Excited About Technology

I'm always excited about technology, but specifically today I am excited about the prospects of the Town of Cary Technology Task Force!  I have just come from a great short meeting to set our first agenda and I'm excited (can you tell that yet?).

Both Councilor Lori Bush and Asst. Town Manager Mike Bajorek are enthusiastic and passionate about this effort, so there should be no lack of support for this effort.  We have a lot to cover in a short time - only 8 meetings...

We are receptive to input, so let us know what you think we should be discussing as we develop the vision and details for how the Town’s use of technology services can better serve its citizens.

I'm Chair...

I've mentioned the Town of Cary Technology Task Force in a previous Blog. I was recommended for Chair of the Task Force by Lori Bush, but attended the council meeting (Agenda, YouTube) to see if this would be approved. After 3+ hours our topic finally came up and I was approved as the chair of the new Technology Task Force for the Town of Cary.

There are 9 meetings scheduled with a great group of very knowledgeable volunteers.  My job is now to craft an agenda and plan so that we (and the Town going forward) can be successful!

Technology Task Force News

Town of Cary Councilwoman Lori Bush has submitted her recommendations for the members of the Technology Task Force (TTF).  I am humbled to be singled out as the Chair of the task force as an additional member to the expected "up to 8" members as originally planned.  The issue still has to be formally discussed and approved by the Town Council at their July 26th meeting, so I guess I should not be counting chickens yet...

What a great group of people to be associated with!  They have a wealth of knowledge and experience on many, many technology tools.  My technology skills pale in comparison, but it looks like Lori selected me as more of a facilitator and one with knowledge of the Cary Boards and Commissions...

• Ian Cillay
• Laura Hamlyn
• Hal Goodtree (Hal received 6/6 council votes!)
• Eleanor Thorne
• Raymond Zeisz
• Eric Brown
• James Dixon (ISAB Member)
• Brandon Smith
• Ian Henshaw, Chair

Our mission:

Determine how the Town’s use of technology services can better serve its citizens. Specifically, the TTF shall review, evaluate, and prioritize new and emerging technologies that will facilitate better engagement, citizen outreach, and service delivery by increasing involvement and lowering costs, with the overall goal of making it easier for citizens to communicate with the Town and consume available information.

An important note from the formulation of the task force:

This review of the Towns technology services to external users would go hand in hand with staffs proposed development of a Strategic Information Technology (SIT) Plan. The SIT Plan, the development of which would be facilitated by Dr. Shannon Tufts of the UNC School of Government, will provide a framework for strategic IT investments and management for the next three years. Dr. Tufts efforts will mainly focus on the internal needs and challenges of the Town of Cary organization. 

Town of Cary - Social Media

The Town of Cary has dipped their toe into social media just a little more than the few twitter accounts they have had.  3 Facebook pages and a YouTube channel!  This got me thinking about the last Economic Development Committee meeting at the Town on June 6 where we were discussing social media:
http://ianhenshaw.blogspot.com/2012/06/economic-development-committee-mtg.html

There was still a reluctance from the group that social media was worth the effort.  There was some discussion about the Technology Task Force that was approved at the May 24th Council meeting.

I was going through some old e-mails and I remembered one thing that was going on during the meeting.  I had seen a tweet about a new Economic Development Partnership Website launch in Raleigh.  I pulled up the pages on my iPad and was showing this to Howard Johnson and Sandy Jordan during the meeting to see if it struck a chord with them that we were possibly being left in the dust and that Raleigh had found out that they could use social media for economic development.  I was disappointed in their reactions and after mulling it over after the meeting, I sent the following e-mail to the group:

FYI.  I saw this late today (tipped off by a Tweet...)

New Economic Development Partnership Website Launched (Raleigh)
http://content.govdelivery.com/bulletins/gd/NCRALEIGH-434a60 (Press Release)
http://www.investraleigh.com/ (Website)

Follow us:
http://www.facebook.com/RaleighPlanning (Facebook)
http://twitter.com/RalEconDev (Twitter)
http://www.youtube.com/cityofraleigh (You Tube)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/raleighgov/ (Flickr)

Sign up for Economic Development communications:
https://public.govdelivery.com/accounts/NCRALEIGH/subscriber/new?topic_id=NCRALEIGH_166
Sign in using your preferred social media account:

• Facebook
• Google
• Yahoo!

