In Episode 10 of Thriving in Ambiguity, I sit down with Jason Hebbe, former Deputy CIO for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, to talk shop about what it really takes to lead IT in state government.
We cover everything from:
- Multi-cloud strategies that actually work
- How to rein in rogue tools across agencies
- Why partnerships fail (and how to fix them)
- Smarter ways to navigate RFPs and procurement
- Building trust to avoid shadow IT
- Where AI and cybersecurity are headed in public sector tech
Jason brings over 30 years of IT experience to the mic, and this one is packed with insight you can use immediately.
| Time | Topic |
|---|---|
| 0:00:00 | Intro + Jason Hebbe’s Public Sector Journey |
| 0:03:28 | Motivation Behind Serving in Government IT |
| 0:06:56 | Aligning Technology with Business Needs |
| 0:09:42 | Streamlining Statewide IT and Tool Consolidation |
| 0:12:29 | Driving Communication and Change Across Agencies |
| 0:15:15 | Avoiding Shadow IT Through Inclusion |
| 0:16:38 | Enterprise Contracts and Budget Optimization |
| 0:18:43 | Avoiding RFPs with Smarter Procurement |
| 0:20:48 | Best Practices for Multi-Cloud and Hybrid Strategies |
| 0:25:39 | Cloud Native vs. Lift-and-Shift |
| 0:29:07 | How Partners Can Bring Real Value |
| 0:33:59 | The Role of Cybersecurity and AI Over the Next 5 Years |
| 0:38:08 | Clean Data and Governance for AI Success |
| 0:43:00 | Final Thoughts and Career Advice from Jason Hebbe |
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Steve Mancini (00:06):
Hey everyone.
Welcome back to Thriving InAmbiguity, the podcast, we break
down the complexities of technologyideally without losing our minds.
Today we're diving deep into publicsector it with none other than Jason
Hebbe, who I feel like is held justabout every IT leadership position
at the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
(00:27):
Jason, thanks so muchfor joining the show.
Jason Hebbe (00:29):
Yeah.
Thank you Steve.
Pleasure to be here andlooking forward to this.
Steve Mancini (00:33):
Excellent.
So Jason, let's, let's kick things off.
You've spent over a decade leading itfor the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
and now you're in a consulting role.
Walk us through that journey a little bit.
What first attracted you tothe public sector tech and, and
what keeps you motivated in thatspace after all of these years?
Jason Hebbe (00:54):
Sure.
So, Steve, I spent, about 32 yearsnow in information technology.
In various capacities, likeyou said, the past 12 years
were in state government withthe Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
I held roles such as chief OperationsOfficer Chief Chief Technology
Officer, and then finally DeputyCIO before deciding to move on.
(01:16):
so interestingly enough to answer yourquestion about the motivation I had
manufacturing it, insurance banking.
You know, and, and in, in variousroles most of them leadership after
I'd say about the first 10 yearswhere I was more hands-on technical.
And it was just, it was a challenge.
I'd heard lots of rumors, if you will,about, I. You know, government doesn't
(01:37):
move at the same pace as private sector.
Thought of that as a challenge.
It's like, Hey, how
Of that as a challenge
to state government and,and the, the public sector.
So made the jump in, in 2012.
I can tell you the first couple years werea little bit challenging just learning
the nuances of, you know, how procurementworked was probably the biggest hurdle.
(02:00):
You know, the technology for, forall intents and purposes was similar.
But yes, they, they were definitelybehind on, on some of the
technologies that they were deploying.
And yeah, I just saw an opportunityto, to serve in that capacity.
And over the years, I, I would sayprobably within the first five years of
making that move just developed a heartfor, and a passion for public service.
(02:22):
understanding the.
we serve the various businessareas, the, the constituents of the
Commonwealth and others and justtheir dependency on those services.
I mean, anything from public safetyto public assistance you know,
licensing, you name it, right?
All of those services are key andinstrumental for, for those in the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to dowhat it is they need to do and survive.
Steve Mancini (02:43):
Yeah, no, absolutely.
and thank you for, 'cause I, you know,as a resident of Pennsylvania you, you,
you've had a great reputation throughoutyour career and I really appreciate
all the hard work that, that you've andyour teams have put into creating a,
a lot of those great technologies andservices that, that we all depend on.
So thank you very much.
Jason Hebbe (03:01):
I appreciate the kind words.
and yeah, so, so just a, thefinal part to that was, you
know, why did I transition out?
I, I did so in such a fashion whereI can continue that public service.
It's just now at a national level insteadof just for the Commonwealth Pennsylvania.
So I can take all the things Ilearned all the relationships I
had with other state IT leadership.
And just kind of bring all of thatexperience to bear in, in helping
(03:25):
others, you know, solve for thebusiness problems and things that
they're, they're trying to work through.
Steve Mancini (03:29):
Yeah, no, that, that's what's great.
And what I found is everybody's kindof dealing with a similar thing, right?
And so now you're in a position where.
Hey, all that, all of that experience, allthe things that you've dealt with over the
years, now you're able to kind of offerthat back to everybody, which is awesome.
And it's probably excitingfor you too, because it's not
the same old nuance every day.
(03:50):
Now you get to talk to so manydifferent people in like roles and
say, Hey, you know, hey, this is how Iwould've maybe done, done some of that.
And that's probably keeps youenergized and it's always new.
Jason Hebbe (04:01):
definitely, definitely.
And, and, and just a love, youknow, as a technologist, just a
love of emerging technology, right?
It's ever
Technology, right?
The technology landscape is aneternity as it relates to change.
So,
change.
sure that
Staying
you know, you know AI isperfect, perfect example of that.
It's, it's, it's kind ofa firestorm right now.
(04:22):
Everybody's trying to figureout, okay, how do I use this?
What do I do with it?
And, and just staying very close tothose new and emerging technologies and
trying to relate them back to once againbusiness problems that they can solve.
Steve Mancini (04:35):
Mm-hmm.
I mean, kind of like digging into thata little bit, I, I mean, how did you
manage to bridge, that gap betweentechnology and business objectives?
Especially, I mean, the stakes arealways super high in state government,
so how did you kind work in that space?
Jason Hebbe (04:51):
so partnerships and relationships.
It's really getting out to theagencies and the agency, IT leadership
as well as business leadershipwithin the various program areas.
And, and just sitting down and theconversation never starts with technology
never what are, some of pain points?
Steve Mancini (05:07):
like, heck.
Jason Hebbe (05:08):
you hearing from your end users and those that you serve as, as
challenges that your challenges andopportunities that you're trying to
you know, work towards solutions with.
And sometimes those solutions canbe technology, but not always.
So really focusing on.
You know, the business goals andobjectives when you come into
those meetings especially on theprogram area side, you're just
(05:28):
like, oh, I have this great toolthat's gonna fix all your problems.
There's never any truth in that.
You really have to dig in andunderstand what it is they're
trying to, to solve for.
Ask them to show you, like,show me how it works today.
You know, and that's, once again, they,they walk you through the entire process.
Sometimes, you know, it's anapplication or a website that you're,
(05:49):
you're walking through with themand you can look for those you know,
inefficiencies and then work through,talk to 'em about process improvement.
You know, talk to 'em aboutwhere technology can help.
And really at the end of theday, trying to figure out what
do they already have in play.
That you can maybe take advantage of.
You know, budgets are always tight and youjust wanna make sure that you're doing the
(06:10):
best you can with, with taxpayer dollars
With, with taxpayers,
when you're going with that,it's not always like, Hey,
you've gotta buy this new thing.
Say you have the tools today, you'remaybe just not utilizing them to their
just utilizing them totheir fullest potential.
the business problems and start with that.
Steve Mancini (06:26):
And start with that and
Jason Hebbe (06:28):
and that
Steve Mancini (06:29):
conversation.
Jason Hebbe (06:30):
You know, the, the, the trust that you
Steve Mancini (06:32):
You
Jason Hebbe (06:33):
So that you continue to get called back whenever they
Steve Mancini (06:35):
to get called back,
Jason Hebbe (06:36):
Whenever they have
And,
new.
that seat at the tableis very, very important.
Steve Mancini (06:40):
Yeah.
Now, kind of once again, buildingoff some of the things that you just
mentioned there's obviously duplicatetools across multiple agencies.
From your experience, what's thetoughest part about streamlining
an IT portfolio and, and howdid you tackle the challenges?
Head on, you know, especially likeworking interagency and trying to
(07:03):
like, get people on the same page.
Jason Hebbe (07:05):
Sure.
So, so in, in 2017 2018 the Commonwealthof Pennsylvania decided we were gonna
centralize information technology.
So up until that point, eachagency kind of had their own
team that did everything, right?
All their application development, allof their infrastructure support you know,
end user support, you name it, right?
(07:25):
Each of the agencies had their own team.
2017 2018 we made the decision we weregonna pull it all together, centralize
it, put it under one organization, youknow, under the office of administration.
that's where we, we will say theblinders kind of came off, you know,
that realization that everybodydid things a different way.
Different software tooling,different, you know, platforms that
(07:46):
they were using, things like that.
Now there was some commonality butat the end of the day there was,
there were a lot of tools that w youknow, each agency was paying for.
We were trying to centralize those budgetsand it was a great opportunity to kind of.
Put all those tools in categories, figureout what everybody was using understand
maybe which ones were best of breed.
(08:06):
And then come up with a plan forkind of more universal adoption
for, for those various technologiesand platforms and solutions.
So that was a, a very long andarduous task of collecting all of
that information, understanding sizeof those teams and, and the skill
sets in, in those teams so that wecan make sure as we move forward,
(08:27):
Whether it's some cross training while we
it's towards training.
You know, standardization, if you will.
And, and common tooling.
Steve Mancini (08:34):
Mm-hmm.
Jason Hebbe (08:35):
yeah, I'd say the, the biggest challenge
was the discovery portion.
What do we have what's working best?
Some of those tools wereobviously antiquated.
Some of them were a little more modern.
And, you know, just working withour business partners as well.
So the OEMs, the suppliers, as we,you know, did our tools evaluation
and we looked to standardizeon, on those kind of things.
(08:56):
The other thing that, that, thatgenerated is not just streamlining
our support you know, teams andmatrix for those tools, right?
We didn't have to have.
You know, six different people becausethey each knew one different tool.
You know, we were able toleverage economies of scale from
our support and administrationin providing those services.
But the other thing was, you know,each agency to a lot of these suppliers
(09:18):
was viewed as a, a single entityinstead of the commonwealth as a whole.
so our buying power was compromised.
So when we went and looked atthose toolings and said, Hey.
If we're all using this and, and wedecide to use this now, the licensing
model we're buying in higher volume,we're gonna get better discounts.
(09:39):
And we were able to saveconsiderable dollars in, in doing
some of that standardization.
So not just on the staffing side and,and you know, closing some of the
skills gaps with the standardization,but even the cost savings was huge
when we started looking at thefull Commonwealth buying power.
Steve Mancini (09:55):
No, and, and I've worked with a lot of state agencies and the talk
of consolidation and getting that rightis, is always a big challenge for people.
