March 3, 2025 • 65 mins
Being a CIO can be a lonely job, but strong partnerships, a data-driven mindset, and a clear vision are essential for success—especially in the public sector. In this episode of Thriving in Ambiguity, I sit down with Mac Avancena, a seasoned IT leader with over 25 years of experience in technology transformation, operations, and innovation.
We dive into the challenges of modernization in state government, AI’s role in IT strategy, and how CIOs can balance immediate results with long-term goals. Mac shares his firsthand experiences leading large-scale digital transformations and how he leveraged data analytics, strong relationships, and strategic partnerships to drive impactful change.
Topics We Cover: 00:00 Intro
03:00 You don't manage what you don't measure
3:59 Building Political Capital as a Technology Leader
10:50 AI, Automation & Workforce Development – What’s Next for Public Sector Tech
21:10 The Power of Relationships & Shared Equity in IT Leadership
38:10 Cross-Agency Collaboration & Data Sharing – The Best Practices
47:05 The Future and Creating a Technology Roadmap
58:50 Why Data is Your Anchor in a Sea of Opinions
CIOs, IT Leaders & Public Sector Innovators—this episode is for you! 💬 What’s your biggest challenge in leading IT transformation? Drop a comment below! 🔔 Don’t forget to subscribe for more insights on tech strategy, leadership, and innovation!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
Hey, everyone.
Welcome to Thriving in Ambiguity, thepodcast where we tackle the twists and
turns of enterprise and public sectorIT, ideally without losing our minds.
I'm your host, Steve Mancini,and I'm thrilled you've joined
us today for a conversationabout technology transformation,
leadership, and innovation.
And everything in between.
(00:26):
Today, I'm joined by someoneseen it all in the tech world.
My guest is Mac Avancena, a seasonedexecutive with over 25 years of
hands on experience in technologydelivery, operations and innovation.
He's tackled massive transformationsin both the private and public
sector, leading everything from biganalytics initiatives, the digital
(00:50):
transformation for major organizations.
mac has an MBA from NortheasternUniversity, plus certifications
in Six Sigma, PMP, and ITIL.
You name it, he's got it.
He's currently a Green LakeStrategy Executive and former
Vice President at HPE, focusing onGreen Lake as a service solutions.
(01:10):
And previously, Mac served as achief information technology officer
for one of the largest countiesin California, overseeing multi
million dollar I T. initiatives andleading high performance teams.
Mac's all about using data analyticsand proven methodologies to solve
business problems and drive outcomes.
(01:32):
I'm super excited to dive intoMac's insights on modernization,
the future of the workforce, and howAI is reshaping the public sector.
Mac, welcome to Thriving in Ambiguity.
Thank you so much.
I'm super pumped to be here, Steve.
This is a cool setup you have.
mac, you and I only met a few weeks ago.
(01:53):
But I could immediately sense weshare the same passion for tackling
big challenges in state government.
I knew right away then that I had tohave you on the show so we could dig
into some of these topics together.
For folks who don't know you yet, canyou tell them a little bit about your
passion to solve government tech problems?
And maybe a little bit of whyyou think it's crucial these
(02:15):
Steve, I, spent 17 years at a mediaand entertainment conglomerate,
a few years in aerospace.
And those organizations had ahuge history in process, rigor,
and discipline decision making.
when I became the CIO of this CaliforniaCounty, I fully believe that we're
all solving the same business problemsand that the alert for me was how
(02:37):
that strategy from my experience, youknow, running worldwide engineering
operations, data and analytics forvarious organizations, how that strategy
would impact our local economy andour local community for that matter.
In fact, that was a plus for the board.
Of supervisors, because I didn't haveany formal government background.
Hmm.
so with my career spanning all over theprivate sector, and that was kind of
(02:59):
like my catalyst to really pivot, dosomething different, be bold, and do
things in a way that possibly it hadn'tbeen done before with the outcomes that
I had in mind as a private sector guy.
The first thing I want toreally dig into is really around
leadership and modernization.
Now, you just mentioned how you've beenpart of multiple large scale digital
(03:22):
transformations, both in public andprivate sectors, but I want to When you're
dealing with legacy infrastructure andthe demand for digital everything, how
do you strike the right balance betweendelivering immediate results and building
a solid foundation for the long haul?
Solid foundation for the long haul.
Well, let's define what longhaul means first, right Steve?
