The power of the handheld device, be it a smartphone or tablet, is unleashed when an application ecosystem enhances and optimizes business process, thereby making these devices cornerstone to agency operations.

1. ‘Mobile First’
as a Reality in Public Safety

2. The public safety market is ready to embrace mobile
technologies, such as smartphones and tablets.
While that may not sound like news, there are
incredible considerations made by public safety
agencies when moving to devices like these for
daily operation. The majority of agencies that have
made a successful transition to a mobile workforce
have done so by focusing in the following three
areas:

3. 1. Identify Use Cases

4. Every forward thinking CIO, Administrator, Chief
or Sheriff at the agencies that have made the
transition are starting these initiatives by asking
the basic question of:
"How are we going to be able
to use these devices?”.
After all, if agencies are evaluating mobile
infrastructure to simply make calls and email,
THEN THEY ARE MISSING THE BOAT.

5. The power of the handheld device, be it a
smartphone or tablet, is unleashed when an
application ecosystem enhances and optimizes
business process, thereby making these
devices cornerstones to agency operations.
This means the first step in adopting mobile
technology is identifying primary use cases for
mobile devices and their core applications.

6. 2. Research the Options

7. Once agencies understand, for example, that
they want to use these smart devices to
document events, they must then understand
what's out there.
What are the best devices for the
environment?
10" or 7" tablets? 4" or 5" phones?
?

8. In law enforcement, we are seeing the frontline
officer benefiting from the smaller form factor of a
smartphone but with many agencies looking to
replace their mobile desktop terminals with tablets,
the larger real estate of the tablet presents an
opportunity to really leverage the devices for:
…and
more.
Mapping
Sketching
Diagramming
Reporting

9. As they move from
hardware to software
decisions, agencies
need to be looking at
software to either drive
mobile adoption or
increase the value of an
existing mobile
infrastructure.

10. And then a very real decision needs to be made about
leveraging off-the-shelf software versus expending
resources on building custom applications.
In the words of Mark Cuban,
"Know your core
competencies and focus
on being great at them."

11. 3. Pilot & Operationalize

12. Lastly, once you’ve selected the hardware and a
few software applications, to fully leverage the
capabilities of the devices, agencies need to
pilot and operationalize.
So what’s involved with that?

13. At SceneDoc, we put a lot of energy into ensuring
a structured pilot framework and process that
garners plenty of customer feedback
Just like development and a lot of things in
business, it’s a contact sport and our customers
have really benefited from a collaborative approach
to piloting.
End User
Training
Train-the-
Trainer
Milestone
Meetings

14. The idea of using the pilot to assess viability, usability,
measuring value, etc. put both parties in a position to
make decisions based on empirical evidence.
From here, we operationalize, and again, we see this
as a collaborative effort. Change, and the overall
management and support of it, are often the most
critical factors in adoption and acceptance.

15. Policy also helps support
the change as it inevitably
gives users the framework
of the new ways of
operating. We stress to our
customers how important it
is to enforce and
re-enforce the use of the
new technology as the only
way of doing business.

16. With one of our early adopting customers, the use of
SceneDoc was an optional tool for the officers and we saw
that only
In a similar agency where policy supported the change,
nearly
of the officers had made it part of their daily operation.
adoption and the results of a 'mobile first' operation has
been paying dividends ever since.

17. Wrap-Up
Going 'mobile' doesn't need to be a difficult
move and, speaking from experience, every
agency or enterprise that has made the
move can no longer remember the days
before a mobile workforce was their reality.