From watching movies to paying your bills, it seems like we do a little bit of everything online these days. The Internet could easily be called the most powerful tool in the world!

The justice community is embracing the Internet as well, and not a moment too soon. I’m not talking about “web-based” technology; I’m talking about functionality that can potentially impact each one of us. The ability to pay our tickets and court costs online. Finally, justice community members like the municipal court in your own city, are making it easier on themselves and us by allowing us to pay pesky ticket fines from the comfort of our own homes.

The Delaware County Common Pleas Court in Media, Pennsylvania, recently implemented an e-payment solution that will be rolled out to all district courts in 2011. The “e-Pay” option provides residents with greater convenience in making payments for court fines, costs, and restitution. Officials expect the result will be an increase in collections (which also means a reduction in debt!).

“This is yet another way that Delaware County is using technology to make things easier for our residents,” said County Council Vice Chair Christine Fizzano Cannon. “Many people are paying their bills online. Now they can pay court fines online at the Common Pleas level. The ePay feature should be made available at the Magisterial District Justice level next year, which will make it useful to even more residents.”

Integrating an online solution sounds expensive, right? Potentially it can be; however, there are some in the justice community that are experimenting with ways around the costs. Gainsville Police Department in Georgia is looking to implementing a technology fee to assist with the procurement on online solutions. In a recent article published in the Gainsville Times, City Manager Kip Padgett said: “The people who violate the law are the ones who pay for it.”

While this method of paying for an online solution may seem unfair to some, it really isn’t. It’s offering you another option to pay for your tickets, restitution, and fees—an option that is easier, faster, and more convenient.

Why are online payment options a good thing?

1. They save me a lot of time. I don’t have to waste my lunch hour waiting in a long line to pay my fine or stress over a missed due date. Most courts or agencies have a small “technology fee,” but it is normally a minimal amount—much cheaper than spending my time and gas to get there in person.
2. Let’s be honest, the payment process at the cashier’s window is too long and tedious. Sometimes mistakes happen. Your payment may not be recorded to the correct case, or, if you have multiple cases, your payment may be posted to the wrong one. Paying online eliminates many of these errors by automatically recording your payment to your record in the court’s case management solution—if the court has an electronic case management solution that is. The element of human error is taken out, and often the system allows you to stay on top of what you’ve paid and what you owe.
3. It’s easier on the court or justice agency that is collecting your money. We don’t often think about the other side of the cashier’s window, but let’s shift gears for a second. Finally our public servants can focus on more important things besides the eternally long line in front of their window. They can run better reports, have better statistics, and reduce their carpal tunnel pain, not to mention close financial obligations faster and more effectively.

“But this is just another thing for the city to charge us for!” No, in most cases, courts and agencies aren’t making money off of the additional fees, they’re simply paying for the technology that allows them to make this type of payment available to us. They may be making a few bucks off the transaction, but they deserve it! That money goes to keeping criminals off the streets and making our communities better places to live in.

Now, tell me what you think! Is your community doing this? What would your reaction be if they implemented this technology?

Tweet it… Dig it… Facebook it… Myspace it. Social media terms are quickly becoming verbs in today’s high speed, highly social Internet environment. Whether you use them or not, you still probably have your own personal account on three to four or more social media platforms. “Being social” is undergoing a serious paradigm shift as social media continues to redefine our personal interactions.

Some government agencies are jumping on the wave, and rightfully so. Social media can quickly place you in direct contact with constituents and customers. If your criminal justice court or agency is sitting on the fence right now wondering whether or not to dive in, hopefully this will help. In this blog, I will outline a couple of reasons why criminal justice agencies should wait no longer.

Creating Positive News

If you’re like me, I’m getting fed up with news reports of all the awful things happening around the world, and even locally. There’s plenty of news in our communities and even our criminal justice agencies, plenty of which is good. Does that mean that you have to wait for your local news station to run out of bad things to report on in order to come looking for something good? No.

Social media allows you to define your own news and tout the good things that are happening in your jurisdiction. With a social media platform like Twitter, people expect your “tweets” to be a newsworthy tidbit that is specifically about your court or agency or something that you are involved in. That means that you can create quick, up-to-date messages that shuttle information from your agency directly to the public, thereby creating your own positive news.
Not only are you combating some of the bad press, but you are also providing leads for your local media to follow up on. Who knows… your tweet could land our criminal justice agency in tomorrow’s top story!

