Google Data » Dan Israel

Larimer County Moves to Google Apps in Just 3 Days

Dan Israel — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 16:50:00 +0000

Editor’s note: Today, our guest blogger is Andy Paratore, CIO of Larimer County in Colorado. Home to nearly 300,000 residents in north-central Colorado, the county’s offices are in the city of Fort Collins. Larimer County shares a border with the State of Wyoming, and both will soon have a common email system, as well.

Please join Andy for a live webcast about making a rapid transition to the cloud this Wednesday, November 17, 2010 at 2:00 p.m. EDT / 11:00 a.m. PDT / 6:00 p.m. GMT. Register today.

While most people watched fireworks over the July 4th weekend, the Larimer County government used the holiday to switch all our employees to Google Apps. With this “big bang” approach, it took just three days for us to migrate our 1,800 employees and over four million email messages to Google’s web-based email and collaboration applications. As a result of this rapid switch, the county saved implementation costs, improved mobile access to information, and provided employees with new and innovative applications to help us do our jobs.

Of course, careful planning and preparation were key to making this fast move to the cloud. We did a detailed comparison of Google Apps and several on-premise solutions and found Google delivered the best value and features. We had 100 county employees pilot the applications for six weeks, which allowed us to identify and resolve issues in advance of the big migration. And we took advantage of the contract put in place by the Colorado Statewide Internet Portal Authority (SIPA) and Denver-based Google Apps partner Tempus Nova.

By switching to Google from our prior on-premise Novell Groupwise system, Larimer County benefits in many ways. We initially expect to save $50,000-$75,000 annually in server and support costs, and hope to save even more in the future as we take advantage of more capabilities of Google Apps; these are important savings for a county facing challenging budget circumstances. Perhaps more importantly, we’re enabling county employees to be more productive: offering additional collaboration capabilities like chat, real-time document sharing, and easy-to-build websites; allowing access to information from work, home or on the road with the same user interface; and making them less dependent on IT with an extensive set of online training and help tools that allow them to resolve questions themselves.

I look forward to sharing our experience with other organizations that are looking to make a rapid move to the cloud, please join me on Wednesday’s webinar to learn more.

By Andy Paratore, CIO, Larimer County

Posted by Dan Israel, Google Apps for Government Team

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Wyoming is Going Google

Dan Israel — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 14:00:00 +0000

Wyoming is a state of many firsts. In 1872, it became home to the world’s first national park – Yellowstone. In 1925, its citizens elected Nellie Tayloe Ross the first woman governor of a U.S. state. Now in 2010, we’re thrilled that Wyoming is the first state in the country to announce plans to move all state government employees to Google Apps for Government.

According to Wyoming CIO Bob von Wolffradt, all state agencies – representing 10,000 employees – will migrate to Google Apps within a year. This will be the first time all Wyoming state employees share a common communications platform, which will improve their ability to collaborate with each other in serving the citizens of Wyoming.

The decision to go Google was the result of a transparent and competitive evaluation process that began roughly two years ago. Wyoming solicited proposals from multiple vendors and awarded the contract to Google partner Tempus Nova. The state estimates the move to Google Apps will save Wyoming taxpayers $1 million annually.

Many other states around the country are using Google Apps, including departments in Colorado, Kansas and New Mexico. Colorado, Iowa, Maryland, New York, and Oregon are also bringing Apps to their K-12 classrooms. All these governments are saving money while equipping their employees with modern collaboration tools that carry the assurance of federal government security certification.

We welcome Wyoming to the cloud, and look forward to working with them and Tempus Nova to make the project a success.

Posted by Dan Israel, Google Apps for Government Team

Multnomah County Goes Google

Dan Israel — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 18:00:00 +0000

Editor’s note: Today’s guest blogger is Sherry Swackhamer, CIO of Multnomah County, Oregon. Multnomah County is located in northwest Oregon; it’s county seat is the city of Portland. More than 4,500 Multnomah County employees provide over 715,000 residents a wide range of health and human services, public safety services and other government services.

