Surrey Police App - it is live

Runnymede - 14th May 2011 - We went live on Thursday @runnymedebeat. So now we can give more details about this truly revolutionary project using public networks and low cost phones.

Our contention was simple yet at the same time quite revolutionary:

• That we could use public real time social information networks to provide better, faster, and more engaging content and information to local communities online than any of the current mechanisms for engagement that are being used.
• Further, that we could do this using low cost devices, with local low cost development resources, from small independent companies, thus challenging big expensive IT projects, and at the same time involving the talented developer community around us in building systems fit for 21st century policing.

Our conclusion - we can do this and we are doing it!

 

Obstacles and ingredients for success

We faced numerous obstacles including lack of money, lack of resources, lack of physical office space, and lack of handsets. But we had four key ingredients which made this possible.

1. An enthusiastic customer - Surrey Police have actually been a delight to work with and Chief Superintendent Gavin Stephens (@gavthecop) and his Chief Mark Rowley have been incredibly supportive.
2. The developer community in London and the Thames Valley. Multizone run the #devnest community in the UK, adopted now by Twitter Corp globally as the model for developer engagement, and we knew we could find talented people to make this work.
3. Comprehension of the market, the potential, and the minimum set of requirements to ensure viability of the software.
4. The ability to product manage the creation of the mobile application to meet those requirements, with the right technology decisions, market planning, and road-map.

Surrey Police took a risk

Surrey Police took a risk with us which I knew we would deliver on but they didn't! We have been trying to build this kind of application for several years and have presented to Fire Services, Police Forces, Inspectorates, Federation, Government departments, Local authorities, individual ministers, emergency planners, blue light services - you name it - we have met them. All apart from Surrey Police declined to fund or contribute to a project at this stage. Hopefully now we have a proof we will be able to engender more support from these and other agencies to add more functionality and drive further adoption.

The staff at Runnymede are trained, and using the app to tweet out what they are doing. We had no resistance from them to using the app. Several officers and staff members who had their own iPhones or Android phones volunteered them to the project. We deployed the first ten Vodafone supplied phones last week and will get the second group out this coming week. The buzz around the office was almost audible. Tweeting out what you are doing is fun and causes engagement. People back at the office are using web based tools to respond to replies from the public. We are getting some great comments back from the public already and the app has only been up for one day! Heres an example:

 

Mobile development isnt a one hit wonder - zero tolerance for risk of failure

We have been building mobile applications for fortune 100 software companies and start-ups for over ten years. We know this space, and are a professional product management consulting organisation. What we have built is not some one hit wonder project for 'The Apprentice' or a glitzy mashup to win a competition at a hack day. This is in our opinion a serious highly visible policing project where the risk of failure could not be and would not be tolerated and upon which the whole 'model' of using low cost fast independent developers in the public sector might stand or fall.

Supporters

We found some fans on the journey too. Roger Nield at Runnymede (@rogernield2703) is *exactly* the kind of customer champion you want to have on such a project. His enthusiasm is just fantastic. Nick Keane  (@nickkeane) at the NPIA has been helpful too in providing a crucial input at times. I want to give credit to Etienne at Research in Motion (@blackberrydev) who I met at Mobile World Congress and showed our application (on an iPhone). He has been incredibly supportive and wants to see it on the BlackBerry platform as soon as possible. (Stay tuned - cant say too much yet). And also Ben Shenton at Vodafone UK (@vodafoneUK) who believed in us enough to introduce us to their public sector group and championed us to them getting us (@csuptstephens and @nuxnix) a meeting with them. Vodafone quickly recognised the pathfinder nature of our application and asked how they could help. I asked for phones for the project to save us months of procurement red tape - with no strings. Without their incredible support (Im not naming the person until he says its ok - so he doesn't get deluged with phone requests) we would have struggled to get to this point. For the record the other major mobile network operators and handset manufacturers we approached never returned my calls or emails to the point of my personal exasperation with them.

The process of development and its implications

We developed the initial requirements for the software over Christmas, and have been refining them ever since. I met @Ketan at Devnest's Warblecamp hack camp last year and we collaborated on a project there. He understood immediately the conceptual model and of course all the challenges we would have to face, choosing a tool chain to support our target handsets, languages and functionality, comprehensive lines in the sand about the software such as 'no server' - forcing us to use the public networks for everything and 'without wasting time' forcing us to think about the minimum number of taps and a tweeting taxonomy. Ketan has worked tirelessly to bring the software to the point where we could put it in officers hands. The quality of the software is extremely high. There are things of course we would do differently if we knew then what we know now, but we always planned a 'refactoring' to take that into account. We will refactor now, before placing the app in the Apple App Store and Google Marketplace for free download. We also have some more we hope very exciting functionality to add before then.

The use of low cost public networks in this way is unique and asks serious questions about ultra expensive handset and app procurement in the public sector. These phones are £99 and have a Camera, Browser, fast HSPA/3G Internet access, WifI VPN etc. They are not rugged, but they are small and light compared to the £1000 slow old fashioned terminals with 'secure' access. And that means every officer can have one, they are not a burden, they are just the same as the phones people carry to work now. At the BlackBerry Policing Conference one of the delegates said the biggest problem with expensive handsets was that many of them were being dropped into toilets. Rugged or not that still going to kill them. Isn't it better then to have cheap handsets? This would also stop clever software and handset vendors from hiding behind bogus 'must be rugged', 'must be secure' requirements that mean they can foist last years 'secure and rugged' stock on the public sector at an inflated price.

How about we give the public sector this years model and make it fit for purpose with great software? Thats what we are trying to do.

Angus