City of Seattle Citizens Telecommunications and Technology Advisory Board (CTTAB) July 8th meeting minutes. Topics covered include: New Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Michael Mattmiller on Next Generation Data Center and city technology goals, Privacy Symposium planning, Get Online education campaign, Technology Matching Fund grants, CTTAB appointment status, use of Lync for meetings, CTTAB endorsement of Michael Mattmiller for CTO.
This meeting was held:
July 8th, 2014, 6–8 PM, Seattle Municipal Tower: 700 – Fifth Avenue
Podcast available at http://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/CTTAB/podcast/cttab.xml
Attending:
Board Members: Ben Krokower, Dana Lewis, Brian Hsi, Phillip Duggan, Beryl Fernandes, Stacey Wedlake, Daniel Hoang, Rob Dolin
Public: Phil Mocek (Seattle Privacy Coalition), Christopher Sheats (Seattle Privacy Coalition), Greg Harmon, Ann Summy, Carmen Rahm (Seattle Public Schools), Kevin O’Boyle, Joneil Custodio, Jose Vasquez, Dorene Cornwell (STAR Center), Chris Lona (CL Design),
Staff: Michael Mattmiller (Chief Technology Officer – pending Council Confirmation), Sabra Schneider, David Keyes
Meeting was called to order
Introductions by participants.
The June 10th minutes were approved with a note that the privacy symposium is not the end goal of the committee, but is intended as a part of a broader scope for the committee.
The agenda was approved
Interim Chief Technology Officer report: Michael Mattmiller
He is going through the City Council confirmation process. He has responded to questions posed by the Council and hopes to be confirmed on July 21st. The public is welcome to attend.
Presentation slides:
.He was with Microsoft prior to this, where he focused on governance in software as a service products and issues, including privacy.
Before that he was with Price Waterhouse Coopers working on federal government IT governance issues.
Michael shared his personal use of multiple platforms and interest in considering diversity of platforms and Seattle’s great diversity of tech companies. He also strongly supports the City’s Race and Social Justice Initiative. CM Harrell will be at DOIT Staff meeting.
He is 2 weeks into the job. Has met many staff. Cloud computing, bring your won devices, and many more challenges for him and staff to take on. He has begun meeting with key stakeholders. He has also been learning about the department and holding intensive sessions with staff.
90 day agenda: The departments are trusting us to deliver quality services. In conjunction with the data center project, he is conducting an organizational assessment across the department with the goal of determining how to ensure we best meet needs of customers. 2015 will be a very full year.
We will work on Mayor’s initiatives, including broadband and also a digital equity initiative, which David and Sabra will be very involved with. Michael will report on the Broadband strategy at the next meeting.
Lastly in the first 90 days, he will be focused on articulating the mission of DoIT.
The DoIT mission statement and goals document also outlines 3 key objectives and supporting actions.
From the document:
Mission: Use technology to support making Seattle safe, vibrant, affordable, and interconnected for all by harnessing the innovation and creativity that has long-defined our great city.
Goal: Seattle is a city that develops, supports, and delivers innovation inside City government that benefits our residents and businesses. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the technology solutions provide by the Department of Information Technology – DoIT.
- Key Objective 1 – Serve the information needs of our residents, businesses, NGO partners and visitors to Seattle, with government information and data solutions available across web, mobile, and television platforms.
- Key Objective 2 – Lead by providing our internal City customers (employees and departments) innovative communication and information technology solutions that support effective and efficient services to our constituents.
- Key Objective 3 – Make Seattle a national municipal leader in championing technology access and affordability for all the people of our City.
See the City IT Goals pdf document for details on supporting actions, including equity in access and broadband.
Michael: This is not a completed plan. Michael will be working on the details with the Executive Leadership Team (directors) of DoIT.
Next Generation Data Center report: From a scoping and visioning multi-departmental group, the following was decided as our intention for the data center architecture: 1) A primary data center in Puget Sound, 2) a secondary center, probably in eastern Washington, 3) co-locating the data center, 4) that it should be about 36,000 sq feet and scalable, and 4) that it would be a hybrid approach with some shared services. The secondary would be storage, possibly hot site, testing and qa.
Beryl: Are you looking at this with cloud computing?
Michael: Certainly we recognize growth of cloud computing, for instance with our Office 365 project. Cloud could reduce or maintain our size needs, so we are looking at that.
Audience question: Are we looking at environmental impact?
Michael: Good question.
Sabra: We did look at that a bit with rfp’s looking at green infrastructure and technology use. In our area there is more renewable power.
Rob: A dominant cost will be power, so look at this and weight it against cost of driving to maintain the facility.
We are looking at lessors providing support services.
Ben: Will there be consolidation of services?
Michael: To get concurrence on use of the data center and infrastructure requirements, we will first get to the one data center and as we do this, I think departments will get more comfortable with virtualization and that DoIT can provide the services they need. This is a big change for some departments. We want to bring people along in a way that they feel comfortable.
There was some additional discussion of long term goal of increased shared services, though this will take time and is likely to be a hybrid. There is a long history
Rob: More are thinking of platform as a model.
