Ask the CIO: SLED Edition

While the 2020 election appears to have potentially impacted far fewer state CIOs than in past years, the National Association of State Chief Information Officers’ (NASCIO) state CIO membership continues its “churn” according to executive director, Doug Robinson. He also weighs in on plans for the next NASCIO conference in DC in spring 2021.

To put it mildly, 2020 has indeed been a year of disruption at so many levels, and the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) is not immune. Unrelated to the COVID-19 pandemic, however, New Hampshire CIO Denis Goulet took over the reins as president, following outgoing President Eric Boyette, who was CIO of North Carolina until his governor appointed him transportation secretary back in February. Consequently, Goulet began his NASCIO term just as the pandemic was about to metastasize around the globe. John Thomas Flynn asked Goulet about the effect on the Granite State, on this week's Ask the CIO: SLED Edition.

South Dakota CIO Jeff Clines began his job in Pierre this past April, right in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak -- and even in to the new fiscal year COVID response is front and center. He gave me an update on where things are headed.

Jeff Clines left Illinois secretary of state CIO position to become South Dakota CIO during the spring 2020, the crucible of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. The cabinet position, full operational authority and the governor's keen executive sponsorship played a large part in his decision. The state's culture has led to success of the their reaction o the pandemic.

Montana has garnered national recognition for its decision several years ago to plan to retire its mainframe infrastructure. State CIO Tim Bottenfield said, on Ask the CIO: SLED Edition, that "the writing was on the wall that it was not going to be sustainable for us to maintain our mainframe services." Being a small state resource-wise, many agencies were beginning to divest themselves of the requirements to keep their mainframe services as far back as 10 years ago. He told John Thomas Flynn how that's progressing.

As with all state chief information officers, Montana's Tim Bottenfield has been at the epicenter of the state’s efforts to continue operations during the coronavirus. He's been teleworking for the most part from his cabin just outside Glacier National Park, about 200 miles north of the state capital. He said Montana was ready thanks to the fact that the state had multiple solutions available, whether that was via VPN or VDI, plus utilizing 365 and the cloud. Hear more from his talk with host John Thomas Flynn on Ask the CIO: SLED Edition.

In part 1 of his interview with Carlos Rivero, the Commonwealth of Virginia’s first chief data officer, host John Thomas Flynn opined that the growing establishment of state CDO positions across the country resembled the creation of the state chief information officers in the mid-1990s. In addition, the position’s placement within the state organizational hierarchy also continues to evolve with about half reporting to the state CIO while the other half are located within the states' “administration secretariat." Hear the rest of the interview on Ask the CIO: SLED Edition.

Since its inception during the last decade, the chief data officer position in state government has matured whereby half of the states now boast one. While the original CIOs were primarily embedded within the states’ “administrative” agencies, over the last several years more and more have been set up as heads of cabinet agencies. Over a dozen states now have a state CIO in their governors’ cabinets, and that trend appears to grow with each new election. John Thomas Flynn spoke to the Commonwealth of Virginia’s CDO Carlos Rivero on Ask the CIO: SLED Edition.

State IT leadership across the country has for the most part been widely praised for stepping up during this coronavirus pandemic and successfully implementing continuity of operations plans almost seamlessly. However, one area of concern which affected scores of states has been the surge of unemployment insurance (UI) claims and its devastating impact on legacy applications. At least one state's fortuitous UI modernization effort a few years ago has spared it from much of the turmoil affecting so many others. Ask the CIO: SLED Edition spoke with Anthony Fantasia, the chief information officer for the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

If the Great Recession of 2008-2009 when millions of local public sector workers lost their jobs is any indication, the pandemic’s impact on this sector in 2020 will be staggering. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the near term effects on state and local employment will be devastating. In part 2 of his interview on Ask the CIO: SLED Edition with host John Thomas Flynn, Alan Shark, the long-time executive director of the Public Technology Institute (PTI), said how the answers could lie in telework and technology.

Alan Shark is amazed at the difference a few months can make. Before the coronavirus turned the world upside down, in January his organization the Public Technology Institute and the National Association of State CIOs coordinated on a webinar on the 2020 technology forecast for state and local officials. Given what has transpired over the ensuing months, those prognostications are being reconstituted due to the virus' impact on state and local government IT priorities and spending. Hear part 1 of Shark's discussion with John Thomas Flynn on Ask the CIO: SLED Edition.

