According to this year’s Where the Jobs Are Report by the Partnership for Public Service, the federal government is operating shorthanded, with as many as 10,000 vacancies in mission-critical positions. That is a lot of necessary positions at federal agencies and offices currently unfilled, and a lot of shoes to fill for existing government careerists. With so many jobs unfilled, the government can’t afford for its employees to miss a lot of work, or agencies can and will effectively grind to a halt. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what’s happened this year.
First, there was the swine flu pandemic, which caused a mad scramble for continuity plans in government agencies and commercial enterprises alike. Next, a Metro accident that tragically took the lives of 9 passengers and injured close to 100 people disabled the Red Line and made it difficult, if not impossible, for Metro-dependant government employees to make it into their offices.
You would think the impact of these events alone would be catastrophic on productivity…but then the snow came. As we’ve discussed in previous posts, the lovingly named “snowpocalypse” brought the federal government to its knees by dropping enough snow to keep secondary roads unplowed for days, schools closed for over a week, and productivity in ruins.
Telework is the obvious answer to keeping the government functioning even when government employees are unable to make it to their offices. However, despite the events of the past year and the millions of dollars in lost productivity, a recent survey conducted by the Government Business Council showed that only one third of the responding government employees are allowed to telework.
The survey, which was given to a total of 419 GovernmentExecutive.com and Nextgov.com visitors from civilian and defense agencies, also exposed many reasons why telework has failed to gain broader adoption. The number one reason among eligible respondents was a lack of support from management.
The fact is, many managers in government agencies are not trained to manage teleworkers. The result is a fear of having distributed employees who are out of sight, and have work out of their minds. These managers fear that the employees they can’t see are not working. In addition, there’s a fear that communication and collaboration will suffer from a distributed workforce as well.
This is why video teleconferencing (VTC) is so important in the federal government today. VTC solutions allow managers at government agencies and organizations to see their employees and interact with them face-to-face. VTC also allows non-verbal communication such as body language, which other forms of communication such as telephone and instant message do not. This ensures natural conversations as if participants were in the same room. VTC also ensures that collaboration and communication stay strong between teammates by enabling simple and immediate conferences that rival herding everyone into a conference room.
Citizens need their government agencies to always be operating, and can’t afford to lose millions of taxpayer dollars in productivity. VTC can effectively remove the largest roadblock to more rapid and widespread adoption of telework. By breaking down the walls between government employees and telework, VTC is ensuring that the next pandemic or snowmaggedon doesn’t bring the government to a halt.
If you’d like to see the full report from the recent telework study conducted by the Government Business Council, visit our resource center. Although we do ask for readers to register, there is absolutely no cost to download the report, and other useful resources on telework and VTC.
We originally started the TANDBERG Public Sector blog to keep government employees, thought-leaders and decision makers informed about the ways video teleconferencing was being implemented across government agencies and organizations.
We were looking to highlight the ways in which video makes the government run more effectively, efficiently and smoothly and discuss some innovative ways it answers the difficult questions in government today.
We expected some public servants to find our discussions about teleworking, collaboration and face-to-face communication interesting, but we never expected what happened next. You showed up. A lot of you.
Soon, our readers were demanding to hear more.
So, we expanded our editorial coverage to discuss the ways that video was improving the educational experience for America’s students, making lessons more interactive, and even helping teach teachers.
We added coverage of healthcare and the ways that video is helping to save lives and bring treatments to people who were too far away from the specialists who could provide them. We even began discussing how courts and police and rescue workers were utilizing the technologies to keep our streets safe and better serve American citizens. And it STILL wasn’t enough.
So we’ve taken another step. Much like how our video conferencing technologies break down walls between people and agencies and organizations, we’ve broken down the walls between the TANDBERG blog authors and you, the readers.
Let me be the first to welcome you to www.breakdownthewalls.com.
This redesigned site offers the same interesting content about video conferencing in the public sector in a much easier to navigate format, making it easier to find content that is of interest to you. But it also offers much more.
Here you will find all of TANDBERG Public Sector’s social media activities, from YouTube videos to Twitter streams. You will also have access to a library of white papers, case studies and other resources designed to further educate you about how video provides a new way of working, governing, and learning. We encourage you to not only read what we have to say, but interact with us. Tell us your thoughts. Let us know how the trends we’re discussing are influencing you.
We hope you like this new site and that you will be a part of its success. Please feel free to engage with us…ask us questions…and start a dialogue. Break down the walls separating us, and we’ll show you how video can enable a new way of working.
We can’t wait to connect with you.
