Creating Digital Trust and Transparency with CivicPlus and Optimere

All right, TGIF, you know what time it is. It's time for In Case You Missed It, Government Technologies News Roundup, where we take a look at some of the biggest GovTech news from the past week and give you our thoughts on what it means for government citizens and the wider market. I'm Dustin Haisler, joined again by Joe. Joe, good to see you.

Hey, Dustin.

And today we're gonna have an exciting episode where we're gonna dive into some digital elephants that are in the room, specifically digital trust and transparency on the heels of a major market announcement, the acquisition of Optimir by Civic+. After we break down some of the news from the past week, we'll be joined by Brian Rimke, CEO for Civic+, and Ray Carey, CEO of Optimere, to give us their take on this announcement and what it means for the future of GovTech. So you definitely want to stay tuned for that. But to kick us off, let's talk about some of the news that caught our attention this week, and I'll start first. There was a new report from the Walton Family Foundation and Murmuration, which kind of helped peel back some of the layers of the Gen Z. So we know, you know, workforce is huge and digital Kind of trust is really big with this generation. But, you know, looking at Gen Z, which is basically the demographic born between 1997 and 2012, which will soon be the largest voting cohort, they're expected to turn out also in a really big way. But what was fascinating by this report, Joe, and what kind of caught my attention, is their views on government. And, you know, only 7% of this cohort described the United States as a healthy democracy, according to the new research. However, Over half of this group talks about civic participation and politics on a regular basis. So for government, this is really big because this is a generational segment that you want to tap into for civic participation, of course, but also for potential employees. What do you make of this new research?

No, I think it's troubling in some respects, right? We've covered surveys like this in the past where we see trust in government waning, be that predominantly federal government, but state government and to some degree local government as well. And then you start segmenting it by these population bands, and it tells a very interesting story. We talk about the future resident. What services do we build? How do we engage constituents depending on their demographic and preferences? And then, like you mentioned, what does that mean to workforce and recruitment? How do you make government not only an attractive thing to engage in, but also to participate in and work in as well and seize that full opportunity? Now, thankfully, over the pandemic, There have been tremendous efforts to make it easier to engage with government, right? That's one of the benefits of doing things virtually is now you can hop into a Zoom or a Teams meeting and participate in your city council, where that may have been a bigger hurdle to cover, to get down there, ride the bus or whatever, get your parents to drive you, whatever, whatever it may be. So we are seeing some efforts there. I think this is a very timely and important finding that government needs to be paying attention to.

Yeah, I totally agree. And I think, you know, this is also one when we think about understanding the new workforce of government, we're going to have to look at new research like this to better understand and kind of get inside the minds because we have to tailor our approaches to recruit them, to retain them, and ultimately to engage them. Now, kind of sticking to our theme, another thing that was interesting that actually came out back in March was some new research from the Pew Internet Center, Research Center, basically where they looked at AI and human enhancement and kind of Americans' openness to this. Now, What was fascinating to me by this new research was just that Americans are open to new emerging technologies and emerging technology use cases where there is transparency in the process. So when you think about some of the fears that are there with, you know, like AI and facial recognition, often that is grounded in the fact that there's no transparency in how those systems work or the potential benefits of those systems. But again, you know, something that just reinforces the need for digital transparency, focusing on trust as an aspect of how we deliver digital services. But what do you make of this research from Pew?

Well, I mean, look, we've covered government's adoption of AI in past episodes, and particularly over the last 18 months, we've seen tremendous advancements in terms of their consideration and use of AI. When you look at this survey though, it was kind of very different from what we saw in the government survey. I mean, nationally speaking, people thought that facial recognition for law enforcement was a good idea for society more so than a bad idea. That was very different than our government respondent surveys. They felt less positive though about driverless passenger vehicles and the use of AI there. So there were some kind of notable differences in terms of where they thought AI might be good for society versus bad for society. But I think all in, I think that they're looking at it through some optimistic lenses. What it could mean in terms of a slingshot effort to advance government, to advance society, and I think we're seeing that through these findings here.

Absolutely, and this is beyond just self-driving cars and implanting chips into your mind, but I think, you know, one key line here, a new era is emerging that Americans believe should have higher standards for assessing the safety of emerging technologies. And so when we start to think about even chatbots embedded on websites, how do we ensure that there's transparency in how these systems work and what PII is exposed to them and what users have control of when it comes to their own data. So a lot to kind of peel back here.