This week should have capped off the National Association of State Chief Information Officers' 50th anniversary with its Midyear Conference taking place just outside of Washington, D.C. The coronavirus had other ideas, however, and forced NASCIO leadership to switch over to a virtual event. In addition to conference activities, Ask the CIO: SLED Edition spoke with NASCIO Executive Director Doug Robinson about the ever changing roles, impacts, and even the numbers in the state CIO ranks. For better or worse, the pandemic has certainly raised the visibility of state government IT leadership.

For only the second time since its founding in 1969 the National Association of State Chief Information Officers has been forced to cancel its premier midyear conference that had been scheduled to meet next week just outside Washington, D.C. This year their event fell victim to the impact of the novel coronavirus. Nonetheless, Doug Robinson, NASCIO’s executive director for the last 16 years, spoke with us this week about a virtual substitute on May 4-5 entitled the NASCIO Midyear 2020 Webcast Series. Hear more on Ask the CIO: SLED Edition

Although this interview with Kevin Plexico, senior vice president of information solutions at Deltek, who runs their market intelligence business, occurred prior to the full impact of the coronavirus pandemic, it set the stage for the significant budget revisions leading up to the new fiscal year on July 1. Plexico narrowed his perspective to New York and Texas, where he sees state and local governments creating innovation officer positions, focusing on citizen services, and all the while increasing spending on cybersecurity. Hear more on Ask the CIO: SLED Edition.

Each fall the new IT budgets are broken down by agency, department, and even project. And the state and local IT vendor community would absolutely drool over something similar to the data-rich content in the federal IT dashboard at the state and local level. Host John Thomas Flynn spoke to Kevin Plexico, senior vice president of information solutions at Deltek, and who runs their market intelligence business. Hear more on Ask the CIO: SLED.

If it’s any indication as to how well North Dakota is faring under the coronavirus pandemic, it was just reported this week that the state is under serious consideration for hosting National Hockey League postseason games in Grand Forks. The attitude about the state’s condition could be attributable to the resiliency of the state government’s continuity of operations plan and implementation. North Dakota Chief Technology Officer Duane Schell and Chief Security Officer Kevin Ford joined host John Thomas Flynn on Ask the CIO: SLED Edition to paint a portrait of the state’s readiness.

With confidence in Nebraska’s rigorous continuity of operations planning procedures, including testing and even a scorecard, Chief Information Officer Ed Toner continues to believe that his state is adequately prepared for the coronavirus pandemic. As of April 6, Nebraska is one of only eight states that had not issued a mandated so-called shelter-in-place directive. The Nebraska state workforce continues to come to the office but Toner said the focus has really been to be able to run the office of the CIO from home without any interruption. Hear more in the second part of his interview with John Thomas Flynn on Ask the CIO: SLED Edition.

Like the other 49 state chief information officers Nebraska’s Ed Toner, and thousands more in local governments, have been very busy on the front lines to help orchestrate the continuation of business operations for the millions of citizens they all serve during this pandemic. Toner agreed that Nebraska had been very much in sync with the other states. And his state agencies have all gone through rigorous continuity of operations planning for the last several years, with success. Hear more on this week's Ask the CIO: SLED Edition with host John Thomas Flynn.

info@podcastone.combb83b7a1-ab85-4ce6-a8ce-ba255034bb08Thu, 19 Mar 2020 10:55:04 PDTJohn Thomas Flynn00:24:00

If we've learned anything this last year at Federal News Network interviewing scores of state and local government chief information officers from across the country, it’s the tortuous paths most of these individuals have traveled prior to their government appointments. On the surface it may appear that Ann Dunkin, who just resigned as CIO of Santa Clara County, California, last month may be an exception to this pattern. She started the next stage of her heretofore successful career at Dell this week and spoke to John Thomas Flynn on Ask the CIO: SLED Edition.