Government Transparency

Citizens are becoming leery of government organizations (local, county, state, and federal) that won’t spill the beans. The availability of court dockets, calendars, payment options, etc, is increasingly essential to a court public relations plan, and public access portals are a great solution to achieve it. You can also utilize social media to enhance the effectiveness, awareness, and ultimately drive traffic to your public portal.

Opening a dialogue between government employees and constituents is a fantastic way to demonstrate government transparency. Social media is an open mic and lets you know exactly how people really feel about the policies your court or agency are trying to stress, as well as it may give you ideas for future growth.

A lot of agencies and courts are understandably hesitant to allow people to write whatever they want on a facebook fan page or a tweet, fearing that they may receive derogatory, negative, or inflammatory comments. Look at these comments rather as an opportunity to show that you care about all and demonstrate that you do read and respond to every person. If people are ranting about something, it gives you a great forum to describe the reasons why you support or are against whatever they are proposing. Social media is made up of a lot of different people; and for every one person that is ranting, there are probably 10 or even 100 others that are just reading but not responding. You’re probably not going to change how the one commentator feels, but you can shape your reputation in the sight of the listeners.

For more information on how to use social media in a government environment and the benefits of using social media, watch our recent webinar: Stay Connected through Social Media.

Become a fan of New Dawn Technologies on Facebook and follow us on Twitter!

A while ago I was a tutor for a high school math class—yeah, I may be a little geeky with the numbers, don’t hold it against me. The technology was impressive that they used for teaching just a basic math class from utilizing the Internet to the interactive smartboard. As technology advances, so does education and the marriage between the two can make for an incredible—rich, not cheap—experience.

For the justice industry, online education is a growing and exciting movement, and webinars are surfing on the leading edge. A webinar is different than a webcast or podcast in that the latter two methods of communication are one way; both webcasts and podcasts release information that can be downloaded or streamed online, but there is no avenue for return communication. This is where the webinar is superior and ideal for online education. Webinars create an interactive environment where all participants are connected through one central hub and communication can take place both verbally and visually.

Webinars are so highly successful and spreading so quickly across a variety of industries for many reasons. Below I’ll explore some of the pros and cons of webinars and online education through them as it pertains to the justice industry.

Cons

Limited interaction. Bad news first right? As with any technology, there are cons to webinars. Like teenagers using text messages and facebook as communication in relationships, webinars lack one thing: physical interaction. No technology can replace the value of relationships built in person. Web cams, audio streaming, and other attempts come closer to bridging this gap, but fall short.

Technical knowhow. While participants may have the ability to sit back and relax, webinar administrators may not be so lucky. The technical environments that host webinars can be very complex and confusing. Because of this, many companies will elect to outsource the hosting of webinars to companies like Adobe, MeetingOne, GoToMeeting, and more. Support from these companies will service the technical environment.

Delay time. The Internet is fast and is getting faster, but it is not instantaneous communication, at least not yet. Depending on connection speeds, computer processors, graphics cards, and other variables, participants of webinars may experience delays between what they hear and what they see. Webinar hosts must be aware of this delay or the webinar may become a very frustrating experience.

Pros

Inexpensive. Baring a slow Internet connection, or bandwidth that is not high enough to support webinar traffic, the hardware necessary to run a webinar is normally available in government agencies already. The webinar service subscription fee and webinar room training are about the only costs incurred for setup. Compare this to the cost of travel, hotel, food, entertainment, and opportunity cost of lost work from the representative sent to conduct the training is more than enough to tip the scales toward online meetings.

Easy to use. Webinar services are very easy to use. Services that provide webinar rooms have specifically designed them to be highly user-friendly because of the understanding that some people joining a webinar may not be very tech savvy. Usually participants are only required to log in, sit back, and relax.

Collaborative. Unlike the webcasts and podcasts, webinar rooms are designed to be highly interactive being equipped with features such as chat rooms, polls, screen sharing and broadcasting, and can support a variety of files such as videos, documents, and presentations. Webinar rooms are synced with audio features allowing pariticpants to listen in on a presenter and add comments.

Recorded. Webinar sessions can be easily recorded for later use. Here at New Dawn, we normally post our recorded webinars online so that visitors can go to an archive and listen to any they would like to. We also make available the PDF version of the presentation slide deck if one was used.

