Executive Insight with Jacob Parcell: Mobile Government: The Next Generation of Customer Service---Today!
Jacob Parcell, Manager, Mobile Programs, GSA, works with federal agencies to clear a citizen-centric path for mobile access to government. He spoke at DGI’s December 8th Government Customer Service Conference on what federal agencies need to do to get ready for a new level of communication. Read DGI’s interview with him.
DGI: What does GSA’s Mobile Program Management Office do? How long has it been operating?
JP: We’ve been around since October 2010 to encourage citizen-centric mobile government services. We worked with 45 federal agencies to create the Making Mobile Gov Project which built awareness, collaboratively explored mobile challenges and solutions and started building a resource for mobile strategy and implementation.
DGI: Mobile tools are becoming incredibly important in today’s federal IT world. How far along are federal agencies and are many still in their infancy developing policies?
JP: What we have seen is that a lot of agencies are still working on their mobile projects. Many have created their own apps and posted them on http://apps.usa.gov, where many citizen facing federal apps are showcased. In July 2010, there were 15 government apps. Today there are now over 90 apps. These include apps for hurricanes, traveling from TSA.gov, product recalls, IRS2Go and many others. Agencies are coming up with policies for their own agencies.
DGI: What are 4 steps that agencies should be doing to incorporate mobile technology into their workforce?
JP: Here are 4 steps an agency manager can take to embrace mobile citizen-service technology:
- Each agency should look at their mission first and at audience they serve
- Look at their current tools and data centers
- Identify what services and info are ripe for anytime, anywhere, mobile access
- Figure out how they might get the sources they need, internally or from a vendor
DGI: What agency does the best job of incorporating mobile technology into their work?
JP: I couldn’t a single out a No. 1 agency. Here are some that do a great job: Veterans Affairs with the PTSD Coach, The Transportation Security Administration and the Tennessee Valley Authority. They have looked at their mission and audience and then found a solution for mobile that people can use.
DGI: What’s the goal of your office?
JP: The high level program goals are citizen engagement, collaboration and participation to build and deliver solutions so government can better serve citizens. It's clear that mobile is becoming the way of the world and citizens expect to have the ability to access and retrieve government information and services via mobile devices--anytime, anywhere.
We’re trying to be the fulcrum for mobile citizen-based products. We have a blog, where we post what’s going on in the space. We use Twitter (http://twitter.com/#!/Mobile_Gov) and webinars to spread the word. We are trying to promote citizen facing services in the federal government, and those can include apps, mobile and text messaging. Again there were 15 federal apps in July 2010, and now it’s up to 90. It will keep growing.
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