This Week in Gov Tech - Exploring the Public Records Market

All right, TGIF, and welcome back for another episode of In Case You Missed It. It has been another wild week of tons of activity in GovTech, and last week, as you kind of heard on our In Case You Missed It, we were breaking down some of the activity in the records management space and just the fact that, you know, public records and records management in general seems to be a major area of focus for a lot of state and local government agencies. Also a lot of investors and private equity firms as well. And so today we're going to dive into that in a little bit more detail and kind of bring another perspective to the table in this conversation. So I'm really excited to have 2 guests on today's show, um, that will be— got Donnie Barstow, the founder and CEO of MCCI, and Just FOIA. So Donnie, we're going to bring you from backstage into the stream. Thanks so much for, uh, for hopping on. And then we've got Larry Davidson, the general manager of JustFOIA as well. So welcome, guys. Thanks to the— welcome to the show.

Thank you. Thank you, Dustin.

All right. So, Donnie, we'll start with you. You know, to start, given that your JustFOIA solution evolved out of MCCI, can you share a little bit to our audience about MCCI and your history in the GovTech market?

Absolutely. Yeah. So we go back about 20 years, actually. And we originally evolved out of the MuniCode family of companies, which many in the GovTech space know of MuniCode. Myself, you know, I started the company up under MuniCode, and from a very young age, I was around city clerks and government officials going to all the conferences because my dad was the vice president of sales for MuniCode for 50 years and just recently retired. So that's how That's how the connection was there. So about 2001, MCCI got started, and the main focus was to go help all the cities and county government agencies become paperless. MuniCode, you know, had thousands of customers, and so it was a great opportunity to go in and offer document management solutions to those cities. Back then it was called document imaging. It doesn't seem like that long ago, but You know, 20 years ago, a lot of government agencies weren't even really accepting digital images. They had just started. The law started changing, etc. And so we were partnered with a company called Laserfiche, who you've probably heard of in the GovTech space as well. And we're their largest partner in the world now and have been for about 12 years. And we have about 1,300 clients across the country using Laserfiche through us. And we do everything from helping them get started, train them, do this first-tier support. We even host a lot of systems and SOC 2, CJIS-compliant environments. We offer cloud-first strategies most of the time now. We still even do scanning services. People don't even think about scanning records anymore, but I can tell you through the pandemic, more people have been scanning records than anything. It's just kind of wild. We've been waiting for that to slow down, but people still have paper actually. So that's, that's how we got our start, and I would say also that we've evolved Since then, we also have a lot of K through 12 agencies. We have state agencies, law enforcement, special districts, and we're across every state. So that's how MCCI started. And, and then of course, JustFOIA came along in about 2014 as a, as a product MCCI developed, and then it quickly grew and became its own company as well. But I won't go too much further into it. I just wanted to share the brief history.

Yeah, thanks a lot, Donnie, for that, uh, that little history lesson there. So I'm just curious, could you talk more about the solutions that you're offering right now to state and local government agencies?

Yeah, so, you know, as opposed to where we started with document imaging, document management, over the years that evolved into, uh, records management, electronic records management, uh, ECM, Enterprise content management. Now Gartner would refer to it as content services platforms, and I'll just I'll dive into that a little bit more. Just focusing on that platform that we offer, it's everything from electronic forms to workflow to records retention schedules to document management. It's really the whole kit and caboodle for what GovTech cares about, and it's often looked at as a platform, a low-code, no-code platform to help agencies automate. processes that may not be handled currently with a mainline of business system or their ERP package. You know, if we're talking to a CIO, you know, typically they don't want 50-point solutions. They'd rather have platforms, right? So we want to come in there and be a partner to the agency and offer a low-code, no-code platform to do everything their current ERP or certain mainline of businesses don't do, or that we want to extend those, we want to connect those. We can also connect those with content services platforms through integration APIs. You know, an example would be having an ERP system and us automating accounts payable and then having all the invoices flow into ERP and having the approval process to pay invoices go through our content services system and making it all a seamless approach. That would be an example of that. If we go, if we go a little bit further than the content services platform, we've also gotten into intelligent automation. Yeah, so intelligent automation would be artificial intelligence, RPA, machine learning. Right? So the past couple of years, we partnered with ABBYY for intelligent document processing. I've done a lot in that area with accounts payable processing and other documents. So just think you have thousands of pages of PDFs or any kind of unstructured content where they want to actually create structured content out of it, you know, get a database, validate it, process those documents into another system, ERP or content services system. With intelligent metadata behind it, we can do that very well. And the really cool thing about those kind of platforms is it has machine learning, whereas if you go back 5 years ago, you'd have to draw zones around documents and all kinds of stuff and create templates for every different kind of— let's just call it invoices— for every different vendor. Well, with a solution like ABBYY, it can automatically figure out where those zones are, and then when somebody— when there's an error, if somebody corrects it, the machine learning kicks in and remembers that next time on that specific document type without an administrator having to go change things. So that's really cool with when you think about AI and machine learning. And then a couple years ago, we got into the RPA space. We partnered with Blue Prism and also most recently partnered with UiPath. So in the public sector, you know, all the technology seems to start first in the larger commercial sector areas, right? So the Fortune 500, Financial. So RPA got its start in the financials, in the financials area, banks, etc. Then it got to the federal government. Now it's gotten into the state agencies, and now it's starting to get down into the top-tier cities and counties. So we have a vision, you know, just like we've become the leader in the content services area for the SLED market, we have a vision we want to be that for the RPA market as well. And so we're making really good strides in that area. And I would say, other than that, the only— the other part of our evolution on the MCCI side is that we're also a Microsoft partner in the Azure GovCloud. We pretty much can go to market with whatever type of implementation a client wants now, whether it's hosted by us, hosted by them, or even through a total SaaS solution through a partner or whatnot. And then I'll end with, because I don't really want to talk to— I know Larry's going to cover JustFOIA, but I'll end with JustFOIA has been huge for us. You know, we started that in 2014, and it just came from MCCI customers asking us for a solution because we were in so many agencies. And today, you know, we have hundreds of customers, and it's just one of the most exciting areas. But I'm not going to— I'll save some of— I won't take all the thunder from Larry there, and I'll pass the baton.