And my guess is a lot of itcomes back to something you
said earlier, and it's really.
From my, from my experience, Ithink it's about communication
(10:15):
and understanding that business ofwhat they're trying to accomplish.
And, and, and, and, 'cause youjust mentioned it, everybody,
everybody's doing the same thing,but everybody's doing it their way.
And so, and there'sprobably reasons for that.
So understanding what they'retrying to accomplish as a business,
what makes sense, and then.
Being able to kind of lead them togetherand say, Hey, okay, you're doing this
(10:39):
great, but maybe we could improve on that.
Or maybe you have, you know,shown the best practice and
now we can all adopt that.
So I think that's probablya big piece of it.
Jason Hebbe (10:48):
yeah.
Communications was, was key, right?
You, you need to make sureeverybody understands what you're
doing, that you don't just makearbitrary changes you don't make.
Changes without discussing them first.
You know, you bring everybody backto the table and say, Hey, here's,
you know, show 'em that picture.
Right?
Show 'em the, the before and,and the anticipated after.
And, you know, reallyfocus on the pros and cons.
(11:11):
You know, the other thing I'm ahuge proponent of is options, right?
You don't necessarily have tocome to the table with like, okay,
we already made the decision.
is where we're at today.
This is where we're going tomorrow.
Hey, here's where we're at today, andhere's a couple ways forward, right?
So then you're kind of bringing them intothe fold, helping them, you know, they're
(11:31):
part of the decision making process.
So you can say, Hey, hereare the top three options.
Here are the pros and cons of each.
Here's our recommendation.
What are your thoughts, right?
How are, how do you feelabout some of these?
Do you prefer one of the optionsover the one we recommend and why?
And have those conversations,'cause maybe we missed something.
Right?
And that goes back to, you know,making sure that, you know, the
(11:51):
business owners and those folksare part of the conversation.
You're communicating any, anychanges and moves going forward.
Timeline is
important right You know,you may be stepping on.
Another project that'srunning in parallel.
So you wanna make sure that,you know, they can say that.
It's like, well, hey, you say you want toget all this done by the end, you know,
the next 60 or 90 days, but hey, we'vegot these projects that are in flight
(12:14):
right now and a lot of the resources youmay need for testing and things like that
to help out with this aren't available.
Can we push this out to, youknow, maybe three or four months?
So that, yeah, thoseare great conversations.
And you're, you're ahundred percent correct.
Communications is paramount.
Steve Mancini (12:28):
Yeah, I mean, I was an IT leader for about 18 years, and as
an early leader, I think one of thebiggest mistakes that I had made was
a lot of times I assume people saw thevision that I maybe had and like it's
like you're gonna implement this newthing and you know it's gonna be great.
You assume that maybe everybody's gonna beon board with that because it's gonna, you
(12:51):
know, it's gonna solve so many problems.
But if you didn't do a good enough jobcommunicating the why and how you were
going to get there, boy, you could makea lot of people upset in the meantime.
And yes, maybe they, they will eventually,you know, be like, oh, this is better.
But man, no one likes change.
So I think you hit it on the head there.
Jason Hebbe (13:10):
Well, and, and, and, and when you don't include them and things
don't necessarily work out the, theway that maybe they anticipated they
should have that that's the perfectenvironment to create shadow it, right?
So, you know, if agencies feel like, well,hey, we weren't part of the decision.
It's not working theway we thought it would.
We weren't involved, we're gonna goout and do something on our own again.
(13:33):
And then you have this shadow ITorganization that you have to try
and figure out how to reign in later.
Whereas, you know, if you take theapproach like we were just talking about
with, you know, communications, makesure all those stakeholders feel like
they have a say that then, you know,kind of clears the way where you're
not risking that development of shadowit going forward and shadow it is a
horrible thing to, to kind of reign in.
(13:54):
But at the same time, you understandwhy they did it, and that's because it
was not a collaborative effort, right?
You kind of went out and did somethingin a vacuum, which is never healthy.
Steve Mancini (14:02):
Okay, so let's talk a little bit about money.
Now you, you've managed huge enterprisecontract negotiations and you've, you
know, you just mentioned how you're ableto save, you know, significant amounts
of money based on kind of bringingcertain things together for state
government or public sector leaderslooking to optimize their budgets.
What are some of the key strategiesand lessons that you learned that
(14:24):
really make a big difference?
Jason Hebbe (14:26):
So once again, buying power, you know, if, if you're buying licensing
you know, across various agencies andthings like that, try and work out,
you know, master agreements with thoseproviders to make sure that you're,
you're viewed as one entity, We're the,we're the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
And we're buying a hundred thousandlicenses of this thing, right?
We're, we're not buying, right.
(14:47):
We're, 20 in this agency and 500 inthis agency, et cetera, et cetera.
So huge to to, to look at thatpooling and having a good software
inventory and, and those kindof things really help with that.
So that's huge.
Make sure that you're, you're tryingto pull all those agreements up to
the, the state level, if you will,as opposed to looking at them from
an agency to agency or, or programarea to program area standpoint.
(15:10):
The, the other thing too is, is youknow, RFPs they're very complex.
They're very time consuming.
And I think at the end of the day,sometimes we just lose sight of
the fact that the effort put intothose RFPs is truly a cost of doing
business and should be included in,in the overall you know, cost of a
particular project or initiative.
(15:30):
Not just, Hey, when we finally makea decision and choose a supplier and
award a contract, it's that point goingforward, Hey, here's what we're gonna pay
for product A and product B, et cetera.
So, you know, I think looking at theRFP cycles and understanding where is
an RFP really, really required versuswhere can we use existing, you know,
government cooperative buying agreements.
(15:52):
'cause that's huge.
'cause you, you can get the, theservices, they're already competitively
bid in almost every instance.
So that really, you know, satisfiesa lot of the, the procurement code.
From that standpoint.
So really focusing in on where do I trulyneed an RFP versus where can I just go out
and do this in another way, leveraging,cooperative buying agreements and skip
(16:14):
that RFP, that that can, you know, easilybe hundreds of thousands of dollars, just,
execute one of those from start to finish.
Steve Mancini (16:23):
Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense.
Especially, you know, someone'salready done the work,
don't, don't re recreate it.
'cause a lot of times if they'vealready done that RFP you're
able to kinda leverage that.
So that's, that's great advice.
'Jason Hebbe: Typically, they are, flexible to, you know, so
at the end of the day, a lot.
cooperative agreements createa lot of a lot more flexibility.
(16:45):
you're very prescriptivethan what you're asking for.
And sometimes thatpaints you into a corner.
Sometimes that means any changes require.
Significant effort, once again to addsomething to the contract or modify
something that is, that's in an awardedcontract where a lot of the, you know,
the cooperative buying opportunities,there's greater flexibility.
If you need to pivot, can pivot moreeasily, which also saves money, right?
(17:10):
You know, we're not getting Le lawyersinvolved and procurement professionals
involved to modify a contract.
We, we can just pivot very easilybecause it's already covered.
No, that makes, that makes a lot of sense.
Next thing I'm kind of curious about is.
I'm sure in your career you've hadto roll out, you know, let's say
(17:33):
hybrid or multi-cloud type solutions.
And as, as different government agenciesand CIOs are considering, Hey I. How,
how do I handle a major migration?
What advice makes sense?
You know, from your hands-on experiencewhen you're dealing with, 'cause look,
it's not all gonna go away, right?
I mean, we're gonna have on-premsolutions, you're gonna have public
(17:56):
clouds, you're gonna have SaaS providers.
It's a lot of, lot ofoptions for people today.
I mean, what, what's some of the bestpractices that, that you look at?
Jason Hebbe (18:05):
Once again, I, I think it starts with that,
that business analysis, right?
It's understanding, you know,what do you have in place?
Do you have some legacy technologiesdeployed that need to be modernized?
Just because, you know, support costscan grow astronomically when you're you
know, trying to keep a technology inplay, that's long since past it's useful.
Life.
So really focusing on the businessside of things, looking for those
(18:27):
opportunities and not doing things like,you know, cloud for the sake of cloud.
Like, hey, we're doing cloud.
You know, that a, a lotof, a lot of entities, both
public and private, do that.
You know, AI is probablygonna be the same way, right?
It's this big buzzword, how manypeople are gonna just jump into it
because it's the sexy thing to do.
So yeah, on the cloud side,really focusing on looking at
(18:50):
things from a business standpointon looking at technologies that
are in play, understanding whichones make, to go where, right.
Like with cloud, right.
infrastructure as a service.
You've got your platform as a service.
You've got your, yoursoftware size as a service.
And, and, and just really lookingat which one makes the most sense.
My big thing with, with cloud and, andthat whole hybrid to cloud approach
(19:11):
was you know, understanding all of thedependencies that are involved, right?
If you have something that's,that's on premise, and if you
move a portion of it to the cloud,what's performance gonna look like?
Are you gonna introduce a latencythat's gonna cause a, a poor
user experience, for example?
So understanding those nuances and,and being able to come back and say,
okay, well if you wanna move this piece.
(19:32):
You really need to move the otherpieces as well or, or you could
compromise your userexperience or performance.
So really, you know, onceagain, focused on the business.
Look at those applications, look at thecurrent architecture, and figuring out
what makes the most sense for cloud.
I. We really pushed, youknow, the Commonwealth.
And I would strongly encourage anybodythat's looking at this, if you're gonna
go to the cloud, like go cloud nativeyou know, lift and shift is, is I think
(19:56):
a horrible you know, way to move forward.
While it is necessary in some instances,once again, maybe you have an interior
application and, and part of it justcan't go to a cloud native, and it
needs to be, you know, more of aninfrastructure as a service type thing.
You may not be able to get awayfrom it completely, but really
focus on cloud native technologies.
'cause that's where the biggest bang forthe buck's gonna come from, where you
(20:17):
get that true consumption model whileyou're using it, you're paying for it.
When you're not using it, you'renot that flexibility you know, the
continuity and the resiliency that'sbuilt into native cloud services is huge.
So making sure that all ofthat's, that's taken into account.
So really promoting modernizationas a part of move to the cloud.
And then from a hybrid cloud standpoint,I think it's also important to note,
(20:40):
while all the com cloud providers, forthe most part are, are, are similar,
there are some differences and, andunderstanding what those are you know,
you know, maybe you need to go withcloud provider a in one instance in cloud
provider being another just because oftheir capabilities are stronger in that
area and there's nothing wrong with that.
And then the key is then whenyou have that and you've got that
hybrid multi-cloud thing going on.
(21:03):
Network connectivity.
You know, you need to make sureyou have you know, all the, the
right speeds and feeds there.
You need to make sure you have allthe security taken into account.
That's huge as well, and thatall of that can intercommunicate
as seamlessly as possible.
You know, so once again, you justdon't have a bad experience because
the network wasn't properly designed.
(21:23):
You know, one cloud can't talk tothe other, can't talk back you know,
with the, the appropriate speeds andfeeds that it needs for, you know,
your private cloud environment.
