Cities are complex ecosystems with multiple moving parts and processes, all working toward the same ends: ensuring safety and quality of life for citizens. But municipal and regional leaders can face challenges achieving these ends, as operational silos can lead to inconsistent and error-prone methods and processes.
By opening communication channels, people and departments can rally around common goals and work together, creating a more unified approach to tackling emergencies and common, day-to-day events.
Information sharing is crucial
Numerous people and systems keep a city running, from the mayor’s office to police, fire and EMS, and from transportation systems to the power grid. These separate teams and disparate systems function simultaneously. This is true for small towns, larger cities and across regions, so it is crucial for all these departments and systems to be able to share information.
However, technology and budget concerns can be roadblocks to enabling the free flow of information among city departments and regional systems. Data system integration can seem overwhelming, leading to siloed internal and external systems. Barriers between systems can create missed opportunities for growth and delays in identifying and responding to issues. All of this can be compounded by slow, manual communication.
But even when these data integration barriers are overcome, challenges remain. Many times, city and regional departments are hesitant to share their data due to fear of losing ownership and control. These fears can lead to isolated workflows where vital information is not shared with everyone to whom it is critical.
As-needed collaboration is key
With multiple departments working separately toward the same or sometimes different goals in a city or region, data sharing can be messy. Technology barriers, as well as people barriers such as politics over data ownership, can doom data sharing projects before they start. But data sharing is key to true collaboration. Cities and the agencies that support them need a solution in which mutual value is provided to all participants, where they can move beyond only viewing data to actively collaborating as daily operations or major events unfold.
HxGN Connect, our new cloud-native, SaaS collaborative workspace, makes information sharing not only attainable, but also a vital resource for achieving resiliency in communities across the globe. HxGN Connect is powered by a platform specifically focused on integrating different devices, systems and applications to easily deliver data. It enables cities to bridge gaps between departments – both within and outside the municipality – and other necessary organizations so they can share and act on data quickly, easily and securely. It also complements cities’ existing systems, providing a richer, unified view of information with built-in messaging and tasking to enable both day-to-day, ad-hoc engagement and ongoing, structured collaboration.
And with HxGN Connect’s data sharing controls, users have full ownership of their data and can determine the information they want others to see. Using an intuitive UI, users can set their own rules for engagement, quickly making changes to who, what, and when others can view their data in the space. We care about your data privacy. That’s why HxGN Connect simply links to your existing systems’ data rather than creating and storing copies in the workspace.
Going beyond typical coordination, HxGN Connect-based collaboration brings together all parts of the city for a wider shared awareness that provides richer context around plans, locations, resources, assets and actions, enabling service providers to do their jobs quicker and more effectively.
Learn more
Are you ready to reimagine collaboration? Find out more about HxGN Connect.
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