The Washington DC Office of Zoning is not your standard PEG (Public, Educational, Government) channel. They don’t cablecast their public meetings, much less have a dedicated channel. They don’t have a background in video production or a full-time video production staff. They aren’t even required to provide video of their meetings.

What the Office of Zoning does have is a gentleman by the name of Nyambi Nyambi. He is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and a certified member of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) who wanted to solve an educational problem and ended up creating a shining example of what’s possible in government transparency with a minimal budget and a passion for serving his community’s needs.

About the Office of Zoning

Founded in 1990 by an Act of the City Council, the Office of Zoning is an independent agency for the District of Columbia whose purpose is to provide professional, technical and administrative assistance to two groups — the Zoning Commission (ZC) and the Board of Zoning Adjustment (BZA). There are strict guidelines related to all property in the city. Any construction or rehabilitation on private land must conform to these guidelines. The authority to make exceptions to zoning laws is carried about by these two groups.

The vision of the Office of Zoning is to create a convenient, user friendly, consistent and efficient zoning process. That vision is evident when you talk to CTO, Nyambi Nyambi about how his office began their video production journey.

Born Out Of Need

Having had previous experience working with commissions, Nyambi knew some of the pitfalls that can arise for support staff. Specifically, the importance of staying on top of decisions made during the meetings and analyzing how those decisions affect the staff’s day-to-day work.

“Some of the Commission meetings are over 6 hours”, says Nyambi, “so there’s no way to leave your desk and sit in.” These lengthy meetings, combined with a small and focused staff’s inability to leave the workspace for extended periods created a problem for the department. Nyambi understood the importance of having an engaged, active staff that appreciated the relevance of their actions as it related to the community they served. He needed to create an environment that was more conducive to employee excellence.

That’s when Nyambi had an idea – if he couldn’t bring staff to the meeting, he could bring the meeting to the staff.

If he used video cameras and connected them to his network, then he and his staff could watch and listen to the meetings from their desk. The idea was simple, but the odds were against him. Nyambi had no video production experience and no budget for such a project.

Pinching together all of the funds he could muster, Nyambi purchased three inexpensive Canon web cameras for approximately $100 each. Next, he reached out to another DC Government office and was successful in acquiring a vBrick video encoder.

Armed with these simple tools, the Office of Zoning began internally streaming and recording their Commission meetings. Staff were able to observe the meeting and stay abreast of decisions made regarding their tasks and projects. They were engaged in the process and could readily observe the effectiveness of their work in the meetings.

Can I Have That?

Over time, the video stream that Nyambi had created strictly for his department started to draw attention. People who actually attended the meetings noticed the video feed on staff members’ desks, which naturally led to the question “Can I have that?”.

From an attendee’s perspective, being able to monitor the status of these lengthy meetings so they knew when their agenda item was ready for discussion would be a huge time saver. Additionally, the ability to view a meeting after the fact would also be beneficial.

Nyambi had initially solved one problem — how to bring the meetings to his staff. The new problem to solve was how to share this with others outside his department.

His first thought was to burn the meetings to disk and simply share the meetings in this manner. Unfortunately, the meetings were being encoded in MPEG2 format and a one-day meeting was 17GB. The idea of burning 25 disks for each person was definitely not a reasonable solution. Additionally, this solution didn’t address the needs of those that wanted to watch the proceedings as they occurred.

Enter EarthChannel

After researching a solution to the problem, Nyambi came to the conclusion that a third party was needed. He needed a vendor that had the capability to leverage the technology he already had and use it on a broader scale. The company he chose was EarthChannel.

Initially, the only service he implemented was live streaming. It was affordable and allowed anyone outside of his office, including the public, to watch the meetings. By using the web, he also reduced his network traffic since he was no longer burdened with providing streaming video directly to other DC Government departments.

For three years the only video that was available was the live stream. However, there was an expressed and ongoing need for on-demand video. The Office of Zoning needed a record of the meeting and although the meeting was transcribed, the turn-around time was on the order of weeks – far too long for the quick pace of day-to-day operations. There might be a second, or even a third meeting before the transcripts from the first meeting were ready. Often transcriptions wouldn’t be available until 30-days following the meeting.

So Nyambi took the next incremental step by adding on-demand video to his web site. This afforded his viewers a record of the meeting in one day instead of waiting 30 days for transcripts. It also provided the Office of Zoning with a permanent record of the meeting and the ability to archive it indefinitely.

Taking The Next Step — Indexing

While having an archive of a meeting was of great benefit, the ability to jump to a specific agenda item or relevant part of the meeting required manually playing the video archive to search for the desired content. Indexing – the process of applying start and stop times with textual descriptions of media content – could greatly speed up this process. Nyambi had entertained indexing when he enabled on-demand video, but tight deadlines and an already busy staff could not afford the time to accomplish this task. “EarthChannel had indexing available with our current service, but it was done after the fact and that didn’t fit into the workflow for the Office of Zoning. After recording a 6-hour meeting, it didn’t make sense to spend additional hours indexing it. We simply didn’t have the resources.”, said Nyambi.