The TANDBERG Public Sector team just returned from the Department of Energy’s (DOE) 2010 Information Management Conference at San Antonio’s new JW Marriott. The brand new facility was filled with more than 500 vendors and DOE representatives discussing best practices and new technologies that can help the DOE communicate and operate more effectively.
This was the first year TANDBERG attended the event, and based on our conversations with DOE representatives, the timing was perfect to discuss the benefits of video teleconferencing (VTC). John Dunlap, the Acting Associate CIO and Director of IT Services for the DOE, has established initiatives specifically directed towards increasing collaboration and communication within the DOE. He is focused on finding more methods to enhance collaboration among the agency’s labs and video is one of those tools that will be utilized.
The DOE’s mission is to advance the national, economic, and energy security of the United States, to promote scientific and technological innovation in support of that mission, and to ensure the environmental cleanup of the national nuclear weapons complex. With such a broad mission, it should come as no surprise that the agency is composed of many decentralized organizations, with labs and offices scattered across the United States.
Despite the geographic distance separating these offices and labs, effective communication and collaboration are still mission critical. This is especially true of the DOE labs that are working on advanced sciences. VTC is the perfect solution in this situation. It not only allows natural, face-to-face communication between individuals regardless of the distance separating them, but also enables the easy and secure sharing of plans, documents and other things that are visual in nature.
With so much decentralization, it goes without saying that disparate network infrastructure within the agency can lead to problems with the acquisition and implementation of VTC solutions. The ability to interoperate, like TANDBERG’s VTC solutions, is critically important for the DOE, and many other government agencies, because it enables all existing network infrastructure across the agency to remain in place and reduces the cost and scope of a VTC solution installation.
VTC is helping to break down the walls between and within government agencies. At TANDBERG, we’re proud to be powering communication for federal agencies like the DOE and enabling a new way of working.
The TANDBERG Public Sector team just returned from colder than normal Orlando, home of the Air Force Association’s 26th Annual Air Warfare Symposium and Technology Exposition. Although the air outside was disappointingly cold, attendance was amazingly good.
The Air Warfare Symposium is an excellent forum for the senior leadership of the United States Air Force, including Secretary of the Air Force Michael B. Donley, Chief of Staff of the Air Force General Norton A. Schwartz, Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force James A. Roy and other top Air Force officials, to discuss best practices and the topics affecting the Air Force today. The technology exposition also gives these leaders an opportunity to see the latest in military technologies available from government contractors and other vendors.
In an exposition that is normally limited to weapons systems and other combat technologies, TANDBERG and its video teleconferencing (VTC) solutions may have been a surprising participant. However, according to our conversations with some of the senior Air Force leadership during the show, there’s a very good reason for that.
One of the biggest problems facing military commanders and four-star generals today is command and control. With today’s war effort comprised of many moving parts, the need for rapid, in-person communication between senior leaders and field commanders is greater than ever before. The use of VTC solutions enables this rapid, natural face-to-face communication regardless of the distance separating people.
Also, in today’s day and age, the United States very rarely finds itself fighting alone. NATO forces and multiple other nations are involved with almost all wartime efforts. The use of VTC among NATO and other nations ensures that war efforts are coordinated and that clear communication and collaboration can occur between individuals oceans apart, even in the most critical times.
With senior leadership at the Air Force and other branches of the military moving towards VTC solutions, the mass adoption of VTC throughout the military is on the horizon. Internationally, the NATO Consultation, Command and Control Agency (NC3A), which is tasked with aiding NATO nations with the acquisition of seamless and interoperable communications infrastructure, is also pushing for the adoption of VTC abroad. With movements for unilateral VTC adoption within the United States and around the globe, VTC is ensured a large part in military communication and collaboration today, and in the future.
VTC is breaking down the walls between commanding officers and their charges in the field, and breaking down the walls between military leaders across the globe. TANDBERG is proud to be enabling a new way of working for America’s armed forces, and a new era in military collaboration.
The Washington, D.C., area is predictably filled with federal government employees. Hill staffers, agency careerists, appointed officials, uniformed servicemen; they all call our nation’s capital home. With so many of the people relied upon to keep America’s government working all centered in one metro area, there’s a tremendous possibility that a major weather event could grind the gears of democracy to a halt.
Call it #snowpocalypse, #snowmaggedon or #snOMG. Regardless of the funny handle you’ve assigned the recent snow storms, by dumping multiple feet of cold, white powder across the region they have had a significant impact on every aspect of government.
The incredible amount of snowfall that the Washington metro area has experienced, and will continue to experience with additional snow forecasted this week, has left many neighborhoods unplowed and unable to be traveled via car. In addition, the region’s mass transit systems have seen multiple service interruptions. This has led the federal government to close outright for the safety of their commuting employees.