Mm-hmm.

But now we wanna transition and go to our featured guest today as we kind of talk about some major market moves we mentioned at the beginning of our show. And we're gonna bring to our virtual stage Brian Rimpey, CEO of Civic+, and Ray Carey, CEO of Optimir, as we kind of break down some exciting news in the market, which centered around an acquisition or kind of started with that where Civic+ announced that they were acquiring Optimir. So Brian and Ray, first of all, thanks so much carving some time out on a Friday to, uh, to join us.

Thanks for having us.

So Brian, I'm going to start with you on the heels of this acquisition news. With so much market activity happening in GovTech right now, what excited you most about Optimir as an acquisition?

Yeah, so really 3 key things from the very beginning became very apparent for us. Uh, first of all, just a very clear alignment in our products and the solutions we provide between the 2 companies. Civic Plus has been in the content business for a very long time. We help our customers get the information out, and Optimir allows us to be able to ensure that that content is now compliant, and they're in that compliant business— compliance business. So really bringing those 2 things together was, was really intriguing to us. And it got even better as we, we got in deeper and worked more with Ray and his team. We started understanding more about their mission. There was an alignment in our missions and that we've always been about helping governments work better and providing consistently positive experiences. And they're about ensuring that they're building trust and transparency. And those 2 things really align very well. And then, and the 3rd thing, and always has been critical to us, and as we make acquisitions, is the cultures. And there's been an alignment in cultures, and we're seeing that as we're working together. And, you know, we just closed this in the last couple weeks here, but— Having a commitment to employee success, having a commitment to taking care of customers, that shone through very clearly as I worked with Ray and his team and excited about that alignment as well.

You know, Ray, you've joined us before, so welcome back.

Thank you.

And on the last episode, you talked about the power of digital tools to build trust with constituents. So I'm sure that earlier findings that we were just talking about probably interested you to a high degree. But maybe before we dive in, you could kind of remind our audience about the work that you've been doing in the market to help build trust and increase accessibility through your brands?

Yeah, I'll answer that, but first I'll tell you just what you were talking about before around Gen Zs and interacting with government. You know, one of the things we've done at Optimir is a lot in social, and I was talking to a school superintendent the other day, and he had a funny quote. He says, you know, you could hide a dead body in the email of an under-30-year-old. And so, you know, because people communicate on social. So yeah, there's a lot changing afoot as the demographics in government change. But, you know, you asked me really about building trust, right? Building trust and transparency. And our customers are government communicators, and government communicators are different. They are different than a regular communicator. You and I can say what we want. We have a right to edit and delete our history. But government communicators are on the permanent record. They will produce a record of everything they said. They have a commitment to communicate in a transparent and open and an accessible way to everybody. So it's really a much more difficult job than any sort of other communicator. And they do that, well, because it's the law. But it's the law because trust, transparency, and openness, you know, that's how you build trust. you know, fundamentally. You say, whether I like it or not, I'm on the permanent record. I'm going to stand up for what I said, and you can access that record. And that trust is critical for when we need to look to our government communicators to communicate critical information with us. You know, one of our largest customers is the CDC, and they've had a lot to say over the last 3 years, and they have to have that engagement. They have to have that trust, and you build that through fundamentally being a different type of communicator. And so we're building the tools to help them, one, comply with the law, but I would say more importantly, to engender that trust through transparency and openness, whether it be social, you know, web, or the other ways that they communicate.

So, Ray, how do you see joining forces with Civic+ accelerating your goals to build trust with digital tools?

Well, it's awesome. I'm super pumped about it. There is— if you had one way to communicate, the most powerful medium to communicate in history is the World Wide Web. It is websites. I just didn't get Gen Z credit because I called it the World Wide Web. That's what www stands for, for everybody else. And so that is the most pervasive communication mechanism in history, and the largest provider of government websites is Civic+. So this mission around building trust and transparency is massively accelerated with the platform that we together have, with the great work for 20 years that Civic Plus has been doing on websites, all of the work you guys know, got together with MuniCode, all the work that clerks do in codifying municipal codes. Clerks are oftentimes the number one producers of records when residents are requesting records. So the ability to take the mission that we've had in trust and transparency and bring that together with the web platform, the other communication tools at Civic+, bring that together with the MuniCode product line. We were on this mission to do this and get, you know, trusted compliance solutions in every sort of department across America. We can do that way faster together than we'd ever have been able to do on our own.

