Council's future paperless
City Council members will soon get iPads, if they want one.
Incoming City Manager John Gillison gave the council a crash course on navigating the iPad today. The idea is to have the council members use their iPads to read their council packets, which can be 500-plus pages on most weeks.
Gillison taught the council how to scroll, zoom in, zoom out, highlight and take notes.
"You can literally duplicate what you used to do by hand with your agenda," Gillison said. "It's pretty easy to use."
Mayor Dennis Michael wonders how steep the learning curve is.
"I'm not going to be the last council member without an iPad," Michael said. "But I might say, 'Give me the packet with the iPad until I can get used to it.' "
Incoming City Manager John Gillison gave the council a crash course on navigating the iPad today. The idea is to have the council members use their iPads to read their council packets, which can be 500-plus pages on most weeks.
Gillison taught the council how to scroll, zoom in, zoom out, highlight and take notes.
"You can literally duplicate what you used to do by hand with your agenda," Gillison said. "It's pretty easy to use."
Mayor Dennis Michael wonders how steep the learning curve is.
"I'm not going to be the last council member without an iPad," Michael said. "But I might say, 'Give me the packet with the iPad until I can get used to it.' "
I'm curious if enhancements such as these really are a productivity boom when looking at the preparation of the council briefs, copying of papers, placing documents into electronic formats, preparation, paper utilized, reproduction costs and time, cost of the iPad etc etc. This concerns me as my taxes for their salaries and those who prepare the council briefs. Curious what the goal of the iPad move is. Ease of navigation, paper savings, labor savings, don't know..... I say this from experience as electronizing something doesn't mean cost savings or productivity gains.
City Council members will soon get iPads, if they want one.
Not everything that is "in" is good for all occations.
Stand up for your generation and say no thanks.
I'm guessing the main reason for the iPad is to cut paper costs. The city already offers the agenda packet online so I don't think they'll have to do extra work for the tablet change.
I think I need to go the next city council meeting to quiz them. Questions for the council, does the cost of paper, the time to print and distribute them really weigh that well against the training to use the iPad, the cost of the iPad, the cost of desktop support, and the replacement costs (they don't last forever). Lately I've become quite skeptical of paperless having become a victim of electronic processes and having seen a dramatic drop in productivity. Some of electronic processes have actually resulted in an increase of paper consumption!
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