(03:44):
How do you know where you want to go ifyou haven't measured where you've been?
The old adage of you don'tmanage what you don't measure.
It starts with understanding yourenvironment and applying rigor around
your vulnerabilities and blind spots.
Alignment with vendors and partners,I think are crucial as a CIO, as
(04:05):
you wouldn't as a CIO expect to beknowledgeable and everything technology.
Right.
The irony, Steve, is that today'sCIO manages a level of complexity
technically and now politicallymore than any other time, right?
In our history.
And so a CIO is multifaceted,touches every part of the business.
(04:26):
So alignment to strategic partners canhelp formulate that North star strategy,
you will, and then that becomes thecatalyst for detailed conversations
with business and finance leaders.
So that's how I think you establishthe groundwork for long term
modernization is measurement.
Modernization, Steve is a tough journey.
groundwork?
(04:47):
Political capital.
Political capital.
How do you get to political capital?
As someone that was coming from theoutside, going into a government
organization, it starts withthat vision that prioritizes
a reasonable phased approach.
Let's face it, people areafraid of change, right?
They get uncomfortable.
And so in any capacity where you're a tipof the spear for change, It's nice to have
(05:13):
people along the journey with you, right?
To have those peoplealong for the journey.
CIO role is already a lonely place to be.
You know, the buckstops at the CIO, right?
So in other words, Steve,it takes a village hybrid.
the connective tissue that integratescloud self service, and now AI while
(05:38):
bridging legacy systems, so how doyou balance legacy infrastructure,
demand for digital, everything?
The underlying foundational kindof tenant behind that is hybrid.
So don't underestimate your businessrelationships, invest heavily in those.
I used to tell my staff, Steve, that ifI was in my office more than 50 percent
of the time, I wasn't doing my job.
(06:01):
Although I was a CIO, my job effectivelywas to ensure that I was helping
transform the culture of thoughtleadership, which meant building
bridges of trust and credibilitywith all the businesses I supported.
Steve, is a means to an end.
I think we could agree with that.
And informs technologydecisions are business inputs.
(06:23):
We can't lead with solutions unlessour assumptions are a hundred percent
accurate, build the necessary politicalcapital so that the business sees
you as an advisor and trust yourinputs and how you're going to be
able to solve their business process.
I think you mentioned a couple thingsthere that I think are hugely important,
for 1, as we talked the other day.
(06:45):
1 of the big challenges and the thingsI learned early in my career, and
you mentioned it is communication.
Of change.
Sometimes I would think of thingsthrough my lens where I was okay with
the change because I saw where the, Iknew where the outcome was going to be
and I knew how it was going to benefitthe business, but I had to really
(07:07):
understand that, Hey, the people thatare going to feel this change the most,
they don't necessarily see that vision.
So you got to be extra clear in makingsure that they completely understand why.
Ya.
Otherwise they're going to push back.
So it's going back to that vision,making sure that they see that vision.
So it makes all thedifference in the world.
(07:27):
So I just really wanted to point that out.
Ya let me expand of that
you would ask the questionon the immediate results
or something to that effect.
So delivering immediate resultsand laying the foundation.
sure you agree to the businessproblems at hand first.
And what I mean by that, it's arelationship that you as a technology
leader has with the financial officersof your organization, with the
(07:51):
business, the stakeholders of yourorganizations, that way you're able to
marshal that political support neededto execute on that vision, right?
Call me biased, but in my experience,it's been, if you're not aligned to
defining the right business problem,which are financial, Operational and
business leaders, then your projectis subject to fail, or I'll be
(08:12):
provocative, Steve, and say it will fail.
you don't have that alignment, know,the three, you know, legs of the
stool between IT, finance and thebusiness, or are the operational
leaders, then your project will fail.
good point.
And I like how you said you almost haveto make sure that they see the problem
(08:32):
as well, because if they don't, if theydon't actually believe it's a problem.
Then you're not goingto garner their support.
Correct.
That's, that's, that's the underlying,root cause to the issues at hand,
right, is people need to be invested.
They need to have skin in the game.
And if you're not communicating, reachingout to them in a way where they feel
comfortable and they understand what painsyou're trying to surface to the table,
(08:55):
then they're not going to back you up.
They're not going tobe part of your journey
You, know, I love, that story.
, I love what you're talking about there.
