Wesley Flamer-BinionJournal #1
I have just wrapped up my sixth week on the job at New York City’s Department of Small Business Services, where I am working with the NYC Business Express team to develop a “one-stop shop” internet portal to serve New York City’s businesses. The initiative, “NYC Business Express” will ultimately allow business owners or their agents to procure licenses, permits, certifications, as well as make payments, pay fines and gather general information on requirements for conducting business in the City.
As one might imagine, this is a huge project which will require not only a well-coordinated effort, but also the cooperation of a large number of government agencies and entities across New York City. As part of the strategic operations team, it is our job to make sure the process stays on track and to manage the roll-out of new online content while keeping an eye to the Mayor’s and the City’s strategic long-term objectives for serving business customers. By eliminating the need for business owners to engage, in-person, with multiple departments and agencies, and through the removal of “unduly burdensome” processes along the way, we hope to reduce the cost of doing business in the City and foster a more favorable business environment.
Among other duties, I have been assigned to participate in the NYC Business Express Legal Issues Work Group, where the general counsels from a number of city agencies meet with the Strategic Operations team on a bi-weekly basis at City Hall to hear us deliver progress updates on the initiative. The Group then offers legal counsel and comment on our proposals to streamline, standardize and digitize processes that affect their respective agencies.
Already, I have learned a tremendous amount from this experience. Aside from gaining more in-depth, real-world exposure to operations and product development, I also increase my understanding of how New York City government works and of the challenges associated with pushing for innovation and change in a large and complex organization.
Journal #2
I have just wrapped up my tenth week on the job. The experience continues to be filled with learning, hard work and exciting opportunities to see the City from a variety of new perspectives. Our New York City Business Express team recently unveiled the Incentives Estimator function on our Web site, which will provide, for businesses, customized information on eligibility for forty-four City, state and federal business incentives. The Incentives Estimator will not only help business customers determine which programs they will likely qualify for, but also provides customers with customized pro forma savings estimates under the Lower Manhattan Energy Program and the Empire Zone Investment tax Credit. Over the next few months, the team will roll out pro forma estimates for an additional sixteen incentive programs.
I have been busy working with the team to prepare for the late summer release of the next big phase of the initiative, which will include twenty new online license applications. In an unprecedented step, NYC Business Express will, in the course of processing these applications, collect from license applicants via upload supporting documentation such as photographs, fingerprints, recommendation letters and the like. The target release date is in early September. Preparation work is varied and extensive. Also, my role at this stage of the process is to anticipate risks and likely problem areas on the road to final production and to design tests to discover, mitigate and correct those risks.
In other news, Mayor Bloomberg recently invited the interns to a barbeque at Gracie Mansion, which was a nice little thrill. I had the chance to shake the Mayor’s hand for a very special split-second and to take in the glorious view from the mansion grounds while enjoying good food, music and the company of other dedicated City interns.
Journal #3
After three months working with the NYC Business Express team, my internship has come to a close! I spent much of the final two weeks helping the team ensure the next NYC Business Express product release in early September is unveiled as planned. We worked side-by-side with the IT team to prep for and lead the user acceptance testing sessions that are an important milestone before the final release.
In the last weeks of summer, the Department of Small Business Services hosted a series of intern events to cap off what was a robust, well-organized intern program. I was able to join several leadership and professional development sessions at the agency, including sessions ranging from effective project management to advanced power point training. During weekly “lunch and learn” sessions, interns also had the opportunity to learn about the diverse array of business development initiatives run under the SBS umbrella.
