While I am nominally a member of my town’s “Information Systems Advisory Committee” (ISAC) for more than 2 years, only recently we have been meeting more frequently. There is a dire need in the town to modernize the IT systems and take them to the 21st century (like my blog – thanks for that Tweet, Pat ;-)), and the town administration is now getting serious about it. This is a new and interesting challenge for me, since I have not worked on small(er) IT environments for some time now. Adding fun to the obvious resource constrains is the current situation, where not only the school system has developed their own, largely independent IT landscape, but all major department like Police, Fire, Public Works, and Library are happily walking in opposite directions.
Pulling all this together will require some significant work, but the benefits are obvious:
- Better services for citizens of the town
- Cost savings from pooling resources and better utilization
- Targeted investments for future projects
- Improved security posture, especially in the light of recent attacks against towns and schools.
In the next few days, ISAC will present its ideas to the town’s Ways and Means committee and – with their blessing – to the Town Meeting.