Awesome.

Well, thank you for that. And Larry, you know, with all that said, there's been a fair amount of market activity around public records. And can you tell us a little bit about JustFOIA and how it came to fruition, and then from there, how it's evolved?

Yeah, absolutely. So JustFOIA, as Donny mentioned, we really began as a product that was built for NCTI's public sector customers back in 2014. And a lot of those customers were searching for a way to, you know, better manage their organization's record request numbers that were increasing, you know, back then in the middle of the, you know, 2014 really saw a burst in that. And so NCCI development team and leadership, which are led by Donnie, worked hand in hand then with those customers, that core group of those customers that were using Laserfiche to manage their records requests. And we sort of built a custom solution by listening to them. So, you know, that's, you know, I would say fast forward to, you know, where we are now. And now our customer base has expanded outside of those MCCI customers. We've got hundreds of customers now, and, you know, all of that really sparked the need for us to, you know, evolve and really become a sister company to MCCI. So, but just like them, we are also fanatical about customer success. We know that our success starts with listening to customers, understanding their needs and where they're headed on their journey for streamlining records requests. It's basically in our DNA that it drives everything that we do, and we've got their voice integrated into our product feedback and development loop. You know, we know that we will continue to be successful by keeping those customers and their voice at the heart of our company. So, you know, what we've added since 2014 is just, you know, a massive amount of features. We are, you know, pretty much feature neutral with all the other products that are out there. We did a massive amount of development in 2019. You know, we got all of our customers on Microsoft Azure Government Cloud. You know, this year we've completed our SOC 2. So, so we, we've, we've, what we always tell, you know, people that, that may look at JustFOIA a year ago, if you haven't seen JustFOIA in the past year, then you really haven't seen JustFOIA. You know, we're constantly adding features and our customer base is really at the heart of all that.

Yeah, Larry, that's a fantastic overview. So, you know, what do you see as the driver for more agencies to prioritize the modernization of their records request management processes? Any insights there?