So really making sure that youhave a robust resilient network
in place to do you know, a goodhybrid multi-cloud approach.
Steve Mancini (21:42):
Mm-hmm.
I love your thought on Cloudnative because I think, I think
it solves a couple things.
For one that most likely is solving somesort of specific challenge or you're, you
know, you're adding some functionality.
So there's, there'ssome, some piece there.
And then the other one is.
If, if, if you're trying to takethat legacy application and move it,
(22:04):
there's, there's probably some sortof technical debt or something there,
and it's just gonna add complicationand, and it becomes a challenge.
So anytime you can avoid that andmaybe start fresh, yeah, you're
probably at a much better place.
Jason Hebbe (22:18):
And then, yeah,
Steve Mancini (22:19):
That's
Jason Hebbe (22:19):
note on that too.
So kind of back to that privatecloud, what I would consider,
you know, in our case with theCommonwealth of Pennsylvania, the
Commonwealth Center so, cloud isn't.
necessarily a place, right?
It, it, it's a technology, it'sa methodology, it's automation
you know, those kind of things.
So make sure that your private cloudenvironment supports all of those
capabilities away the same way you know,being able to quickly deploy workloads.
(22:42):
able to quickly spin up serversin an automated fashion.
So you have consistency.
And those kind of things.
So I think it's also paramount thatyour, your private cloud matches what's
going on in the public cloud as itrelates to automation and resiliency.
Steve Mancini (22:56):
That's a great point.
Great point.
All right.
Shifting gears a little bit, let'sdive into partner relationships.
From your perspective, what's, what's theideal way for partners or OEMs to kind of
step up and add real value to the CIO'soffice, and how do they help you know?
How can they become strategicallies more than just a vendor?
Jason Hebbe (23:20):
Sure.
Yeah, so, so, you know, I always valuedthe partners that came in and at least
had a good idea of what it is we weretrying to accomplish what we good
understanding of our current state.
So we didn't always have to start,like if I had to educate them on
like everywhere that we are youknow, that was, that was not always
you know, healthy and efficient.
(23:41):
So just have a good idea of,you know, where we're at.
Understand some of the businessproblems and challenges.
You know, so much of this in the publicsector arena is readily available on
the internet, right whether it's on the,you've got various, websites that track
all thats going on with in the statesfor example, you know what we are trying
to solve you know so come in prepared.
(24:03):
And then at the end of theday, it's really about building
that relationship first.
You know, I was never happy abouta, a supplier team coming in and,
a supplier they were ready with aquote right in in that first meeting
and they were trying to sell mesomething, thats not a good place to be.
so really you know, understand wherewe're at, gain better understanding
(24:23):
into, you know, the technology landscapeand the things we're trying to solve.
Really show that you wantto be a valued partner.
You know, looking at thatenvironment, talking looking.
through, you know, what,what, what can change.
What would the timelines look like?
You know, those kind of things beforeyou really start getting into you know,
hey, where's my, my, my purchase order?
so that's huge.
(24:44):
It's, it's really about buildingthat relationship, understanding the
challenges and that can take a long time.
Right?
I, I think that's the other thing in stategovernment that most people don't realize.
Budget cycles, right?
If, if you're talking to me you know,shortly after the start of the fiscal
year, the thing you would be tryingto sell me anyway isn't in the budget.
(25:04):
So you really want to establish thatgroundwork for through those first nine
months maybe to better understand what itis, where we're at, and then say, okay,
we think we have a solution for you.
Here's what it would look like.
Here's how it integrates and, andconnects to everything else that
you've got in flight and in play.
And then we can have conversationsabout what that looks like and making
that budget request to, to movethat particular initiative forward.
(25:28):
So communications, be willing toto be in it for the long haul and
not looking for that quick sale.
Steve Mancini (25:36):
Yep.
Yeah, no, I think, I think you nailed it.
I mean, my big thing was always tryto find some way to bring value.
Do don't just come at mewith a quote like you said.
I mean, that's,
Jason Hebbe (25:46):
I.
Steve Mancini (25:46):
that's, that's the last, last thing anybody wants to see.
It's like, okay.
And to your other point, hey,strategic plans are online.
You know, a lot of people rightnow are putting AI policies out.
Hey, here's, here's what we're thinking.
We're, we're, we're, we're tryingto navigate this whole landscape
and here's where we're at right now.
So, if you did a little bit ofhomework, that helps kind of jumpstart
(26:08):
the conversation a little bit where Idon't have to repeat, you know, myself,
you know, I'm sure that's the thing.
Time is money, right?
Like, I don't, I don't need to repeatmyself every time I'm in a meeting.
Jason Hebbe (26:18):
Very true.
Yeah.
And, and, and you had a good point theretoo, around like existing technologies.
Steve Mancini (26:23):
Like existing technologies,
Jason Hebbe (26:24):
have You may not just be utilizing it to its fullest
potential and, and your suppliersthat have sold you something
maybe you can help point that out.
Say, Hey, well you kind ofown this in that licensing
model that you already have.
All we gotta do is turnit on and configure.
And that's like a no cost solution, right?
They're willing to, to give youlike a, you know, a systems engineer
or something to just come in, getthat configure, get it operational,
(26:47):
and that's a zero cost solution.
So really understanding thatexisting landscape and, and where
they've already got a presence.
If it happens to be a, a supplier that'salready has deployed technologies.
Steve Mancini (27:00):
Yeah.
I think that's the biggest thingthat some CIOs and, and IT leaders
miss when you do have and haveestablished a good relationship.
you know, big OEMs have a lot ofresources at their disposal at no cost.
You know, there's, there'stons of engineering support
in every line of business.
(27:21):
There's typically CTO specialiststhat really are like experts,
you know, may, they may be formerCIOs or you know, different
experts in different technologies.
And so when you havethat good relationship.
And, and you're on the same page togetherand you know what challenges you're trying
to solve, you can leverage a lot of that.
(27:42):
And, and, and like you're saying, ifyou do it properly, it could really help
either, you know, dial in your team tobecome better experts in, in the tools
that you have or just maybe doing theresearch so you know where you need
to go in the future without actuallyhaving to pay for consultants or some
other, you know, services engagement.
(28:04):
Yeah, so, so looking ahead, what doyou see as the biggest challenges
facing state government leaders inthe next, let's say five years, and
where do you think they'll need tofocus a lot of their time and energy?
Jason Hebbe (28:17):
Oh boy.
Yeah.
Budget.
Budget is always pretty closeto the top of that list.
And, and I would alsosay cybersecurity, right?
I. The, the bad actors, right?
That they continue to get smarterand and faster and they, they,
they find ways around pretty mucheverything you're trying to do.
So it, it's more than a full-timejob to keep them at bay.
(28:41):
And there's, there's a significantportion of the budget that needs
to be assigned to cybersecurity youknow, practices and things like that.
Making sure that you're toolingthat it's multi-layered.
You know, all of those kind of thingsespecially is the expanse of you
know, once again, hybrid cloud whereyou're all over the place, you need
to make sure that your, security isconsistent across all of those platforms.
(29:01):
so cybersecurity and, andbudget need to be a huge focus.
And, and, you know, as, as over thenext five years, I don't think that's
gonna change ai, data privacy, you knowkeeping an eye on legislation to, to
make sure our technologies are able to.
You know, meet those needs that, thatare being called out in legislative
actions or policies that you can prove it.
(29:22):
You know, that you're, you'recom you're in compliance.
So, so those are gonna be huge.
I, I would say, you know, AIis gonna be an interesting one.
You know, and, and to back up a littlefurther, like the first stage of AI
is, is data management, you gottaunderstand what data you have, where
is it, what format, you know, is itstructured, unstructured, et cetera.
(29:43):
You know, so that, that'skind of the first thing.
So focus on making sure your datais clean, you know, where it all is.
Back to the cybersecurity part, thatyou've got the right protections.
You know, I'm not supposed to have accessto a per a particular data set, make
sure I don't have access to that data
set and as you're data sharing, make surethe same thing applies, that any data
(30:03):
sharing agreements are, well documented
can prove it, you can run it throughan audit and say, yes, this particular
application or service only has access tothe data that it must have to function.
And making sure of all that's in place.
And then that really sets the stage forgood, healthy you know, AI deployments.
I. I think are just gonnacontinue to roll out.
(30:24):
Everybody's trying to figureout, you know, whether it's,
you know, chat generated or it'sapplication related ai, you know,
just making sure that the data is
secure so that your AI resultsare productive, you know, really
helping to generate time savingsand the things that they can do.
But I do, you know,I've seen it firsthand.
You know, the power of AI and, andsimplifying certain tasks and, and
(30:48):
generating efficiencies, whetherit's helping analyze email you know,
giving me a daily summary of, of allof my email and those kind of things.
But once again, just making sure thatthe security is in place to afford that.
So I would say.
You know, over the next five years, howdo we manage our budgets, you know, just
to make sure that we're not overspending,we're spending in the right areas.
(31:08):
You know, those kind ofthings are super important.
Understanding the, the run rate of ofparticular services, so this is one so
we experienced
early on You might think, oh, wellthere, there's some money set aside
to do this particular initiative
but That particular
innitative if we launchit and we do well I need
(31:29):
as well.
the budget monies to continue to runit for the next 2, 3, 5 years, right?
So making sure that as you're
Steve Mancini (31:35):
Mm-hmm.
Jason Hebbe (31:36):
things out, that those are included in the budget that
you have your run costs included.
And then, yeah, cybersecurityis gonna continue to be huge,
Cyber.
over the next five years.
'cause there's so many attack vectorswith, you know, the moves to the cloud
and, and all the data that everybody hasyou know, data sprawl and data's power.
And, and I think that realization.
(31:56):
It
Steve Mancini (31:56):
Yeah.
Jason Hebbe (31:56):
hasn't gone unnoticed.
But yeah, it, it's definitely gonna be
Steve Mancini (32:00):
Yeah.
Jason Hebbe (32:01):
cybersecurity you know, data administration, data management
are probably gonna be the three biggestthings I would say over the next three
to five years and probably beyond.
I.
Steve Mancini (32:12):
Yeah, I, I think, I think you hit on some great points
that I'd like to touch on there forone when it comes to data, like you
said, if your data's not good, all thegreat things that you think you want
to do with it, it's not gonna work.
Right?
So, first thing, yougotta have clean data.
Next is I like, I like how you, youtalked about AI and, and how that.
(32:35):
That could be a bigdifference maker for people.
But going back to something you saidway earlier in the conversation,
I think it comes back to havingan actual business need and make
sure that's really spelled out.
Like, what are you trying to solve for?
Don't just do AI for AI's sake.
You gotta have a plan.
Right?
(32:57):
Yeah.
Jason Hebbe (32:57):
I, I would say, yeah, just along those lines.
Right.
So, so there are so many things youcan do with AI and, and the influx of
tools that continue to come out thatsay they use AI and how do they use ai?
Like just paying really, really
Steve Mancini (33:10):
Ai
Jason Hebbe (33:11):
to what they
Steve Mancini (33:12):
really, really close attention to what they are.
