Sowing Seeds of Innovation

HP's Bob Dobson describes a system that would help map fire locations based on reports sent from a smart phone app used by County employees. It was a concept presented at the first HP Innovation Day.

You see a column of thick black smoke start spreading in the sky.

You, a County employee, whip out your smart phone and launch an app that lets you take a picture of the smoke and marks your location. With the click of a button, your report is sent to a database, which is collecting similar reports from your colleagues. County emergency teams review the combined information and get a much better understanding of the location of a fire breaking out in San Diego’s rugged backcountry.

For now, the Mobile Emergency Reporting System is just a proposal. But it was just one of several ideas of new ways the County can use technology presented at the first HP Innovation Day.

“We challenged our friends at HP,” said Chief Information Officer Mikel Haas in kicking off the event. “You know our business lines. Show us what you can do.”

So the County’s IT outsource partner had teams come up with a batch of ideas the County might be able to use.  Those thoughts were recently turned into a series of demonstrations at the County Operations Center. They ranged from pure concepts to actual hardware.

The world's fastest printer, by one measure, will soon be in the County's hardware catalog.The latter included a world record-setting printer. That’s not just marketing hype. HP’s Officejet Pro X551dw holds a Guinness World Records title for fastest time to print 500 color copies: 7 minutes, 18 seconds. It will soon be available in the County catalog.

On the more futuristic side is a system that would allow the County to take advantage of “augmented reality.” What? AR takes your view of the actual world through a smart phone or tablet’s camera and adds supplemental information or even videos.  In one of the examples the HP team gave, you could use its Aurasma app to focus on a sign at the Registrar of Voters office and bring up a video of ballot-counting procedures on election night. In another, you could look at a piece of equipment with your smart phone and get instructions on how to operate it.

If you question how much practical use something like that has, that’s OK.  The day was as much about stirring people’s imaginations as showcasing tools to use now said Patty Carpenter of the County Technology Office and one of the event’s organizers.

“It was to get people thinking: Are these things we could build on?” Carpenter said. “It doesn’t mean all of them will come to fruition.”  

The County has put on a number of Innovation Days in the past, but this was the first devoted solely to HP services. The HP team said it would take feedback and plans to hold a similar event in another six months.