What's so Special About Virginia?

New Commons and Left Brain recently bid (unsuccessfully) for the opportunity to assess the City of Providence website and recommend an alternative approach. As part of the RFP, the city pointed to the Center for Digital Government's rankings of municipal websites. They said they wanted to be "at least as good as the best". So I checked out the rankings.

Immediately, I was struck by the inordinately high number of best sites in the state of Virginia. Digging further into their rankings of state websites, Virginia ranks an impressive 3rd. There had to be a connection, so I dug yet further and found that VA.gov provided exactly the same kind of service that RI.gov offers. 

And it turns out that both states, in turn, are supported by the same company. Yes, company. 

NiC is a private company that acts as an outsource platform supporting a form of public/private work teams that develop and maintain the specific platforms that various state agencies and municipalities use. This latter group - the cities - might be the biggest beneficiaries of all. For example, Lynchburg, VA's website won the top spot for cities with populations between 30 -75k, and Lynchburg is a local partner with VA.gov.

It's clear that across the state of Virginia, including within municipalities, administrations have focused attention and resources on IT, particularly web development. So it should come as no surprise that both US Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra and US Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra were drawn from VA governor Tim Kaine's cabinet. (Hence the rapid proliferation of ubiquitous platform federal government websites.)

And This Means What for Rhode Island?

As I said above, this is huge. If we can continue along this trajectory, these investments in core IT capabilities should translate directly into economic benefits. Bear in mind that Virginia ranks #1 in 'business friendliness' according to Forbes. It's true that RI ranked dead last in that same survey, but RI.gov goes directly to reversing some of the problems associated with red tape. As RI.gov continues to roll out web-services versions of existing paper-based processes, businesses of all kinds will find it faster and easier to apply for and receive permits, or to research their compliance requirements for various kinds of regulations.

That we can be thinking about web-services versions of these processes means that RI's Department of IT (DoIT-RI) has accomplished the vast bulk of their initial task: normalize and modernize the mess that was our state's legacy IT environment.  RI CIO John Landers came from the retail IT sector, which is a lot about dedicated hardware/software (cash registers and inventory systems) which, of course, is a lot about legacy systems. In fact, Landers' bio calls out his excellence in upgrading legacy systems.

With data from various departments coming under better control, RI.gov can build web apps that let citizens and businesses interact with those departments without going to the physical location. Again, this improves both business climate and quality of life. 

Remember how VA.gov supports several municipalities like Lynchburg, which won top honors in the small city category? RI.gov has helped at least one RI city take a big step forward on the web.

It would be charitable of me to say the City of Pawtucket is Internet-challenged. There is, in fact, no actual 'communications' department or even an individual solely tasked with those responsibilities. As recently as 2008, the city's website ran on a 'frames' platform. FRAMES! (1996 called. They want their website back.)

Last year, the city shifted its content into the current incarnation, built on the RI.gov platform. What an improvement! Content is still minimal at best, so it won't win any awards. But it's a solid site that city workers can (and even do) update. I'm sure that many other municipalities could benefit from this approach.

We can only hope that as more and more state and municipal workers become familiar with the RI.gov CMS, their updates will become more frequent across the board. Ultimately, for RI's municipal and state IT infrastructure to be truly world-class, we'll need a user community that is as robust and ubiqitous as the RI.gov platform.

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Bad news this morning when we came to set up for Providence and Beyond with John Abrams - South Mountain Company offices were burglarized last night, and John must stay on Martha's Vineyard to deal with the police, insurance, etc.

We are soldiering on in his absence and with Robert, a longtime colleague, playing both roles in what was to have been an In the Actors Studio type interview. We'll shorten this portion considerably and add the time to the cafe. 

John and Robert worked together on the Martha's Vineyard 50-year plan. The Island sought to diversify its economy from just tourism. But the planners recognized the need to look at the ecology, the economy and the Island's culture _before_ examining the built environment.

We also hoped John would talk more about the cooperative structure of South Mountain. Rather than an ESOP (employee stock ownership plan), it's a true cooperative where a finite number of people are both employees and owners. At least two factors are driving an increasing popularity of this model:

1. Baby Boomers who have started businesses want to get out, but don't want to sell out
2. Many entrepreneurs want to stay connected to their companies after they step away from full time management

We were going to talk some about the counterintuitive business approach at SoMoCo. They insist on building high levels of affordable housing, and it is very difficult to determine which units are affordable and which are "market rate".  

Lastly, we were going to ask him about how SoMoCo is dealing with the current economic downturn, especially in the housing sector. They list six steps they will take, and none of them is layoffs. Never was it suggested that the newest employees be more vulnerable, nor was it suggested that they take the opportunity to "cull" the workforce, eliminating the least effective workers.

Instead, the crisis has served to unite the company even more strongly.  

Our current plan would reschedule John sometime in January or February 2010. We hope to announce it in a few days.

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