Hi, as this is my first CSP blog I thought I would begin with a summary of where the Citizen Service Platform came from and what our experience has been in Microsoft sharing the programme with our customers and partners.

But first the (mis)understanding parts. Coming from a software product company it was bound to happen – that many of our colleagues expected CSP to be our “eGOv on a box” product offer. Well it actually did begin with that intention, but when we examined the core capabilities needed via market research from IDC, we found that the key Local Government Technology Priorities were already in many of our existing products, like Exchange, Sharepoint Dynamics CRM to give some examples. The capabilities below are some examples of what customers said they needed.

So why was there a relative lack of deployment in these core capabilities if many of them existed in current products. The answer begins with a history of underfunding in ICT at the LRG level which is now thankfully being addressed, but also with two other key issues that the still face

1. Technology Integration around current and legacy systems.

2. Alignment around the new business demands of officials  and expectation of Citizens.

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The first aspect is something that we are addressing with our own technology and templates. Local government systems have to work with what is there today and also deliver new capability at the same time. So for example, its important to show how we can re purpose data in back office systems through to a contact centre or portal by encouraging the development of adapters or interfacing pieces that can be shared amongst the community. We aim to help customers achieve this through our wide partner community.

Secondly and more fundamentally – whilst it the past systems tended to work in isolation from each other, to meet the needs of the process, now applications have to evolve around the ultimate user, be it an official or a citizen. So for example whilst in the past it would have been acceptable to have a contact centre provide an efficient way of routing and capturing calls, nowadays such a system has to be integrated to the back office directly, be connected to the CRM system, the intranet and also the internet. This is one of the example templates we have offered up on our open source site at www.codeplex.com/csp, which illustrates how the Microsoft pieces like Sharepoint and CRM can support multi channel citizen interaction.

The demos of these examples are combined on a single integrated site at www.microsoftpsdemos.com which will evolve as we add more scenarios directly or from our partners. Since this site was launched for CSP we have had several thousand demos and anyone can sign up and load up a demo image which is the easiest way of understanding what we are about.

So what has the reaction been so far. Well positive – yes we have touched a real pain point in the market where the need to  join up and integrate both new and older systems is key, but one strong learning point and an opportunity for our partners is that customers need help with the journey as well as having a picture of the destination.