Luckily, the Obama administration and Office of Personnel Management (OPM) are taking steps to ensure that weather phenomena and other events can no longer bog down the federal government. One of theses steps is to increase the government’s number of teleworking employees. By enabling telework, government employees can continue to function in their jobs and accomplish mission-critical tasks regardless of their ability to make it into the office.
According to a recent NextGov article, OPM is working to increase the number of teleworking government employees by 50% by 2011. Also, the agency is designing a 500 employee pilot program that will enable them to gauge the effectiveness and productivity of teleworking employees.
Concerns about productivity while working from home remain some of the largest roadblocks to widespread adoption of telework among government agencies. Many managers fear that employees who are unsupervised outside of the office will see a decrease in productivity, collaboration and communication. This is also where the rapidly increasing adoption of video teleconferencing (VTC) can help.
VTC systems enable people to have face-to-face conversations, regardless of the distance separating them. By embracing VTC, government agencies can more comfortably embrace telework.
VTC is breaking down the huge, white snow drifts separating government employees and helping to usher in a new way of working for federal agencies. How is VTC helping your agency weather the snowpocalypse? Drop a comment and let us know!
Multiple recent events, from 9/11 to Hurricane Katrina, have led government pundits and officials to call for better communication between government agencies. This increased collaboration is necessary to keep citizens safe, respond to disaster and emergency, and operate more effectively and efficiently.
Unfortunately, there’s a significant roadblock for increasing collaboration within and among agencies. As a rising number of agencies turn to video teleconferencing (VTC), instant messaging and other advanced and rapid forms of communication, converged voice and data networks are relied upon more than ever. This creates a problem for disparate agencies each relying on a different vendor for their network and communications infrastructure.
The key to enabling interagency collaboration and communication across these varied, disparate networks is interoperability. At TANDBERG, interoperability and firewall traversal are some of the most important features of our VTC solutions.
In fact, TANDBERG was first to deliver a telepresence solution that could interoperate with third-party systems, the first to enable high-definition video between Microsoft Office Communicator and multi-screen telepresence, and the first to deliver HD telepresence and video conferencing solutions that can interoperate with any other standards compliant systems. Interoperability is at the core of our VTC products.
The ability to enable face-to-face communication regardless of distance gives VTC solutions the ability to truly bring government agencies together and increase inter-agency communication and collaboration. When agencies are looking for VTC systems that will help them work more closely with other government organizations, the most important feature should always be true interoperability.
Helping the government better serve it’s constituents through collaboration and teamwork – now that’s a new way of governing.
The past 10 years have seen their fill of disasters, including terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and devastating earthquakes in Haiti this year. Impossible to predict and unpreventable, these events are examples of why disaster preparedness is so important. Crisis situations arise quickly and with little or no notice, and the speed of which we can provide necessary aid and assistance can often mean the difference between life and death.
Even with all these disasters, CNN reported today that a commission established to assess national security measures gave the U.S. government a failing grade in improving response time, especially response to biothreats. The commission found that despite improvements to identifying and preventing incidents, the past three administrations had failed to improve preparedness and response.
The failure to implement video teleconferencing (VTC) for delivery of healthcare during crisis situations is an incredible example of missed opportunities to improve disaster response.
Video teleconferencing (VTC) has seen rapid adoption in the healthcare arena as one way to deliver medical care quickly to those who need it. VTC has incredible potential in disaster response for increasing access to specialized health and medical services, enabling remote monitoring to control disease outbreaks and by providing back-up surge capacity for local healthcare providers.
Unfortunately, even with a wide array of implementation where VTC is helping to save lives and provide medical care to those in need, the wide-spread infrastructure and equipment investments and installations needed to bring VTC to mass disaster-relief operations have yet to be made. In fact, the American Telemedicine Association (ATA) has grown frustrated by the sheer amount of recommendations that they’ve made to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for use of VTC solutions in disaster recovery that have been ignored.
VTC solutions are capable of bringing care to victims of disasters. By enabling VTC in disaster response, the American government can break down the walls between skilled specialists and the victims who need care and empower a new way of responding.
We’ve talked extensively in the past about how video teleconferencing (VTC) technologies help government agencies and organizations run more effectively and efficiently. We’ve also discussed the ways that healthcare and education installations of VTC solutions help bring resources to remote and geographically isolated areas.
A recent article in FutureGov Magazine, which focuses on the modernization and use of new technologies in government, healthcare and education, contains an incredible example of VTC solutions making government work better and leveling the playing field for remote and geographically isolated regions.
The article discusses China’s largest province Qinghai, which stretches across the northeastern Tibetan Plateau. Despite its size, Qinghai is one of the least populated provinces, with approximately two-thirds of its 5.2 million people living in the countryside and outside of cities.