Webinars and other online conferencing and training services will help your court or agency find better ROI. Technology, including webinars, is often viewed as expensive, complex, and nonessential, but you may be missing out on a great opportunity utilize technology to enhance the quality of your meetings/trainings, at a fraction of the cost. Check out our Go Green mini site for more information on how green technologies like online communication can save you time and money.

I’m going to be totally honest, researching this blog topic I didn’t have a clue what I read half the time. I could pronounce the words–most of them, I think they were English–but I felt like I needed a dictionary under one arm and a pillow under the other when tackling the tech-speak surrounding cloud computing and its affiliates. Good thing I’m not the IT guy, right?

That said, cloud computing is one of those concepts that can be as simple or as difficult as you want to make it. My aim with this blog is to go the simple road and make cloud computing understandable and applicable, though I welcome any questions or comments to spice up the conversation.

I’ll start out with a quote from Ramnath K. Chellappa of Emory University, who called cloud computing a “computing paradigm where the boundaries of computing will be determined by economic rationale rather than technical limits.” In the last century, communication was restricted by our technical infrastructure. People could not communicate electronically because they did not have access to power lines, phone lines, or cable technology. In the 21st Century thought, things are much different. Technology has advanced enough that communication is no longer a limitation, it’s a choice. This is especially so with the advent, widespread availability, and reduced price of digital technology, cell phones, and the Internet/web technology.

Cloud computing is the whole package, an umbrella term for a group of subset technologies such as software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), infrastructure as a service (IaaS), etc. These elements make up a “cloud” of possible interfaces though which technology users have access to the data behind the Internet. Each technology has its place, and price tag, and each agency or company needs to do some cost/benefit analysis to figure out which is a fit.

Basically, you are outsourcing business processes to another company that specializes in it. By utilizing cloud computing technologies, it would be entirely possible to manage an agency’s entire workflow with just a set of computers and an Internet connection. Your software application, IT back end, and infrastructure can be hosted by cloud computing providers for a periodic subscription fee.

Some of the advantages of cloud computing technologies are:

• Scalability: quickly increase the size or capacity of your application with likely one phone call and an increase of subscription fee.
• Cost: cloud computing can greatly decrease the cost of the solution. Hardware and IT costs are borne by the provider and not the agency.
• Security/reliability: redundancy and encryption are standard for cloud computing providers, and security provided may also be at a higher level than your agency would be able to afford otherwise.

While cloud computing technologies definitely have their benefits, you will have to decide if the “economic rationale” fits in with your agency’s overall goals. Some agencies opt of the benefits of keeping information and IT support close to home while others utilize the lower cost and ease of SaaS solutions. Whatever your end choice is, cloud computing solutions demand a solid look. We may see a time where these solutions become so competitive in price and service provided that they will be the only thing offered.

Please post your questions or comments about cloud computing solutions, and I’ll get answers for you!

One of the most common concerns that we hear when proposing Software as a Service (SaaS) is data security. Because the data is being transferred offsite and the software solution is supported offsite, court and agency officials feel there is a greater chance of something unpleasant happening to the information—some of which could be extremely sensitive or harmful if lost or broken into.

This is a valid concern, one that is not exclusive to the criminal justice industry. A lot of people are understandably uneasy about the security of their information, and a lot of thought has been put into overcoming this problem—there are solutions. Understanding how two words are applied to SaaSy solutions will help you rest easy at night. These two words are: redundancy and encryption.

Datacenter “redundancy” helps protect your data from two things, natural disasters and hardware failure. Natural disasters are things like earthquakes, storms, hurricanes, tornadoes, lightning strikes, etc. Taking it a step further, we could also include things like terrorist attacks, massive infrastructure failure (roads, electrical, etc.), or even a utility worker having a bad day that slices through your network cable—really any outside force that messes with you getting your job done. The thing to consider is that many of these things are a very real concern for your information wherever it is house, whether on or offsite. However, courts and agencies are still uneasy that in the event of a disaster someplace else, they will not be able to access their data. This is where redundancy comes into play.

Redundancy is a fancy word for duplication of data. Most datacenters are not centralized and have at least two geographical locations. If a disaster happens to one, your data can still be accessed from the second location. If disasters strike both locations at the same time, I’d forget that trip to Vegas because you are coming up short on luck; chances of that happening are pretty slim. Redundancy is in place to protect your data against disasters; the more redundancy, the exponentially less chance you have of losing your data.

