Strengthening Public Trust and Resilience
Tyler Tech Podcast Episode 112, Transcript
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Show Notes:
In this episode of the Tyler Tech Podcast, we delve into the critical role of resilience in government operations and the essential strategies for navigating disruptions while maintaining public trust. Whether facing natural disasters, economic shifts, or cybersecurity threats, governments must be prepared to withstand challenges and adapt to evolving needs.
Cate Ryba, director of resident engagement at Tyler Technologies, discusses how technology empowers governments to strengthen operations, foster transparent communication, and engage residents as partners in resilience. She shares insights into the importance of proactive planning, data-driven decision-making, and the role of digital tools in enhancing service continuity during crises.
Throughout the conversation, Cate highlights real-world examples, including Louisiana’s use of Tyler’s resident engagement platform to improve disaster preparedness and response. She explores how artificial intelligence (AI), mobile apps, geolocation services, and multilingual accessibility features are shaping the future of resilient public sector operations.
Tune in to learn how governments can leverage technology to build stronger, more responsive communities that are prepared for whatever challenges lie ahead.
This episode also highlights Tyler Connect 2025, our annual conference designed to bring public sector professionals together to empower, collaborate, and imagine. Join us in San Antonio, Texas, from May 11–14, 2025, for product training, networking, and inspiration to help drive your organization forward. Early registration is now open — visit tylertech.com/connect to secure your spot!
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Transcript:
Cate Ryba: Whether it’s an economic challenge, public health crisis, a natural disaster, governments have to withstand those shocks, but they also have to learn and evolve from them. And resident engagement is really critical because it ensures that governments are connected to the real-time needs and concerns of their constituents. Those residents then feel heard and involved. That creates and builds trust, and that is the cycle that enables governments to respond more effectively, and those residents’ become partners in resilience.
Josh Henderson: From Tyler Technologies, this is the Tyler Tech Podcast, where we explore the trends, technologies, and people shaping public sector innovation today.
I’m Josh Henderson, part of the corporate marketing team here at Tyler. Thanks for joining us.
Each episode, we bring you thought-provoking conversations on the tools and strategies driving our communities forward.
If you enjoy our podcast, please consider subscribing, giving us a five-star rating, and sharing the show with others.
In today’s episode, we’re talking about resilience, and how governments can recover from disruptions, adapt to challenges, and continue delivering critical services while maintaining public trust.
Whether it’s responding to natural disasters, managing cybersecurity threats, or ensuring seamless operations during crises, resilience is the key to thriving in today’s complex digital world.
And joining us is Cate Ryba, director of resident engagement at Tyler. Cate will discuss how technology empowers governments to strengthen operations, engage residents, and foster trust through transparent communication and innovative solutions.
She’ll also highlight real world examples of these strategies in action, demonstrating how governments can turn challenges into opportunities for growth.
So, let’s get right into my conversation with Cate Ryba. We hope you enjoy the episode.
Alright, Cate. Thanks so much for joining me today on the Tyler Tech Podcast.
Cate Ryba: Thanks. I’m excited to be here, Josh.
Josh Henderson: Yeah. We’re so happy to have you on the show. I’m hoping you can share your perspective on what resilience means for governments today and why resident engagement is such a critical component of it.
Cate Ryba: I mean, when you think about different types of resilience within governments, there are a lot of different types.
People sometimes go immediately to disaster recovery, but there are also things like organizational resilience — so how can your governmental organization resist, absorb, recover, and adapt to an ever changing and increasingly complex environment to deliver to its residents?
There’s also operational resilience. How will your service delivery to your residents be impacted during disruptions?
People talk a lot about IT and cyber resilience. We think about cyberattacks on governments that can cripple them. So, what are the redundancy mechanisms and security that you’re building into your infrastructure and your systems to make sure you can still operate in those disruptive times?
I’m a big fiscal policy geek, so I think about fiscal resilience. You know, how does your governmental organization plan for unexpected financial hurdles? Things like property tax loss after a natural disaster or sales tax loss, and then I could get to the natural disaster recovery, that is a big piece of resilience.
So, how do you make sure that you as a government can still serve your residents with critical IT infrastructure and your systems and your operations after a disaster?
So, governments today really need to be adaptive. They need to be proactive and responsive to the changing needs in your community. Whether it’s an economic challenge, public health crisis, a natural disaster — governments have to withstand those shocks — but they also have to learn and evolve from them. And resident engagement is really critical because it ensures that governments are connected to the real-time needs and concerns of their constituents. Those residents then feel heard and involved. That creates and builds trust, and that is the cycle that enables governments to respond more effectively, and those residents’ become partners in resilience.