Jason Hebbe (33:14):
those, again, additional licensing fees and those kind of things.
So to your point, yes, make sure thatyou're solving a business problem.
You're not just doing AI becauseit's the shiny new widget.
Steve Mancini (33:26):
when it comes to security, I mean, I just, I just saw on the news
this morning that deep fakes are, arecontinuing to get better and better,
and it's becoming more of a problem,you know, so as these things evolve.
You have to remember like the, thehackers and the bad actors, people.
I think some people think that they'rejust some like people in a foreign
country in their basement and they'rejust like doing these nefarious things
(33:49):
and no, that that's not the case.
Like people are coming to work just likeI. The two of us do When you know and and
you go to an office or you sit at yourdesk and you're part of a big you know
let's say corporation but in this casetheir job is to steal people's data You
know I mean that that's really what itcomes down to And and so they don't look
at themselves as maybe you know thesethese hackers you know and in a basement
(34:14):
that's not that's not the thing So
Jason Hebbe (34:15):
like they always show in the movies right Where there's
somebody sitting in a screen and theyget through your firewall and all that
right It's the social engineering andall those other things that come along
with it And they they continue to getcreative you know, anytime you put
one, you know, you slam one door on'em, they're, they're looking for the
next door window to, to climb through.
Steve Mancini (34:35):
Yep.
So it's just, it's just make sure, youknow, I would say that as you're having
conversations, you, you talk through alot of those things and stay relevant and
stay current on, on what the new attackvectors are and, and how you're going to.
I would say educate because look, mostattacks happen to the people working on,
(34:55):
on your staffs or all, you know, all thepeople that work within an organization.
It's not a firewall anymore.
It's, that's, that's toodifficult to get through.
That technology's hardened, but youhave so many vectors that could come
in and the people that work for yourorganization is the easiest one to attack.
So, so, so with, with that beingsaid, Obviously, thinking it from
(35:18):
a CIO lens, like the policiesand, and let's say and how you're
dealing with, government leaders.
what's your thoughts there and,and how you're gonna handle
that, that piece of the business.
Jason Hebbe (35:32):
Yeah, so I think, you know, when it, you know,
policies, I, I do like policies.
I, I think policies are important.
And policies are easierto change than law.
so I do think thatthere's an opportunity to
Steve Mancini (35:43):
So you think
Jason Hebbe (35:44):
policies, effectively and efficiently so that, you know, you
don't have legislators, legislature
Steve Mancini (35:50):
description
Jason Hebbe (35:51):
law, to protect the curtain area, right?
If it, if it's already being takencare of through policy, the policies
Steve Mancini (35:57):
taken of
Jason Hebbe (35:58):
you
Steve Mancini (35:58):
being followed,
Jason Hebbe (35:59):
need to
Steve Mancini (35:59):
they don't necessarily
Jason Hebbe (36:01):
again, greater
Steve Mancini (36:02):
you just
Jason Hebbe (36:03):
Greater ease of response if something changes, which it's inevitable.
so the
Steve Mancini (36:08):
to.
Jason Hebbe (36:08):
can barely, easily revisit them as frequently as you need to,
and adjust and modify as required.
so I think policies are, are importantand preferred over legislation.
I. but also understand theneed for legislation in
Steve Mancini (36:21):
understand
Jason Hebbe (36:21):
to
Steve Mancini (36:22):
legislation in certain areas.
Jason Hebbe (36:24):
there's a level of consumer trust,
Steve Mancini (36:26):
Consumer trust
Jason Hebbe (36:27):
hey, this is a law.
Steve Mancini (36:28):
generation because.
Jason Hebbe (36:29):
here, they're breaking the law and there's gonna be consequences.
so I think that's important.
But yeah, around governance,well, yeah, governance.
and risk, I think go hand in hand.
so we're trying tomanage risk at all times.
You, you kind of need governance in
Steve Mancini (36:42):
All time to do that properly
Jason Hebbe (36:44):
making sure that you're tracking all of that.
You know, make sure that you
Steve Mancini (36:47):
tracking.
Jason Hebbe (36:48):
you know, what, what, you know, governance teams you have in place.
You know, Commonwealth ofPennsylvania, there's a governance
team over top of ai, which is huge
Steve Mancini (36:56):
there's plenty of others as well.
And just making sure,
Jason Hebbe (36:59):
every
Steve Mancini (37:00):
you're, every weeks
Jason Hebbe (37:02):
making sure that it's compliant.
You're, you're givingit a risk score, right?
As you're moving forward withthings, how you deploy things, you
understand what the risk level is.
you
Steve Mancini (37:11):
of
Jason Hebbe (37:11):
a reasonable
Steve Mancini (37:12):
you,
Jason Hebbe (37:13):
of risk looks like.
and then all of thatstuff is very, very well
Steve Mancini (37:16):
all that stuff is.
Jason Hebbe (37:18):
and then yeah, just keeping track of.
To your point, right, the, the emergingtechnologies, it's never gonna end.
make sure that you're, you're stayingvery current on those things as
it relates to existing legislationor policy that you have in place.
'cause you just don't want to haveover, you know, an oversight in
that area and get compromised, justbecause something new came out.
(37:39):
That you were unaware of, or maybe itcame faster than you thought it would.
So really keeping an eye on, on thosekind of things to make sure that
Steve Mancini (37:46):
Those kind of things.
Jason Hebbe (37:47):
know, your governance teams, your, your policies, everything
that's in place is constantly beingevaluated against not just current,
but, but future technologies.
Steve Mancini (37:58):
Yeah.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
Really, really great points thereand, and kind of to close things
out, I got one last question for you.
I. so if you could go back in time,what's one piece of advice that you
wish you had gotten earlier in yourcareer so that, you know, maybe a you,
you could, you could help somebody outthat's, that's maybe just getting started
(38:23):
We just have to.
Jason Hebbe (38:24):
It's, it's constant.
You know, I've always kind of used the
Steve Mancini (38:27):
Constantly, always,
Jason Hebbe (38:29):
right?
Medical professions constantly changing.
There's always
Steve Mancini (38:32):
it's constantly
Jason Hebbe (38:33):
and
Steve Mancini (38:33):
changing.
There's always been treatments
Jason Hebbe (38:35):
are constantly educating
Steve Mancini (38:38):
constantly.
Jason Hebbe (38:39):
the same thing applies to It's ever changing.
It's so rapid.
You know, I would
Steve Mancini (38:43):
so,
Jason Hebbe (38:44):
you know, Stay educated, I would say reading educated,
know, follow podcasts
or,
Steve Mancini (38:49):
know, deliver bobcats.
Jason Hebbe (38:50):
trade websites where you're getting constant
Steve Mancini (38:52):
Create website
Jason Hebbe (38:53):
on in the industry, those kind of things are
Steve Mancini (38:55):
industry.
Jason Hebbe (38:56):
I would say, you know, specifically don't
Steve Mancini (38:58):
say specifically talking about the
Jason Hebbe (39:01):
big word of advice.
you, you're gonna hit hurdles.
you're gonna, you're gonna hitIt might be legislative, might be
policy, it might be fear of change,
Steve Mancini (39:10):
Policy
Jason Hebbe (39:10):
about at the beginning.
it could be fear of failure.
well, I
Steve Mancini (39:13):
fear, failure,
Jason Hebbe (39:14):
if it doesn't go well, you know, I might lose my
job or, or something like that.
So don't
Steve Mancini (39:19):
my job
Jason Hebbe (39:20):
don't be afraid of, of
Steve Mancini (39:21):
being be afraid.
Jason Hebbe (39:22):
the best solutions, out there.
you know, don't
Steve Mancini (39:26):
you don't, don't fear politics.
Jason Hebbe (39:29):
just kind of.
Do your best to rise above it all.
Find ways, build those partnershipswith the business, other agency heads,
you know, your friends in security,your friends in legal, you know, you
just want to make sure you have all ofthose relationships well established.
And then just, yeah, don't give up.
Steve Mancini (39:50):
Yeah.
It's, that's, that's great advice.
And it's, it's funny, it, it justbrought back, one of the things
I used to tell my IT teams was,if it's the right thing to do.
Then that's what we're gonna do.
It doesn't matter how hard it is.
If it's hard, fine, wewill deal with that.
We'll take it one step at a time.
But if, if it's the right thingto do, then let's do that.
Jason Hebbe (40:10):
Exactly.
Steve Mancini (40:11):
So I love it.
Jason Hebbe (40:15):
Yeah, just, just one kind of closing comment.
so I just wanna
Steve Mancini (40:18):
Sure.
So.
Jason Hebbe (40:19):
that, you know, the passion for public service, public service
Steve Mancini (40:22):
Public.
Jason Hebbe (40:22):
rewarding.
you know, prior to 2012, beforeI joined the Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania, don't think I fullyappreciated and understood it all.
but it is very rewarding the thepeople you serve, whether it's.
you know, internal employees, youknow, protecting the lives of, of,
you know, Pennsylvania state troopers.
You know, the services thatyou're providing are keeping
them out of harm's way.
(40:43):
They're keeping, youknow, the, the citizens of
Pennsylvania out of harm's way.
and just that realization thatwhat you do does make a difference.
as long as you look at itfrom the other side and not
You look at it from the otherside, this is a network.
Right?
Understand what's happening on the other
Steve Mancini (40:59):
understand what's happening.
Jason Hebbe (41:00):
you know, it's, it's just very rewarding and I
Steve Mancini (41:02):
You know,
Jason Hebbe (41:02):
the stories of, you know, sitting down with somebody
that was directly impacted.
Like in my personal life, I'dbe out and about and they'd
tell me a story and I was like,
Steve Mancini (41:11):
you tell me a story.
Jason Hebbe (41:12):
that those are, those are systems that I'm responsible for,
Steve Mancini (41:15):
I'm responsible for, you know, me and my team are responsive
Jason Hebbe (41:18):
then along with that, you know, the other
thing, you know, great leader.
Steve Mancini (41:24):
leader,
Jason Hebbe (41:25):
when the bullets are flying, right?
So when something goes sideways, youknow, as a good leader, you want to be
Steve Mancini (41:30):
you know, as a big leader, you.
Jason Hebbe (41:32):
for your team.
It's them that make yousuccessful losing sight of that.
when the accolades areflowing, when something goes
Steve Mancini (41:40):
Accolade.
Jason Hebbe (41:41):
you stand behind them, right?
You, you let them receiveall the, the, the praise for,
all of those accomplishments.
So those would be two kind of parting,points that I just wanted to share.
Steve Mancini (41:53):
Yeah.
That, that's great advice.
I mean, and it's, it,I I, I love that story.
I love everything you said there.
And, it's been an eyeopening conversationand I hope that, The audience here that,
that's watching this is, gonna walkaway with a lot to think about and,
and how they may be able to apply this.
and how they could just kind ofthink through and, and hey, maybe
(42:16):
leverage someone like yourself.
I mean, you're out there, right?
I mean if, if, if someone needs helpor if, if they're, they're not quite
sure to how to deal with a specificsituation, that, that's your world now.