I am hoping that the push by Councilor Lori Bush on technology and the approval of the Technology Task Force has pushed the Town staff to realize that social media is a powerful tool to use to communicate with the citizens of the Town of Cary.  Hopefully the Cary Chamber will follow.

Student Power

Another in the fundraising annals of the Student Tuba section at Cary High.  I was not able to attend this car wash as we were busy moving our office, but one of the three student Tuba organizers was able to attend and quite ably "marshaled the troops".

My son Stephen was able to update the Heart of Cary Association (HoCA) with a flier as shown to the right on Thursday morning which might have helped....  An important factor this week was the announcement by Band President, Bob Murray, via the Cary Band e-mail lists of the fundraiser.  (Advertising to those most sensitive to your cause is very important.)

The new wrinkle for the car wash was a bake sale.  The end result was impressive:

• Car Wash - $463
• Bake Sale - $40
• Total for the morning = $503

One moral of the story is that car washes "make money" and bake sales "do not"...

The better moral of the story is that motivated students can make a huge difference!!!

My running total is:

• Student fundraising - $1,605
• Sponsorships - $1,225
• Total = $2,830

The last car washes are July 28 and 29, and then the students will be busy with their 2 week long band camp (8am - 9pm at Cary High in the parking lot in the summer heat...) and then school and marching season.  These students are on their way to great things so please help them to reach their goal.

HoCA Social Media Panel

This morning was a treat at the Heart of Cary Association (HoCA) meeting.  Not only was the meeting held at the Matthew's House, but the meeting was centered around a panel for Social Media!

What a great panel!

• Shelli Dallacqua, Shelten Media
• Hal Goodtree, CaryCitizen
• Michelle Muir, The Spoken Image
• Jennifer Fair
• Erin Smith, MMi Public Relations

My gripe I will get out and over quickly.  The e-mails announcing the event stated:

Also, because of the nature of the program we will not be able to solicit event updates from the membership or other’s in attendance. However if you would like to distribute ‘handouts’ please feel free to do so.

However, there was a long list of special reports and announcements that while interesting to the quite large group assembled shortened the time for the panel to only 20-25 minutes which did not allow much time to hear from such a great panel...

My takeaways:

1. Know your target audience and then decide which social media channel to use.
2. Get over your fear of using social media and start to develop your followers.
• What is important here is the quality of your followers and their engagement with your information, not the quantity of followers.
3. You need to know what is being posted about you on-line and this is an important part of your reputation management.
4. Your website is the hub and you need to tie everything into it.
• Your website represents you.  You must have an outstanding website!
5. Uniformity of your integration of the different social media channels is very important

Hal Goodtree by far had the best quote about how to define the young generation from the old in technology terms.  "It all depends on if you are a Digital native or a Digital immigrant"!  I hope you get a chance to hear this directly from Hal as it was funny and captivating.  (I'm not sure that was the actual quote, but it is what I remember...)

Oh, and by the way, the earth shook just before the panel was introduced...  Lyman Collins, Cultural Arts Manager for the Town of Cary, stated that the Town of Cary was moving to FaceBook, with their first pages for Lazy Daze, Spruce and an overall Town page!

Tuba Fundraising

The picture is worth a thousand words...

These students are on their way to bigger and better things!

Advisory Board Purgatory

This has been a long discussion this week regarding an Advisory Board that I am on.

The title of my Blog comes from a blog post by Tara Levy by the title "Avoid Advisory Board Purgatory", an article that a few of us have been quoting to try and deal with our situation.

An Advisory Board does not have any authority to deal with the policy and procedures of an organization.  When I was the president of the Board of a nonprofit, I thought that it was great to have such a "super group" to assist us when we needed, but actually I found it difficult in practice to communicate with this group along with my normal business, family and nonprofit Presidential duties...  (My change to our policy was to 'trap' all of the Past Presidents on the Advisory Board, so that we would always have their institutional knowledge and passion for the organization..., so here I am...)

We attempted to build a bridge between the Board and the Advisory Board by using the Past President as the liaison to the Advisory Board.  Now that I'm a part of the Advisory Board, I'm wondering why I am here and what the organization really needs from me?  It is hard to find out what is going on in the organization directly - I normally hear from other volunteers...

How can our Advisory Board assist when we know nothing more than other interested (or non-interested) individuals?

What has been your experience participating on an Advisory Board?  What insight can you give me?