They can provide those on the ground insights. They can amplify messages to others in their community during these critical times. So, it’s really a symbiotic relationship. Residents depending on governments for those resources and that support, and then governments relying on residents for feedback and collaboration.
Josh Henderson: I think that’s such a great starting off point, and will feed into everything that we touch on today in the conversation. So, thank you for that.
Technology, obviously, is increasingly becoming a bridge between governments and communities.
What are some major ways technology can ensure residents have the resources and information they need during a crisis?
Cate Ryba: So, technology really plays a transformative role in connecting governments and communities. We’ve come a long way in the past 20 years to responding to crisis using technology.
So, some of those examples might be having a mobile app to serve your residents, that can be a really effective real-time communication tool. Things like SMS alerts, your social media channels to share timely updates and emergencies. You really have to have all those different funnels of that real-time communication to your residents.
Another piece of the puzzle is having centralized access to services and resources and having residents understand where that is and what that is before a disaster ever occurs. So, whether it’s applying for assistance, reporting damages, finding shelters, having that information all in one place is really helpful in in a difficult traumatic time for your residents. You know, I mentioned that feedback loop, that symbiotic relationship. So, making sure that the technology you have in place really empowers residents to report issues, request help instantly, and that gives you, the government, an actionable data point to prioritize and address those urgent needs.
And then, I mentioned data. The data-driven decisions are a big piece of the puzzle here. Having those analytic tools to help your government understand the needs, allocating resources efficiently and effectively, being able to do retrospectives and look back like, what was the data coming in, how do we respond, how can we do better next time, is really important when you’re thinking about what technology tools you’re using. And then finally, emergency preparedness.
So, you know, not only facilitating communications during a time of disruption or disaster but also creating that sense of preparedness upfront for residents so that they feel supported and informed, when it matters most.
Josh Henderson: And developing that expertise and finding out those data points, from a product perspective, you need to take consideration of real-world applications of this type of thing. So, I wanted to next discuss Louisiana, and Louisiana’s use of Tyler’s Resident Engagement platform as it relates to strengthening disaster preparedness and response. And, Cate, what made this platform so effective in fostering resilience in the state of Louisiana?
Cate Ryba: This is a a really great story. So, the governor’s office of homeland security and emergency preparedness worked with Tyler last summer to put an mobile app in place ahead of hurricane season. It’s called Get A Game Plan.
You can find it in the App Store, in the Google Store, the Google Play Store. And, essentially, what their focus was is how can we have that emergency preparedness guide? So, what I mentioned just at the end of my last answer, how can we set people up for success during the coming hurricane season? So, doing things like allowing users in the app to build a custom list of emergency supply needs, they can base it on their family size, their family type. They can find locations for shelters. They can look at all the social media channels that are relevant to them. For example, the governor’s office, the national weather center, all those in one place rather than having to go search them out during a time of emergency.
There the emergency numbers that they might need are consolidated all in one place, and those are available offline.
And that’s really important to have because oftentimes cellular service goes out. There’s no internet, there’s no power. So, having a consolidated place where you can find all the critical information in an emergency is really important for your residents. And then another piece that they used were push notifications, so sending information about evacuation routes and updating people about the progress of Hurricane Helene that indeed came a few months after the app was put into place.
So, they saw they were able to use the data from the back end of the app to see that during that peak time of Hurricane Helene, there were about 40,000 sessions. So, people were really robustly using the app. And then following that disaster, they were able to also use the app to access things like small business association, recovery loans, FEMA resources, and see where the locations are, FEMA offices. So, again, it’s just having all of the information in one place and preparing ahead that they were really forward-looking to have that in place. And, unfortunately, Hurricane Helene occurred, but, you know, they were ready — from a technology perspective — to serve the residents of the state of Louisiana.
Josh Henderson: Obviously not an ideal situation, but as long as residents are prepared and know how to seek out those resources, that’s critically important and will continue to be, moving forward. I’m wondering if you can share any other stories or examples where technology directly improved outcomes for residents during a crisis.
Cate Ryba: I have a personal story, actually. You know, this past week, we had a severe cold front and a winter storm in the south and the southeast, which is where I live. And as of late last week, there was actually at least one confirmed death due to the storm. So, getting information to residents can really be a matter of life and death. And you need to use, as I mentioned, every communication channel available to you as a government to reach them. So, I saw dozens of my clients sending out safety information, public building closings, locations for warming centers, and other weather information using those push notifications.