, cause I've seen it too in, injust, , some of my interactions with
some state government customers I'veseen where , they really struggle
to communicate, , the vision.
I think, sometimes people getcaught up, maybe they've built
(09:17):
some great infrastructure and itreally works well and it's secure.
They're working with different agencies.
Right.
And then it's almost likewhat I saw sometimes is they
make you fit in that box.
It's like, okay, well you wantmy help as a central it leader.
You got to fit in my box.
And they're like, well, I don'tnecessarily fit or understand your
(09:39):
box because it doesn't necessarilyalign with what I'm trying to do.
And you mentioned well, that'swhere those conversations come in.
That's where getting out of youroffice and understanding what they're
trying to accomplish is so important.
That way you can accommodatethem , and they know how you're
all going to work together.
There's a, a rule called Kidlan's law.
(10:01):
if you could write the problemdown clearly and specifically,
then the matter is half solved.
The CIO, at least from my experience.
they should be investing is not intotechnology, but in the alignment of
the technology to the business outcome.
In other words, Steve, agreefirst to the what, before the
(10:22):
why, and ultimately the how.
I think the why and how is easy.
to agree to the what?
That's the art and science of what we do.
Yes.
I love that.
So the next thing I want to askyou is really around tackling
some workforce challenges.
One huge challenge today.
is finding and keeping talent,especially with the different
(10:45):
skill sets people need, AI, dataanalytics, all of that good stuff.
But from your perspective, how canleaders, especially in the public
sector upskill current employeeswhile also attracting next generation
of tech savvy professionals?
So lemme walk you through, , ajourney with when I was a CIO
(11:07):
at this, uh, California County.
talk about certifications and theconcept of continual learning.
Right?
So I inherited teams that had varyingdegrees of operational technical depth.
I've always said, Steve, thatfinance is the language of business.
You know, think aboutthat finance as a CIO.
(11:28):
I'm the one that's preachingfinances, the language of business.
If you can articulate the direct businessimpact and value to your customers in a
way that fosters engagements again, withthe finance and operational leaders,
then your ideas vaporware, right?
So, so I believe it leaders must becomethat tip of the spear for not just
thought and innovation leadership.
(11:51):
leadership as well.
So that said, finance isa language of business.
ITIL is the language ofrunning IT as a business.
So my first two months in thisrole, I mandated training, or I
set the seed get ITIL training.
So let's be clear what I meant by that.
(12:12):
I mandated the classroom ledinstruction piece, taking the
test, I didn't mandate passing it.
But I wanted my wholestaff to go through ITIL.
It was at that time ITIL V3.
I wanted my whole staff togo through ITIL V3 training.
If they took the exam andthey passed it, great.
(12:32):
was a huge kudos and wecelebrated that big win, right?
And, but let's be clear, although,you know, if they didn't pass the
test and they wanted to retest,I paid for that test as well.
Since then, every new hire that came onboard to the organization, I provided
That same onboarding ITIL experience.
And why did I do that?
(12:54):
As an IT organization, we all needa common language, a taxonomy that
defines business and operationalprocesses in order for us to be in sync.
If I, Steve, had to constantlyadapt my language to my audience,
whether it's business or technical,and I had to do so in a way because
(13:14):
I didn't think my own staff didn'tunderstand my vision, then shame on me.
Instead, I looked at ITIL.
I look at certifications and continuallearning as an opportunity to elevate
everyone that we're all in this case,speaking the proven structured methodology
of running IT as a business, that's numberone, you'll get a kick out of this one.
(13:38):
I gamified training.
Okay.
So, so I had a deputy CIO expressinterest in data analytics.
And Steve, you know, I'm Power BIcertified, I'm Tableau certified.
And so, I encouraged him to stretchand tackle the learning necessary
for that certification track.
know, he was a software developerby education and by experience.
(14:01):
So, he had to learn databasestructures, modeling, data cleansing,
etc. what we did, of public sourcedata, that are out there that you
could kind of manipulate and play with.
would get the same data source, hewould get the same data source, and
we'd spend a day or two tweakingthat data source and creating our
own visualizations against it.
(14:21):
show a mine, he would showme his, he would learn from
me, I would learn from him.
But that served as a successstory that inspired others across
the team to do similar, right?
So it was really a function of, youknow, teaching them how to fish.
And here's the other thing, Steve,is that securing next generation
pipelines requires attracting talent.