Redundancy also protects against hardware failure. The hard drive of your server—the part that actually stores your information—is mechanical; it has moving parts. Anything with moving parts has a chance to fail. While many technological advances have been made to increase the longevity of equipment, things don’t last forever. There’s always a chance that your hard drive will die during the night, and you wake up to a blank database. Datacenters add another level of redundancy: hard drive redundancy. Datacenters store duplicates of your database on multiple hard drives within their center, so if a piece of equipment fails your data is still accessible. Again, the more hard drive redundancy, the less chance of losing your data.

Finally, data “encryption” protects your data against hackers or interception. Encryption, in Lehman’s terms, is a code/cipher that your computer and the datacenter have. When you send data, your computer codes your information and then transfers it to the datacenter. The datacenter uses the cipher to unscramble your data and “Eureka!” your data is securely transferred and stored. At New Dawn Technologies, the encryption our datacenter uses is the same encryption that your internet banking uses to protect your personal financial information. It’s safe and secure.

To learn more about the power of SaaS solutions, visit New Dawn Technologies’ SaaS page!

Don’t worry; I’m not going to descend upon this blog with all the sarcasm I can muster… well, not all over it. Welcome to the Sassy Blog, I mean, the “SaaS-y Blog.” Here we get to take a look at “software as a service” better known as SaaS and commonly pronounced “sass.” You may have heard this term floating around but may not entirely know what it refers to. My goal in this blog, and in subsequent SaaS blogs, is to help you understand what SaaS is and how it applies to the justice world.

What is SaaS?

In Lehman’s terms, software as a service (SaaS) is computer software on demand. The idea started maybe a decade ago when software providers began to offer their software in a subscription as well as commercially off the shelf. Rather than plugging in a CD or jump drive to download a software application directly at your location to remain on your local server, the software is provided offsite and subscribers and subscribers gain access over the Internet via encrypted logins. Storage is offsite, support is offsite, and software is offsite. Sounds scary, right? It’s not nearly as scary as you might think.

Why be Saas-y?

One of the major value-adds of SaaS for businesses and justice agencies is in mitigating hidden costs. A few years ago I bought a new computer. My brother, an IT whiz, ordered all the parts online separately and then assembled the computer from the ground up. I thought I was getting a steal of a deal, that is until I realized what was not included… the hidden costs of my purchase. I needed a lot of additional hardware and software items like a printer, printer cords, a power strip/surge protector, a wireless internet card, and a Microsoft Office license or my computer was basically useless. When all the dust settled, a $600 purchase ended up being well over $800 with hidden costs included.

Hidden costs normally come with any large purchase, especially technology purchases. Here are some of the hidden costs of a new software system:

• New Server/server upgrade/other hardware costs
• Additional or new IT personnel or support department
• Increasing annual fees
• Vendor-required solution upgrades
• Certifications
• Changes in state or federal standards

SaaS allows someone else, the vendor or third party data center, to foot the bill for the really expensive server equipment and other hardware, and it also shifts the balance of IT and support issues away from your court or agency. You will generally be kept on the most recent version of the software solution giving you the cutting edge of technology each time you log in.

While SaaS is obviously not for everyone, it is an important option to consider, especially for smaller courts and agencies that are interested in a powerful program but have small budgets. Larger justice agencies can also benefit from SaaS solutions due to decreased overall costs and faster implementation times. It really is a win-win situation.

More information to come in future blogs that will explore other avenues of SaaS solutions. In the meantime, visit New Dawn’s SaaS page for more details on what SaaS is, how it can be used, and the different levels of implementation.

Let’s have a little fun with numbers. According to the National Governmental Collectors Association, local governments generate $1 trillion in revenue each year. That amount of money is nearly unfathomable to me; in fact, take a look at this post from PageTutor.com that shows what $1 trillion looks like.

Even more impressive, according to a recent news release from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the United States for the second quarter of 2009 was $14.143 trillion! As it follows, local governments represent a significant portion of the U.S. GDP each year. Go team!

Now, while the percentage of outstanding fines and fees will be different between jurisdictions, any court or agency that issues fees should count on a considerable percentage of them going past due. According to Nadine Jenkins, President and CEO of the National Governmental Collectors Association, the percentage is upwards of 50-60% of issued fees going past due! When you match that up with the revenue from local governments, that 50-60% represents a lot of money. According to the OCA of Texas, there is currently $2.5 billion in outstanding fees in Texas alone! In a climate where every bit of revenue a court or agency can receive counts, this blog is dedicated to help you improve your collections tactics.

