The following is an edited transcript of a teleconference with David Eichenthal and Mark Keil from the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee, conducted by Susan Benton, the Center for Digital Government's director of strategic initiatives, on August 5th, 2004. The topic of the teleconference is the city's implementation of 311 and ChattanoogaRESULTS.

Susan Benton:
Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Susan Benton and I'm the Director of Strategic Initiatives for the Center for Digital Government. And welcome to our August teleconference call.

Today, we have two nationally recognized officials from the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee. David Eichenthal holds two titles; he is the city's Finance Director and also the Director of the Office of Performance Review. And Mark Keil is the city's Chief Information Officer. I've asked David and Mark to share with you their CRM initiative for the city of Chattanooga.

Let me give you a little background on what led to this call. As a national research and advisory organization, the Center has a unique ability to get a nationwide view of leading-edge technology projects and initiatives that cities and counties are moving forward. Earlier this year several of our member jurisdictions asked the Center for information about CRM and 311 call center projects occurring in other local governments. Those jurisdictions were either thinking about starting a CRM project or they were just at the beginning strategic planning stage.

The Center made a decision to launch a research project on CRM and 311, and we began asking those jurisdictions with CRM/3-1-1 projects to share their experience. As I talked with executives around the country, many pointed me to Chattanooga, Tennessee, to learn what that city had done because the word out was they had done a very, very good job.

I am very glad that we were guided to call David Eichenthal and Mark Keil and the Chattanooga team because, in fact, that's what we found -- they have a successful implementation of CRM and a 311 call center. And we thought it would be valuable to share their information and their insights with you.

I am going to turn the call over to David and Mark. And while they're talking, if you have questions, please write them down because following their discussion, as our operator said, we are going to open the lines for discussion.

David and Mark, thank you so much for joining us on today's call.

David Eichenthal:
Susan, thank you. This is a terrific opportunity for us. I found that every time -- I think Mark feels the same way -- every time we get an opportunity to talk about what we've been doing in Chattanooga with other folks around the country who are trying to do the same thing or have already done it, we actually wind up yes, giving people some helpful information but actually learning a lot as well. So we really appreciate the opportunity.

I'm going to talk a bit and then Mark Keil, who is our CIO and the father of Chattanooga 311-- and I'll talk about that as I go through the history of the project a little bit. Mark and I will be happy to answer questions later on.

A brief warning going into this and part of the reason that Mark and I are sort of tag-teaming on this is I am not a CIO. I am actually a lawyer by training and, as Susan mentioned, I'm also the city's finance director. And I think one of the good lessons and important lessons that we've learned out of the Chattanooga experience is the role that -- the extraordinary role that the CIO could play in getting this type of a program implemented but also the fact that while