Highlights:  Aug. 14, 2019

• CenturyLink Presentation: Brian Franciulli discussed transition of contract locator vendor. Issues, solutions and concerns from the board. Discussion of possible legislation.
• COO Report: Ticket volume is up over 7% this year. Review times for online submissions are up and being examined by the vendor. Web ticket percentage is up from last year to 73.9%. GSOC attended 31 DP meetings from Feb - April. Additional contact information for Facility Operators has been made available on tickets. Meet tickets initiative to be revisited next year due to unsatisfactory results from excavators likely due to Centurylink issues. Barb visited several states to benchmark GSOC performance and gained some new ideas concerning educational efforts and public awareness initiatives and hopes to be able to visit more this fall. Discussion of 2019 projects including new user interface, further reduction in callbacks to correct errors in online tickets, possibility of snow tickets, working with the vendor to reduce online ticket review times, and additional criteria for direct release of tickets without review.
• OCC Report: Ticket volume is up substantially from previous years as well as number of days above 6,000 tickets. Online ticket submissions are at a record high. Call responsiveness has slowed slightly, but is still the quickest we are aware of across the country. Additional hiring has happened due to exceptionally busy summer months. Ongoing initiatives include increased online submission, reduced callbacks due to errors, visual enhancement to the ticket submission system, and both onsite and webinar training with over 243 attendees so far in 2019. System upgrades have included the CSR software, online ticketing submission software, phone exchange hardware, and over 2,600 map updates. 
• MnOps Report: Jon Wolfgram - Q2 damage reporting now available online. MnOps investigation of Centurylink is ongoing. 216D stakeholder meetings will be held this fall.
• PR/Awareness Report: Media efforts with Star Tribune, iHeartRadio, Linder Farm Radio, and AllOverMedia took place throughout the year as well as sponsorship of the 811 run again and of MN United soccer this year. GSOC also participated in the Vikings football yearbook ad, numerous tradeshows and events such as Northern Green Expo and Big Iron in Fargo. Olivia has started a new initiative to increase user engagement on Facebook through better targeting and the website is being reviewed and updated.