Jason Hebbe (42:26):
is.
Yep, and happy to help.
Always happy to help.
Steve Mancini (42:31):
Excellent.
Well, and for our listenershere, I hope this was, I hope
this was a good conversation.
if today's conversation sparked questionsor challenges that you're facing in
your agency, feel free to reach out.
Let's keep the conversationgoing and, and.
And for everybody, thanks for, fortuning in to Thriving In Ambiguity.
(42:52):
And don't forget to subscribe and pleaseleave your feedback so we know what
you'd like to hear about next time.
And, and then we could find, you know,or bring Jason back and say, Hey, here,
here's what the listeners were sayingand here's what they want to know.
So once again, to everyone,thank you very much to Jason.
Thank you.
an awesome conversation and, lookforward to hearing from you again.
Jason Hebbe (43:12):
Thank you so much, Steve.
Hey everyone.
Welcome back to Thriving InAmbiguity, the podcast, we break
down the complexities of technologyideally without losing our minds.
Today we're diving deep into publicsector it with none other than Jason
Hebbe, who I feel like is held justabout every IT leadership position
at the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
(00:27):
Jason, thanks so muchfor joining the show.
Jason Hebbe (00:29):
Yeah.
Thank you Steve.
Pleasure to be here andlooking forward to this.
Steve Mancini (00:33):
Excellent.
So Jason, let's, let's kick things off.
You've spent over a decade leading itfor the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
and now you're in a consulting role.
Walk us through that journey a little bit.
What first attracted you tothe public sector tech and, and
what keeps you motivated in thatspace after all of these years?
Jason Hebbe (00:54):
Sure.
So, Steve, I spent, about 32 yearsnow in information technology.
In various capacities, likeyou said, the past 12 years
were in state government withthe Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
I held roles such as chief OperationsOfficer Chief Chief Technology
Officer, and then finally DeputyCIO before deciding to move on.
(01:16):
so interestingly enough to answer yourquestion about the motivation I had
manufacturing it, insurance banking.
You know, and, and in, in variousroles most of them leadership after
I'd say about the first 10 yearswhere I was more hands-on technical.
And it was just, it was a challenge.
I'd heard lots of rumors, if you will,about, I. You know, government doesn't
(01:37):
move at the same pace as private sector.
Thought of that as a challenge.
It's like, Hey, how
Of that as a challenge
to state government and,and the, the public sector.
So made the jump in, in 2012.
I can tell you the first couple years werea little bit challenging just learning
the nuances of, you know, how procurementworked was probably the biggest hurdle.
(02:00):
You know, the technology for, forall intents and purposes was similar.
But yes, they, they were definitelybehind on, on some of the
technologies that they were deploying.
And yeah, I just saw an opportunityto, to serve in that capacity.
And over the years, I, I would sayprobably within the first five years of
making that move just developed a heartfor, and a passion for public service.
(02:22):
understanding the.
we serve the various businessareas, the, the constituents of the
Commonwealth and others and justtheir dependency on those services.
I mean, anything from public safetyto public assistance you know,
licensing, you name it, right?
All of those services are key andinstrumental for, for those in the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to dowhat it is they need to do and survive.
Steve Mancini (02:43):
Yeah, no, absolutely.
and thank you for, 'cause I, you know,as a resident of Pennsylvania you, you,
you've had a great reputation throughoutyour career and I really appreciate
all the hard work that, that you've andyour teams have put into creating a,
a lot of those great technologies andservices that, that we all depend on.
So thank you very much.
Jason Hebbe (03:01):
I appreciate the kind words.
and yeah, so, so just a, thefinal part to that was, you
know, why did I transition out?
I, I did so in such a fashion whereI can continue that public service.
It's just now at a national level insteadof just for the Commonwealth Pennsylvania.
So I can take all the things Ilearned all the relationships I
had with other state IT leadership.
And just kind of bring all of thatexperience to bear in, in helping
(03:25):
others, you know, solve for thebusiness problems and things that
they're, they're trying to work through.
Steve Mancini (03:29):
Yeah, no, that, that's what's great.
And what I found is everybody's kindof dealing with a similar thing, right?
And so now you're in a position where.
Hey, all that, all of that experience, allthe things that you've dealt with over the
years, now you're able to kind of offerthat back to everybody, which is awesome.
And it's probably excitingfor you too, because it's not
the same old nuance every day.
(03:50):
Now you get to talk to so manydifferent people in like roles and
say, Hey, you know, hey, this is how Iwould've maybe done, done some of that.
And that's probably keeps youenergized and it's always new.
Jason Hebbe (04:01):
definitely, definitely.
And, and, and just a love, youknow, as a technologist, just a
love of emerging technology, right?
It's ever
Technology, right?
The technology landscape is aneternity as it relates to change.
So,
change.
sure that
Staying
you know, you know AI isperfect, perfect example of that.
It's, it's, it's kind ofa firestorm right now.
(04:22):
Everybody's trying to figureout, okay, how do I use this?
What do I do with it?
And, and just staying very close tothose new and emerging technologies and
trying to relate them back to once againbusiness problems that they can solve.
Steve Mancini (04:35):
Mm-hmm.
I mean, kind of like digging into thata little bit, I, I mean, how did you
manage to bridge, that gap betweentechnology and business objectives?
Especially, I mean, the stakes arealways super high in state government,
so how did you kind work in that space?
Jason Hebbe (04:51):
so partnerships and relationships.
It's really getting out to theagencies and the agency, IT leadership
as well as business leadershipwithin the various program areas.
And, and just sitting down and theconversation never starts with technology
never what are, some of pain points?
Steve Mancini (05:07):
like, heck.
Jason Hebbe (05:08):
you hearing from your end users and those that you serve as, as
challenges that your challenges andopportunities that you're trying to
you know, work towards solutions with.
And sometimes those solutions canbe technology, but not always.
So really focusing on.
You know, the business goals andobjectives when you come into
those meetings especially on theprogram area side, you're just
(05:28):
like, oh, I have this great toolthat's gonna fix all your problems.
There's never any truth in that.
You really have to dig in andunderstand what it is they're
trying to, to solve for.
Ask them to show you, like,show me how it works today.
You know, and that's, once again, they,they walk you through the entire process.
Sometimes, you know, it's anapplication or a website that you're,
(05:49):
you're walking through with themand you can look for those you know,
inefficiencies and then work through,talk to 'em about process improvement.
You know, talk to 'em aboutwhere technology can help.
And really at the end of theday, trying to figure out what
do they already have in play.
That you can maybe take advantage of.
You know, budgets are always tight and youjust wanna make sure that you're doing the
(06:10):
best you can with, with taxpayer dollars
With, with taxpayers,
when you're going with that,it's not always like, Hey,
you've gotta buy this new thing.
Say you have the tools today, you'remaybe just not utilizing them to their
just utilizing them totheir fullest potential.
the business problems and start with that.
Steve Mancini (06:26):
And start with that and
Jason Hebbe (06:28):
and that
Steve Mancini (06:29):
conversation.
Jason Hebbe (06:30):
You know, the, the, the trust that you
Steve Mancini (06:32):
You
Jason Hebbe (06:33):
So that you continue to get called back whenever they
Steve Mancini (06:35):
to get called back,
Jason Hebbe (06:36):
Whenever they have
And,
new.
that seat at the tableis very, very important.
Steve Mancini (06:40):
Yeah.
Now, kind of once again, buildingoff some of the things that you just
mentioned there's obviously duplicatetools across multiple agencies.
From your experience, what's thetoughest part about streamlining
an IT portfolio and, and howdid you tackle the challenges?
Head on, you know, especially likeworking interagency and trying to
(07:03):
like, get people on the same page.
Jason Hebbe (07:05):
Sure.
So, so in, in 2017 2018 the Commonwealthof Pennsylvania decided we were gonna
centralize information technology.
So up until that point, eachagency kind of had their own
team that did everything, right?
All their application development, allof their infrastructure support you know,
end user support, you name it, right?
(07:25):
Each of the agencies had their own team.
2017 2018 we made the decision we weregonna pull it all together, centralize
it, put it under one organization, youknow, under the office of administration.
that's where we, we will say theblinders kind of came off, you know,
that realization that everybodydid things a different way.
Different software tooling,different, you know, platforms that
(07:46):
they were using, things like that.
Now there was some commonality butat the end of the day there was,
there were a lot of tools that w youknow, each agency was paying for.
We were trying to centralize those budgetsand it was a great opportunity to kind of.
Put all those tools in categories, figureout what everybody was using understand
maybe which ones were best of breed.
(08:06):
And then come up with a plan forkind of more universal adoption
for, for those various technologiesand platforms and solutions.
So that was a, a very long andarduous task of collecting all of
that information, understanding sizeof those teams and, and the skill
sets in, in those teams so that wecan make sure as we move forward,
(08:27):
Whether it's some cross training while we
it's towards training.
You know, standardization, if you will.
And, and common tooling.
Steve Mancini (08:34):
Mm-hmm.
Jason Hebbe (08:35):
yeah, I'd say the, the biggest challenge
was the discovery portion.
What do we have what's working best?
Some of those tools wereobviously antiquated.
Some of them were a little more modern.
And, you know, just working withour business partners as well.
So the OEMs, the suppliers, as we,you know, did our tools evaluation
and we looked to standardizeon, on those kind of things.
(08:56):
The other thing that, that, thatgenerated is not just streamlining
our support you know, teams andmatrix for those tools, right?
We didn't have to have.
You know, six different people becausethey each knew one different tool.
You know, we were able toleverage economies of scale from
our support and administrationin providing those services.
But the other thing was, you know,each agency to a lot of these suppliers
(09:18):
was viewed as a, a single entityinstead of the commonwealth as a whole.
so our buying power was compromised.
So when we went and looked atthose toolings and said, Hey.
If we're all using this and, and wedecide to use this now, the licensing
model we're buying in higher volume,we're gonna get better discounts.
(09:39):
And we were able to saveconsiderable dollars in, in doing
some of that standardization.
So not just on the staffing side and,and you know, closing some of the
skills gaps with the standardization,but even the cost savings was huge
when we started looking at thefull Commonwealth buying power.
Steve Mancini (09:55):
No, and, and I've worked with a lot of state agencies and the talk
of consolidation and getting that rightis, is always a big challenge for people.
And my guess is a lot of itcomes back to something you
said earlier, and it's really.
From my, from my experience, Ithink it's about communication
(10:15):
and understanding that business ofwhat they're trying to accomplish.
And, and, and, and, 'cause youjust mentioned it, everybody,
everybody's doing the same thing,but everybody's doing it their way.
And so, and there'sprobably reasons for that.
So understanding what they'retrying to accomplish as a business,
what makes sense, and then.
Being able to kind of lead them togetherand say, Hey, okay, you're doing this
(10:39):
great, but maybe we could improve on that.
Or maybe you have, you know,shown the best practice and
now we can all adopt that.
So I think that's probablya big piece of it.
Jason Hebbe (10:48):
yeah.
Communications was, was key, right?
You, you need to make sureeverybody understands what you're
doing, that you don't just makearbitrary changes you don't make.
