APCO International and Public Technology Institute (PTI) are seeking practitioners from the public safety communications and technology profession to contribute their expertise to an important new book that is being developed as part of PTI’s “Thought Leadership” book series.

This new book CIO Leadership for Public Safety Communications: A Practical Guide for the Next Generation of Technology Leaders is being developed with support from the Public Safety Foundation of America.

APCO International and PTI are developing the book to educate local officials — executives, elected leaders, others interested in public safety communications – on the leading practices, trends and opportunities that new technologies can offer in the field of public safety communications. It will focus on contemporary aspects of technology leadership in the public safety communications arena.

Below is an outline of the book. There may be multiple submissions per chapter, depending on the importance/interest of that topic. If there is a chapter or topic that we have not listed in the outline that you believe warrants inclusion in the book, we welcome your input.

We define experts/practitioners liberally as those with a record of accomplishment studying or engaged in all aspects of public safety communications technology to include practitioners (current and retired), academia, corporate-level practitioners as well as policymakers and researchers involved in this area.

CIO Leadership for Public Safety Communications: A Practical Guide for the Next Generation of Technology Leaders is one of several books in a series that PTI initiated 18 months ago. These include the highly successful CIO Leadership for Cities and Counties: Emerging Trends and Practices and the soon-to-be-published CIO Leadership for State Governments book developed in collaboration with the National Association of State CIOs (NASCIO).

After reviewing the book outline, any authors wishing to be considered for chapter submissions should contact Alan Shark, [email protected], for information. Note: Submissions are due March 31.

The book should be written by and for thought leaders and practitioners and is designed to be a practical and readable guide as opposed to a scientific paper filled with technical jargon and references and must not present any corporate or personal propaganda direct or indirect.

Proposed Sections & Chapters

1. Emerging Trends

• The new Public Safety CIO – the Rise of the CIO
• Management to Leadership
• Emerging Models
• New Skill Requirements
• Ethics and leadership

2. Leading Innovation

• Process & Change Management
• Managing Expectations and Partnerships
• Mobile Apps and Civic Social networking — the big picture
• Driving Innovation in the Public Safety communications
• Leading Innovation and Transformation: The CIO as Chief Innovation Officer
•  Interoperability
• Mobile broadband support

3. IT Governance

• Who decides? Role of CIO in the executive office
• IT Centralization and Consolidation – Seeking Balance
• Inter-organization communications: Federal, State, Local Governments 
• Managing in the Cloud
• Fusion or Confusion Centers?
• Shared intelligence
• Maintaining relationships & control in a technical environment

4. Citizen Engagement

• Managing expectations
• Social media and Web 2.0
• Mobile Apps
• The changing nature of technology
• The New “neighborhood watch”
• “N”11

5. Critical Operations & Infrastructure

• Data centers (regional)
• Network & Cyber Security
• Savings, Flexibility, and Speed Through Cloud Computing 
• Next Generation 911

6. Human Resource Management

• Selecting & retaining great staff
• Living with bureaucracy and its positive and negative implications
• Innovative work hours/days planning
• Performance assessment & evaluation
• ADA and Technology
• Equity in Access to Emergency Services
• Succession planning

7. Portfolio and Service Management

• Project and Performance Management tools
• Measuring Success within public safety organizations
• Portfolio Management Rationale, Tools, and Practices

8. Disaster Planning and Continuity of Operations Planning

• Disaster Recovery and Energy Assurance Planning  (when the lights go out)
• Plan “B” … and “C” and “D”….

9. Enterprise Planning, Analysis & Services

• Broadband planning (fixed and wireless)
• Geospatial Information Systems
• Identity Management

10. Purchasing/Acquisition/Budgeting

• IT Budgeting
• IT Procurement

11. Managing Information, Data & Knowledge Management 

• Knowledge Management
• SARS (Suspicious Activity Reporting)
• Data Mining & Intelligence
• Electronic Records Management
• Storage, Retrieval, and Archiving
• Professional networking platforms

12. Emerging Technologies  

• Radios
• LTE, WIMAX, other?
• HD Dispatch
• Mobile devices
• GIS (local, regional, national)
• Cloud and SaaS
• Fireboard
• Video peer to peer and command and control
• Mobile crime scene
• Video surveillance

For more information contact Alan Shark, Executive Director of PTI, [email protected], 202-626-2465.