This morning, Multnomah County completed the transition of most county employees to Google Apps for Government. In Oregon, local governments like Multnomah County have faced difficult budget circumstances and diminishing resources for many years, while experiencing growing demand for services. In order to effectively continue providing needed services in our community, it’s critical that we seek ways to become ever more innovative and efficient.

Switching to Google Apps plays an important role in achieving these goals. This new environment increases government transparency by allowing employees complete access to email and information on demand, vastly improving employee efficiency and collaboration while saving taxpayers approximately $100,000 each year in licensing and related costs and up to $500,000 in staff time and staff costs.

This transition was informed by a careful analysis to evaluate our technology needs and options. Multnomah County considered two cloud-based options for replacing our old system for email, calendar and contacts. We selected Google Apps due to its low cost, ease of use, and innovative capabilities that will allow county employees to be more collaborative and productive in their jobs.

With 250 times the email storage of our prior email system, Google Apps will save employees considerable time previously spent deleting or archiving old emails, while allowing each department to follow specified email retention policies. The web based technology means employees can access their information from any internet-connected device.

New collaborative tools like searchable instant messaging and real-time collaboration in word processing and spreadsheets provide Multnomah employees with useful and innovative tools to help them do their jobs. In fact, the independent analysis found that the document sharing capabilities of Google Docs meet the needs of the vast majority of county employees.

Currently, every county employee is licensed to use the complete suite of Microsoft Office applications, but many staff members only use a small portion of those features. Google Apps provides Multnomah County with equivalent capabilities for no additional cost. Many employees will be able able to do their jobs without those costly software packages in the future.

As an added benefit, all county employees now have a shorter email address. That makes our email addresses easier to remember and much simpler to share with members of the public and those with whom we conduct business.

We began testing Google Apps with a small group of IT users and expanded that to a pilot of 150 and later 500 county employees. These employees came from a variety of county agencies and allowed us to identify and work through any issues with the migration. Our workforce has shown a high degree of interest and engagement in the project and have demonstrated that we’re ready to learn, explore and collaborate. We’ve gone Google.

by Sherry Swackhamer, CIO, Multnomah County

Posted by Dan Israel, Google Apps for Government Team

https://secure.google.maps/

Dan Israel — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 12:21:00 +0000

Google Maps just got more secure. We've introduced a new feature for Google Maps API Premier, allowing our enterprise customers to access Google Maps API Premier securely over https. This means all communications between the customer's website and the Google Maps servers are sent securely, and offers a better experience to people looking at the maps on secure web pages.

Previously, when a Google Map was embedded in an encrypted web page, users would get a pop-up message saying the page included both secure and non-secure content. No one likes pop-up messages and the extra clicks they require. We heard from several companies using Google Maps API Premier on secure pages who wanted to improve the user experience. We value the product input we get from our customers and we're pleased to be able to accommodate this request.

Several companies have already started using the secure Google Maps API Premier. For example, Thomson Reuters has started to implement secure Google Maps as part of their Healthcare website. Other uses include ATM or branch locators for banking websites and secure websites with sensitive customer data.

This new feature is only available with Google Maps API Premier. So, if you want to put fast, user-friendly maps on your secure website, contact us. If you're already experiencing the benefits of Google Maps API Premier and want to start using this feature, please contact customer support.

Posted by Thor Mitchell, Technical Solutions Engineer, Google Maps API Premier

Google Maps API: Don’t take our word for it

Dan Israel — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 13:48:00 +0000

We keep seeing Google Maps popping up in new places, helping businesses provide a more interactive experience to help their customers find what they're looking for, whether it's a store location, a property, a destination, or even a friend.

But don't take our word for it. Listen to our customers themselves. With more than 150,000 websites using the Google Maps API, we hear new stories every day about how they're putting Google Maps to work.

Like this video from the New York Times, which developed 1,600 maps for their website in just 3 days with Google Maps API Premier. Today, over 50% of the pages in the New York Times travel section feature a Google Map.

Those of you in the market for contemporary home design may have seen Crate & Barrel using Google Maps API Premier to provide all-new interactive store locators for stores across the US, as well as its new brand, CB2. The company plans to open its first store in Canada next month, and they're bringing Google Maps along to help Canadian shoppers locate the new stores.

