NASCIO Voices

During the NASCIO Annual Conference in Minneapolis Amy and Alex interviewed nine attendees about what they think is the most exciting thing happening in technology right now. And of course we asked a fun question as well. Special thanks to Dan Wolf, Karen Sorady, Denis Goulet, Katrina Flory, Katy Ruckle, Ken Weeks, Matt Pincus, Steve Pier and Torry Crass. You can find the transcript here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/704052/13928412

Alex and Amy talk with Teri Takai of the Center for Digital Government and Dan Chenok of the IBM Center for the Business of Government about a report that they, along with NASCIO, recently authored entitled Preparing for Future Shocks in State Government: State CIOs Play an Important and Expanding Role in Resilience. The report is intended to help frame what future disruptions may look like for state CIOs and how they can effectively tackle them. In this episode, Dan and Teri give us a brief overview of the report findings.You can find the transcript on our podcast webpage here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/704052/13836791

Amy and Alex are joined by NASCIO executive director Doug Robinson who is giving us an overview of what's on the just-released NASCIO 2023 State CIO Survey. Hear how state CIOs are thinking about everything from cybersecurity and workforce to financial models and the future of the role.Find the transcript of this episode here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/704052/13729009You can find the survey here: https://www.nascio.org/resource-center/Episode on drones in North Carolina: https://www.buzzsprout.com/704052/5985103

Alex and Amy are joined by NASCIO's director of experience and engagement, Emily Lane. Emily gives us an over view of conference programming and all we have to look forward to in Minneapolis!Find a transcript of the episode here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/704052/13667370

See transcript of this episode here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/704052/13577144Alex and Amy talk with Cara Woodson Welch, CEO for the Public Sector HR Association about the latest 2023 survey on State and Local Workforce. We learn about trends in attracting and retaining workers, recruitment, DEI and more!See the report here: https://slge.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/2023workforce.pdfFind PSHRA's podcast here: https://pshra.org/news-resources/public-eye-podcast/

Alex and Amy talk with Jay Wyant, who serves as chief information accessibility officer for the state of Minnesota. We talk with Jay about how state organizations can improve accessibility in technology and procurement as well as best practices within the state to be more inclusive.See full transcript in transcript tab on Buzzsprout at https://www.buzzsprout.com/704052/13443893.Episode 102 -- Jay WyantMon, Aug 21, 2023 12:50PM • 16:08SPEAKERSAlex Whitaker, Jay Wyant, Amy GlasscockAmy Glasscock  00:05Hi, and welcome to NASCIO voices where we talk all things state IT. I'm Amy Glasscock, in Lexington, Kentucky.Alex Whitaker  00:12And I'm Alex Whitaker in Washington, DC. Today we're talking with Jay Wyatt, who serves as Chief Information Accessibility Officer for the State of Minnesota.Amy Glasscock  00:20About a dozen or so states have a role like this, but it's still somewhat unique. So today we're talking with Jay about what he does and what other state IT agencies can do to be more accessible. Jay, welcome to NASCIO voices, and thanks so much for joining us.Jay Wyant  00:34Thank you for having me here. I really appreciate the opportunity to have a chat with you all this morning.Alex Whitaker  00:39Yeah, Jay, welcome. So tell us about your role as Chief Information Accessibility Officer and what you do.Jay Wyant  00:46Well, I was lucky, first of all when I was hired to do the job, it was my opportunity to build a job they had not had before, so it was like, here's your job, you figure it out. And basically, my role is to work with agencies and employees to embed accessibility into the culture of the state. One of the ways we did that was by seeding agencies with digital accessibility coordinators throughout all the agencies and the IT partners and to empower them with effective sustainable policies, processes, tools and procedures to basically get everybody to own accessibility in one way or another.Alex Whitaker  01:29Got it? Yeah, that's, that's really fascinating. And so, you know, based on our sort of basic research on you, we've seen that you have a long history of working in accessibility and technology, can you tell us a little bit about your professional background, and kind of how you came to the role?Jay Wyant 01:44Sure. My career had been a very winding path, which is actually not uncommon for people with disabilities. So, after being a very passionate, but not a great teacher in high school history, I fell into creating on-demand technology training for the telecommunications industries. That was in the 1980s, the 1990s, so really, you know, the ground floor of how the internet had been developed, but I was providing training on how the building blocks of the Internet work. Then, after that, I became a marketing manager for a software startup that was kind of the precursor to cloud-based computing. Which was a lot of fun--it didn't go anywhere, but it was a lot of fun. I also became the marketing director for one of the nation's largest captioning companies. And the way I got into that was that on the side, as a volunteer I served on boards of non-profits, both local and national boards and part of my role is that I wrote a column and articles for magazines on how to make technology work, how to basically hack technology for accessibility, to kind of build my accessibility credentials by what I did on my own in addition to the work that we were doing. So, combining my technology work, and working with people to figure out how to hack things to make things work for people who are deaf, or otherwise, kind of led to where I am today.Alex Whitaker  03:25Yeah, that's, that's really fascinating and further proof that

