In government, this kind of tool can be really effective – especially for people who do inspections for large organizations. Getting reports that are time and location -stamped with GPS coordinates helps decision-makers get a big picture view of the services they manage. It’s a vast improvement over having to wade through mountains of spreadsheets.

The US National Weather Service is a good example of a service that uses the Freeance Mobile app with BlackBerry smartphones. They collect data on storms and tornadoes, for use by scientists, academics, insurance companies and the public. Storm damage can be spread out over many miles, and inspectors use to have to take manual GPS readings and write them down. Can you imagine having to hand-map those coordinates to get a real picture of the disaster area?

But with the Freeance Mobile app on their BlackBerry smartphones, all the data collected at a site is now automatically stamped with GPS coordinates and sent to the back-end database. Back at the US National Weather Service headquarters, this data is mapped so decision-makers can get a quick, easy-to-understand view of how a storm affected the surrounding area.

For Nova Scotia Power Inc. (NSPI), collecting GIS information using a BlackBerry smartphone with the Freeance Mobile app is about efficiency. NSPI monitors the electrical grid for customers in Nova Scotia, Canada. This means that field service reps must travel long distances between power stations and lines and having to come back to an office at the end of the day to upload information was far too time consuming. So when they started using BlackBerry smartphones with the Freeance Mobile app to automatically report the data collected with GPS coordinates, their inspectors found that they saved travel time. NSPI also found it gained accurate information about the health of the power grid, so they could better predict outages and deploy crews.

For the Canadian City of Vaughan, GPS mapping with the BlackBerry smartphone and Freeance Mobile app is about delivering better customer service. The City of Vaughan sends inspectors to help ensure businesses – such as restaurants, stores and even taxis – are meeting local by-laws. With the Freeance Mobile app, they discovered that seeing dots mapped on a screen enabled them to understand trouble spots better than they could before. A series of inspection reports, mapped together, gave them a unique perspective on areas of the city that weren’t meeting by-laws. Knowing this helped them deal with the issues, often before the public complained.

What makes all these solutions impressive is the volume of information that can be presented on a map without excessive work on the part of the inspector. Since data is already being collected, these BlackBerry solutions show just how easy it is to get more value from the data coming from the field.

Does your organization use GPS-enabled BlackBerry devices? Do you have apps that take advantage of geographic context? Tell us how you’re integrating location into your mobile application strategy.

Police forces around the world have to keep up with technology – the bad guys certainly are! Law enforcement also has to ensure mobile solutions meet stringent security standards – ones that involve extra levels of authentication and encryption that prevent sensitive police records from unauthorized access. And policing is no more immune to budget restrictions than any other level of government, so cost-effectiveness has to be balanced with the real returns of making the mobile investment.

Let me share how accessing police databases while away from police cars is helping to revolutionize three police departments across Canada and the US: The Baltimore Police Department (Baltimore PD) in the US, and Chatham-Kent Police Services and Waterloo Regional Police Service (WRPS) in Canada.

Police departments can leverage BlackBerry® smartphones to access police databases, helping to cost-effectively enhance frontline policing:

• Baltimore PD has 2,000 officers who use InterAct™ PocketCop on BlackBerry smartphones
• WRPS in Canada deployed 300 BlackBerry smartphones with MPANiche
• Chatham-Kent Police Services, also in Canada, built a custom application for 170 officers with their partner Mobile Innovations

What’s interesting about these apps is the obvious benefit of having critical police information in the officer’s hands versus having to go back to a computer in the police cruiser. This means an officer can verify if a suspect has a criminal record and if they match the mugshot. This allows greater efficiency and safety for officers in their daily work. And while we’re talking about safety, all three forces use built-in BlackBerry GPS technology to help pinpoint and map an officer’s location while away from vehicles – just in case they run into trouble while on foot.

Having a way to more securely access police databases like NCIC, MVA and CPIC from a BlackBerry smartphone is a huge improvement over in-car computers and radios – and it’s all done with the kind of security police forces demand. Chatham-Kent Police Services even uses an enhanced BlackBerry security tool like the BlackBerry® Smart Card Reader as well as SafeNet® Smart Card technology to enable multi-factor authentication, which means that the officer must confirm their identity through multiple sources before the information can be accessed.

In some cases, BlackBerry technology may even lower operational costs as compared to outfitting vehicles with hardwired laptops.

When it comes to public safety, BlackBerry is making an obvious impact – for the officers, for IT teams who need to ensure security, and for the communities the police are sworn to protect.

Have you seen a police officer use a BlackBerry smartphone on the job? Share your story.

Gnarly waves, sun-soaked beaches, and…technology? Absolutely, says Mano Ziul. As the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) long-standing Chief Technology Officer, Ziul has helped usher in a number of innovative ways to improve the event judging and viewing experience for surfing fans around the world.
“Surfing has always been driving side-by-side with technology,” said Ziul. “We’re often in beautiful but remote locations, so any time there’s something new that can benefit our surfers, judges and fans, we’ve been amongst the first to try to implement it.”

