Coming in this week began with following up with the director of Metro Animal Services from the discussion we had about the department's portion of the city website. Some of the most important notes I took from our informal meeting included the site not being user friendly. For example, the process to look up a dog's registration is difficult and sometimes gives inaccurate information to the user. Additionally, the generic header should eventually be changed to appear dynamic and eye-catching by featuring specific animals and staff within the department. I contacted different content management and web development individuals to begin looking at ways to change these and help reduce the number of unnecessary phone calls Animal Services receives from website confusion. This city department has some of the most page views based on Google Analytics, which makes it a higher priority task to complete.
Today consisted of several meetings that were important for me to sit in and listen to. The first was considered an "innovation meeting", which is a concept that was recently created as a way for all Metro employees to sit down and openly discuss new ideas and projects to work on for the company in the upcoming months. I gave my opinion several times, but it was more of a learning experience as I observed how all the employees came together. It was beneficial for me to attend because it taught me about the subject of professional development and some of the skills that it entails. The department director has allowed two hours of professional development material each week on top of the day to day tasks. Weekly team leaders will be looking to update system databases, create a shared assets database, and update an active directory to reflect an organization chart. In the regular staff meeting, my supervisor gave me the task to begin brainstorming ways MyMetro, the internal company webpage, can be re-branded to replace the large amounts of text with graphical representations that will make it clearer for site users.
The third and final meeting began teaching me about the continuation of the open data project. Essentially, open data is important for governments because it creates transparency and holds them accountable by citizens who have access to the completely free information and can check it for accuracy. Currently, the largest open data database is run through a system called "DKAN", which is defined as a Drupal based tool with features of cataloging, publishing, and visualizations that allow governments to publish to the public. The main problem is that when large data sets are accessed by a user, there are failures in the network infrastructure that cause more downtime and reduced site performance. The network team would like me to return to their discussions each week as they gradually figure out different methods for solving this problem with the databases. This is important for me because I plan to talk about this as one of my subjects in my final project.
Today consisted of several meetings that were important for me to sit in and listen to. The first was considered an "innovation meeting", which is a concept that was recently created as a way for all Metro employees to sit down and openly discuss new ideas and projects to work on for the company in the upcoming months. I gave my opinion several times, but it was more of a learning experience as I observed how all the employees came together. It was beneficial for me to attend because it taught me about the subject of professional development and some of the skills that it entails. The department director has allowed two hours of professional development material each week on top of the day to day tasks. Weekly team leaders will be looking to update system databases, create a shared assets database, and update an active directory to reflect an organization chart. In the regular staff meeting, my supervisor gave me the task to begin brainstorming ways MyMetro, the internal company webpage, can be re-branded to replace the large amounts of text with graphical representations that will make it clearer for site users.
The third and final meeting began teaching me about the continuation of the open data project. Essentially, open data is important for governments because it creates transparency and holds them accountable by citizens who have access to the completely free information and can check it for accuracy. Currently, the largest open data database is run through a system called "DKAN", which is defined as a Drupal based tool with features of cataloging, publishing, and visualizations that allow governments to publish to the public. The main problem is that when large data sets are accessed by a user, there are failures in the network infrastructure that cause more downtime and reduced site performance. The network team would like me to return to their discussions each week as they gradually figure out different methods for solving this problem with the databases. This is important for me because I plan to talk about this as one of my subjects in my final project.