Today Alex and Amy are joined by Waldo Jaquith with US Digital Response to discuss a new joint publication on improving the RFP process with a simple summary sheet.

We also discuss the importance of user research and who would play us in a movie. 

See the report and summary sheet template here: https://www.nascio.org/resource-center/resources/improving-rfps-with-user-research-how-summary-sheets-can-improve-solicitations/

Alex and Amy talk with Bryan Zaczek who works as a principal data scientist with the state of Indiana's Management Performance Hub. Bryan walks us through the art of prompt engineering to get better answers from generative AI tools. We also talk about how we are using GenAI in our personal lives!

Today Amy and Alex talk about how the federal funding freeze might affect the Cybersecurity Grant Program and state IT offices. Plus Amy tells Alex about what she learned about the Japanese local government system, their workforce challenges that look a lot like ours and what she was most impressed by in her recent trip to Japan representing NASCIO.

NASCIO's 2025 federal advocacy priorities are released! Alex gives us the rundown. https://www.nascio.org/government-affairs/federal-advocacy-priorities/

Kalea Young-Gibson, NASICO's policy analyst also joins to give us an overview of the DOJ final rule for accessibility for state and local government websites and apps.

Alex, Amy and Meredith from the NASCIO team disucss our predictions for the trends that will affect cybersecurity, privacy, AI, enterprise architecture, workforce and DC. We also give our pets some new year's resolutions.

Amy and Alex are joined by Eric Sweden, program director for enterprise architecture and governance with NASCIO, for our annual NASCIO Top Ten episode. Come for the data, stay for Eric's Christmas medly on the guitar! Eric tells us all about what's on these lists for 2025, how the lists have changed over the years and what's staying consistent.

Top 10

Find out where we've been, what we did and all we accomplished as a community in our episode wrapping up the year at NASCIO. Alex and Amy have a conversation covering our events, publications, awards, advocacy priorites and some fun things too. And yes, they tell you what was on their Spotify Wrapped lists too.

Alex and Amy are joined this week by NASCIO's deputy executive director Meredith Ward and Deloitte's Srini Subramanian to talk about the 2024 Deloitte-NASCIO Cybersecurity Study. We talk about the changing role of the state CISO, why budget woes are back and how CISO's are handling generative AI. Come for the great cyber content, stay for the seven minute lightening round where we talk about what they would  be doing if they weren't in technology and what tech they can't live without.

Find the report here: https://www.nascio.org/resource-center/resources/2024-deloitte-nascio-cybersecurity-study/

Today Amy and Alex talk about the new NASCIO report on how states are using generative AI. This was a President's Initiative Report spearheaded by the past year's President Jim Weaver, North Carolina's state CIO.

Find out key findings from the report such as:

• The role of the state CIO when it comes to generative AI
• The most common business practices for generative AI in the states
• Why some states aren't using it more
• NASCIO's recommendations for states
• Trends we expect to see over the next five years

You can find the report at nascio.org/resource-center

The other report mentioned is: Data Quality--Vital to Optimizing GenAI: A survey of State Chief Information Officers and Chief Data Officers.

Amy and Alex sit down with Texas State CIO and Executive Director (and NASCIO's new president!) Amanda "Mandy" Crawford to talk about her involvement with NASCIO over the years, her priorities in Texas and her thoughts on a presidential initiative. And of course, in our Lightening Round we also hear about her thoughts on fall, hobbies and Halloween plans.