Changes without discussing them first.
You know, you bring everybody backto the table and say, Hey, here's,
you know, show 'em that picture.
Right?
Show 'em the, the before and,and the anticipated after.
And, you know, reallyfocus on the pros and cons.
(11:11):
You know, the other thing I'm ahuge proponent of is options, right?
You don't necessarily have tocome to the table with like, okay,
we already made the decision.
is where we're at today.
This is where we're going tomorrow.
Hey, here's where we're at today, andhere's a couple ways forward, right?
So then you're kind of bringing them intothe fold, helping them, you know, they're
(11:31):
part of the decision making process.
So you can say, Hey, hereare the top three options.
Here are the pros and cons of each.
Here's our recommendation.
What are your thoughts, right?
How are, how do you feelabout some of these?
Do you prefer one of the optionsover the one we recommend and why?
And have those conversations,'cause maybe we missed something.
Right?
And that goes back to, you know,making sure that, you know, the
(11:51):
business owners and those folksare part of the conversation.
You're communicating any, anychanges and moves going forward.
Timeline is
important right You know,you may be stepping on.
Another project that'srunning in parallel.
So you wanna make sure that,you know, they can say that.
It's like, well, hey, you say you want toget all this done by the end, you know,
the next 60 or 90 days, but hey, we'vegot these projects that are in flight
(12:14):
right now and a lot of the resources youmay need for testing and things like that
to help out with this aren't available.
Can we push this out to, youknow, maybe three or four months?
So that, yeah, thoseare great conversations.
And you're, you're ahundred percent correct.
Communications is paramount.
Steve Mancini (12:28):
Yeah, I mean, I was an IT leader for about 18 years, and as
an early leader, I think one of thebiggest mistakes that I had made was
a lot of times I assume people saw thevision that I maybe had and like it's
like you're gonna implement this newthing and you know it's gonna be great.
You assume that maybe everybody's gonna beon board with that because it's gonna, you
(12:51):
know, it's gonna solve so many problems.
But if you didn't do a good enough jobcommunicating the why and how you were
going to get there, boy, you could makea lot of people upset in the meantime.
And yes, maybe they, they will eventually,you know, be like, oh, this is better.
But man, no one likes change.
So I think you hit it on the head there.
Jason Hebbe (13:10):
Well, and, and, and, and when you don't include them and things
don't necessarily work out the, theway that maybe they anticipated they
should have that that's the perfectenvironment to create shadow it, right?
So, you know, if agencies feel like, well,hey, we weren't part of the decision.
It's not working theway we thought it would.
We weren't involved, we're gonna goout and do something on our own again.
(13:33):
And then you have this shadow ITorganization that you have to try
and figure out how to reign in later.
Whereas, you know, if you take theapproach like we were just talking about
with, you know, communications, makesure all those stakeholders feel like
they have a say that then, you know,kind of clears the way where you're
not risking that development of shadowit going forward and shadow it is a
horrible thing to, to kind of reign in.
(13:54):
But at the same time, you understandwhy they did it, and that's because it
was not a collaborative effort, right?
You kind of went out and did somethingin a vacuum, which is never healthy.
Steve Mancini (14:02):
Okay, so let's talk a little bit about money.
Now you, you've managed huge enterprisecontract negotiations and you've, you
know, you just mentioned how you're ableto save, you know, significant amounts
of money based on kind of bringingcertain things together for state
government or public sector leaderslooking to optimize their budgets.
What are some of the key strategiesand lessons that you learned that
(14:24):
really make a big difference?
Jason Hebbe (14:26):
So once again, buying power, you know, if, if you're buying licensing
you know, across various agencies andthings like that, try and work out,
you know, master agreements with thoseproviders to make sure that you're,
you're viewed as one entity, We're the,we're the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
And we're buying a hundred thousandlicenses of this thing, right?
We're, we're not buying, right.
(14:47):
We're, 20 in this agency and 500 inthis agency, et cetera, et cetera.
So huge to to, to look at thatpooling and having a good software
inventory and, and those kindof things really help with that.
So that's huge.
Make sure that you're, you're tryingto pull all those agreements up to
the, the state level, if you will,as opposed to looking at them from
an agency to agency or, or programarea to program area standpoint.
(15:10):
The, the other thing too is, is youknow, RFPs they're very complex.
They're very time consuming.
And I think at the end of the day,sometimes we just lose sight of
the fact that the effort put intothose RFPs is truly a cost of doing
business and should be included in,in the overall you know, cost of a
particular project or initiative.
(15:30):
Not just, Hey, when we finally makea decision and choose a supplier and
award a contract, it's that point goingforward, Hey, here's what we're gonna pay
for product A and product B, et cetera.
So, you know, I think looking at theRFP cycles and understanding where is
an RFP really, really required versuswhere can we use existing, you know,
government cooperative buying agreements.
(15:52):
'cause that's huge.
'cause you, you can get the, theservices, they're already competitively
bid in almost every instance.
So that really, you know, satisfiesa lot of the, the procurement code.
From that standpoint.
So really focusing in on where do I trulyneed an RFP versus where can I just go out
and do this in another way, leveraging,cooperative buying agreements and skip
(16:14):
that RFP, that that can, you know, easilybe hundreds of thousands of dollars, just,
execute one of those from start to finish.
Steve Mancini (16:23):
Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense.
Especially, you know, someone'salready done the work,
don't, don't re recreate it.
'cause a lot of times if they'vealready done that RFP you're
able to kinda leverage that.
So that's, that's great advice.
'Jason Hebbe: Typically, they are, flexible to, you know, so
at the end of the day, a lot.
cooperative agreements createa lot of a lot more flexibility.
(16:45):
you're very prescriptivethan what you're asking for.
And sometimes thatpaints you into a corner.
Sometimes that means any changes require.
Significant effort, once again to addsomething to the contract or modify
something that is, that's in an awardedcontract where a lot of the, you know,
the cooperative buying opportunities,there's greater flexibility.
If you need to pivot, can pivot moreeasily, which also saves money, right?
(17:10):
You know, we're not getting Le lawyersinvolved and procurement professionals
involved to modify a contract.
We, we can just pivot very easilybecause it's already covered.
No, that makes, that makes a lot of sense.
Next thing I'm kind of curious about is.
I'm sure in your career you've hadto roll out, you know, let's say
(17:33):
hybrid or multi-cloud type solutions.
And as, as different government agenciesand CIOs are considering, Hey I. How,
how do I handle a major migration?
What advice makes sense?
You know, from your hands-on experiencewhen you're dealing with, 'cause look,
it's not all gonna go away, right?
I mean, we're gonna have on-premsolutions, you're gonna have public
(17:56):
clouds, you're gonna have SaaS providers.
It's a lot of, lot ofoptions for people today.
I mean, what, what's some of the bestpractices that, that you look at?
Jason Hebbe (18:05):
Once again, I, I think it starts with that,
that business analysis, right?
It's understanding, you know,what do you have in place?
Do you have some legacy technologiesdeployed that need to be modernized?
Just because, you know, support costscan grow astronomically when you're you
know, trying to keep a technology inplay, that's long since past it's useful.
Life.
So really focusing on the businessside of things, looking for those
(18:27):
opportunities and not doing things like,you know, cloud for the sake of cloud.
Like, hey, we're doing cloud.
You know, that a, a lotof, a lot of entities, both
public and private, do that.
You know, AI is probablygonna be the same way, right?
It's this big buzzword, how manypeople are gonna just jump into it
because it's the sexy thing to do.
So yeah, on the cloud side,really focusing on looking at
(18:50):
things from a business standpointon looking at technologies that
are in play, understanding whichones make, to go where, right.
Like with cloud, right.
infrastructure as a service.
You've got your platform as a service.
You've got your, yoursoftware size as a service.
And, and, and just really lookingat which one makes the most sense.
My big thing with, with cloud and, andthat whole hybrid to cloud approach
(19:11):
was you know, understanding all of thedependencies that are involved, right?
If you have something that's,that's on premise, and if you
move a portion of it to the cloud,what's performance gonna look like?
Are you gonna introduce a latencythat's gonna cause a, a poor
user experience, for example?
So understanding those nuances and,and being able to come back and say,
okay, well if you wanna move this piece.
(19:32):
You really need to move the otherpieces as well or, or you could
compromise your userexperience or performance.
So really, you know, onceagain, focused on the business.
Look at those applications, look at thecurrent architecture, and figuring out
what makes the most sense for cloud.
I. We really pushed, youknow, the Commonwealth.
And I would strongly encourage anybodythat's looking at this, if you're gonna
go to the cloud, like go cloud nativeyou know, lift and shift is, is I think
(19:56):
a horrible you know, way to move forward.
While it is necessary in some instances,once again, maybe you have an interior
application and, and part of it justcan't go to a cloud native, and it
needs to be, you know, more of aninfrastructure as a service type thing.
You may not be able to get awayfrom it completely, but really
focus on cloud native technologies.
'cause that's where the biggest bang forthe buck's gonna come from, where you
(20:17):
get that true consumption model whileyou're using it, you're paying for it.
When you're not using it, you'renot that flexibility you know, the
continuity and the resiliency that'sbuilt into native cloud services is huge.
So making sure that all ofthat's, that's taken into account.
So really promoting modernizationas a part of move to the cloud.
And then from a hybrid cloud standpoint,I think it's also important to note,
(20:40):
while all the com cloud providers, forthe most part are, are, are similar,
there are some differences and, andunderstanding what those are you know,
you know, maybe you need to go withcloud provider a in one instance in cloud
provider being another just because oftheir capabilities are stronger in that
area and there's nothing wrong with that.
And then the key is then whenyou have that and you've got that
hybrid multi-cloud thing going on.
(21:03):
Network connectivity.
You know, you need to make sureyou have you know, all the, the
right speeds and feeds there.
You need to make sure you have allthe security taken into account.
That's huge as well, and thatall of that can intercommunicate
as seamlessly as possible.
You know, so once again, you justdon't have a bad experience because
the network wasn't properly designed.
(21:23):
You know, one cloud can't talk tothe other, can't talk back you know,
with the, the appropriate speeds andfeeds that it needs for, you know,
your private cloud environment.
So really making sure that youhave a robust resilient network
in place to do you know, a goodhybrid multi-cloud approach.
Steve Mancini (21:42):
Mm-hmm.
I love your thought on Cloudnative because I think, I think
it solves a couple things.
For one that most likely is solving somesort of specific challenge or you're, you
know, you're adding some functionality.
So there's, there'ssome, some piece there.
And then the other one is.
If, if, if you're trying to takethat legacy application and move it,
(22:04):
there's, there's probably some sortof technical debt or something there,
and it's just gonna add complicationand, and it becomes a challenge.
So anytime you can avoid that andmaybe start fresh, yeah, you're
probably at a much better place.
Jason Hebbe (22:18):
And then, yeah,
Steve Mancini (22:19):
That's
Jason Hebbe (22:19):
note on that too.