Michael: As we look at standards, we need to make sure they are reflective of current computing practices and platform is a part of that. We are getting more comfortable with software as a service.
There is discussion of some of the projects that are underway, including the Summit financial system upgrade by Finance and Administrative Services (FAS) and by Department of Planning and Development.
Michael: Tina Podlodowski has left. We hope she will come back to advise the City, but accomplished quite a bit in the first 6 months of the Murray administration, including the search for the police chief and laying the foundation for the Mayor’s broadband plan.
Rob: Congratulations on the Customer Service Bureau system for the FindIT FixIT app, reporting and tracking – the Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) system.
Michael: DoIT assists with the servers, but this work is done primarily by FAS. It’s a Motorola product and FindIT FixIT works on top of this. He encourages people to use the FindIt FixIt app.
David: The Mayor has additional FindIt FixIt walks coming up.
Public Comment: There were no public comments made.
Privacy Committee: Vote on Privacy Committee proposal motion (36:15)
Ben: At the last meeting, there was general discussion of support for the privacy committee work and the proposed symposium, but we did not actually vote. A motion was drafted that we are presenting for a vote tonight.
This is the motion that was drafted:
MOTION: “Having heard the presentation by Beryl Fernandes, CTTAB Chair of the Privacy Committee, on plans for the panel/symposium on Privacy, and the ensuing discussion by the Board and members of the public in attendance, CTTAB votes in favor of Beryl proceeding with plans.”
Moved and seconded.
Rob: Is staff good with helping with this event?
Sabra: We need to clarify what helping means. Staff supports it, but needs more clarity.
Ben: We expect this will come as the committee defines more of the workplan.
Motion Approved: The motion was approved by all CTTAB members.
Beryl: Assuming it could be scheduled in Sept, but early in September, the Supreme Court goes into session and Mary Yu is available. We are looking at last Thursday in August, 5-7:30 pm
Sabra: Will need to look at the room availability. She is concerned that people won’t be available at that time due to end of summer and needing more time for marketing.
Ben: If we don’t think we can have the appropriate attendance or organizations in 6 weeks, we should postpone it.
Beryl: She thinks there is interest. When we put out the announcement, we should ask people to RSVP. How many does the City Hall Bertha Knight Landes room hold?
Sabra and David: We’ve used Bertha Knight Landes for hackathon and social media training events. Have had about 150 on round tables, but it will hold more in auditorium.
We’ve used other rooms for breakout sessions as well in the past.
Staff can help get specific information on this.
Beryl: SPL has also expressed interest and has rooms.
There are a number of volunteers ready to go. We talked about this being a bottom up event – how has privacy impacted people, including people of color. How do we tap into the concerns an isuses they have. One idea has been to tap into those communities. We can have our volunteers help do focus groups.
Rob: Suggests the committee works on details.
Beryl agreed.
Sabra: She’s volunteering, but for real community engagement, to put the word out and get feedback, it could be difficult to do in 6 weeks.
Beryl: Envisions speakers coming from the communities, with first hand information, sharing case stories. Talking about 5-7:30. Could have breakout sessions starting earlier. This is something we can talk about. Lining up panelists is happening now. We need to select from the list of possible panelists.
Michael: Defining the outcomes will also help narrow down who the speakers are.
Ben: Can you share the committee meeting dates with CTTAB members?
Phillip: Is interested, but his participation in multiple meetings could be challenging in the next 6 weeks.
Rob, Phil, Christopher interested in volunteering.
Beryl: critical to have a small team of 4-5 to help.
Daniel: Who is sponsoring?
Michael: From resolution, it’s CTTAB, as a commission of the City.
Beryl: We could have other sponsors. CTTAB is just facilitating this.
Agreement to talk about it in committee and make more decisions.
Get Online Project Update – David Keyes (50:50)
Phillip and others have helped. Dana helped with info for the 1st Get Online Health campaign. The second has been Get Online for Jobs.
Two goals:
1) Connect people with relevant information and see what they can do with the Internet, particularly focused on low adopters, and offering practical tips.
2) Let low income residents know where they can get information on lower cost Internet as well as public access computer sites and training.
There is online as well as large print distribution of leaflets and posters. We’ve distributed over 10,000 for each campaign. Since the GetOnline 2700 different users, 6400 sessions, Just before 4th of July 300 new users visited the site. Vicky’s been getting 3-4 calls per week from people wanting more info on the discounted Internet and computers.
The fall campaign will be on education. If you see the GetOnline leaflets or posters, let Vicky know (Vicky.yuki@seattle.gov). Please help distribute leaflets. We can provide a stack for you.
Learning and the Web is the next campaign. We welcome your brainstorm ideas. There is a Google doc with ideas. Contact David or Vicky with your ideas. What audience should we target. What are great resources you know about?
Jose Vasquez: Are these available in Spanish or other languages.
David: Not to date, but we are interested in doing something. We would like your feedback on what items would be best to translate. We know we are only providing starting points and referring to the experts (such as library or worksource sites). We’re giving people a starting point since we heard all the results from searches can be confusing.
We are about to issue a press release on the Jobs campaign. We will work with our Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs to get this material out to ethnic media. We do want to be careful to do translations in a way that are complete, so we don’t lead people to get stuck with limited translations.
