This Week in Gov Tech - Live Events Return

All right, TGIF everyone, and welcome back to In Case You Missed It, GovTech's weekly news roundup. We don't have a guest this week because it's been such a wild week of events and other types of conferences. We thought Joe and I would just spend some time recapping some of the places we've been and some of the trends that we're seeing on the road. So Joe, I know you were at California CIO Academy just last week, and tell us a little bit about what you heard, what you saw, and maybe some notable things from the trenches.

Yeah, it was great. I mean, A, it's wonderful to be back in person. Our California event's a 2-day affair, but there was a lot to like. I mean, the event kicked off with our former state CIO and now head of our, you know, our government operations agency talking about the pandemic response and all the great work that the technology organization and technology leaders did over the last, you know, 2+ years to navigate a very challenging time. And she was very candid in terms of creating an innovation culture within and across the state and building that comfort level up around risk and failure and the desire to speed up projects. We saw, and I'm sure the panels that many of you may have listened into at this event or other events across the country are centering around the same things, you know, speed, simplicity, and kind of this IT in crisis. But how do we take some of those, you know, silver linings out of this moment of crisis and bring that into this, you know, non-pandemic-driven response? And we're hearing a lot in terms of faster procurements and speed, but also in terms of system deployments. You know, she mentioned over that time of experience, they had deployed systems in matters of weeks, enterprise systems. I want to say maybe it was 7 or so systems that would have normally taken months, if not years. How do they begin to, you know, make sure that going forward they can deploy systems much faster, maybe not weeks, but certainly months? and then build a sustainable innovation culture and effort across the state. So we heard a lot about simplicity, we heard a lot about faster procurement, we heard a lot about, you know, simpler government online services too. And we've talked a lot about that in terms of the pandemic acting as an accelerant for, you know, digital government services, but California saw the same thing across many state agencies. And at the end of the event, we ended up with a new state CIO as well. So we've now got a new state CIO. The gentleman on the screen there was our acting CIO, And Russ Nichols, he's now going to be our deputy. We've got Leanna Bailey-Crimmins who's taken on the state CIO role. So that's the latest news out of the state of California.

All right, yeah, that's great. And around the same time, Texas was holding an event, our Texas Digital Government Summit, 33rd annual Texas Digital Government Summit. So long-term event, and I had the fortunate privilege of being able to moderate a few sessions. This is one that really stood out to me because When you go to a tech conference, you know, we often talk about tech, but there's a lot of other soft skills that are really challenging for agencies today. And one of the biggest ones outside of workforce is just customer service, both with employees, but also with constituents and how we reimagine customer service in this hybrid world. So it was amazing to kind of have some great panelists on. I had Manny Crawford, the state CIO. I had Jensi Thopil, the planning director for Arlington, and Corey Wilburn, the CIO for the Texas General Land Office. And we kind of dove in to the world of customer service. I encourage you to check out the link to the article, which has some of the recaps, but it was fascinating to hear how some of these state agencies and even down to the city level, how they're really focusing on maintaining that culture, that dynamic that Joe was just talking about. How do you maintain culture organizationally when some people can work for you in person and some are able to stay and work remotely? And so, you know, some of the key takeaways that I had were just, you know, expectations are higher than ever, both from employees and consumers. You've got to be in this continuous state of improvement, kind of be in beta. But you got to have a great culture and you have to focus on that. Even if you think, you know, like one of the examples was a chili cook-off. And yes, that may sound like, oh, you know, how's the chili cook-off going to help embed culture and kind of a healthy culture as a part of your organization? But it's actually a brilliant idea to really focus on bringing employees together, giving them something that's not just work to do together. and creating some opportunities for, you know, team building and those water cooler conversations we miss. And then we also have to focus on how we do this in a way where we don't leave people behind. So that's where digital equity and inclusion come in and making sure that everything is inclusive. But, you know, it was a great event. Uh, you know, cybersecurity, of course, was top conversation, top of mind for, you know, all agencies within the state of Texas. But some amazing innovations from the trenches of just how that same level of ingenuity and kind of pandemic response, Jiro, that you were talking about in California, is really still present across the country as we've seen these agencies can kind of continue that same pace of innovation and finding ways to just do things differently. So it was a fascinating, you know, return to live, lots of energy in the room, great to, you know, be with our industry partners and government agencies across the great state of Texas. And then this week we had GFOA, it was in Austin, Texas, so I made it a light commute for me, just right down the road, a short Uber, but it was great to see everyone back live. on the finance side. And there were actually a lot of, you know, technologists that were at this event as well. Uh, and, you know, there were a lot of things that were kind of, uh, impacted here. Federal funding, hot topic, you know, looking at kind of new compliance and regulation, you know, new human capital management and kind of ERP strategies. So it's a great, uh, event with a lot of, you know, insightful conversation and best practices sharing right here in, uh, in Austin, Texas. So there was another article that kind of caught our attention this week. And Joe, I know we've talked about this at length. Paul Taylor wrote, from our own team, wrote a great article about simplified text-based government websites and kind of rethinking moving outside of just the stock photography into like really designing intentional and purposeful websites. Tell me a little bit about what caught your eye on this one, Joe.

You know, I think A, it aligns to what we were just talking about in the events. You've got a lot of focus right now coming out of the CIO community, out of the digital services groups on rethinking digital government, rethinking that online experience, rethinking the continuum of the government experience, both online and offline. And the other part is, you know, Paul brought in some expert point of views as well, those that are out there in terms of practitioners that are out there doing it and seeing some of those lessons learned and trying to translate that back into government service, one of those being, you know, one of our guests, Luke Fretwell.

Yeah, absolutely. Some great, great quotes in here, but I think, you know, it really said exactly what I think we've all been thinking. We really need to rethink, you know, this approach to kind of the government agency owning a single front door. We need to think broader and we need to be more intentional with the way that we design services, and it shouldn't just look pretty. It's got to be functional, not for us but for the constituents, and it's got to serve a problem for them. So So I thought this was a great read, and we'll of course put that in the show notes. And, you know, there was also a really interesting thread that was started on Twitter yesterday, you know, by Luke Fretwell as well, and that was to name 5 or more people in civic tech or govtech you appreciate. So what a great kind of way to, you know, just throw out, you know, people that you should be following. We'll start to curate these in a Twitter list as well, but I encourage you to check that out because there's a lot of amazing people that are on here. People that have jumped into the conversation and they're sharing their own. And, you know, it just shows you how many people are working in this market to make government better, and such an exciting time. You know, Joe, I know there were some late-night, you know, kind of replies and mentions and other things that kind of hit this list. Any standout things for you on here?

No, it was kind of great to see everybody come together and throw out names. I mean, that's the wonderful thing about Twitter is it exposes people that you maybe you're already following, but others that you're not. And so if you haven't or you didn't see it, I'd encourage people to go, to go find that thread. We'll link it and add names of people that you follow. Like we said, we're curating a list, but, you know, it's nice to see such a great collection of bright minds trying to make government better. And that's all the time that we have for this week on In Case You Missed It. But join us again next Friday, same place, same time. Until then, have a wonderful weekend.

Thank you.