall behind, I offer apologies and tearful promises not to sin again.

Keep it short
Blogs do not lend themselves to long treatises. They are much more conducive to short and concise entries that make a point directly.

Use good English
Whether it's your vocation or avocation, you have chosen to write when you take on blogging duties. Take the time to learn and use proper English, and proofread your entries to clean up typos. Typographical errors and bad grammar are huge distractions and can erode the credibility of your blog.

Whew !! I made another blog deadline.

Chris Crawford
www.justiceserved.com

Posted by Chris Crawford at 09:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

OK, so whip me for being AWOL on my blog writing duties. There are more important issues that demand one's time, you know. Petty things, like making a living, tending to one's family, community involvement ... you know, LIFE!! Interestingly, what's of particular interest is that my career work of late has had little to do with technology. Along with being an IT consultant I am what is called a domain expert, which means that I have expertise in a particular discipline. In this case it is court management, or how internal court operations are efficiently managed. In this capacity I have been involved in a lot of process reengineering lately.

From the first day that we plugged in a computer, we had the ability to "go paperless" and harness this tool to make our lives easier. However, too many times we keep doing what we did before, in addition to which we add the tasks of entering data into a computer, effectively doubling our work. Most of this is attributable to fear of computer crashes or fear of becoming overly dependent on a computer with no paper back-up. In any event, most people make the mistake of assuming that things will be easier the moment they computerize something. More often than not, the opposite is true. As the old saying goes, if you want to really screw something up, computerize it.

One of the areas I specialize in is called "caseflow management," or the art of improving the timeliness and efficiency of case processing in courts. It involves a team effort of clerk's office and courtroom processing to increase the odds that case events will occur when they ought to. This discipline could also be applied to a lot of other industries, such as healthcare, insurance, accounting, auto repair, and on and on.

Usually when I show up to work on a caseflow project, the technology department is front and center expecting to be the primary focus of study. Instead, I made it a practice to visit the IT staff as the last part of my visit and spend most of my time shadowing staff, following paperwork and observing customer interactions. I also like to sit in court and jot notes to document what happens (or doesn't happen) in a typical day.

I have a two phrase mantra that is sure to turn around most caseflow problems:

1) Create an atmosphere of expectation, and
2) Capitalize on golden opportunities.

If an organization clearly communicates what is supposed to happen and when, most customers will rise to that expectation. Conversely, the organization can not allow ANY customer interaction (phone, email, snail mail or in person) to pass without maximizing the efficiency of that transaction.

So when people ask me what I do, I usually tell them I am a court management consultant who works with technology in courts and justice agencies. I suppose technically that's true, but there tends to be a lot more analog compared to digital in these transactions of late. That's not a bad thing, just worthy of note.

Chris Crawford
www.justiceserved.com

Posted by Chris Crawford at 08:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)