Quote of the Week
“Collaboration tops the list in the trends taking center stage for most state and local Agencies.”
— GovDelivery
Editor’s Corner
American municipalities (state, county and city organizations) were recently given a collection of ‘hot topics’ or trends for 2013, including (to give a few examples) open data, budgets, citizen service, cloud computing…
They were then asked to consider these trends that are affecting their jobs or workplaces and identify the ones that matter the most to them.
It is interesting to see that the three top trends that municipalities identified are ones that I am sure most provinces and the federal government would select as well: the need for collaboration, both internally and with citizens; citizen-centred service; and mobility and BYOD.
On the collaboration front, municipalities seem to be acting: almost 70 percent said their organization is addressing the challenge. There is a distance to go: just over half admitted to using social media to increase their collaborative efforts.
The top trend (at 80 percent) was citizen-service. If communication is key to service, cities at just under 80 percent are using social media to connect.
The third issue, BYOD, is, as with other levels of government, a challenge. While it is agreed that allowing employees to use their own devices to access work systems could increase productivity and reduce costs, less than half said it was a priority.
The report is at http://www.govdelivery.com/pdfs/WP_2013_trends_slt.pdf