Yeah, I think that's fantastic. So, Brian, I want to bring you back in because I know, you know, we've talked at length around how Civic+ is really focused on creating positive civic experiences, and I want to get your perspective on how you see Optimir's capabilities now part of this kind of civic experience stack impacting that overall experience of government.

Yeah, so as you said, I mean, our focus is allowing government to be able to make consistently positive experiences for their residents, and when you think about what Optimir brings, they bring the ability to ensure that Every time that communication happens, that residents can trust that it's gonna be compliant and that they are gonna be transparent. And basically, I'm getting the information I need as a resident. And not to mention that it also is going to be inclusive. So folks that are inaccessible, so folks that maybe have impairments or anything that might keep them from being able to understand whatever it is that they're supposed to be able to get information for.

Mm-hmm.

Optimir is helping us ensuring that that's the case and that they'll be able to get the information they need.

So does this get us closer to the elusive one-stop shop that we've been talking about for a long time? I know, you know, you've got a civic experience platform that in essence is that. Maybe you could describe kind of what you think of that and if that gets us closer to that one-stop shop.

Absolutely. I mean, so first of all, to describe what we're talking about when we talk about the Civic Experience Platform. Really, it's about making sure, as we've talked about a couple times already, just making sure that every experience that a resident has with government is a positive experience, that they can get what they need when they need it. It's in one place, it's frictionless, and it's personal to me as a resident, that it understands that. I mean, something as simple as having to have multiple logins to do the things that I need to do with government, you have one login, right? That's what we're building, and that's our focus overall. In terms of how Optimir helps us, it really kind of fills the gaps we just talked about, is to make sure that all the things that we're doing, all those interactions, continue to be transparent, continue to be accessible, and are compliant.

Yeah, I think it's really easy to be reactive, you know, if you're a government agency, and to, you know, do what's legally required. So, you know, kind of leaning into this proactive nature that you're talking about, I think, is a key aspect of building trust. So I want to kind of stay on this thread for a moment because everyone in our market is talking about platform. You know, you've got government talking about platform, you've got industry talking about platform. So I'd love, you know, we've got 2 CEOs that are CEOs of, in essence, platform companies now joining forces. So share a little bit about how you're approaching this platform dynamic for your government customers and maybe what they should consider, you know, with a platform themselves.

Sure.

So I'll just start with just kind of the bigger problem we're trying to solve, which is we see that unfortunately there's a perception that government is behind the times, is outdated, is, you know, slow to react and those kinds of things. And I think a lot of times that's unwarranted, but it's a perception that absolutely exists. And I think that perception comes from, you know, potentially having some negative or difficult situations where they're trying to get the services they need. And so our whole goal is to make sure we're building a suite of products. We don't use the term platform ourselves, but yes, it comes together as a platform, but a suite of products that work together in a way that ensures that, again, I don't have to have a single I don't have to have multiple logins to do the things I need to do with the city I live in, to make sure that I know where I need to go whenever I need to get something, that it's in one place, the services are all easy to find, and that— and I don't have to go into city hall typically to go make that whatever happen happen, you know, and I can do it on my own time. And I think those are the kinds of things we're trying to empower our customers with. All of those things in and of themselves seem like they might be, you know, simple solutions, but it gets really complex as you move across, you know, dozens of departments within a given organization, and each of them have their own solutions, and residents having all of their own individual needs. And so that's really when we talk about that kind of one-stop shop, that platform. For us, it's all built around changing that perception and building a a solution that residents continue to build more trust with the government they work with.

Brian, I would just add, when it comes to this idea of platform, I think there are times when people from a software perspective think platform is big and has to do multiple things, and I think today the way you can architect products and the way I think that Civic+ and Optimares brought together products is Each product can stand on its own. You have a distinct product that can be hit the easy button, can solve a problem, but then they go better together across the board. And that's the modern idea of a platform, that you have things that solve individualistic problems, that you don't need them all to work. You can get going where you get going, but as you add them on, you can build resident trust, you can build ease of use. So you don't have to have this historic kind of big, clunky, hard to do, but it solves a lot of problems, or point solution. I think there's the ability really with the way backends are built and the way you can do API integrations and microservices to have that best of both worlds, where something stands on its own, has distinct value, but goes better when you put it into a suite, as Brian said, or in a platform altogether. So I think technology is allowing that to happen. today in a different way than it might have been point solution versus platform historically.

