By: Anonymous

Anonymous
Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:26:00 +0000

As a former city employee, I understand how out of touch many municipalities are with technology. I worked at my city on two separate occasions. The first time was from 1997-2000. At the time, I was pushing for us to get on the web and start writing web-based applications and use open source software. No one listened. They liked the mainframe. The second time was from 2005-2010. During this time, I pushed for us to adopt things like Google Apps for mail, calendar, etc. I also pushed for us to use Django or Rails for web development. And I tried to get us to use YouTube. Once again, no one listened. They decided that Microsoft and .Net were the way to go for development. In over a year since I left, they still haven't added a new web app on the website. They also went with a proprietary solution for hosting videos. Videos are only available by streaming. In Windows media format. Which means they aren't available on mobile platforms. And after I left, they migrated from Novell Groupwise to Microsoft Exchange.

I would love to still be a city employee, but its frustrating to see them try and solve problems by only spending money on proprietary solutions.

Based on my observations, municipal I.T. shops cannot be innovative as long as those in charge rely on salespeople for solutions rather than employees.