Collections Tips - Good Cop/Bad Cop

One caveat when discussing public sector collections is that the people you’re collecting from are your constituents. A taxpayer is a taxpayer regardless of an overdue status or no, so great care should be taken in monitoring your collections methods so they don’t become unnecessarily annoyed.

Now the fun part. Let’s play some Good Cop/Bad Cop with the following tips. These tips come from collections research as well my own two and a half years of private sector collections experience. In collections, you should find a balance between these approaches since not all individuals will respond to any one of the collections tactics.

Be Consistent - Bad Cop

Oftentimes in private sector collections, we would have return customers, and their behavior patterns would remind me strangely of teenagers. For example, just like a teenager wanting to borrow the family car for a night on the town, if stonewalled by one parent, they will immediately find the next parent and ask them. Callers may demonstrate the same behavior by calling in time after time attempting to get a “soft” representative that would give them leniency they didn’t deserve. Uniform collections rules and methods amongst all your collections representatives, whether fielding inbound or outbound calls, are crucial to retain the integrity of your agency.

Along the lines of consistency, make certain the repercussions of nonpayment are the same, clearly defined, and enforced across the board. People that are chronically in collections may seek to “work the system” much like the teenager again; they push the line to see where the parent’s boundaries are truly set. Once they find the boundaries, they will likely operate within them. Make sure your parameters are clearly set with visible due date reminders, clear consequences for nonpayment, and then swift follow up with the stated consequences every time, with few to no exceptions.

Consider Outsourcing - Bad Cop

Sometimes, depending on your resources, it may be more economical for your court or agency to contact with a third party collector in order to effectively receive past due funds. The stigma of the third party collector can also be a useful incentive for some to pay up. Still, partnering with a third party collector should mainly be a financial decision, taking into consideration the costs to your agency of your collections resources pitted against the return, and then compared with the fees of the collections agency and their promised return.

Collections Management Program - Good Cop

When doing your own collections, it is important to be well organized. Allowing accounts to slip through the cracks is like flushing revenue down the drain and also cultivates an attitude of nonpayment toward your office. As an example, one of our company’s installations occurred in Roseburg, Oregon, in 2004. During implementation of our case management solution, they used the built-in financial management tools to search through their old records and found past due accounts from as far back as 1999 that their old system had simply missed! A collections management solution or at least a methodical system for tracking accounts is an imperative for any court or agency attempting collections.

Online Payment Portals - Good Cop

For some people, the psychological or social stigma of being required to personally come in to an office and face a real person to pay a past due amount could be enough to keep them from doing it. Having an online payment option will open up a painless avenue for people to pay tickets and overdue fees in a fast, convenient, and nonthreatening environment. In many cases, these options can be outsourced as well as integrated into your case/collections management solution. Some courts and agencies have created their own online payment option. Here are a few: Iowa Courts; City of Madison, WI; and New York City, NY.

Can’t Beat ‘Em? Embarrass ‘Em! - Bad Cop

Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire, right? Dallas County, Texas, uses a method of embarrassment to get people to pay up by listing the top outstanding amounts complete with pictures of the person, past due amounts, and the reasons for the fees. Although a little unorthodox, it is a viable collections tactic. They even had a Senator on there at one point! Here’s Dallas County’s site.

Prevention and Incentive - Good Cop

What better way to be successful at collections than avoid it altogether? At the Utah State University, and probably a lot of other universities, parking tickets receive a discount if paid within a week or within a month. You can be sure my parking tickets were paid within a week. Your court or agency may consider giving discounts for paying fees within a certain time interval to give early payment incentive and prevent collections status. Again, this should be a financial decision by calculating the amount of the discount pitted against the average dollar resources your agency will need use collecting a past due fee.

While collections can be a tricky and sometimes a downright elusive revenue flow, the bottom line is that people owe the money and are obligated by law to pay it. Often it just takes a little effort to mobilize a collections task force and making some phone calls to see a return. Good luck!

Do you have collections tactics that have worked out well for your court or agency? Post them below as comments so we can work together to improve.

Wow, it has been a while since I’ve posted; I guess that’s what happens when you hit heavy tradeshow season and have some really awesome but time consuming projects assigned your way. I’ll tell you what though, there are some near marketing things coming out from New Dawn Technologies soon. All I can say is make every effort to see us at NCSC’s Court Technology Conference (CTC 09) in Denver on September 22-24 or at the National American Indian Court Judges Association (NAICJA) Conference in Albuquerque on October 18-21. You won’t be disappointed.

