Tag Archives: citizen service

The Lesser Known Missions of Homeland Security

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The mission of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is widely understood, "to safeguard the American people, our homeland, and our values." However, in carrying out this mission, DHS touches a number of areas that may not seem intuitively tied to homeland defense but are nonetheless critical challenges facing the nation as well as agencies across government.

Artificial Intelligence

DHS has a key role in securing the homeland from cyber threats. The department's Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is the operational lead for federal cybersecurity and the national coordinator for critical infrastructure security and resilience. With this responsibility, CISA and other DHS agencies play a key role in shaping policy and guidance around emerging technology use. Today, they are keenly focused on helping agencies safely and ethically use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve mission effectiveness.

DHS is leading by example. AI is currently being used to aid border-patrol efforts, combat drug trafficking, and create age-progression estimations of missing children. While implementing AI itself, DHS is also focused on how adversaries may use AI and creating ways to defend against the technology being used to spread disinformation, create more advanced cyber attacks, or speed the development of weapons. Continue reading →

Improving Service. Improving Trust.

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Improving customer service (or in the case of the government, citizen service) has been a focus of the Federal government for the past several administrations, most recently being named a key goal of the Biden-Harris President's Management Agenda (PMA). Despite this focus, citizen satisfaction with government service has remained low, but a 2022 report shows that the tide may be turning.

The American Customer Satisfaction Index's (ACSI) Federal Government Report 2022 showed that citizen satisfaction with Federal government services increased by 4.6 percent in 2022. Report authors attribute the increase to improved availability of digital services (spurred by the PMA and the Customer Service Executive Order) and major government initiatives including the distribution of free COVID-19 tests. Continue reading →

Trends and Tactics for the Government Customer Experience

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The recently released President's Management Agenda (PMA) is focused on the issue of declining trust in government. In the report, this lack of trust is tied to the poor customer service citizens receive from government. In the age of Amazon, Uber, and social media reliance, the level of service people expect from companies has dramatically changed. Citizens expect to be able to contact organizations on their terms (via mobile, online chat, email, phone) and that when they connect with someone, they will have all relevant data at their fingertips. While that has been a reality in the commercial sector, it's a fairly new concept for government.

In 2014 President Obama made citizen service a cross agency priority. Since that time agencies have made large strides in improving how they interact with the citizens they serve. In fact, according to the 2017 ACSI Federal Government Report, citizen satisfaction with government service is at its highest levels since 2006. But there is still much work to be done. Continue reading →

Behind the Curtain: Oracle Federal Forum

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Now in its tenth year, the Oracle Federal Forum is taking a fresh approach to its annual show. As always, it brings together government technology, business and industry leadership, IT experts of every flavor, as well as technology thought-leaders to provide a hands-on look at the future of government IT.

Oracle's Federal Forum theme this year is, "Modern Cloud, Endless Possibilities," and is scheduled for Thursday, Dec. 14, at the Marriott Marquis hotel in Washington, D.C. Oracle and its industry partners will examine how agencies can begin embracing the power of cloud computing while also acknowledging that government has considerable investments in existing, on-premises technology. In addition to being a hands-on technology event, Oracle will also offer sessions and workshops on more business-oriented content for HR, finance and budgeting, and marketing professionals.[Tweet "Behind the Curtain: Oracle Federal Forum. What you can expect from this year's event. #GovEventsBlog"]

The team at Oracle took some time away from their planning and preparation to share some insights on what people can expect from this year's event.

With 2017 being the tenth anniversary for this event, can you share a little bit about how the Federal Forum has changed over the years? Continue reading →