NASCIO Voices

Amy and Alex talk with our newest team member Kalea-Young Gibson, policy analyst, about her background and why she is excited to work with NASCIO. Then we are joined by NASCIO's director of experience and engagement, Emily Lane to talk all things Midyear Conference. Find out what's new, what's changing, what to get excited about and what to wear.

Alex talks with Amy about the newest NASCIO survey and report about the state chief privacy officer role, new AI responsibilities and continuing challenges around governance, funding and authority. https://www.nascio.org/resource-center/resources/the-shifting-privacy-paradigm-state-chief-privacy-officers-evolving-roles-and-persistent-realities/Find the transcript at: https://www.buzzsprout.com/704052/14859172

Alex and Amy talk with Bryce Carter, chief information security officer for the city of Arlington, TX. We talk about the similarities in priorities between local government and state government, his relationship with the state CIO, working with the private sector and the city's partnership that will bring air taxis to Arlington!

NASCIO has a brand new report on data literacy and NASCIO's Eric Sweden joins Alex and Amy to talk about the topic which has been highlighted with the emergence of generative AI. Learn more here: https://www.nascio.org/resource-center/resources/data-literacy-within-state-government-building-a-knowledgeable-workforce-that-knows-how-to-use-data-for-better-decisions/

Alex and Amy talk with Nevada CIO Timothy Galluzi about his newly elevated state CIO role in the governor's cabinet, generative AI, projects in 2024 and how his time in the Marine Corps prepared him for the role of state CIO. We also learn a surprising fact about him, his ideal vacation and where you should visit if you are coming to Nevada (that's not Las Vegas).Find the transcript on our podcast hosting site here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/704052/14586439

Alex and Amy talk with Heather Morton, director of financial services, technology and communications at the National Conference of State Legislatures. We talk with Heather about trends in AI legislation, how states are legislating deepfakes and the surge in privacy bills. We also learn about Heather's first job. Hint: it involved Blizzards.Find the transcript here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/704052/14496873

Alex and Amy talk with Arizona state CIO J.R. Sloan about AZ's journey into the cloud, priorities for 2024, his recent visit to D.C. and what what sport he's most likely to be watching.

Amy and Alex talk about NASCIO's 2024 federal advocacy priorities the day before they are released, why we have them and what's brand new this year. We also talk about why Alex is not technically a lobbyist and listen to a few minutes of a radio interview Amy did on artificial intelligence.

Alex and Amy talk with North Carolina state CIO and NASCIO's new president Jim Weaver on serving in three different state IT offices, his plans for 2024 and the most important traits of a state CIO.

It's that time of year again! Alex and Amy talk with NASCIO's Program Director for Enterprise Architecture and Governance, Eric Sweden about the NASCIO Top Ten lists for 2024. These lists are what state CIOs are most focused on for the year ahead. Find out the big surprises for the year (like a tie for first place!) and what's on the list for the first time ever. Find the list here once it's released: nascio.org/resource-centerFind transcript to episode here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/704052/14136522

Alex and Amy talk with NASCIO's most recent past president about her president's initiative report on the digital citizen experience. She also reflects on her term as president this past year.Find the report here: https://www.nascio.org/resource-center/resources/creating-a-citizen-centric-digital-experience-how-far-have-we-come/You can find the transcript to this episode here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/704052/14051184

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.