In Arkansas, state Chief Technology Officer Yessica Jones is spearheading a statewide data center consolidation effort with a unique cross state strategy between her state and Oklahoma. Her main goal is to centralize IT infrastructure into one of our data centers and utilize a collocation plan. She described this in more detail to host John Thomas Flynn on Ask the CIO: SLED Edition, and also discussed how a government reorganization last year reduced the cabinet to 15 departments, making Jones’ department the Division of Information Services reporting to the Department of Transformation and Shared Services.

North Dakota's state chief information officer is used to unconventional work environments. Shawn Riley, who is also the cabinet secretary of the state's Information Services Division, was appointed by Gov. Doug Burgum in 2017 — a man who was thrown out of the state senate for wearing jeans. But Riley is not altogether different, and that's why he said he thinks he was the right fit to lead North Dakota's technology office despite a lack of prior government experience. He joined host John Thomas Flynn on Ask the CIO: SLED Edition to talk about his background, the state of North Dakota's IT spending and what that means for their cybersecurity.

Former Baltimore mayor and Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley is arguably one of the foremost proponents of using data analytics to measure government performance. That’s quite evident from his new book, “Smarter Government: How to Govern for Results in the Information Age," which he discussed at our Federal News Network studios last week. He brought the New York City Police Department's revolutionary performance measurement program CompStat to Baltimore, then later to the state capital in Annapolis. Speaking to Ask the CIO: SLED Edition host John Thomas Flynn, O'Malley argued for better data metrics in gauging government performance.

Given the significant priority that security has attained among chief information officers in all sectors, it is not surprising that several new state CIO appointees have extensive security backgrounds. West Virginia’s Joshua Spence confirmed this. He was a chief information security officer before becoming state chief technology officer — a job which has the duties of a CIO but with a different title. Spence has also spent two decades with the West Virginia Air National Guard. He joined Ask the CIO: SLED Edition to discuss his goals with John Thomas Flynn.

Ever wonder just how much of your personal information is being collected online by search and social media titans such as Google and Facebook? Laurel Rosenhall, a former The Sacramento Bee reporter, decided to explore the issue and the new California legislation aimed to regulate it. She published her recent article in CalMatters, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news site covering state government and politics where she now works. Ask the CIO: SLED Edition was able to chat with her this week to learn more.

Getting to share common challenges and solutions among industry peers is not a privilege afforded to everyone in IT. But Texas state Chief Information Officer Todd Kimbriel said it's especially valuable to the public sector. Speaking to Ask the CIO: SLED Edition, Kimbriel said his favorite session from this year's NASCIO annual fall conference in Nashville in October, was the “open mic.” Host john Thomas Flynn also spoke to Ed Toner, Nebraska state CIO, about the opportunity that NASCIO provides to reconnect with vendors, especially their leadership. Toner also shared his advice to vendors that want to become that trusted IT adviser in Nebraska.

To mark the National Association of State Chief Information Officers's 50th anniversary, Ask the CIO: SLED Edition went to the annual conference in Nashville and spoke to Tennessee state Chief Information Officer Stephanie Dedmon. She said her state is trying to become cloud smart. Host John Thomas Flynn also caught up with former Government Accountability Office official Dave Powner, now director of strategic engagement and partnerships at the MITRE Corporation. His organization working on how to implement the taxonomy business model at federal agencies.

The National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) celebrated its 50th anniversary recently at its fall conference in Nashville, TN. Ask the CIO: SLED Edition was on the scene for the festivities, and spoke to Doug Robinson, the organization’s executive director for the past 16 years. Host John Thomas Flynn also interviewed North Carolina CIO Eric Boyette, the new NASCIO president, on this week's show.

The National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) celebrated its 50th anniversary recently at its fall conference in Nashville, Tennessee. Federal News Network’s Ask the CIO: SLED Edition was on the scene for the festivities, and host john Thomas Flynn marked his quarter century association with the organization. This week he spoke to Massachusetts state CIO Curt Wood and Virginia state CIO Nelson Moe.

Dewand Neely, Inidiana's CIO appointed by then Governor Mike Pence discusses his road to the position, his organization's expanding role with non-traditional constitutional officers, his security maturity/assessment model and his proudest accomplishments.

