Jul 13, 2008

City goes high-tech with staffer

Interactive computer 'Carly' fills position in San Carlos

By Mark Abramson / Daily News Staff Writer

San Carlos has a new city hall receptionist named Carly. She's friendly, helpful and requires a mouse to interact with her.

The interactive computer, located at the desk where the human receptionist used to be, is designed to help people navigate through city government. Carly, the digital avatar on the screen, is surrounded with the icons of the various city departments; users can click on the links to find out information, contact numbers and directions on how to get to offices throughout city hall.

Costing only $20 a month, she is significantly cheaper than a living receptionist, who would typically cost $90,000 a year including benefits, City Manager Mark Weiss said. Carly's employement comes at a time when the city is trying to trim $1.2 million from its budget.

However, the digital civic assistant, built from the SitePal platform, didn't cost anyone their jobs. The full-time position was already vacant, and other employees were filling in temporarily, he said.

"Obviously it is not a real person. ... We are going to do as much as we can with signage," Weiss said.

Assistant City Manager Brian Moura said other cities have human volunteers to work as receptionists, he hasn't heard of any neighboring cities using a cyber employee like Carly.

"We are using it for a purpose that was never intended," Moura said.

Weiss acknowledged that not everyone is computer-savvy and will be able to easily interact with Carly. There are plans to have city hall employees working in the lobby area to help those still wanting to talk to a person, Weiss said. In the meantime, a list of phone numbers will be next to Carly for anyone who doesn't want to interact with her.

On Monday, city staff were available for help during Carly's test run. Jasmine Frost, the city's senior systems analyst and Web master, came up with the idea of installing Carly.

"We just created her (from SitePal) and gave her a name," Frost said. "It was easy to implement. It's still a new concept."

One problem that came up on Carly's first day was that people thought her monitor was a touchscreen, Frost said. Many users tapped at the icons on the monitor to no avail. That issue was fixed by posting signs directing users to use a mouse with Carly, she said.



E-mail Mark Abramson at mabramson@dailynewsgroup.com.