Plan Development Team Meeting Report

[Owen Ambur]

Dear Connected & Collaborative Community Work Group Colleagues, I attended the Plan Development Team meeting yesterday and thought you might be interested to know some of the key points that were made relative to our WG's mission.

1. During discussion of the Regional WG's plan, Jean Beck emphasized the importance of data analytics and mentioned the "arc of innovation" encompassing Savannah.
2. In discussing the Infrastructure WG's plan, Peter Kristian pointed out that news print is dying and that new means are needed to communicate with the community.
3. Jean asked about using crowdsourcing and referenced public/private partnerships.
4. During the Inclusive WG discussion, David D'Amico noted that the process still is not fully inclusive and urged the staff to keep trying to engage under-represented groups.
5. In the Excellence WG dialog, Jeanne Antonuccio spoke of "communication through connectivity".
6. Mike Scanlon expressed support for the Excellence WG's Objective 1.6.1: Advisory Committee - Consider creating an Excellence Advisory Committee of community members, who will help staff develop, monitor and evaluate our brand, core values and Our Ideas of Excellence.
   
7. Judd Carstens highlighted the importance of metrics and suggested surveying residents.
   
8. John Carroll volunteered to serve on the Excellence Advisory Committee.  He also suggested that we define what excellence means to us.
9. Jean argued that we need a "world class town hall" and by that she meant the Town's website, which she said has not been upgraded since 2003.  She also noted that "customer experience" is a current buzzword in the business community and that the expectation is that everything can be done online.  She said to outsiders the Town's website is our "brand" and she suggested that excellence begins with our "town hall" (meaning the Town's website).
10. During the discussion of our WG's plan, Jeanne suggested technology is at the top of the list of priorities and that the Town should strive to be "ahead of the game."  More specifically, she argued a key part of connection is being able to find anything one needs to find, i.e., on the Town's website.
11. With respect to communication, David mentioned data analytics and social media and he said the Town needs a better, interactive portal (website).
12. Finally, Peter noted the Island Packet no longer publishes a calendar of events (presumably because they lack the staff to compile it) and he suggested people care about what is happening where they live, on a localized community level.

With respect to the latter point, the staff draft of our part of the plan includes these objectives:

Objective 3.1: Events & Volunteers - Promote the development of one centralized source for information on community event and volunteer opportunities, both online and in print.

Objective 3.6: Community Information - Encourage creation of a single source for community information and participation by providing information on Town programs and events.

Objective 3.7: Organizations & Groups - Identify and support the many different organizations and groups that currently are involved in community building efforts.

However, the staff draft does not mention a calendar of events per se and I personally do not believe that the right answer is "one centralized source".  Instead, I believe maintenance of such information should be crowdsourced, as implied by Jean Beck's comment.  I also strongly believe such information collections should be based upon the applicable open data standards -- so that the information (in this case about calendar events) can readily be shared not only on the Town's website but also in the Island Packet, on the Chamber of Commerce and library's websites, as well as anywhere else that anyone may with to make such information available to their more specialized stakeholders.

During the public comment period at the end of the three-and-a-half hour meeting, when everyone was tired and ready to go home, I did not take the time to go into any detail in that regard.  However, I did express my hope that standards (as well as best practices) will be referenced in the Ideals of Excellence set forth in the plan.  The staff draft references best practices but not standards per se.

Owen