Looking back, we’ve been through some pretty crazy times lately, haven’t we? Companies that we thought would be around forever either collapsed or are scraping for government assistance to stay solvent - and some are struggling even with government assistance. Funds are tight, the market became skittish, and retirements dried up to almost nothing. It’s really the fulfillment of the saying “no part of man’s anatomy is as sensitive as his pocketbook.”

Now more than ever we see scrutiny like a bloodhound following money trails wherever it is being spent. This scrutiny is not just from government oversight agencies or from corporate management anymore, it’s also from normal people that are watching for the return on their tax investment. Case in point, last year about this time there was a huge uproar about government bailout money being used by big banks for employee bonuses. Take a look at this MSN blog and some of the responses by normal people (this blog is only an example of public scrutiny being applied to the allocation and usage of government funds and does not necessarily represent the opinions of New Dawn Technologies or any of its employees on the issue).

Technology especially is not exempt from the wary eyes of decision makers in any court or agency; in fact, it may be even more subject to examinations than other projects. Technology can be expensive, and the time frame involved in the procurement and implementation of the technology can be long and arduous. Technology is an easy target for the “we’re getting along just fine without it” stereotype, or the “can’t we go back to the way it used to be?” attitude.

Don’t get me wrong, agency and/or public scrutiny is not necessarily a bad thing; it can generate accountability, efficiency, and good purchase decisions… it may also generate problems as some would use it to shield against change, destroy relationships, or create unnecessary red tape. The answer? Simply put, be able to demonstrate a positive and compelling return on investment (ROI). This can be challenging to demonstrate, but hopefully this blog will equip you with some ammunition that will help you with the ROI battles as they come up.

Vary the Message

While in college, we discussed a lot of marketing theory, one of which was called the Marketing Mix. This is basically a list of methods or vehicles a company uses to communicate sales messages to a prospective customer. These ranged from direct mail to emails, phone calls to eye-catching packaging. As it applies to demonstrating ROI, it’s probably not going to increase the effectiveness of you ROI position by mailing a report in cute packaging to your superiors instead of just sending an email, but you can easily make a list of the different ways a the technology is affecting your court or agency - the ROI mix - and then gather statistics on all those elements. It takes just a few minutes to brainstorm the ROI Mix, the type of statistics you will gather, and how you want to present it to superiors, agency stakeholders, and the public.

No One Can Argue With Numbers

Have you ever had the experience where you’ve seen on the Internet or in the newspaper the results of some study that is causing a stir, only to find out that the data they used was faulty, the way they displayed it was skewed, or the methods they used to gather the data was absolutely ridiculous? Here’s one brought to us by New York’s WABC News from a couple of years ago when Consumer Reports caused a scare with faulty information on the safety of child car seats. As you’re brainstorming your ROI Mix, make sure that the items you chose can be measured in solid numbers that are not misinterpreted or skewed to show a favored point of view. Honesty is always the best course of action and solid numbers speak for themselves.

Personal Touch

Imagine for a moment if a physicist was attempting to explain the Theory of Relativity by telling you “the development of general relativity began with the equivalence principle, under which states of accelerated motion and being at rest in a gravitational field are physically identical” (thank you Wikipedia “Theory of Relativity”). I don’t understand a word of what I just wrote. But, if you start using words like “time,” “space,” and “light” to describe the Theory of Relativity, I understand a lot more because I deal with time, space, and light every day. Understand first the perspective of those you will present to, the Director of IT’s perspective will be a lot different than the Chief Probation Officer or the District Attorney. Make sure when you’re generating your ROI Mix that these items can be measured with hard data that is gathered and represented in a way that makes sense to those you will be demonstrating to.

Marathon Not a Sprint

Suppose you were to take off from an airport at the equator with the goal of flying all the way around the world and arrive at the same airport, yet your instruments were off by only one degree. That doesn’t seem like much, and indeed it wouldn’t be at first, but how far from your home base will you be when you arrive at the same longitude? The answer: nearly 500 miles!