And over the past week too, for example, I saw the city of Pelham, Alabama, one of my clients, send out push notifications to their residents for a number of things, including a cold weather advisory, changes to their city hall hours of operation, how are the road conditions.
They ended up sending a push notification with links to outage maps for power outages due to the storm. And we know from talking to our Tyler public safety clients that some of the top 911 calls that their dispatch receives during a storm like this can be from residents reporting and asking about power outages. Your power goes out, you don’t think, okay, I need to go find the website of the power company and report things, always. You’re just really worried, and you call 911. So, being able to send residents this information through their apps, to report their outages, to find out more information instead of calling 911, that freed up dispatchers to address more critical calls during a crisis. So, that’s just one example of how outcomes can be improved by having that immediate reaction with technology during a crisis.
Josh Henderson: Absolutely. And I’m curious to get your take on what lessons you feel other governments can learn from these real world applications to sort of enhance their own resilience strategies.
Cate Ryba: I sound like a broken record here a little bit, but there isn’t a one size fits all approach to informing residents. You really have to think about all the different communication channels possible to reach your residents. So, somebody might be comfortable with looking at their mobile app — somebody else might prefer to get a text message.
Others love their email newsletters. And other residents are always on Nextdoor or they’re always on Facebook, so you have to be on those channels as well. So, I really think, from a government perspective, you have to have a communication strategy and think from that no one size fits all approach and find all those different channels and meet people where they are. And then I think in the case of extreme disasters, using technology is also really important to coordinate with public safety and other organizations who might be conducting door-to-door evacuation alerts. You know, using technology to make things as efficient as possible can have those real-world impacts for safety and health for your residents. So, again, they’re all different approaches, but I think you have to try everything.
Using technology to make things as efficient as possible can have real-world impacts on the safety and health of your residents.
Cate Ryba
Director of Resident Engagement, Tyler Technologies
And it’s tough from, you know, having worked in local government myself. You’ll always have someone say, well, I didn’t see anything about that.
But you really have to just scattershot and use as many different channels as possible to find your way to your residents.
Josh Henderson: Stay tuned. We’ll be right back with more of the Tyler Tech Podcast.
Hey there, Tyler Tech Podcast listeners. Have you heard the buzz? Our annual user conference, Tyler Connect 2025, is officially on the horizon. And I’m here with my colleague, Jade Champion, with some exciting news to share.
Jade Champion: That’s right! Early registration is now open, and trust us, you don’t want to miss this. Mark your calendars for May 11 through May 14, 2025, because we’re heading back to sunny San Antonio, Texas.
Josh Henderson: I can picture it already. The unique charm of historic Market Square, the vibrant Riverwalk, and of course, the iconic Alamo. And let’s be honest. It’s not just the location that makes Tyler Connect a must-attend event.
Jade Champion: Absolutely. Tyler Connect is one of the largest gatherings of public sector professionals, and it’s your chance to collaborate with peers who are solving challenges with innovative solutions. It’s packed with product training, network opportunities, and inspiration to help you and your team thrive.
Josh Henderson: Whether you’re a first-timer or a Connect veteran, this conference always delivers. And let’s not forget, you’ll leave with new knowledge, practical tools, and meaningful connections to apply in your work and share with your teams.
Jade Champion: Head to tylertech.com/connect to take advantage of our early registration pricing, which secures your spot for an unforgettable time in San Antonio.
Josh Henderson: We can’t wait to see you at Tyler Connect 2025 — a place to empower, collaborate, and imagine what’s possible for the public sector, all in the heart of Texas.
Now let’s get back to the Tyler Tech Podcast.
As you’ve certainly alluded to, public trust is essential during disruptions. And whether that’s a natural disaster or a cyber-attack or whatever it might be, that public trust is essential in in the response to that. So how can transparent communication solutions help governments establish trust with their communities?
Cate Ryba: My advice — I’m a former city councilor, so I’ve been in that role where you’re needing to build that trust and communicate with your residents. And so, my advice would be communicating early and often.
This is really what leaders have to do. And in this age of — we have a fractured media landscape, governments really need to utilize, like I mentioned just a minute ago, every way possible to reach their residents with critical information.
Governments really need to have a comprehensive communications plan way before the disaster ever occurs. And this is just as important as making plans to keep your roads open to ensuring access to critical infrastructure to providing public safety. That communications plan is as important as those things. And they need to include things like early warnings across every platform that your residents have access to. You know, the example we just mentioned was Louisiana.