With a majority of people scattered amongst the region’s mountains, deserts and grasslands, the local government offices are spread out. Some district offices are up to 1000 kilometers from the provincial capital of Xi’ning. With inclement weather common in the province, travel for government officials is expensive and difficult, if not impossible.
Last year, a VTC network connecting 42 county government and 13 provincial party committee offices was installed. The network has already hosted more than 600 meetings, some of which were between more than 100,000 government officials in Qinghai at the same time.
The system has already saved an estimated $3 million in travel expenses alone. The VTC system has also allowed individuals who may never have met in person before to have face-to-face conversation.
By allowing government officials to collaborate and communicate regardless of the distance between them, VTC is ushering in a new way of working in China. How can VTC help your agency work better?
The Obama administration is pushing agencies to begin insourcing jobs by bringing them back to government employees and relying less on outside vendors. The OMB is reaching out to agencies to help them appropriately understand and handle a directive that appears at face-value to be a complete about-face from the previous administration.
The administration is pushing for insourcing for many reasons. First, there is a perception, warranted or not, that outsourcing jobs is wasteful and expensive, and that agencies can be handling governmental tasks at a savings to the American taxpayer. Insourcing is also being heralded as a way of increasing collaboration among agencies and creating a tighter-knit and interconnected system where government employees work closely together.
However , there are some issues arising from this new directive for insourcing. One is the misinterpretation among agencies that they’re being asked to stop outsourcing altogether and bring all jobs in house. Another problem is directly tied to human resources and hiring. Insourcing will bring many jobs back to government agencies who are already missing tens of thousands employees in mission-critical positions, according to this year’s Where the Jobs Are report from the Partnership for Public Service.
The other problem lies in the directive for agencies to work closer together and collaborate across the board. Unfortunately, with agencies making their own purchasing decisions, the networks across agencies are disparate and disconnected. The video teleconferencing (VTC) systems that agencies have been turning to as a way to increase communication and collaboration internally could go a long way towards doing the same for interagency collaboration, but the lack of connected systems remain a roadblock.
This is why interoperability of VTC solutions is so important. Interoperability is essential for allowing disparate networks and VTC solutions to work together. Also, with cyber attack and network security on the minds of all agencies, firewalls and other security measures are often put in place with little to no consideration for video networks. This makes the ability to traverse firewalls essential for both network security and interagency collaboration.
VTC solutions are becoming increasingly popular in federal agencies, and with this directive to insource jobs, they will become even more essential. With the government already straining to fill mission-critical jobs at agencies, and with the government workforce graying and near retirement, flexibility and telework are going to continue to be job benefits necessary to keep aging government employees working and attracting the best talent into public service.
TANDBERG equipment has been the choice of many government agencies in large part for its ability to interoperate with other networks and equipment. By breaking down the walls between government agencies and giving them the means to increase flexibility and retain top talent, TANDBERG is providing a new way of working within the federal government.
The TANDBERG team is currently in San Antonio, Texas, attending the Air Force Air Education and Training Command Symposium at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center.
Hosted by the Air Education Training Command (AETC), the symposium serves to educate senior leadership and airmen on the innovations, technologies and techniques available for training today’s Air Force. This is instrumental in the AETC’s mission of recruiting, training and educating all Air Force personnel worldwide.
In our conversations with some of the over 4,000 airmen and leaders in attendance, we continue to hear one major challenge facing the AETC today. With Air University, the Air Force Institute of Technology and the Air Force Academy all falling under the AETC’s umbrella, and a worldwide network of deployed airmen, officers and decision-makers, how can they bring the courses and training necessary to all of them in a more effective and efficient way?
In fact, with only a handful of expert instructors to serve thousands of potential students distributed across the globe, the cost of bringing students and instructors together was one of the single largest expenditures in the AETC’s budget.
This is why video teleconferencing (VTC) is becoming increasingly important to the AETC, and to professional development across government agencies and organizations today. By utilizing VTC solutions, the AETC can deliver the best knowledge and expertise to airmen, regardless of where they are.
This brings real-time, interactive training and educational content right to the student, significantly reducing the cost of mentoring and educating airmen in the field by taking away the need for travel. VTC also makes the most knowledgeable instructors more effective by expanding their reach and allowing them to mentor airmen thousands of miles away as if they were in the same room.
The mission of the United States Air Force is to fly, fight and win in air, space and cyberspace. Without proper training, mentoring and instruction, there’s no way that our nation’s airmen could remain the best in an increasingly dangerous world. By delivering instruction and educational content via video, the AETC is breaking down the walls between the most knowledgeable instructors and airmen around the world and empowering a new way of teaching.