IACP product report: BlueStreak Connect

Ed Note: The following is one in a series of articles written by PoliceOne columnists in the wake of the recently completed IACP conference in San Diego. Check out the IACP Special Coverage page for complete and continuing coverage of the event. If you attended the IACP and want to share your thoughts or photos, please let us know by sending an email.

Denver-based BlueStreak Connect, a company that provides data collection software products to law enforcement and government agencies, launched Connect Interviewer – what the company describes as a powerful, affordable, easy-to-use automated field reporting system – at IACP 2007. As the IACP event in San Diego got underway this year, the company issued a press release indicating that it had been given a Valor Award by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial for its “continuous support of police officers who have died in the line of duty and support for their spouses.”

In that press release, company CEO Steve Rodgers said: “We are honored to receive this award from the memorial. But this is really about the law enforcement officers who have given every measure to protect and defend their communities.”

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PoliceOne briefly caught up with the folks from BlueStreak Connect on the IACP Exposition floor to get an update because the company also announced that customer acceptance of its Connect Interviewer product is “excellent.”

BlueStreak Connect Interviewer – which is specifically designed for the needs of small- and mid-sized law enforcement organizations – today has more than 100 users in 15 departments around the country. “They’re the teeny ones...that nobody ever calls on but we happened to reach by phone,” Elena M. Castor, VP of Sales for BlueStreak Connect tells PoliceOne. But it is clear that the “overwhelmingly positive response to the system” that the company has witnessed in the past year signals a real need – one that many agencies are beginning to notice.

BlueStreak Connect recently commissioned a survey of more than 3,000 law enforcement organizations (of varying size) and learned that some 40 percent of respondents still record incident data by hand on printed or electronic forms. The company says that results of this company-funded survey showed a real need in small- and medium-sized law enforcement agencies for an automated field incident data capturing and reporting service.

The idea is that handwritten reports can take officers’ time that is best used on the street. According BlueStreak Connect, the objective is to help agencies reduce that time by one hour each day.

Using the BlueStreak Connect product, officers can enter reports directly to their department’s system from the MDT in their squad – provided that the unit is connected with a mobile broadband wireless “air-card” such as you’d get from Sprint or Verizon or another wireless service provider.

The product is “Software as a Service” – meaning that you don’t have to install anything on your computer, or other tech-intensive (and typically frustrating) activities associated with software products. As a SaaS (hosted) service, the data is housed in what Castor called a “world-class” data center that had originally been built by AT&T. “We provide security that most agencies would never even get to see,” Castor says.

According to our discussion with Castor, the service fee for agencies is presently just $20 per user per month.

Looking back at what the company has accomplished in the past couple of years, Blue Streak Connect seems to be motoring right along. But PoliceOne wanted to know also ‘what’s going on for 2009?’ because many of the agencies that are most likely to purchase the BlueStreak Connect Interviewer product are also among the most likely to feel the effects of the tightening credit market and dwindling real estate tax revenues from the ongoing mortgage crisis.

“It’s bad for them. The one thing that we know is that we have to help our customers get grants. We’re partnering with a grant writing service to help get that service in the hands of the people who need it. The other thing we’re going to do is to work with the technical advisory board for the smaller agencies within IACP. We’ve got that on our list of people to meet – one of the things we’ve started to do here [in San Diego] – and something we think can really help.”

Castor tells PoliceOne that “Version 2.0” of the product (a pretty big milestone for any company in the technology world) is due to be released in Spring 2009.

About the author

Doug Wyllie is Editor in Chief of PoliceOne, responsible for setting the editorial direction of the website and managing the planned editorial features by our roster of expert writers. In addition to his editorial and managerial responsibilities, Doug has authored more than 500 feature articles and tactical tips on a wide range of topics and trends that affect the law enforcement community. Doug is a two-time (2011 and 2012) Western Publishing Association "Maggie Award" Finalist in the category of Best Regularly Featured Digital Edition Column. Doug is also a member of the Public Safety Writers Association and an Associate Member of the California Peace Officers' Association. Even in his "spare" time, he is active in his support for the law enforcement community, contributing his time and talents toward police-related charitable events as well as participating in force-on-force training, search-and-rescue training, and other scenario-based training designed to prepare cops for the fight they face every day on the street.

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