So kind of back to that privatecloud, what I would consider,
you know, in our case with theCommonwealth of Pennsylvania, the
Commonwealth Center so, cloud isn't.
necessarily a place, right?
It, it, it's a technology, it'sa methodology, it's automation
you know, those kind of things.
So make sure that your private cloudenvironment supports all of those
capabilities away the same way you know,being able to quickly deploy workloads.
(22:42):
able to quickly spin up serversin an automated fashion.
So you have consistency.
And those kind of things.
So I think it's also paramount thatyour, your private cloud matches what's
going on in the public cloud as itrelates to automation and resiliency.
Steve Mancini (22:56):
That's a great point.
Great point.
All right.
Shifting gears a little bit, let'sdive into partner relationships.
From your perspective, what's, what's theideal way for partners or OEMs to kind of
step up and add real value to the CIO'soffice, and how do they help you know?
How can they become strategicallies more than just a vendor?
Jason Hebbe (23:20):
Sure.
Yeah, so, so, you know, I always valuedthe partners that came in and at least
had a good idea of what it is we weretrying to accomplish what we good
understanding of our current state.
So we didn't always have to start,like if I had to educate them on
like everywhere that we are youknow, that was, that was not always
you know, healthy and efficient.
(23:41):
So just have a good idea of,you know, where we're at.
Understand some of the businessproblems and challenges.
You know, so much of this in the publicsector arena is readily available on
the internet, right whether it's on the,you've got various, websites that track
all thats going on with in the statesfor example, you know what we are trying
to solve you know so come in prepared.
(24:03):
And then at the end of theday, it's really about building
that relationship first.
You know, I was never happy abouta, a supplier team coming in and,
a supplier they were ready with aquote right in in that first meeting
and they were trying to sell mesomething, thats not a good place to be.
so really you know, understand wherewe're at, gain better understanding
(24:23):
into, you know, the technology landscapeand the things we're trying to solve.
Really show that you wantto be a valued partner.
You know, looking at thatenvironment, talking looking.
through, you know, what,what, what can change.
What would the timelines look like?
You know, those kind of things beforeyou really start getting into you know,
hey, where's my, my, my purchase order?
so that's huge.
(24:44):
It's, it's really about buildingthat relationship, understanding the
challenges and that can take a long time.
Right?
I, I think that's the other thing in stategovernment that most people don't realize.
Budget cycles, right?
If, if you're talking to me you know,shortly after the start of the fiscal
year, the thing you would be tryingto sell me anyway isn't in the budget.
(25:04):
So you really want to establish thatgroundwork for through those first nine
months maybe to better understand what itis, where we're at, and then say, okay,
we think we have a solution for you.
Here's what it would look like.
Here's how it integrates and, andconnects to everything else that
you've got in flight and in play.
And then we can have conversationsabout what that looks like and making
that budget request to, to movethat particular initiative forward.
(25:28):
So communications, be willing toto be in it for the long haul and
not looking for that quick sale.
Steve Mancini (25:36):
Yep.
Yeah, no, I think, I think you nailed it.
I mean, my big thing was always tryto find some way to bring value.
Do don't just come at mewith a quote like you said.
I mean, that's,
Jason Hebbe (25:46):
I.
Steve Mancini (25:46):
that's, that's the last, last thing anybody wants to see.
It's like, okay.
And to your other point, hey,strategic plans are online.
You know, a lot of people rightnow are putting AI policies out.
Hey, here's, here's what we're thinking.
We're, we're, we're, we're tryingto navigate this whole landscape
and here's where we're at right now.
So, if you did a little bit ofhomework, that helps kind of jumpstart
(26:08):
the conversation a little bit where Idon't have to repeat, you know, myself,
you know, I'm sure that's the thing.
Time is money, right?
Like, I don't, I don't need to repeatmyself every time I'm in a meeting.
Jason Hebbe (26:18):
Very true.
Yeah.
And, and, and you had a good point theretoo, around like existing technologies.
Steve Mancini (26:23):
Like existing technologies,
Jason Hebbe (26:24):
have You may not just be utilizing it to its fullest
potential and, and your suppliersthat have sold you something
maybe you can help point that out.
Say, Hey, well you kind ofown this in that licensing
model that you already have.
All we gotta do is turnit on and configure.
And that's like a no cost solution, right?
They're willing to, to give youlike a, you know, a systems engineer
or something to just come in, getthat configure, get it operational,
(26:47):
and that's a zero cost solution.
So really understanding thatexisting landscape and, and where
they've already got a presence.
If it happens to be a, a supplier that'salready has deployed technologies.
Steve Mancini (27:00):
Yeah.
I think that's the biggest thingthat some CIOs and, and IT leaders
miss when you do have and haveestablished a good relationship.
you know, big OEMs have a lot ofresources at their disposal at no cost.
You know, there's, there'stons of engineering support
in every line of business.
(27:21):
There's typically CTO specialiststhat really are like experts,
you know, may, they may be formerCIOs or you know, different
experts in different technologies.
And so when you havethat good relationship.
And, and you're on the same page togetherand you know what challenges you're trying
to solve, you can leverage a lot of that.
(27:42):
And, and, and like you're saying, ifyou do it properly, it could really help
either, you know, dial in your team tobecome better experts in, in the tools
that you have or just maybe doing theresearch so you know where you need
to go in the future without actuallyhaving to pay for consultants or some
other, you know, services engagement.
(28:04):
Yeah, so, so looking ahead, what doyou see as the biggest challenges
facing state government leaders inthe next, let's say five years, and
where do you think they'll need tofocus a lot of their time and energy?
Jason Hebbe (28:17):
Oh boy.
Yeah.
Budget.
Budget is always pretty closeto the top of that list.
And, and I would alsosay cybersecurity, right?
I. The, the bad actors, right?
That they continue to get smarterand and faster and they, they,
they find ways around pretty mucheverything you're trying to do.
So it, it's more than a full-timejob to keep them at bay.
(28:41):
And there's, there's a significantportion of the budget that needs
to be assigned to cybersecurity youknow, practices and things like that.
Making sure that you're toolingthat it's multi-layered.
You know, all of those kind of thingsespecially is the expanse of you
know, once again, hybrid cloud whereyou're all over the place, you need
to make sure that your, security isconsistent across all of those platforms.
(29:01):
so cybersecurity and, andbudget need to be a huge focus.
And, and, you know, as, as over thenext five years, I don't think that's
gonna change ai, data privacy, you knowkeeping an eye on legislation to, to
make sure our technologies are able to.
You know, meet those needs that, thatare being called out in legislative
actions or policies that you can prove it.
(29:22):
You know, that you're, you'recom you're in compliance.
So, so those are gonna be huge.
I, I would say, you know, AIis gonna be an interesting one.
You know, and, and to back up a littlefurther, like the first stage of AI
is, is data management, you gottaunderstand what data you have, where
is it, what format, you know, is itstructured, unstructured, et cetera.
(29:43):
You know, so that, that'skind of the first thing.
So focus on making sure your datais clean, you know, where it all is.
Back to the cybersecurity part, thatyou've got the right protections.
You know, I'm not supposed to have accessto a per a particular data set, make
sure I don't have access to that data
set and as you're data sharing, make surethe same thing applies, that any data
(30:03):
sharing agreements are, well documented
can prove it, you can run it throughan audit and say, yes, this particular
application or service only has access tothe data that it must have to function.
And making sure of all that's in place.
And then that really sets the stage forgood, healthy you know, AI deployments.
I. I think are just gonnacontinue to roll out.
(30:24):
Everybody's trying to figureout, you know, whether it's,
you know, chat generated or it'sapplication related ai, you know,
just making sure that the data is
secure so that your AI resultsare productive, you know, really
helping to generate time savingsand the things that they can do.
But I do, you know,I've seen it firsthand.
You know, the power of AI and, andsimplifying certain tasks and, and
(30:48):
generating efficiencies, whetherit's helping analyze email you know,
giving me a daily summary of, of allof my email and those kind of things.
But once again, just making sure thatthe security is in place to afford that.
So I would say.
You know, over the next five years, howdo we manage our budgets, you know, just
to make sure that we're not overspending,we're spending in the right areas.
(31:08):
You know, those kind ofthings are super important.
Understanding the, the run rate of ofparticular services, so this is one so
we experienced
early on You might think, oh, wellthere, there's some money set aside
to do this particular initiative
but That particular
innitative if we launchit and we do well I need
(31:29):
as well.
the budget monies to continue to runit for the next 2, 3, 5 years, right?
So making sure that as you're
Steve Mancini (31:35):
Mm-hmm.
Jason Hebbe (31:36):
things out, that those are included in the budget that
you have your run costs included.
And then, yeah, cybersecurityis gonna continue to be huge,
Cyber.
over the next five years.
'cause there's so many attack vectorswith, you know, the moves to the cloud
and, and all the data that everybody hasyou know, data sprawl and data's power.
And, and I think that realization.
(31:56):
It
Steve Mancini (31:56):
Yeah.
Jason Hebbe (31:56):
hasn't gone unnoticed.
But yeah, it, it's definitely gonna be
Steve Mancini (32:00):
Yeah.
Jason Hebbe (32:01):
cybersecurity you know, data administration, data management
are probably gonna be the three biggestthings I would say over the next three
to five years and probably beyond.
I.
Steve Mancini (32:12):
Yeah, I, I think, I think you hit on some great points
that I'd like to touch on there forone when it comes to data, like you
said, if your data's not good, all thegreat things that you think you want
to do with it, it's not gonna work.
Right?
So, first thing, yougotta have clean data.
Next is I like, I like how you, youtalked about AI and, and how that.
(32:35):
That could be a bigdifference maker for people.
But going back to something you saidway earlier in the conversation,
I think it comes back to havingan actual business need and make
sure that's really spelled out.
Like, what are you trying to solve for?
Don't just do AI for AI's sake.
You gotta have a plan.
Right?
(32:57):
Yeah.
Jason Hebbe (32:57):
I, I would say, yeah, just along those lines.
Right.
So, so there are so many things youcan do with AI and, and the influx of
tools that continue to come out thatsay they use AI and how do they use ai?
Like just paying really, really
Steve Mancini (33:10):
Ai
Jason Hebbe (33:11):
to what they
Steve Mancini (33:12):
really, really close attention to what they are.
Jason Hebbe (33:14):
those, again, additional licensing fees and those kind of things.
So to your point, yes, make sure thatyou're solving a business problem.
You're not just doing AI becauseit's the shiny new widget.
Steve Mancini (33:26):
when it comes to security, I mean, I just, I just saw on the news
this morning that deep fakes are, arecontinuing to get better and better,
and it's becoming more of a problem,you know, so as these things evolve.
You have to remember like the, thehackers and the bad actors, people.
I think some people think that they'rejust some like people in a foreign
country in their basement and they'rejust like doing these nefarious things
(33:49):
and no, that that's not the case.
