The Impact of System Modernization

Tyler Podcast Episode 84, Transcript

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Episode Summary

On this special episode of The Tyler Tech Podcast, we are revisiting some of our favorite conversations from 2023.

From unlocking the potential of complex data to creating efficiencies by transitioning to the Cloud, our Tyler experts walk us through the evolution of government agencies, and how the public sector continues to transform and enhance the resident experience.

Guests:

• Kyle Hall, Director of Product Management, Data & Insights Division, Tyler Technologies
• Franklin Williams, President, Data & Insights Division, Tyler Technologies
• Saf Rabah, Vice President, Data Solutions, Tyler Technologies
• Brian McGrath, President, Courts & Justice Division, Tyler Technologies
• Russell Gainford, Sr. Vice President, Cloud Strategy & Operations, Tyler Technologies

Transcript

Russell Gainford: I think the cloud has become a forefront for digital resident services and access because it provides the performance, the scalability, and the availability that citizens expect.

Josh Henderson: From Tyler Technologies, it's The Tyler Tech Podcast, your source for insightful conversations with thought leaders addressing the pressing issues in our communities.

I'm Josh Henderson, and I'm on the corporate marketing team here at Tyler. Thanks for joining us.

In each episode, we dive into the essential topics shaping our society, and shed light on the individuals, places, and technologies empowering the public sector. If you like what you hear, please consider giving us a five-star rating and review, subscribing on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and recommending the show to others.

On today's episode, we're looking back at some of our favorite conversations from 2023. And specifically, the public sector stories that for how a modern digital infrastructure enhances agility and responsiveness of government agencies, contributes to better governance, and increases the overall well-being of residents. We hope you enjoy it.

We'll start back with episode 81 from October. With the Director of Product Management in Tyler's Data & Insights Division, Kyle Hall.

As a former government employee, Kyle knows firsthand about the importance of staying modern in the public sector. And in this clip, he walks us through how technology has helped government agencies evolve over time.

Kyle Hall: A lot of government process started in paper. Right? Since those very early times, the problems associated with paper are pretty well understood, like things can get lost.

It can take a long time to fill out forms. There can be reconciliation issues between multiple systems. So, if you have multiple systems that are reporting aspects of information relative to one person or one entity, there can be some, like, fragmentation problems. And so these are these are long running problems that have been happening for hundreds of years in government.

So, I think the thing that people are most excited about is sort of asking that perennial question, is this the technology that's going to allow me to solve some of these perennial problems in government?

A very simple example is, we do a lot of work with folks in the health and human services side. And for a lot of individuals, there's a very complex array of services that they benefit from, that they can take advantage of. Generally, with a pretty high level of security and compliance, and that's health data, some of that's criminal justice data, some of that sort of social service data, generally held in different systems that don't have a long history of talking to each other. But, you know, one of the really exciting things about these highly secure cloud native data management capabilities that now exist is actually the prospect of bringing that data together is now practically achievable in a way that has been historically impossible.

So, you know, any new technology expands the horizon of what can't be done, and really pushes forward sort of the art of the possible. Then it's just a question of procurement of implementation of policy and of culture. Right? So, in a lot of cases, what we're seeing, governments extremely excited, about looking to say, hey, it is actually possible for us to build a more citizen-centric view of the world and to make citizen services more cohesive to make sure the different agencies are better able to communicate and share information with one another.

So, that that remains, I think, the goal was the thing that people are most excited about, and it's really a question can that be implemented, can that be achieved?

And that's really some combination of technology and best practice and cultural shift to say, to get people more comfortable with sharing this kind of information. When I look forward a lot of the things that people are really excited about is really solving some of these perennial problems in government moving forward. The ability to make things a little bit more cohesive, a little bit more centralized.

Josh Henderson: It's clear that one of the major ways in which governments are becoming more effective as they navigate modern technology tools, is having the ability to harness data to make public services more accessible and less cumbersome.

In episode 75 back in August, Tyler's Data & Insights Division President, Franklin Williams, detailed the advancements that have been made when it comes to data usage.