It’s really preparing people. So, 97% of people in the U.S. actually have access to smartphones. So, making sure that you have an app or some mobile approach to reaching people alongside SMS texts, web based updates, phone calls, all those things are important. When the Internet is out, then people can still use their phones as a tool.
Even when cell service is down, Louisiana’s Get A Game plan app has that critical information that I mentioned all in one place online. I live in Asheville, North Carolina, so I’m really familiar with this challenge. I know during Hurricane Helene I did not have cell service for about two weeks and no Internet for longer than that.
So, you know, I had neighbors that were putting out chalkboards of information about which highways were open and where to get water and where to find gas. All we had was a radio announcement to get information. So, if I had an app where all that emergency preparedness information could have been in one place offline, that would have been really helpful for me. So, every government needs to be ready for the worst.
You know, we didn’t expect a hurricane in the mountains, but like all governments need to prepare for all scenarios, which sounds really difficult, but using technology can make it a lot easier. And that’s the way that you build trust, way before a disaster happens, is when your resident uses technology that you’re offering them, for example, to report a pothole or a code violation, and then they see, oh, that issue has been resolved, and my government’s communicated back. This really builds trust with not only the technology itself, but it helps residents really see, hey, my government’s listening to me, and they’re reacting and they’re communicating with me. And having that two-way feedback loop, it really lays the groundwork for residents to seek out the tools that they’re comfortable with, and then they use those to find that information during disruptions and disasters.
And speaking from experience of living through Hurricane Helene, the human brain really goes into autopilot during times of disruption and times of trauma. So, making your residents familiar with the tools that you’re offering and getting them to trust the communications that you’ve been sharing with them way prior to a disruption or a disaster. It makes it so much easier, and they’ll be more likely to trust you and remember, hey, I’m going to use this technology and these services that you’re providing during that disruption or disaster.
Josh Henderson: It’s such an interesting perspective that you bring because you’ve you’re somebody who works in the space, and you’re also somebody who’s experienced something so closely. It’s in the place that you live. How can governments use data-driven tools to better understand those resident needs and improve decision making during emergencies?
Cate Ryba: So, having the tools that provide a two-way communication loop, like I just mentioned, with residents, one of the great things is — tools that I know we have at Tyler — you’re able to see, for example, what are the top issues that residents are reporting in general, and then what are the ones they’re reporting during emergencies. You can use data from these apps to be able to see, oh, how many people are accessing this section of this platform?
And you can iterate and adjust accordingly to elevate the most viewed and important and useful information that you’re providing to your residents.
Another piece of the puzzle — I’m trained as a city planner, I’m a big map geek. Government’s using tools for residents to be able to track the geographic locations of reported issues and then using that data to direct resources and services, and adapt to meet the needs based on those reported issues in real-time.
And then, before a disaster even occurs, things like online survey tools can be really useful — gathering data to determine resident sentiments and needs. You know, this kind of data, it can really drive decision-making, even during the budget process for budget priorities and investments in future emergency preparedness.
So, there are lots of different ways that governments can collect and slice and dice data, but making sure that you’re collecting that data, and that you have tools, to do that is really important to not only serve residents in real-time during a disaster, but also to be able to look retrospectively — what do we see, how can we do better, how can we improve how we serve our residents?
Josh Henderson: This has been such a wonderful conversation.
As we wind things down, we like to look ahead a little bit, as much as we can. I know we can’t predict the future, but I’m curious to get some of your takes on what you see as future trends in resident engagement technology that could further enhance resilience.
Cate Ryba: I think no one will be surprised to hear me say, first off, that I know that AI-powered tools are going to be a big piece of the puzzle for resident engagement.
These kinds of tools can provide instant personalized responses to resident inquiries even during high-demand periods when your government staff are diverted to deal with disaster response.
You know, they can help residents find evacuation routes, apply for aid, get real-time updates during emergencies.
It can also analyze community sentiments and predict potential issues before they escalate. AI is a big piece of the puzzle, I think, going towards the future.
I mentioned geo-specific data. I think having technologies that can — this is a technical term, geofence — which is essentially, hey, can I draw a line around this, this certain boundary of this neighborhood or this area served by this particular water lift station and send notifications just to the residents in those areas? So, they know the water service is going to be interrupted for this period of time in my area, and the whole city doesn’t get that notification so people don’t get information fatigue and not pay attention when they are asked to evacuate.
So, having that hyper-localized, targeted communication will be a trend, and really important.