Alex and Amy talk with Montana CIO and co-chair of the new NASCIO Generative AI Working Group, Kevin Gilbertson. We talk about how he's discussing generative AI with his team, state agencies and other CIOs, the benefits, challenges and things to keep in mind. He also answers the age old question: Star Wars or Star Trek?Find our transcript here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/704052/episodes/13365163-how-states-are-thinking-about-generative-ai-with-montana-cio-kevin-gilbertson

NASCIO Voices celebrates 100 episodes with special guests. Meredith Ward interviews Alex and Amy about the podcast and former co-host Matt Pincus returns to ask all of the lightening round questions! We also hear from a couple of loyal listeners.

Amy and Alex talk with new Maryland CIO Katie Savage about her background, her priorities in Maryland and how her Peace Corps Service influenced her thinking around user-centered design.

Amy and Alex discuss her recent Op-ed in GovTech about why every state needs a chief privacy officer. Amy also explains how the chief privacy officer community came about at NASCIO and how the role is evolving. Don't miss the lightening round  to hear what our favorite Taylor Swift album is and for Amy's favorite power tool for the minimalist builder.Op-ed: https://www.govtech.com/opinion/5-reasons-your-state-needs-a-chief-privacy-officer-nowSurvey: https://www.nascio.org/resource-center/resources/privacy-progressing-how-the-state-chief-privacy-officer-role-is-growing-and-evolving/

Alex and Amy talk with New York Chief Privacy Officer Michele Jones about her role in New York state government, why the role is important, why privacy is more important now than ever before and what she's working on right now. 

Amy and Alex sit down with NASCIO Corporate Leadership Counsel Chair and Vice Chair Stu Davis and Paul Baltzell to talk about their years as state CIOs in Ohio and Indiana and why they believe in being involved in NASCIO while on the corporate side. We also talked about what makes a good night out in Columbus and Indianapolis and what they wanted to be when they were kids.You can see Stu's favorite NASCIO moment at the end of this awards video from Mississippi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsGLho539PI&list=PL6c5-pFa0fmZlUDS0HWjnUlBOKwiGWA3G&index=8

What does the role of the chief operating officer to a governor look like? Alex and Amy talk with Brandon Gibson about her role as Governor Lee's COO, what she does and her close relationship with CIO Stephanie Dedmon. 

Alex and Amy talk with Emily Lane, NASCIO's Director of Experience & Engagement about the upcoming NASCIO Midyear Conference and what we can expect from a programming perspective. Learn what's new, what's returning and what we aren't doing again!

Alex and Amy talk with Indiana State CIO Tracy Barnes about his whole of state approach to cybersecurity, visiting all the counties in Indiana, partnering with universities, identity and access management, workforce and more. 

Alex talks with Amy about the new NASCIO report she authored called Navigating the Metaverse: Potential Applications and Implications for State Government. Then Amy gets some help from her 7-year-old daughter to explain what the metaverse actually is. Report: https://www.nascio.org/resource-center/Episode on VR for social work job applicants: https://www.buzzsprout.com/704052/3605425Pictures of your hosts wearing VR goggles: https://twitter.com/NASCIO/status/1570109872615690242

Alex and Amy talk with Meredith Ward, NASCIO's director of policy and research, and Casey Dolan, senior policy analyst with the National Governor's Association. Meredith and Casey are co-author's on a new publication called Securing States: Modernizing to Attract and Retain Cyber Talent.  The publication is full of recommendations which come from a joint association roundtable held in December.Learn more here: http://NASCIO.org/cyberworkforce

Alex and Amy chat with Mike Watson, chief information security officer for the Commonwealth of Virginia all about his background, the whole-of-state approach to cybersecurity, predicting costs for cyber incidents, baking cybersecurity into the procurement process, how VA is handling the State and Local Cybersecurity Grant program and the new technology that is his biggest cybersecurity concern these days.

Alex and Amy sit down with colleagues Julie Ellis (NASCIO's digital communications coordinator) and Emily Lane (NASCIO's programming and brand director) to talk about all the ways NASCIO members (and non-members) can get involved with NASCIO via in-person events, virtual events, forums, committees, resources and more. We even save a little time at the end to learn some new things about each other!

The Indiana Department of Information Technology realized that 70% of potential applicants weren't applying to jobs that mentioned a preference for a four-year degree even when one wasn't required. They decided to try something new. Jon Rogers, Director of Strategic Workforce Planning at the Indiana Office of Technology joins Amy and Alex to talk all about the State Earn and Learn Program where new associates from other careers can learn on the job and take certification courses to move into the rewarding career of government technology.Jon talks about how the program works, how successful it's been and what he's feeling grateful for right now.