Beryl: Does this replicate what the public work agencies are doing.
David: Our goal is to point people to resources. What we’ve learned is that what’s not out there much is how to use technology effectively in these realms (eg, they may point people to job sites, but not instruct on how to evaluate or navigate the sites).
The other thing that others aren’t doing is providing the info about where you can go for lower cost Internet and public access sites.
Carmen Rahm: There is an opportunity to reach parents through the school district and mailers to parents in the packets, perhaps targeting certain areas. He also doesn’t see links from the District web site to the City web site info. Let’s put something on the sites and find ways to partner.
Public comment: Google offers a translation button for a page.
Sabra, then David: We have looked at this and talk about it often. The translations are still not always very good and there can be inaccuracies. We’re trying to figure out if it’s ok to
Suggestion: Could we use school classes to do this as a project?
Carmen: In the School District, everything is translated into about 8-10 languages and this reachs about 75-80 percent. There are about 140 languages in the District families.
Sabra: City of Seattle
Rob: There are browser plug-ins, may set Chrome to do auto translate. Best to translate by human where critical and allow people to choose to use tools for other elements.
David: What we heard from our community research is that it would be helpful to have abstracts which are translated or translatable, so that people know whether to get help getting more info.
Jose: Those are good starting points, but you always need a human to connect with. There is also a cultural component to translation.
Dorene: There is usually a quality assurance in professional translation. Kids providing translating may not have the context for what they are asked to translate for.
David: We usually have a second confirmation of translations.
Joneil: are we sending the GetOnline materials to Tech Matching Fund grantees.
Beryl: People get culturally relevant job info at community sites.
David: That’s why we are distributin and partnering with community organizations.
Jose: This is also important because peope are not always trusting of government.
David: There was early discussion from CTTAB on whether they wanted to do some training. This would be worth revisiting.
Technology Matching Fund 2014 Projects
Technology Matching Fund legislation to approve the 2014 grants will be at City Council on July 30th at 2 pm. Following this will be a reception in the Mayor’s Office. There are 23 projects and we expect people from each of the organizations.
Beryl: It’s a lively event and incredibly important to people in the community to be received by City Hall.
Ben: Highly recommend that people attend. It’s very heartening and shows the good work being done.
David: It’s a great chance to see the communities and get a sense of the impact that the projects will make on the community.
CTTAB position appointments
David: We’ve conducted some interviews and are awaiting a decision on who the Mayor wants to appoint.
Ben: We have also started the process for 2015 appointments,
David: We’ve been working with Pedro Gomez, the Mayor’s Boards and Commissions Chair on this and are hoping to also fill the upcoming Public Access to telecommunications and Education representative positions at the same time. There are also 2 Council positions opening up at the end of the year.
Beryl: How did they come up with those categories, Education and Public Access
David: The ordinance establishing the Board and the make-up of the Board defines that there be these two positions.
Committee reports and descriptions:
David sent out the committee descriptions twice previously. These have the chairs listed, a description of the committee and a brief description of key work items being planned for 2014. He has been waiting for affirmation or edits to be able to post it accurately to the web site.
Ben: Chairs and committees, please look at these descriptions,
David: He leaves it up to the committees to let David know if you want to list
Rob: Motion that if the Chairs and Vice Chairs approve the description, then we use those for the web site.
Motion approved.
CTTAB Endorsement of Michael Mattmiller as CTO
Ben: He will try to get to the Council meeting for the appointment.
Rob: Moves that CTTAB approves the appointment of Michael Mattmiller as CTO. Second by Daniel.
Approved unanimously.
Michael: Thank you very much.
Lync use for the CTTAB meetings
Michael: The Office365 implementation is taking some time
Rob: Move that we attempt to hold August meeting electronically.
Ben: He opposes this. If we are going to have a meeting, we need to
David: We talked about two stages, one with just members
Brian: That would be great.
Dana: Yes, testing it among ourselves will help inform us what we need to prepare and we also need time to be able to publicize that this will be how the public can attend.
Ben: He is not sure of issues, but wants to make sure these are identified and addressed.
Brian: There could be a number of factors (first time user perspective, number of users, etc) that should be captured and addressed.
Dana: There is a difference between us testing and making it public.
Rob: Skype is more broadly deployed, but since Lync looks like the City system to be implemented, that would be good to try with.
David: The Board also needs to consider public meeting requirements.
Bryan: Use Lync as an add on.
Rob: Need to fully test.
Brian: Can run a technical test, work out meeting norms.
Michael: Will talk to DoIT Office 365 staff.
Could CTTAB help outline what support documents are needed?
Dana: Would like a back up tech plan if it fails.
Rob: He participates in other groups that use electronic means.
Daniel: Offers to use his company’s Lync service to test.
Ben: We do need to determine the open meeting implications or requirements.
There was additional discussion.
Phillip: Cancelling August meeting could give time for committee work.
Rob: I move we cancel our August meeting and encourage our committees to use July and August meetings to attempt to meet electronically for July and August.
Vote was unanimous and the August meeting was cancelled.
Meeting was adjourned.