One of the world's largest providers of online real estate listings, Real Estate Australia, has seen a substantial lift in the volume and quality of customers since introducing the Google Maps API to its property search. Also in Australia, an innovative service from Mapmates helps people locate their friends and colleagues in real-time using the GPS capabilities of their mobile phone. Mapmates is taking advantage of the continuous innovation our customers get with the Google Maps API. They have already embedded Google StreetView for cities around Australia, released just last week.

You might say that Google Maps is spreading like wildfire -- which brings to mind another interesting story about San Diego radio station KPBS using Google Maps to keep citizens informed about the spread of wildfires last October.

Posted by Dan Israel, Product Marketing Manager

Helping small business navigate government

Dan Israel — Fri, 02 May 2008 14:25:00 +0000

Posted by Dan Israel, Google Enterprise - Government Products

We just published a case study on the Business Gateway program, a US government initiative that provides a one-stop source of information to help small businesses navigate the government.

This project is noteworthy for a number of reasons. First, the collaboration. Not only does the Business Gateway program involve 21 different federal agencies, but it also provides small businesses access -- with a single query on business.gov -- to resources from thousands of state and local government agencies across the country, using Google Custom Search.

Second, the Business Gateway folks understand that "all business is local" -- to paraphrase Tip O'Neill. Much of what small business owners need to know is specific to where they're located. This website knows when a search includes a geographic term and uses that information to point the user in the right direction. For example, search business.gov for "small business development center, Chicago, IL". Not only does business.gov provide search results from the city of Chicago and Cook County, but it also displays an interactive Google Map to let the small business owner pinpoint available resources in the Chicago area and the rest of the state.

We applaud the folks at the Business Gateway program for giving small businesses such a helpful tool.

Put Your Business on Our Maps

Dan Israel — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 15:02:00 +0000

Posted by Jim Payne, Product Manager

We're excited to announce a new product designed specifically for businesses who want to put Google Maps on their website: Google Maps API Premier. We've taken customer feedback and added several features to this product especially for companies:

- A SLA that guarantees 99.9% uptime
- Customer support for critical issues
- Customer control over ads

Not to mention all the benefits of the most intuitive mapping solution available, including high interactivity, driving directions, satellite imagery, terrain -- and street view in select cities, and fast performance, even on the busiest websites.

Google Maps is the #1 mapping site in the world, and more than 50,000 active sites use the Maps API -- including companies like Kayak, Ace Hardware, and Trulia. The new Premier product makes it even more attractive for companies to add Google Maps to their website. Especially in industries like retail, travel, real estate, and news where location information is critical to your customers' understanding of the products you are selling.

If you're interested, contact us and we'll let you know how to get on our maps.

Google Maps and Public Safety

Dan Israel — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 13:36:00 +0000

Posted by Dan Israel, Google Enterprise, Government Products

I recently reviewed an interesting case study about CrimeReports.com, a website that makes crime data from local law enforcement agencies available on the internet using Google Maps. CrimeReports.com is a partnership between a company called Public Engines and local police departments across the country -- from San Jose, CA to Washington, DC. These police departments wanted to make information about neighborhood safety directly available to the public, but did not have the resources to set this up themselves. Enter Public Engines, who built a service using the Google Maps API they are making available at a low cost to any interested police department.

In the past, local crime information could be difficult for citizens to find -- they could read police blotters in local newspapers or watch the evening news -- but it wasn't easy to see historical data or understand trends. By providing the data in a rich, visual interface, plus letting citizens get alerts if something new happens in their neighborhood -- CrimeReports.com makes information accessible to citizens in a much more useful way. If want to learn more, read the full case study.

The advent of new Internet technologies like blogs, wikis, & RSS makes it easier than ever for government to share information directly with the citizens they serve, without the need for any intermediaries. This sort of direct communication can be extremely valuable in letting citizens know what government officials are doing in their community. We're always on the look-out for other good examples of this; if you know of any, please share.