About

This website is the personal site of Bill Schrier, Chief Technology Officer for the City of Seattle, used to express personal opinion and test Web 2.0 technologies.  Comments on any blog entry are welcome, but will be moderated.

The opinions expressed on this site and in the blog are solely those of Bill Schrier and do not necessarily reflect the official opinions of the elected officials or residents of the City of Seattle.

The focus of this blog is the intersection of technology and government, and specifically how technology influences Seattle’s government, but also how Seattle’s government uses technology on behalf of the residents, citizens, visitors and people of the City.  I firmly believe government exists to do for people what they cannot easily do for themselves, or purchase on the open market.  Accordingly cities run parks, provide water and take away wastewater, have police officers, firefighters and emergency medical technicians, and, in Seattle’s case, operate a municipal electric utility.  Cities also have technology to make all these jobs and services more effective.   And I want to tell the stories of how this happens.

This is not a blog about “politics”, but the voters of Seattle have elected officials – Mayor, City Council members, City Attorney and Municipal Court judges – to run their government.  Technology in government is also about the legitimate choices elected officials make in government operations, and the effects of those choices.

Finally, I firmly believe government is about “service to people”, often called “customer service”.   Technology has vastly changed the way all businesses do customer service, whether it is via ATMs, banking on the web, paying bills with credit cards or Internet chat.   The improved services people get from the technology used by private businesses, they will also eventually expect from their government (see blog entry “Bleeding Edge Government“).  This blog is about that journey of harnessing the changes in information technology to make the City of Seattle – more efficient and effective – and a better place to work and live.

The official website of the City of Seattle is www.seattle.gov , and the official website for the City’s Department of Information Technology, which Bill directs, is www.seattle.gov/doit .   Address general questions or comments to bill@schrier.org .