Recent solutions have included judging terminals that had hard-to-read LCD screens used on sun-soaked beaches, computers that required serial ports and a multitude of cables, and heavy pelican cases that needed to be hauled around to each location on the tour. Albeit progressive for the time, information still couldn’t be shared instantaneously, so it was difficult to engage the millions of surfing fans hoping to follow all of the action.

When tablets started to become popular in 2010, Ziul decided to try to use them to simplify the judging process and improve interactivity amongst the ASP fans. After working with the other tablet platforms, Ziul realized that what he needed was a tablet that would be durable, light, and robust. The BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet met all of his requirements.

“When you work outdoors 99 per cent of the time, you need a screen that is bright enough to supersede the sunlight,” said Ziul. “One of the crucial points for us is that we find the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet screen is one of the best on the market.”

After adopting the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, Ziul met with a developer to develop two applications that could be used during ASP World Tour events: the ASP Judging app and the ASP Surf Vote app. Both apps helped Ziul realize his goal of fundamentally changing how data was collected and shared by ASP.

ASP World Tour judges now use the ASP Judging app on their BlackBerry PlayBook tablets to look at key information that is clearly displayed in front of them, including previous wave height and scores, current surfing conditions, and other information to help them make a more accurate decision. Because the information can be accessed so quickly – and is clearly visible on the tablet’s touch screen – judges can easily glance down at their tablet for details.

While helping judges make better decisions is crucial, Ziul also acknowledges that engaging its predominantly-young surfing fans is the ASP’s “golden egg.” At every event, BlackBerry PlayBook tablets are available for fans to use the unique Surf Vote app, which allows them to vote on the performance of their favorite surfers.

The ASP also has a smartphone app that puts the voting in the palm of the fans hands. The viewer can share their voting decisions by using the integrated Facebook® and Twitter® functions, and engage with the millions of other fans who are either at the event or watching the event on television or online.
Zuil jokingly admits that he starts to “hear it” from the fans, via social media, if the information isn’t updated after about 10 or 15 seconds. Certainly a change from the days of the clunky software and equipment they used to have.

Ziul goes on to say that he has been impressed with the degree of engagement and passion that the surfing community has demonstrated. With up to three million fans streaming during any one event and as many as 50,000 people interacting on the cross-platform Surf Vote app at any one time, Ziul knows that the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet will continue to play a huge role in future ASP surfing events.

“It’s worked wonderfully so far, and will only get better,” said Ziul. “Although it’s always nice to be at the actual event on the beach, this solution gives you the full experience right from home.”

UPDATE: The deadline for nominations is now Friday, March 9th, 2012!

Every year fans gather to watch the society’s most famous, talented, beautiful people walk down the red carpet. It’s an honor to be nominated, they all claim. “Who are you wearing?” the paparazzi ask. “Where are the best after-parties?” the on-lookers wonder. The Oscars…nope – the Wireless Achievement Awards at the annual BlackBerry World™ conference!

That’s right, it’s Wireless Achievement Awards season once again, and the nominations are open for a short period of time. A mainstay of BlackBerry World, these coveted honors have been garnering increased attention over the past six years. But for those who aren’t familiar with the program, I thought I’d provide a bit more background.

The Wireless Achievement Awards are something we do to give our customers some well-deserved recognition for their innovation and creativity in contributing to their organization’s success.

Back in 2006, we started the program in response to the volume of interesting mobile projects we heard our customers describe. Sometimes customer success stories don’t get much attention beyond the organization that has implemented the change, so we decided we needed a way to showcase these stories – so began the first awards, six years ago.

Since then, we’ve seen hundreds of amazing stories about our customers achieving business value through their BlackBerry® deployments. Remember, this program started back in the days before the BlackBerry App World™ storefront or the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet – and, given all the evolution in technology, I can’t wait to see what this year’s nominees bring to the table.

To address the variety of submissions, we created a few different categories of awards: Innovation in Private Sector, Innovation in Public Sector, and Business Impact. To be selected as one of three finalists in a category from hundreds and hundreds of entries is really quite an honor. Additionally, to deal with the number of great nominations, we recently added a fourth category: Attendee Choice Award. For this award, people registered to attend BlackBerry World, can log in and cast their vote – the audience is in control! This category focuses on B2C applications: applications that businesses create to service their end users. These might touch on mobile marketing, customer service delivery, customer engagement, or any number of other areas. They represent high value to the organization, and are part of a new area of mobile application growth.

The Wireless Achievement Awards are all about achievement and innovation. The most compelling entries are those that are high value, high impact, and novel. The selection committee is typically comprised of executives or senior leaders from RIM®, past award winners, and industry analysts. The committee looks for entries that demonstrate how BlackBerry solutions have helped organizations achieve their business goals, whether the goal has improved customer satisfaction, cost savings, increased efficiency or helped achieve higher sales.

So, if you think you’ve got what it takes (and I know you do), why not submit a nomination? Just visit the Wireless Achievement Awards page on the BlackBerry World website or dive straight in to the web entry form. Follow the step-by-step instructions to submit your information – additionally, you can attach supporting material (we love screenshots!). And for the perfectionists out there, the form allows you to save your entry and come back later to finish it off. Just remember, the deadline – March 5th, 2012 March 9th, 2012 – is coming up fast, so submit your nomination now!