Previous page:The role of CIO
The e-FM project has many dimensions within it, and we tried many different things. We tried to push the limit of what we have with data integration, which is really tying together the three different kinds of data: the traditional kind of attribute data that's in a database, the spatial information that in the past has been in GIS systems and the linking together of all electronic information.
I think the main reason we won the awards is that we did all this in a time when there was a core review being done with policy changes and business processes yet to be fully defined. Our staff did a tremendous job pulling this off.
Q. How did this help to optimize resources?
A. I like to call it "five days in five seconds." In the past, when the forest industry was required to report to the Ministry, companies would have to ask their IT service providers to print the report and submit it to the Ministry of Forests and Range. The company would tell their service provider to print the paper, the service provider would then send it back to the company for verification, and then it was shipped to our district office.
The district, on receiving it, would then send it to our resource officer for validation and then it went to our resource clerk for input into our systems. We did some stats on that, and it was literally about a six-foot pile of paper for one year of submissions - it took us about a year-and-a-half to get it into our systems. Last year, the day after the deadline, we got 95 per cent of them through this electronic submission process.
On a Ministry scale, you can understand why we wanted to go directly to electronic submissions. We were drowning in paper and were not providing optimal service to our industry clients.
Q. Will you be adding on to the e-FM?
A. The next step is business intelligence. Basically, if you go into our database and pick a particular client, you'll be able to see a consolidated view of everything they're involved in: their rights, obligations, outstanding invoices, track records, etc.
To achieve this, we are putting in place a data quality framework to ensure that all the attributes of a good integrated database, such as data integrity, are being monitored.
We are also looking at a higher abstraction of data - rising above the physical data elements to logical entities such as people. We see this as an opportunity for horizontal integration. Imagine having the possibilities for tracking people, vehicles and even individual trees, and the opportunities from linking them together.
We want both us and the forest industry to be able to share information more freely and leverage more efficiency in our sector.
Q. Are there additional e-resources your Ministry is working on that you'd like to discuss?
A. The big one we've been working on is around the concept of collaboration. Socializing technology is another way of putting it. The Ministry has 40 offices across B.C., including some in remote areas such as Fort Nelson in the north and others as remote as Queen Charlotte Island. We have staff all across B.C., so we have a geographic challenge in trying to engage staff in corporate initiatives, and how to really get them involved in meaningful conversation and discussion.
We are trying to figure out what kind of technology we can put in place to enable us to bridge the geographic gap. One of the things we've been doing really well, and is now being used extensively, is video-conferencing. It's an old technology, but has now come to the price point where it's affordable and the network is able to sustain it. It's being used regularly by six senior executives in remote locations to teleconference in for meetings.
We've been successful in implementing that technology to make our communications and organization more effective.
Q. Obviously the role of CIO must be very demanding. How do you maintain a work-life balance?
A. I have two young children who I'm heavily involved with. My life philosophy has been in this order of priority: family, work, community. Family trumps work and then work to some extent trumps community when I have to prioritize.
The trick is finding the right balance between the three of them. I sit on three boards of non-profit organizations; I'm heavily involved with my kids' soccer, rugby, baseball, basketball, and violin, piano and music theory lessons.
I spend my time at work as effectively as I can, and then after 4:30 its family time and weekend is community time; so that's how I manage it.
Lisa Williams (lwilliams@intergovworld.com) is senior writer with intergovworld.com
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