Franklin Williams: You know, over the last 10, 15 years, government data programs have really gone from kind of a relative infancy to something that is really matured in the market. If you go all the way back to the early 2000s, the data usage was rather rudimentary. It was based on, you know, manual collection, simple spreadsheets, data trapped in these old systems. And it was really about, just, can I even get my hands on any data, let alone how to systematically analyze it or do anything else along those lines.

A lot of the decision making was, you know, intuition-driven, driven by your gut, simply because we didn't have access to the type of data and the type of information we needed. However, that started to change around the late 2000s. Back then, there was kind of the government 2.0, you know, kind of a play on web 2.0 initiatives.

And the goal there was really to take advantage of advances in technology to make government more effective, more accessible. And there's a lot greater emphasis on harnessing data analytics to help decision-making, and really accelerate the delivery of public services. And that's evolved even further in more recent years, where we've started to basically see a lot more advances, a lot more public sector taking advantage of bringing together data, knocking down data silos, and really going all-in around advanced analytics, machine learning, and really deliver on behalf of their residents.

The other thing that's equally exciting though is that they started to see enhanced focus on transparency, enhanced focus on open data, and enhanced focus on telling their residents a story about what they're doing on their behalf to, again, engage those residents and increase trust in the public sector.

Josh Henderson: And so, how do we make sense of complex data?

Tyler's Vice President of Data Solutions, Saf Rabah, provided that clarity during episode 76 in September.

Saf Rabah: There is this expectation out there, and it's really, you know, we can call it an aspiration, because it's actually really hard to do. Of, can we provide an experience where information, transactions, interactions with government are more centric to that persona of a small business owner, a homeowner. Can we bring this information together? Can we make it more convenient to do business, right, to own a home, to send kids to school? So, the idea is, can we take all this data that's sitting in all of these silos and not only connect it all together, but translate it into consumable information that everyday folks can relate to, interact with, make sense of? And can we do that in a modern experience? And the reason why modern experience matters is because, you know, we live our digital lives. So, and I see this recognizing that too high a portion of the population don't have access to digital lives.

So, that's an entirely set, you know, and a very different set of problems, which is, yes, there might be information on the website, but I can't access that website. The digital divide is still very real, and there are populations that are at a huge disadvantage there. But if we focus on those that are lucky enough, and fortunate enough to be able to live their lives, in a, you know, digital savvy way, there is an expectation that builds up every day that, you know, it should be as easy to do business with my city as it is to do business with my bank or booking an airline flight or, you know, those types of things.

So, the experience, the access to information, the ability to design, you know, citizen, resident, business-centric experiences that allow them to get the information they need, transact, interact with government. That's kind of the big picture, where it's not just data. Data is a big component, but it's all kinds of things that come together to you know, give hope to this aspiration that we all have of modernizing that experience.

Josh Henderson: Stay tuned. We'll be right back with more of The Tyler Tech Podcast.

Jade Champion: I hope you enjoy listening to this episode of The Tyler Tech Podcast. My name is Jade Champion, and I'm hanging out this week with Breanna Case to chat about Tyler's annual user conference, Tyler Connect. Breanna tell us about Connect 2024, where's the location and what can we expect at this annual user conference?

Breanna Case: Hey, Jade, this year, Tyler Connect is heading back to Indianapolis, Indiana May 19th through 22nd, 2024. Early registration is now open. This is an exclusive Tyler client conference where you can receive product training and network with thousands of industry peers.

Last year was our largest conference to date with almost 6000 people in attendance. We're excited to bring our clients back to Indy.

Jade Champion: I'm so excited for this conference. Indy's home to six thriving cultural districts.

It's known for its iconic Motor Speedway and 500 mile race. It's one of the most walkable cities in the US, and it's named the number one convention city in America by USA Today.

Breanna Case: Yes, it is the perfect place to host Tyler Connect 2024. Be sure to take advantage of early registration to save $250. Visit tylertech.com/connect and sign up for email communications, so you can be the first to hear about all the exciting plans we have for this year's conference.

