Local governments are working hard to keep up with the fast pace of artificial intelligence. To help with this challenge, the Van Buren County Digital Information Department started the Michigan Local Government AI User Group. This group brings municipal leaders…
How Van Buren and St. Joseph Counties are building a sovereign AI architecture for local government. How Van Buren and St. Joseph Counties are building a sovereign AI architecture for local government. This document describes where we are headed. It…
When a government staff member uploads a document into ChatGPT, NotebookLM, or the latest AI tool their IT department has cautiously approved, something remarkable appears to happen. You upload a file. You ask a question. You get an answer. It…
Note: This is the third article in this series. For more context, it might help to read the first two (When GIS Wasn’t Really GIS and When AI Went to Work). The Pragmatic Truth: AI Won’t Take Your Job, But…
Author’s Note: This is the second article in a short series documenting my journey from just being “The GIS Guy” to a broader strategic role. If you haven’t read the first installment I encourage you to start there. The rest…
Notes from the messy middle of local government modernization. For most of my 30+ year career, I assumed GIS was perched on the edge of a grand evolutionary leap. The sort of leap that would reveal itself any day now,…
The GovAI Coalition Summit wrapped a couple of weeks ago. Like many of you living in the quiet limbo of small local government travel budgets, I couldn’t attend. Fortunately, the organizers released the full recap and session notes. Twenty-five PDFs,…
Why the Plumbing Matters More Than the Chatbot: The Diagnosis Introduction: The Efficiency Gap Local governments across the country are hitting a familiar wall. The excitement around Artificial Intelligence rises like steam from a freshly opened manhole cover, yet the…
Author’s Note: Some of this is specific to Michigan local government, but it likely applies in your neck of the woods as well. Most of us have watched this scene unfold with the same resigned familiarity we reserve for potholes…
When Van Buren County was established in 1829, it was named for then Vice President Martin Van Buren. Nearly two centuries later, that name lives on, on our maps, our signs, and now, in a new way, in Marty, the county’s…