The Public Technology Institute and the Computing Technology Industry Association hosted the National Symposium on Cybersecurity in Government last month in Washington, D.C. They highlighted case studies and leading practices, and provided a forum for local governments and the cybersecurity industry to share how communities are balancing the need for security with the need for innovation. On this week's Ask the CIO: SLED Edition, host john Thomas Flynn caught up with some of the local government attendees including Eileen Cazaropoul, the chief information officer for Worcester, Massachusetts, and Alan Shark, PTI executive director, about the ongoing cyber and ransomware challenges facing

Cybersecurity continues to rank as the No. 1 technology issue facing America's local governments, according to the Public Technology Institute (PTI). It's why PTI and the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) hosted the National Symposium on Cybersecurity in Government last month in Washington, D.C. The symposium highlighted case studies and leading practices, and provided a forum for local governments and the cybersecurity industry to share how communities are balancing the need for security with the need for innovation. Host John Thomas Flynn caught up with Eddie Reyes, director of public safety communications for the Prince William County Police Department in Virginia, and Barry Condrey, chief information officer for Chesterfield County, Virginia, on Ask the CIO; SLED Edition.

Call it the loop of "non-appreciation," as it has existed as long as state chief information officers. These CIOs often find that their enterprise plans are stymied by their IT colleagues at large agencies within the state bureaucracy. IT directors at large agencies repeatedly find that their state CIOs are unaware of their agencies’ business challenges, and are more often an obstacle than a valuable ally. Jim Weaver, the state of Washington’s CIO, offered an intriguing solution on this week's Ask the CIO: SLED Edition.

One barometer to use when assessing how serious states are about cybersecurity may be a governor’s selection of a new chief information officer. In the case of New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, his first choice last year turned out to be the state deputy chief information security officer, Chris Rein, arguably the first CISO to be elevated to the top state IT job in the nation. This week he joined Ask the CIO: SLED Edition with host John Thomas Flynn.

The National Governor’s Association (NGA) has expressed new interest in state information technology issues particularly around the subject of cybersecurity. This year NGA instituted a process whereby states are competitively selected for partnerships with the organization to work together on cybersecurity challenges. Just last month NGA announced that it would partner with seven states, including Maryland, to help enhance their cybersecurity strategies. Ask the CIO: SLED Edition spoke with Maryland Secretary of Information Technology and state Chief Information Officer Michael Leahy, and state Chief Information Security Officer John Evans, about how they became involved in this program.

InnovateOhio is the Buckeye State's answer to improving government services through enabling technologies. Under the leadership of Lt. Gov. Jon Husted, InnovateOhio is advancing Gov. Mike DeWine's administration’s commitment. State Chief Information Officer Ervan Rodgers II joined Ask the CIO: SLED Edition to explain his role in the program.

In Arizona, where sand or dust storms are neither irrational nor unexpected, one such event knocked out the state's data center services for three days and as a result was a catalyst for the Chief Information Officer Morgan Reed’s aggressive move toward cloud services. Reed caught up with Ask the CIO: SLED Edition at the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Public Sector Summit last month to explore his challenges and the progress he’s made.

Chris DeRusha, Michigan’s top security officer, is quick to clarify why his title is chief security officer rather than chief information security officer. Like so many other states Michigan had a change in administrations last fall, and since taking office this year Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has made significant changes in the CIO organizational hierarchy. DeRusha spoke with John Thomas Flynn on Ask the CIO: SLED Edition about his office's structure and new legislation which could mean positive changes for how state and local governments share cyber threat information with the Department of Homeland Security.

During the hour-long "Battling the Opioid Crisis with Help from the Cloud" panel at the Amazon Web Services Public Sector Summit in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, 130 people across the country died from an opioid overdose. The event's panelists have implemented cloud-based solutions across agencies in multiple levels of government to securely input, analyze, and distribute citizen data in support of programs designed to address substance abuse and behavioral health in their communities. One of them, Kris Shera, state opioid coordinator for the Washington State Health Care Authority, spoke with John Thomas Flynn on Ask the CIO: SLED Edition.

Host John Thomas Flynn spoke to Shireen Santosham, chief innovation officer for the Mayor of San Jose’s Office of Technology and Innovation, and Dolan Beckel, director of the Office of Civic Innovation and Digital Strategy for San Jose, about how the city found itself on the forefront of 5G deployment in the country and what the future holds.