Jade Champion: Get hype and check out the video in our show notes to imagine yourself in Indy for Tyler Connect 2024. Now let's get back to The Tyler Tech Podcast.

Josh Henderson: A crucial component of the connectivity necessary with a modernized digital infrastructure is transitioning to the cloud, which Tyler's Media Relations Manager, Rikki Ragland, discussed with Tyler's President of the Courts & Justice Division, Brian McGrath, in episode 82 of the podcast in November.

Rikki Ragland: When we talk about the modernization of our Court system, it obviously goes beyond digitizing records or creating alternatives to face-to-face communication.

Much of this modernization also involves that transition to the cloud.

Brian McGrath: Yeah, they're facing forces that require them to connect more and more of their systems together to share information. They're facing rising security threats that are much more difficult for them to respond to, because the capabilities of threat actors is outstripping folks, even in the private sector. And then they're really managing a large electronic footprint as more and more of their manual processes are being done via software and automation. And so, given that, courts are asking Tyler to, which now over half of our clients are hosted by Tyler, they're asking Tyler to remove the complexity of managing IT operations such that they can focus their team members on those new capabilities that their citizens or their justice partners or attorneys are asking for. And so we can centralize that at greater scale, with a greater posture around security, and it just really, like I said, freeing up their time to focus on, the efficiency and effectiveness of courts.

Josh Henderson: And to wrap up this episode on modernization, we're going back to episode 73, where Tyler's Corporate Marketing Manager, Beth Amann, sat down with Russell Gainford, Tyler's Senior Vice President of Cloud Strategy and Operations. Their discussion focused on why cloud services need to meet resident expectations.

Russell Gainford: I think the cloud has become a forefront for digital resident services and access, because it provides the performance, the scalability, and the availability that citizens expect. So, citizens are expecting when they go to Google, it's always available. They expect that when their government service available online that they're always able to access it.

And they expect that self-service level of access, which the cloud can provide you. It can be running in one place and delivering some of the web content to you in another integrated with your county or your state, and provide a lot of great access for digital services. And customers expect that.

They expect nowadays that they don't have to go in person for many of these services that are out there. They expect that they can access them online. And the quickest way to do that is to run through the cloud, because ultimately a key piece of that is that the cloud allows you to go faster. You don't have to do large upfront purchases of hardware, like governments did in the past.

You can turn something on in minutes, plan it through and continue to enhance it.

Beth Amann: I mean, I have a feeling when I ask this question, the answer is going to be all of them, but what parts of government should be honing in on and assessing these digital service offerings that can be incredibly scalable and improve performance and allow for self-service and 24 hour access?

Russell Gainford: Ultimately, all of them. So, maybe you're taking a step back. Is there any service that's provided that shouldn't have some component of digital service access? There may be an in-person component, there always is, but is there ways that people can go on and accelerate that service, file information ahead of time, understand what they're going to need in person? So, there's various levels of digital services and engagement, but ultimately, you want to look across the board and say, how can you provide that access to your resident's and your constituents in a way that is digital first? And so there's the thought process, always, that people sometimes aren't able to go in-person, or they can't go for that long, or they have a child at home. Or they're taking care of a parent or a loved one.

So, make it as seamless as possible, focus on the digital services first, and then follow-up with in-person if required.

Josh Henderson: And that's it for today's episode.

System modernization is reshaping organizations by allowing them to adapt in the digital age. From operational agility to data management and analytics, as well as cost savings, security, compliance, and scalability, governments are poised to take advantage of innovative technology to create more efficiencies in their systems, and better support their communities.

Tyler Technologies creates solutions made exclusively for the public sector, and has experts with government experience ready to support you on this journey. I hope you are excited about what the future holds and will reach out to us at podcast@tylertech.com to connect with a subject matter expert if you'd like to learn more.

For Tyler Technology, I'm Josh Henderson. Thanks for joining The Tyler Tech podcast.