In today’s business world, it seems that many decisions are made with only short term results in mind. If decision makers don’t have something to immediately show constituency or stockholders, they opt out. With your technology implementation, it may be difficult to show much of a difference at first, just as you would not notice much difference only a mile into your world-circumventing flight. Short term results definitely have their place, but it is also important to demonstrate the long term results of your technology decision. The longer you keep statistics the more accurate of an ROI story your data will provide of your technology. With a little patience, perseverance, and time, you will have made a solid case for your technology implementation that cannot be refuted.

These are just a few tips we have for you. For additional ROI information, sign up for our ROI white paper series going on right now. We currently have two issues available, and the next issue “How to Calculate ROI” will go out September 10.

I took an economics class in college just like every other college student since the beginning of time. It was so influential that I almost switched to a major an economics… almost… until I realized I would be doing calculus equations all day long; not my idea of fun.

Anyway, in this very influential class, I remember the professor saying one day that recycling may not be economical. That blew my mind. The idea was that the amount of resources it takes—collection of recyclable materials, sorting, meltdown, and remanufacturing—can be less economical than just throwing away and buying something brand new.

Though it negates social and environmental responsibility on our part, the argument actually makes a decent amount of sense. Still, it almost forces a choice between being environmentally friendly and cost effective. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a way to get both at the same time?

Meet Paper-on-Demand, the way for your court or agency to be environmentally friendly and cost effective! The way your office can decrease the amount of paper you use, your “carbon footprint,” and reduce your costs. Let’s chat about paper-on-demand.

First, let’s talk paper: 50 copies a day = 13,000 pages a year = 26 reams @ $9.50 a ream = $247.00 and is also the equivalent of two mature trees. Imagine cutting your paper usage in half, you’d save one tree and have an extra $123.50 lying around. That’s just with 50 copies a day… imagine what your office could do if you ran off 1000 copies a day, or 10,000? It adds up quickly. Of course, it also adds up in the other direction too! 1,000 copies a day the equivalent of 40 trees per day and about $4940.00 in paper! Those totals might be a little bit in the extreme—I’d rather jump off a cliff than wait for 10,000 copies run off—but you get the idea. Paper is expensive in both monetary and environmental costs.

The obvious answer is to “Go Paperless!” I hate to burst the paperless bubble, but the unfortunate fact is that getting your court or agency 100% paperless is not a very likely outcome if it is even possible at all. Whether it is office tradition, workflow processes that colleagues are unwilling to give up, or just raw paper requirements of your office—such as victim/witness notice letters; federal, state, or internal reports; etc.—a much more likely Point B is the paper-on-demand office I mentioned before.

Paper-on-demand is just that, generating paper copies only when paper copies are absolutely needed while the official copy of document/file is electronically stored on the court or agency’s computer system. Technology with the ability to track electronic files becomes a necessity at this point, but the benefits of paper-on-demand generate justification for the cost of any upgrades.

A few benefits of paper-on-demand:

• Lower carbon footprint—Captain Planet would be proud. If you have a few idle moments, take some time to sit down and calculate the environmental impact of a switch from a paper system to a paper-on-demand system; it can be an eye opening experience.
• Lower costs on paper products—your boss will be proud. Especially in these difficult economic times, I can’t think of a boss who’d be mad at anyone for bringing up a way to be more efficient and lower costs at the same time. Paper does add up fast, but still make sure to hit hard the long run effect of paper-on-demand since often the short run costs of upgrading technology can sticker shock the people that sign the checks.
• Opportunity for public visibility—the public will be proud. Paper-on-demand demonstrates to the public your office’s willingness to be proactive in current issues, and spend their tax dollars wisely. These things can go a long way to assist with public support and opinion of your court or agency, especially if you market it right.

Paper on demand technologies; a few ideas that will transform your court or agency:

• Case management system: many of the modern case management systems have the ability to store and track documents and other files electronically. Even more helpful are those that have document scanning and routing capabilities that will generate electronic copies of vital files at the point of receipt. Need for paper storage is almost negated.
• Integration: integrating case management systems requires information to be entered only once in either a shared database or at the initial data entry point. The information is then transferred electronically to all courts and agencies within the integration. Not only does this represent a paper-on-demand technology, but it also decreases the time consumption (just say no to snail-mail) and data entry error.
• Laptop computers: this might seem like a no-brainer, but imaging an entire prosecutor’s office equipped with laptops and wireless internet connections. Case updates or dispositions can be processed at the time they occur in the courtroom. Attorneys can access cases electronically in the hearing and don’t have to haul around paper files. Can you see where I’m going with this?
• Email: another no brainer, but utilization of email to electronically transfer data between attorneys, victims, witnesses, defendants, courts, administrators, and government reporting offices can greatly decrease the need for paper. This one is tricky because not everyone has the same technological access, but email usage can always augment a paper-on-demand system.

