State and Local CIOs Frame Evolving Tech Priorities as Business Development

As states modernize technology, many officials hope to streamline the procurement process, state chief information officers said on a panel. “I get tired of everything being 18 months,” Ohio CIO Stu Davis said of procurement, saying a streamlined process would allow for better channeling of the state’s tech investments. “Procurement is hell,” said Massachusetts CIO John Letchford, noting a desire on his part to give more flexibility to vendors to help permit pilot programs without excessive paperwork. “Someone said 18 months, and I was thinking, ‘Wow, that’s really fast!'” said Secretary of California Technology Carlos Ramos, echoing their streamlining desires. “I'm so encouraged” by the talk of streamlining procurement, said TechAmerica Vice President-State and Local Government Carol Henton.

Philadelphia Chief Innovation Officer Adel Ebeid would rather place his projects in the business development category and not label them tech or IT, he said. Several factors are driving consolidation, including cybersecurity, big data, cloud computing and broader public safety concerns, panelists said. Another challenge involves breaking down the barriers between sources of municipal data. Both state and city CIOs emphasized the role mobility plays in their projects. “People nowadays live on mobile devices,” Ramos said. “Why can’t they do that with government?” Looking at California 911 centers, more than 70 percent of calls come from mobile devices, he said. “One in five of our visitors is showing up on a smartphone or a tablet,” said Georgia Chief Technology Officer Steve Nichols of the state’s Web analytics. Ramos and several others said their own roles are evolving as technologies and business concerns come together. Several people described receptivity to deeper vendor relationships and said they make time to meet with vendors monthly. Usha Mohan, CIO of Jacksonville, Fla., described the potential to place advertising on the municipality’s mobile apps that aren’t quite as critical, among other strategies involving the area’s fiber and other potential services: “This would be our economic development,” she said.

State and local markets are full of opportunity, said speakers from the Center for Digital Government, an event sponsor. Executive Director Todd Sander cited the biggest market opportunities of the moment -- the top three are return of revenue, shared services and cybersecurity. His list also included e-government, enterprise mobility, healthcare, broadband, cloud computing, big data and Internet of Things among the dozen opportunities, in order from greatest to least opportunity. States can’t compare themselves to each other anymore but must look to the federal government and industry, Sander said of cybersecurity. Fairfax County, Va., blocks about a million malware attempts per week, said the county’s chief technology officer, Wanda Gibson.

"Everything is becoming mobile,” Sander said, and there are now more “payoff strategies” to take advantage of that. The Internet of Things is still “being watched more than done,” he said. Center for Digital Government Lead Analyst Joseph Morris pointed to the Internet of Things and intelligent transportation as sources of speculation, saying he expects a lot of public safety growth, citing next-generation 911 and FirstNet, which has created “increased RFP activity.” Public safety officers have “seen greater adoption of smartphones,” he said, as well as more use of video and tablets. “It’s going to be a cop on a keyboard,” said New Jersey CIO Steve Emanuel of future public safety, stressing a new need to focus on enterprise and avoid the risks of “too many one-offs.” “Things are getting better,” Sander said of these local and state markets overall. He described financial improvements and called states labs for many different strategies of innovation as well as the government closest to the people. California is within a couple days of announcing a geographic information systems portal, Ramos added.

The shared services push is happening not only on state and local levels but at the federal levels, too, counter to decades of ingrained practices, said Federal Chief Enterprise Architect Scott Bernard from the Office of Management and Budget during a keynote speech: “It is for us a sea change in how we do business.” He described the way the federal government has attempted to restructure the hundreds of agencies within the executive branch and the billions in savings possible. “What we're trying to do is work in and between agencies,” Bernard said, noting his role in surveying that landscape looking for shared services opportunities. There’s “a real sense of urgency to take a fresh look at shared services in all these areas,” he said. The government wants “a core set of analytics [that] we can do an apples-to-apples comparison with” among agencies, he said.

Tight budgets are the real driver behind such moves, Bernard said. He also underscored the careful way the federal government is restructuring: “We believe in crawl, walk, run.” On a state and local level, the budgets create a struggle in hiring and retaining the right IT people, panelists said. Austin, Texas, CIO Stephen Elkins spoke of leveraging the authority of municipalities throughout the region and “operate as a big enterprise” to vendors. The technological shifts are also forcing new considerations of data storage. “Our storage is just exploding with all the video that we're storing,” Elkins said, noting Austin is looking at how to smartly prioritize its data storage and develop a retention strategy. Minnesota is working on a white paper on the state of its own data now, said CIO Carolyn Parnell, noting it among other strategies she’s working on such as an idea generator among government workers. Philadelphia is looking to move 10 to 15 percent of its data into the cloud annually, said Ebeid. Ramos and Letchfield worried about their systems’ ability to cut budgets by a certain percent as the automatic budget cuts of sequestration begin.