State chief information officers (CIOs) these days come in all different shapes, sizes and backgrounds, but that was not always the case. At this year's National Association of State Chief Information Officers Midyear Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, John Thomas Flynn spoke with state and local CIOs about their experience. Hear the conversation on Ask the CIO: SLED Edition.

Host John Thomas Flynn spoke to Nebraska state Chief Information Officer Ed Toner and Connecticut state CIO Mark Raymond this month at the National Association of State Chief Information Officers' (NASCIO) Midyear Conference just outside of Washington, D.C. It's NASCIO's 50th anniversary this year, and both CIOs are veterans when it comes to state government IT. Hear more about their careers on this week's Ask the CIO: SLED Edition.

The National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) celebrated its 50th anniversary recently at National Harbor, just outside of Washington, DC. We were fortunate to have a chance to chat with NASCIO Executive Director Doug Robinson, who was enjoying his 37th year of state CIO conferences, and Lindsey Parker, D.C. chief technology officer, who was attending her first. Hear more on Ask the CIO: SLED Edition.

Privatization was not a totally new phenomenon as government operations had always had private sector partners throughout history. However, the new strategy was aimed at more extensive and more comprehensive targets, especially in IT infrastructure, e.g., data centers, networks or internal systems development, traditionally managed and performed by government employees. While similar outsourcing initiatives have been adopted around the country over the years, few have been as significant as those in Georgia, which this year will celebrate a decade of its initiative called the Georgia Enterprise Technology Services (GETS) program. Calvin Rhodes, executive director of the Georgia Technology Authority and state chief information officer who oversees GETS. Eight years ago he was tasked by the governor to revive a failing outsourcing program and the results are showing. He spoke more to John Thomas Flynn on Ask the CIO: SLED Edition.

Secretary Curt Wood of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Technology Services and Security and state CIO served 30-some years in public safety positions in the Commonwealth. His safety and security background was a major factor for receiving the statewide CIO position, especially where cybersecurity is concerned. He joined Ask the CIO: SLED Edition to discuss the state's ongoing consolidation of its CIO office, and planned initiatives for 2019 and 2020.

A phenomenon called smart cities is growing. These locations are generally defined as urban areas that uses different types of electronic data collection sensors to supply information which is used to manage assets and resources efficiently. Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner is trying to turn his town into a smart city via a partnerhip with Microsoft. He joined the company's President of U.S. regulated industries Toni Townes-Whitley on Ask the CIO: SLED Edition to discuss how smart city technology helped the Bayou City rebuild after Hurricane Harvey in 2017.

Like many of his state chief information officer peers, Pennsylvania’s John MacMillan brings a unique background to his role. The Canadian native and former IT employee with the Canadian Solicitor General and Department of Defense spent a decade with IBM, became a US citizen and was eventually appointed by Gov. Tom Wolf almost exactly four years ago. On Ask the CIO: SLED Edition with John Thomas Flynn, MacMillan shared how his office is consolidating resources and crafting a new strategic plan for 2019.

Many aspiring state chief information officers have navigated some tortuous paths to become state IT bosses but North Carolina’s Eric Boyette’s route was decidedly unusual. His noteworthy tenure at the state's Department of Motor Vehicles caught the eye of Gov. Roy Cooper, and now Boyette is planning to revamp North Carolina's IT infrastructure and organization. Hear his discussion with host John Thomas Flynn on Ask the CIO: SLED Edition.

As with any conversation in Washington, D.C., regarding government recently, the partial shutdown — then in its final days, it turned out — topped the agenda for my recent discussion with Alan Shark. He is the executive director of the Public Technology Institute (PTI), a D.C.-based organization created almost a half century ago to help local governments, cities and counties understand and embrace technology in all its aspects. His reactions to the shutdown presented a new and perspicacious twist. Hear the conversation on Ask the CIO: SLED Edition with John Thomas Flynn.

New Hampshire CIO Denis Goulet recounts his state's unique governing environment, his invaluable advisory board, 2019 IT priorities and his future without his mom's political support

Nebraska Chief information Officer Ed Toner has an interesting perspective on state IT reform. He had previously worked with his appointing governor in the private sector, and he looked upon his state position like a company merger of sorts. Toner spoke with John Thomas Flynn on Ask the CIO: SLED Edition for more details about Nebraska's state IT strategy and consolidation.