This is something that we have at Tyler, that One Tyler vision, of having all of your various government departments and having their data talk to each other and having that integrated data ecosystem.
I think that’s that holistic approach that you can see all of the data coming in from your different departments in one place, and be able to make informed decisions, being able to see it all. I’m a visual person — being able to see a dashboard and make decisions is really important for our government partners.
I’m obviously biased as well with mobile-first solutions. I think that that’s something that, like I said, 97% of people have smartphones in the U.S. A lot don’t have access to a computer or internet, but they have that cell phone, that smartphone. They have that cell service.
So, being able to offer a mobile app that has offline capabilities during times of disaster — or if you’re in an area that’s underserved by cell service — having that mobile solution is really important.
Josh Henderson: That’s great. And as this stuff evolves, we will obviously have you back on to detail it all for us. So lastly, Cate, just wanted to leave with some advice that you would give to public sector leaders looking to strengthen resilience in their operations through resident engagement and technology?
Cate Ryba: I think the most obvious one and the first one I’d share is listen.
I think as a former government employee and a former city councilor, listening to your residents is the number one most important thing that you can do. And so, what tools can you employ to get information to your residents, whether it’s surveys, it’s making sure that if you have a mobile app at your city council meetings, your county commission meetings or are all streamed easily to your residents that they have a way to communicate back with you. Building that two-way communication loop to make it easy for residents to feel heard and valued is really important.
I think investing in scalable and flexible technology.
So, making sure that the platforms you choose can scale with your community needs and adapt to changing circumstances.
So, cloud-based solutions are the way to go for resiliency and to adapt during a crisis because they really ensure continuous service delivery even when city hall isn’t open in the case of — some parts of Asheville — where your city hall isn’t there anymore.
But your residents are still able to get information they need because it’s all in the cloud.
I think I mentioned just a minute ago, making sure that any technology you’re using is accessible to your residents for ADA, anybody with language barriers, offering things like — we did this in the city where I work — free Wi-Fi in public spaces so that people can access information about your community without having to be able to afford to pay for that in their home.
Data-driven decision making, I can’t hammer that enough. Being able to identify trends, allocate resources dynamically, making informed decisions, both during your everyday business, but then also in an emergency and retroactively looking back, and building a data governance framework so that your residents are seeing the data too, and really seeing that transparency and building that trust.
And then, community partnerships are also a big deal. So, making sure that if you’re launching a new technology in your community, you are tapping those leaders in your community to communicate to your residents as well.
And you have those trusted voices saying, hey, use this tool that our government is offering to you, and it’s a trustworthy, endeavor to do so.
And then I guess, I’d say fostering a culture of innovation is also really important. The product that I work on, one of the great things about it is extremely flexible. So, our clients are constantly trying new ways of configuring their products to see what residents want, what’s resonating with them, what are the most useful tools in the app, and they’re able to easily and dynamically, change those. So, having a kind of growth mindset with your teams to try new technologies to reach people.
And then I think I’ll lastly say, celebrate your successes. Track key metrics related to your resident engagement. We have clients that love to, at every city council meeting, share how many new downloads they have of their resident engagement app to show how people are adopting and using the technology in their community. And so, sharing those success stories builds that trust and gets people excited about using the technology so that when times are difficult, when there is a disruption, a disaster, that they rely back on that that trusted tool to be able to carry them through and really appreciate the infrastructure that’s been provided to them by their government.
Josh Henderson: That’s great. And I think that’s a great place to wrap up the conversation, Cate. Thank you so much for joining me again. This was such a great conversation, and we hope to have you back on again in the future.
Cate Ryba: Sounds great. Thanks so much for having me, Josh.
Josh Henderson: Thank you for joining us for this conversation with Cate Ryba, director of resident engagement at Tyler Technologies.
Resilience is at the heart of effective government operations, enabling communities to recover, adapt, and thrive.
By leveraging innovative technology and transparent communication, governments can strengthen their operations and build the public trust essential for navigating challenges.
At Tyler, we’re committed to supporting public sector organizations with tools and strategies to enhance operational resilience and better serve their communities.
If you’d like to learn more about what we discussed today, check out our show notes for additional resources.
We’d also love to hear your feedback on today’s episode. Let us know your thoughts by filling out the survey linked in the show notes or reaching out to us anytime at podcast@tylertech.com.
And be sure to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast so you won’t miss any upcoming episodes, where we’ll continue exploring the innovative ways technology is empowering the public sector.
For Tyler Technologies, I’m Josh Henderson. Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time on the Tyler Tech Podcast.