Ask the CIO: SLED Edition

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.

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.