Yeah, I mean, yeah, absolutely. You know, we have seen that there's pretty much 4 main reasons that it's time for an organization or municipality to make the decision to leave behind those downloadable PDF forms, email links, Excel spreadsheets, and trying to manage all the records requests that way. One of the main areas, of course, is that improved efficiency. So, especially at this time when there's that decreased spending and that increased pressure for everybody to serve their citizens, That, that, you know, that importance of efficiency that goes beyond that saving, saving money. You know, JustFOIA, because it's an all-in-one solution, web-hosted SaaS product, there they can use JustFOIA and complete their job, you know, from this work-at-home environment that we've got as well. So nobody has to come into an office. Nobody has to come in and fill out a form. You can take care of all that online. You can accept payments online. All that working from home, it fits in with, you know, exactly what's been going on here over the past 18 months that we've seen in the workforce. Another main factor is the mitigation of risk. I'm sure that you guys pay attention to all the headlines, and you see, you know, probably once a month you'll see a headline pop up that someone got sued for failing to respond to a records request in the amount of time that they're given, or responding incorrectly. You'll hear some things like, ah, it just sort of slipped through the cracks, or, you know, those kind of risk mitigation factors. JustFOIA, you know, our, you know, this product is using software to manage and track all that. You know, that can, that is, now it's become like essential for agencies to develop that sort of framework to lower the risk of, you know, any legal fines or penalties or even that negative publicity that surrounds all that. So. That's another one of the main reasons. Another one that has popped up is that enhanced transparency. So, as you guys know, that call for transparency is real, and it's getting louder every year. That's why it's our mission here at JustFOIA to build that public trust up between our customers and their communities through technology. So, we know that we've seen The organizations that are investing in solutions that will allow them to meet those demands, those of course are going to pay high dividends in PR and employee morale. When you can be able to serve your constituents and meet them where they are, you know, and keep them appraised of what's going on with their records requests, you know, through automated emails, making things easy to pay online, you know, all that stuff helps out with Building up that public trust. So those are those are three big ones. A last one I would mention would be expense recovery. That because you know you can invest in like a PRR management solution, you know agencies can consistently and accurately recover those expenses for fulfilling each request. You can track exactly you know how long you're spending doing it. You can recover all the funds that you're legally able to recover. And you can do so in a paperless, immediate fashion. So those are pretty much the 4 main reasons that we've seen. And of course, with the rise in records requests, any one of those is reason enough to invest in a solution like this. And we're seeing more and more customers. We do feel that probably in the next 10, 15 years, everybody's going to have to have some sort of solution for how they're going to handle records requests. That demand is not going away.

So when you look to the future, you know, earlier we heard Donnie talk about RPA. What are some of the technologies that are on your radar for the future of records request management?

Good question. Well, I do think that everything starts with those 2 driving needs we just talked about, that transparency and efficiency. So you're seeing more and more of a push for legislation surrounding the, you know, the public's desire for that transparency. You're seeing some states and communities that are really embracing that call, and they're leaning into it, like with their open data projects and proactive release of that sort of, you know, breaking news type documents. You see some states that are, you know, like Alabama, that are on the other side of that spectrum. And it could be from a resources standpoint, knowing that, you know, the more that they're responsible for responding to, that they just don't have the staffing to keep up with it. So that demand. So I think what you're gonna see, and that's why we've been so focused on this type of technology, is that, you know, our efforts are all around efficiency. We want customers to use just FOIA and not have to live in it. We want them to get in, do their work, and get back out to the myriad other things that fall into their job description. So from a specific technology standpoint, you know, besides the obvious, Streamlining and the ease of use of the product. There's lots of ways that we can leverage AI, and especially that, you know, that subset AI, that natural language processing technology, to really analyze requests and maybe get some missing request information before it even hits the clerk. You know, anything that we can do to save time and move more to a, you know, a human-in-the-loop process to free up those clerks and custodians, that's really our focus.

Donnie, I want to go back to you for a second. So right now the GovTech acquisition market is on fire, just a lot of different things happening, particularly in records request management. So when you sit back and you look at all of this, what's your take on everything that's going on in the market?

Yeah, that's, that's a great question, Jed. I think a couple of things. I think in general, the GovTech space for is on fire because in my experience, government customers are just great to have. You know, they're nice to work with. They're nice people. They tend to appreciate when you do good work for them, and they tend to stick with you if you take care of them. So I see why people are interested in the market. You know, it is a little bit longer of a sales cycle working with government, but you tend to retain customers really well. So number one, I think it's just a great place to be. I've always thought that because it's the only place I've ever been. But I think other people are starting to pick up on that quite a bit. Second, I would say that the interest most recently, like in the public records request management space, I think that, you know, we're past the early adopter phase. You know, back in 2014 when we first created the platform, we were spending all of our time trying to teach people that there was a solution other than spreadsheets. or paper. And that's how most products start, you know. And then it takes 3 or 4 years for the market to get educated and for some vendors to build up hundreds of customers. And, you know, now it's time to go to thousands of customers because now people are hearing about it from their friends and their peers. And so I think it's a great time. I, I get why people want to dive into it. Um, I think we're happy to be the, the, um, the last independent, you know, um, that was— that started it from the very beginning. So it's our sole focus on the JustFOIA side. And, uh, but it's not a surprise. It's, it's an exciting market.

So Larry, where does our audience go to learn more about JustFOIA?

Uh, best place is our website at justfoia.com. That's J-U-S-T-F-O-I-A.com. Um, or, you know, if, uh, you want, you can just send me a direct email, ldavidson@justfoia.com. Be happy to help out.

Awesome. Well, great. We, we wanna thank both of you for taking time out of your day to join us on this episode. So thanks, Donnie. Thanks, Larry, for, for doing that and sharing a little bit about what's going on in your respective enterprises. Join us next week for another episode of In Case You Missed It. Everyone have a wonderful weekend.

Thank you.