Well, Ray, I'm going to stick with you for a second. I want to pull the thread on something that Brian said earlier. You built this foundation that we— and we've talked about it, right, on accessibility, on trust. But Brian also mentioned, you know, the legal requirements and compliance earlier. Why do you think it's so important for agencies to have that foundation or that platform that helps them navigate those compliance challenges? And then I guess the follow-on to that is, do you see any legislation, federal, state, that will make this even more critical as we start to look ahead?

Yeah, I would say we really start before we talk about legislation and laws with how do you get excellent at communication? What's the right way to communicate? What is excellent? I've never met a government communicator. Well, there was one guy, we'll leave that aside, but that wants to build inaccessible content. Everybody wants to build accessible content. Nobody wants to be fast and loose with customer data and customer privacy data with cookies and other things, but it's really hard to do. These rules and regulations change really quickly. If you look at just the American Disabilities Act, there are multiple different levels of compliance. People, large websites have hundreds of contributors adding content daily. So it's really, really complex. So the will's already there, totally separate from the law, to be fully accessible, fully transparent, and do excellence in communications. So we really kind of start at that level. Usually when we start worrying about laws, that's how we find money, because the litigation landscape, if you're not following these laws, can be really, really costly to a public agency or a city. And so you got the American Disabilities Act, of course. You have data privacy laws across Europe. You know, our products are in Europe and Australia, I think in 17 or 18 different countries. But GDPR-like laws already exist in California. They already exist in Vermont. I do believe there'll be federal legislation in the next couple of years around how you treat consumer data. But the California laws pretty much governed how people work across the web in the US already anyway. given how pervasive it is. And so, but really we're talking to folks around the money part is around how to avoid litigation, how to ensure that you are compliant, but there's really a broader story around excellence in communication that we focus on. I'd say kind of no one's above the law, that's probably the wrong statement, but like what's behind the law? Why is there an American Disabilities Act? Why is there the Consumer Privacy Act in California? Why is there a GDPR? And we try to focus at that level to try to get not just straight to compliance, but really to get you to excellence in communication.

So Ray, I'm going to tag a follow-on to that because I think, you know, when we talk about compliance and legislation, sometimes, you know, you look at the 19,000 cities that are out there, the vast majority of them are smaller, and they may think, ah, that's not for us, we're not going to get sued, no one's worried about compliance, they're only going after the big cities, the big counties. Tell us a little bit about why this is such an important topic for everybody, even those midsize and small jurisdictions.

Yeah, I mean, I'd start with, you know, because it's the right thing to do. You have people in your community that need to know something maybe mundane coming up the 4th of July parade. You have people in your community that need to know about the landslide or the weather. And so fundamentally, the question to me is not, are you going to get sued? Right? That's a risk equation. Nobody says, well, you know what, I'm not going to keep birth certificates or death certificates because somebody may not— no one's asked for a death certificate in my county for a while, so we're just going to stop keeping them, right? It's core and foundation to who we are as a country that we have a record of our public discourse, whether or not somebody asks. We also have a product that will help you if people ask, right? But you need to have a record of it. And there's a commitment, I think, for accessibility to all residents across the board, even if it wasn't the law, because it's the right thing to do. And so we really try to talk to folks around, yes, we will help you from a litigation perspective, try to stay ahead of those potential lawsuits. But the real focus, that's what I say, is excellence in your job, excellent in communication, serving your residents at the core. And our customers, people didn't get into government for the money and glory. They did it because they're service-oriented. And, uh, so we're trying to help them do the right thing.

Yeah, I love that. So, Brian, you know, now that this deal is officially closed, what's next for Civic Plus and Optimere?

We're rolling up our sleeves right now. We're getting into the integration here. And, and really the focus for integration is, is how do we maximize value for customers and our staff? And, and on the customer side, it's about Hey, where are these potential key integrations that we can bring these products together? And that the old equation of 1 1 3 for the customer, that we're going through that process right now. And the other side of it is on the staff side. We've got 900 people now across— what are we in, 4 different countries, Ray? Is that right?

Yeah.

Yeah, 4 different countries trying to figure out, you know, how do we best come together as a team and make sure that, um, uh, Ray always says this very well about just focusing on making sure that each, each person has great career trajectory and new career trajectory. Sorry, that's hard to say. Career trajectory. There we go. Um, uh, you know, in the future of the company. And that's, that's really what we're doing. Um, I've, I've had a lot of questions of folks saying, okay, what's the next acquisition? And We are, we're not even thinking about that right now. We got a lot of work to do together and, and some really excited opportunities in front of us.