Like people are coming to work just likeI. The two of us do When you know and and
you go to an office or you sit at yourdesk and you're part of a big you know
let's say corporation but in this casetheir job is to steal people's data You
know I mean that that's really what itcomes down to And and so they don't look
at themselves as maybe you know thesethese hackers you know and in a basement
(34:14):
that's not that's not the thing So
Jason Hebbe (34:15):
like they always show in the movies right Where there's
somebody sitting in a screen and theyget through your firewall and all that
right It's the social engineering andall those other things that come along
with it And they they continue to getcreative you know, anytime you put
one, you know, you slam one door on'em, they're, they're looking for the
next door window to, to climb through.
Steve Mancini (34:35):
Yep.
So it's just, it's just make sure, youknow, I would say that as you're having
conversations, you, you talk through alot of those things and stay relevant and
stay current on, on what the new attackvectors are and, and how you're going to.
I would say educate because look, mostattacks happen to the people working on,
(34:55):
on your staffs or all, you know, all thepeople that work within an organization.
It's not a firewall anymore.
It's, that's, that's toodifficult to get through.
That technology's hardened, but youhave so many vectors that could come
in and the people that work for yourorganization is the easiest one to attack.
So, so, so with, with that beingsaid, Obviously, thinking it from
(35:18):
a CIO lens, like the policiesand, and let's say and how you're
dealing with, government leaders.
what's your thoughts there and,and how you're gonna handle
that, that piece of the business.
Jason Hebbe (35:32):
Yeah, so I think, you know, when it, you know,
policies, I, I do like policies.
I, I think policies are important.
And policies are easierto change than law.
so I do think thatthere's an opportunity to
Steve Mancini (35:43):
So you think
Jason Hebbe (35:44):
policies, effectively and efficiently so that, you know, you
don't have legislators, legislature
Steve Mancini (35:50):
description
Jason Hebbe (35:51):
law, to protect the curtain area, right?
If it, if it's already being takencare of through policy, the policies
Steve Mancini (35:57):
taken of
Jason Hebbe (35:58):
you
Steve Mancini (35:58):
being followed,
Jason Hebbe (35:59):
need to
Steve Mancini (35:59):
they don't necessarily
Jason Hebbe (36:01):
again, greater
Steve Mancini (36:02):
you just
Jason Hebbe (36:03):
Greater ease of response if something changes, which it's inevitable.
so the
Steve Mancini (36:08):
to.
Jason Hebbe (36:08):
can barely, easily revisit them as frequently as you need to,
and adjust and modify as required.
so I think policies are, are importantand preferred over legislation.
I. but also understand theneed for legislation in
Steve Mancini (36:21):
understand
Jason Hebbe (36:21):
to
Steve Mancini (36:22):
legislation in certain areas.
Jason Hebbe (36:24):
there's a level of consumer trust,
Steve Mancini (36:26):
Consumer trust
Jason Hebbe (36:27):
hey, this is a law.
Steve Mancini (36:28):
generation because.
Jason Hebbe (36:29):
here, they're breaking the law and there's gonna be consequences.
so I think that's important.
But yeah, around governance,well, yeah, governance.
and risk, I think go hand in hand.
so we're trying tomanage risk at all times.
You, you kind of need governance in
Steve Mancini (36:42):
All time to do that properly
Jason Hebbe (36:44):
making sure that you're tracking all of that.
You know, make sure that you
Steve Mancini (36:47):
tracking.
Jason Hebbe (36:48):
you know, what, what, you know, governance teams you have in place.
You know, Commonwealth ofPennsylvania, there's a governance
team over top of ai, which is huge
Steve Mancini (36:56):
there's plenty of others as well.
And just making sure,
Jason Hebbe (36:59):
every
Steve Mancini (37:00):
you're, every weeks
Jason Hebbe (37:02):
making sure that it's compliant.
You're, you're givingit a risk score, right?
As you're moving forward withthings, how you deploy things, you
understand what the risk level is.
you
Steve Mancini (37:11):
of
Jason Hebbe (37:11):
a reasonable
Steve Mancini (37:12):
you,
Jason Hebbe (37:13):
of risk looks like.
and then all of thatstuff is very, very well
Steve Mancini (37:16):
all that stuff is.
Jason Hebbe (37:18):
and then yeah, just keeping track of.
To your point, right, the, the emergingtechnologies, it's never gonna end.
make sure that you're, you're stayingvery current on those things as
it relates to existing legislationor policy that you have in place.
'cause you just don't want to haveover, you know, an oversight in
that area and get compromised, justbecause something new came out.
(37:39):
That you were unaware of, or maybe itcame faster than you thought it would.
So really keeping an eye on, on thosekind of things to make sure that
Steve Mancini (37:46):
Those kind of things.
Jason Hebbe (37:47):
know, your governance teams, your, your policies, everything
that's in place is constantly beingevaluated against not just current,
but, but future technologies.
Steve Mancini (37:58):
Yeah.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
Really, really great points thereand, and kind of to close things
out, I got one last question for you.
I. so if you could go back in time,what's one piece of advice that you
wish you had gotten earlier in yourcareer so that, you know, maybe a you,
you could, you could help somebody outthat's, that's maybe just getting started
(38:23):
We just have to.
Jason Hebbe (38:24):
It's, it's constant.
You know, I've always kind of used the
Steve Mancini (38:27):
Constantly, always,
Jason Hebbe (38:29):
right?
Medical professions constantly changing.
There's always
Steve Mancini (38:32):
it's constantly
Jason Hebbe (38:33):
and
Steve Mancini (38:33):
changing.
There's always been treatments
Jason Hebbe (38:35):
are constantly educating
Steve Mancini (38:38):
constantly.
Jason Hebbe (38:39):
the same thing applies to It's ever changing.
It's so rapid.
You know, I would
Steve Mancini (38:43):
so,
Jason Hebbe (38:44):
you know, Stay educated, I would say reading educated,
know, follow podcasts
or,
Steve Mancini (38:49):
know, deliver bobcats.
Jason Hebbe (38:50):
trade websites where you're getting constant
Steve Mancini (38:52):
Create website
Jason Hebbe (38:53):
on in the industry, those kind of things are
Steve Mancini (38:55):
industry.
Jason Hebbe (38:56):
I would say, you know, specifically don't
Steve Mancini (38:58):
say specifically talking about the
Jason Hebbe (39:01):
big word of advice.
you, you're gonna hit hurdles.
you're gonna, you're gonna hitIt might be legislative, might be
policy, it might be fear of change,
Steve Mancini (39:10):
Policy
Jason Hebbe (39:10):
about at the beginning.
it could be fear of failure.
well, I
Steve Mancini (39:13):
fear, failure,
Jason Hebbe (39:14):
if it doesn't go well, you know, I might lose my
job or, or something like that.
So don't
Steve Mancini (39:19):
my job
Jason Hebbe (39:20):
don't be afraid of, of
Steve Mancini (39:21):
being be afraid.
Jason Hebbe (39:22):
the best solutions, out there.
you know, don't
Steve Mancini (39:26):
you don't, don't fear politics.
Jason Hebbe (39:29):
just kind of.
Do your best to rise above it all.
Find ways, build those partnershipswith the business, other agency heads,
you know, your friends in security,your friends in legal, you know, you
just want to make sure you have all ofthose relationships well established.
And then just, yeah, don't give up.
Steve Mancini (39:50):
Yeah.
It's, that's, that's great advice.
And it's, it's funny, it, it justbrought back, one of the things
I used to tell my IT teams was,if it's the right thing to do.
Then that's what we're gonna do.
It doesn't matter how hard it is.
If it's hard, fine, wewill deal with that.
We'll take it one step at a time.
But if, if it's the right thingto do, then let's do that.
Jason Hebbe (40:10):
Exactly.
Steve Mancini (40:11):
So I love it.
Jason Hebbe (40:15):
Yeah, just, just one kind of closing comment.
so I just wanna
Steve Mancini (40:18):
Sure.
So.
Jason Hebbe (40:19):
that, you know, the passion for public service, public service
Steve Mancini (40:22):
Public.
Jason Hebbe (40:22):
rewarding.
you know, prior to 2012, beforeI joined the Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania, don't think I fullyappreciated and understood it all.
but it is very rewarding the thepeople you serve, whether it's.
you know, internal employees, youknow, protecting the lives of, of,
you know, Pennsylvania state troopers.
You know, the services thatyou're providing are keeping
them out of harm's way.
(40:43):
They're keeping, youknow, the, the citizens of
Pennsylvania out of harm's way.
and just that realization thatwhat you do does make a difference.
as long as you look at itfrom the other side and not
You look at it from the otherside, this is a network.
Right?
Understand what's happening on the other
Steve Mancini (40:59):
understand what's happening.
Jason Hebbe (41:00):
you know, it's, it's just very rewarding and I
Steve Mancini (41:02):
You know,
Jason Hebbe (41:02):
the stories of, you know, sitting down with somebody
that was directly impacted.
Like in my personal life, I'dbe out and about and they'd
tell me a story and I was like,
Steve Mancini (41:11):
you tell me a story.
Jason Hebbe (41:12):
that those are, those are systems that I'm responsible for,
Steve Mancini (41:15):
I'm responsible for, you know, me and my team are responsive
Jason Hebbe (41:18):
then along with that, you know, the other
thing, you know, great leader.
Steve Mancini (41:24):
leader,
Jason Hebbe (41:25):
when the bullets are flying, right?
So when something goes sideways, youknow, as a good leader, you want to be
Steve Mancini (41:30):
you know, as a big leader, you.
Jason Hebbe (41:32):
for your team.
It's them that make yousuccessful losing sight of that.
when the accolades areflowing, when something goes
Steve Mancini (41:40):
Accolade.
Jason Hebbe (41:41):
you stand behind them, right?
You, you let them receiveall the, the, the praise for,
all of those accomplishments.
So those would be two kind of parting,points that I just wanted to share.
Steve Mancini (41:53):
Yeah.
That, that's great advice.
I mean, and it's, it,I I, I love that story.
I love everything you said there.
And, it's been an eyeopening conversationand I hope that, The audience here that,
that's watching this is, gonna walkaway with a lot to think about and,
and how they may be able to apply this.
and how they could just kind ofthink through and, and hey, maybe
(42:16):
leverage someone like yourself.
I mean, you're out there, right?
I mean if, if, if someone needs helpor if, if they're, they're not quite
sure to how to deal with a specificsituation, that, that's your world now.
Jason Hebbe (42:26):
is.
Yep, and happy to help.
Always happy to help.
Steve Mancini (42:31):
Excellent.
Well, and for our listenershere, I hope this was, I hope
this was a good conversation.
if today's conversation sparked questionsor challenges that you're facing in
your agency, feel free to reach out.
Let's keep the conversationgoing and, and.
And for everybody, thanks for, fortuning in to Thriving In Ambiguity.
(42:52):
And don't forget to subscribe and pleaseleave your feedback so we know what
you'd like to hear about next time.
And, and then we could find, you know,or bring Jason back and say, Hey, here,
here's what the listeners were sayingand here's what they want to know.
So once again, to everyone,thank you very much to Jason.
Thank you.
an awesome conversation and, lookforward to hearing from you again.
Jason Hebbe (43:12):
Thank you so much, Steve.
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