Then EarthChannel introduced “Live Indexing” which allowed a single staff member to index the meeting as it was happening. Now Nyambi’s staff could index the meeting in real-time and have the indexed video available by the next business day. In fact, they now guarantee to this service to their viewers.

Indexing also solved several other needs.

No Need To Edit Video

Since the meeting doesn’t always start at the time specified there can be some “dead time” at the start. Instead of editing the video to trim the unnecessary footage they simply use the first index point to trim the video to the exact start time of the meeting.

Jump To What Interests You

Most viewers are only interested in the agenda items that affect them, so being able to jump to that specific agenda item saves a great deal of time. Since each index point allows for precise searching, even if the viewer doesn’t know what meeting discussed a topic, they can easily find the exact video segment they’re interested in.

Embedded Attachments

The Office of Zoning deals with a lot of paperwork, so being able to attach the agenda, transcript, GIS (Geographic Information Systems) information and even individual documents to a specific index point provides everything a viewer needs to be engaged with the meeting. In addition, it prevents duplicating work that’s already been done. “We have the agenda online already, so being able to link to it directly from the on-demand video saves a lot of time for us.” said Nyambi.

Now that he and his staff have experienced the benefits of indexing, they are currently indexing older meetings as time permits. Their goal is to have every meeting indexed from 2005 forward.

If You Build It, They Will Come

The meeting space for the Office of Zoning is also used by others outside the department. Two such departments, the DC Historic Preservation Office and the DC Office of Contracting and Procurement, saw what Nyambi was doing and asked if they too could make use of his video services and technology.

Nyambi was eager to help, but quickly learned that he had to do a little education first. “They were a little unsure about putting their meetings on the web, but once I walked them through the Sunshine Act and the benefits of transparency, they jumped at the opportunity.” said Nyambi.

Now, two more departments that might not have used video due to lack of expertise and budget constraints are now broadcasting their meetings live using a sister department’s idle resources.

What’s Next?

Nyambi indicates that he has already achieved far more than he ever imagined when he first got started streaming his meetings in 2003. But, like any good planner, he does have a few goals on the horizon.

Deep Links

EarthChannel recently launched a new service called “TinyClip” which allows any viewer to create custom clips from any supported streaming media file. “We were part of the beta test and we’re really excited about what our viewers will do with it”, said Nyambi. He’s also looking at new and exciting ways that his office can use TinyClip, too.

The Office of Zoning makes available Zoning Maps to the public. One of Nyambi’s ideas is to embed TinyClips of video to agenda items that relate to a specific zone. For example, if someone is interested in the map for zone 1, then any agenda items that pertain to that zone could be linked directly from the PDF to the video clip.

Nyambi’s staff is also obliged to routinely create video copies of meetings for anyone filling a “Freedom Of Information Act” (FOIA) request. While a small fee can be charged for these copies, providing this service is a time-consuming and laborious task. Nyambi anticipates that the new TinyClip feature will virtually eliminate such requests, as any viewer can now quickly view, create and link to any desired segment of his videos.

Reaching Out To Those Without Computers

Simulcasting their video to the government cable TV station has never been an option for the Office of Zoning. Everything they have done up to this point has been for the purposes of web-based distribution.

However, the Office of Cable Television has taken notice of Nyambi’s work and they’ve been discussing adding his programming to their schedule. It’s something Nyambi is very excited about.

“We’ve been able to reach those people who have a computer. If we get on cable TV, we’ll be able to reach those that don’t.”

With that possibility comes an opportunity for a small upgrade. The Office of Zoning is currently in the process of upgrading their cameras to near-broadcast quality and is looking at upgrading other hardware as well.

It’s Not About The Technology

It started as an idea without a budget . Then it grew to a miniscule budget and evolved into an inter-departmental project. Now, six years later, Nyambi has 3 staff members that are tasked with video production along with their other work, and 5 cameras that record every meeting and share it live and on-demand with the world, via the Internet.

“There’s something to be said for incremental development. Especially when you deal with an organization not used to large budget items. Focus on the most essential pieces first and work from there. Like the a wheel. Start with the core and worry about the spokes later.”

–Nyambi Nyambi, DC Office of Zoning

That level of attention and focus on creating initiatives that are needs-based has certainly paid off for the Office of Zoning. Their objectives were based on what the department and the affected community needed – and the solutions they found were specific to those needs.

Their budget for video production may still be fairly small, but it’s become intertwined with other departmental offices and is no longer perceived as a luxury item. The board sees the effect video has on creating transparency in all the work they do. Nyambi’s staff has been responsive and attentive to the relatively small changes and upgrades that have been requested along the way.

When asked about his success, Nyambi is quick to point out that he’s been lucky and that it was certainly a team effort. He says he “relies on staff and outside consultants to keep things running smoothly.” Although that may be true, from the outside looking in, his commitment to serving the community is a critical component as well.

The mission of the Office of Zoning is to create a convenient, user friendly, consistent and efficient zoning process. Without a doubt, Nyambi and his staff are doing everything possible to make that a reality.

“It’s not about the technology, it’s what you can do with it.”

–Nyambi Nyambi, DC Office of Zoning

Photos: All photos courtesy of Ron Thomas and the DC Office of Zoning
Channel Info: DC Office of Zoning