Yeah, that's super exciting. So I always get to have fun with this next question on kind of the future and looking to the future of the Civic experience. You know, you're both kind of on the pulse of what's happening in, in the market, and, you know, this deal is, is really a great indication of where you see all of that heading. So I want to spend some time with each of you just to give you an opportunity to talk about where you see the evolution of the civic experience headed next that our audience might want to take note of? Brian, we'll start with you on this one.

First thing I'd say is customer adoption. I think, and I've heard you all talk about this as well, but we're just seeing continually increasing focus of investing in technology to solve problems that used to be manual or had to come into City Hall for. And so I think we're continuing to see that excitement and that interest from our customers. I think some of the limitations that have existed before have now kind of been taken away a little bit, and some of the budget limitations with federal funding that's come in, and also just understanding that, hey, we can do it in a different way. It doesn't have to be the expectation that you have to come into City Hall to get this work done. So I think that's the first thing I see is customer adoption and The second thing is I think there's new solutions coming. There's some things that we've got kind of working in the background ourselves that really solve for some of the things we talked about as far as one login, one place to go to get all the services that you need to get to, not having to go find which department happens to take care of permits when I need to get a permit added to my deck, providing those kinds of services in one place and breaking down some of the barriers that exist between departments that residents really don't know or care about. I see interest from our customers on that, and I see us and others in the space that are really seeing some of the opportunities that could happen to bring those better together.

So, Ray, I'd love to get your take on the same question. Also weave in some comments that we just got on LinkedIn as well that might be relevant. here from Travis, just talking about, you know, will we see full government transparency architecture and processes to force the elimination of corruption and accountability? Is that part of this future that we're all heading towards? So we'll get your take on kind of where everything is headed with the civic experience.

Yeah, I think just to answer that question, you know, absolutely. I think if you— we talked about the, you know, the web and the power of the web. You know, we do a ton on social, And again, you look at the demographics, and if you want to communicate, your source of truth is the web, but your source of engagement is social. It's Facebook, it's Twitter. And so if you want to engage in that way, and that was the very first product at Optimere going back was Archive Social, born out of a way that said, look, this is a powerful way to go two-way communication with a government official. but it's built for private citizens that can edit and delete their history, and it can't be used by government if you don't have a strategy for a permanent record. And that is all about transparency and accountability. It's also about making sure you can produce that record, you know, when and if somebody, you know, knocks on the door, if there's a subpoena or anything else. And evidentiary quality records, I think they're called in the business. But so, yeah, I look forward to a future of increased transparency, and accountability, but also increased ease of use, increased ease of use for, you know, our government customers, because then I haven't met a government customer who doesn't want to be compliant. What they want to do is somebody just please make it easy, please make it easy, these things are moving really fast. And I do think that's the main thing that I would leave with the civic experience. What's going to change is the pace, the pace of change in the civic experience can keep up with the pace of change of technology invention now. And so when we were last together, you talked about that App Store moment, right? We talked a little bit about platforms and distinct solutions. And last year, we brought on 1,000 public agencies from the biggest ones out there, federal agencies, down to Duck North Carolina, from products that were frankly very affordable, but higher price down to $200 a month. And so that fast-paced change from the smallest agencies to the largest agencies is what I think you're really going to see. That civic experience, we're in this great time where, you know, every day, every week, every month, your interaction with government can get better. It doesn't have to be next year, a year later, 3-year projects, you know, down the road. So that's what's really exciting to me is I think Technology's finally caught up with what, you know, our leaders want to actually do. You know, technology's not the hindrance, it's the helper.

I love it. Responsiveness and ease. I think those are 2 things that we see bubble up on survey after survey when we do things in the civic experience space. Well, Brian, this is probably going to be the easiest question you got from us today, but where can our audience go to learn more about Civic+ and, you know, some of the news that you talked about that may be coming out soon and Keeping up with your capabilities?

Well, you get— you got to start with Ray's World Wide Web, right? civicplus.com and optimere.com. And you can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn and @CivicPlus.

Well, great. Well, Ray, Brian, thank you both for joining us. And a special thank you goes out to CivicPlus and Optimere for making this episode possible. Join us next week at 12 o'clock noon Pacific. We'll be talking about process automation in the public sector with an exciting guest. Until then, have a wonderful weekend.

Thank you.