Check out our latest webinar, Developing an E-Attitude. You will learn about more of the e-technologies out there that will move you toward a paper-on-demand system, and how to generate support in your office for the switch.

“Green Eggs and Ham,” the title of a popular children’s book by Dr. Seuss, is not the only thing that is talking about things “going green” these days. “Going green” is a trend in just about every industry you can think of, more especially industries that produce greenhouse gas emissions as well as in many segments of the technology industry. However, in business, sometimes it seems that going green is a catch twenty-two; you either get higher efficiency, or - for lack of a better term - you get higher “greenness,” but not both. Yet for the case management software technology industry, it’s often the other way around. So, let’s discuss some ways that your court or agency can use technology to go green and be efficient.

Case Management Solutions

In our experience here at New Dawn Technologies, often we find courts or agencies that have selected our case management solution (CMS) are upgrading from a paper-based system. They have closets, spare rooms, storage units, or sometimes even warehouses full floor-to-ceiling of boxes of paper that represent their paper-based CMS. Hard copies of documents are obviously not susceptible to power outages, computer meltdowns, and data corruption - other than bad handwriting, but we’ll leave that one alone - the way electronic documents are, but they are virtually useless when it comes to generating meaningful information to view your court or agency’s progress… that is unless you want to sift through all those boxes to find the meaningful information; I know I wouldn’t. Even so, it is estimated that 95% of business information is still stored on paper. That’s a lot of trees.

From the administrative standpoint, a modern CMS is nearly a necessity. Current budget concerns with more economic hard times on the horizon are reason enough for any court or agency to make this switch now. Furthermore, the statistical analysis capabilities available in many CMSs on the market can give administrators a snapshot of how their resources are allocated within the court or agency and how efficiently those resources are producing a return. From the clerical or agency official standpoint, any decent CMS simplifies just about every aspect of your job, from eliminating those pesky file hunts to decreasing the loss of crucial paperwork to speeding up business processes by handling cases electronically.

Electronic Document Management Solutions

There has never been a time that electronic document management solutions (EDMS) have been more in demand than now in the case management market. At New Dawn, document scanning and routing capabilities are now available as part of our most recent product releases. These technologies allow paperwork/filing documents to be mass-scanned into the CMS and then routed to the appropriate case where the document will be available to attorneys, clerks, and judges at a case-by-case level, eliminating the need for massive paper files and dozens of copies for each case. Paper copies can be printed out at any time from the electronic version stored with the case or person record. Other EDMS capabilities include document automation, digital signatures, and in-court processing. Vendors all over the market are adding these and other EDMS capabilities to their products, why? They may not seem like much at first glance, but pair these features up with a 10,000 or even a 100,000 strong caseload and they are amazingly efficient.

Data Sharing

Of all the technologies available in the CMS industry, aside from the installation of an actual CMS, data sharing is possibly the best way to go green and become more efficient in tandem. Data communication between agencies is HUGE right now, and the only reason it is not more widespread is the simple fact of how expensive it is, largely due to the time intensive and technical nature of the labor involved in setting up XML conversions that translate data from one agency’s computer system to another.

Even so, many agencies are still willing to move forward because integrations normally pay for themselves and then some in time and resource savings. For example, arrest filings are transferred electronically from local law enforcement agencies to the prosecutor’s office or the local court handling the cases. Disposition and/or sentencing are then sent from the court to the jail system or local probation office… all without the use of paper. Multiple data entry points are eliminated as information is only entered once and then transferred between agencies, lowering the chance of data entry error. Electronic exchanges are much faster than any type of paper transfer. It’s a win-win across the board… except for FedEx and UPS. Sorry guys, we still love you!!

For additional green CMS technologies, check out New Dawn’s recent webinar: Go Green with JustWare.

Calling “going green” a trend is a misnomer. I think it is a movement that will be around for a long time if for no other reason than that it makes sense from a responsibility perspective and a business perspective. These green technologies can make your court or agency more efficient while at the same time saving the environment; who wouldn’t want that? But above all, the moral that I’m really trying to drive home is this: I don’t care what Dr. Seuss says… if your eggs and ham are green, that’s gross! DON’T EAT THEM!!