(14:43):
Let's not sugarcoat that.
There's huge headwinds in government.
Huge.
hmm.
Mm
economic, you know, from, from anexposure, from, uh, from an overall
technical roadmap point of view.
But here's what we did.
We partnered with ourlocal community colleges.
And I offered paid summer internships.
That was a huge success for us.
(15:04):
A, it gave us visibility into thedepth of their academic learnings.
hmm.
Mm hmm.
new thoughts and energy to the team.
And C, I had somebody else thatwas helping promote our mission
because that's effectively whatIT and government is, right?
That's the foundation is,you know, what's our mission?
(15:26):
I think that's the reason why peopleget into government and government
IT is that, you know, they want toimpact their local communities and
they love the idea of giving back.
A couple more things.
rotational programs, stretch assignments.
So, I came from an environmentwhere I spent 17 years at this media
and entertainment conglomerate.
(15:47):
And over the
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mm hmm.
approach that from a very basicpoint of view, what I call the
(16:09):
principle of shared equity.
invest in you, Steve.
You invest in us, Steve, together,we get a lot more what our
individual investments were.
And then, you know, not to mentionlike your traditional kind of
exposure to future technologyroadmaps and whatnot conferences.
I think oftentimes you can getcertifications there with a discount.
(16:32):
, we made a lot of investments with mystaff going to certifications, getting
certifications, going to conferences.
And it was kind of like a, , Danglingthe carrot in front of them.
That was their reward, right?
For putting in the work again,gamifying training, right?
And so that training and thatexposure to product roadmaps from
the OEM level from the partner level.
(16:52):
That's huge.
And as a CIO, I think it's importantthat we make those investments.
With the OEM so that we couldstay relevant benchmark other
similar companies and industries.
So we have a feel for what they're doingand how we could possibly apply that
for our local environments as well.
And then the last thingwas really interesting.
(17:15):
I, I partnered with Microsoft, right?
And we had what's calleda, an IT innovation day.
And what I did was I had Microsoftand the partner come to our
organization for eight hours.
And we had tracks arounddata and analytics, around
workplace engagement, security,
(17:37):
around collaboration andcommunication, and I opened that
up to the whole, organization,all 40 different departments.
I said, here's a structure.
Here's a schedule.
These were top tracks are aboutan hour or so long in length.
We had a schedule, we published it,I had the board announce it, I had my
boss, the chief officer announce it,and, advertise for it, what I, what we
(18:01):
were able to do, Steve, was we broughtin all of these different agencies.
And have them kind of like understandwhat our road map, what our future
vision was, and that this wasn'tjust my idea as a CIO, these were
backed you know, Microsoft, byall these product people, right?
(18:22):
And that was a big win for us becauseultimately what it did was it helped lower
that, that guard and that fear of change.
Particularly when you're trying topromote advanced transformation and
digital transformation initiatives.
Okay.
Now that's really good.
I got a couple of things I wrote downhere that I want to dig into a little bit.
(18:44):
, so 1, , was I love what yousaid about aligning with.
, different organizationslike the community college.
So I was, in, education and as anI. T. director, I was at a vote tech.
And, , one of the things we didwas, the superintendent wanted
help aligning the curriculum.
(19:05):
So I would go to the different,, cause I was in Delaware.
So we had a lot of banks.
, we had a lot of differentthings like that.
So I went and met with those leadersand,, ask them what they needed.
From a student perspectiveand what they needed to learn.
And so we talked a lot about programming.
We talked a lot about the servicesthat they were, looking for.
(19:26):
, I opened up the Cisco networkingAcademy so I can build those skills.
, really, really cool stuff, but it comes.
With those partnerships.
So I had great partnerships andquarterly, I would have them all in.
I give them a dinner andwe'd pick their brain.
Hey, what's relevant to you?
What do you need students to learn?
And then we would modify thecurriculum to meet those needs.
(19:46):
So it sounds like you were doing thesame thing at, the community college
level , and you were taking it a stepfurther by offering paid internships,
which allowed you to bring that talentin, get first Grab people potentially
I'm guessing at some point then, havethat pipeline for talent generation.
The
(20:08):
to be creative in government.
no mistake about it, as I've indicated,there are a lot of headwinds there,
but ultimately, it's, at the end ofthe day, particularly folks that are
early in their career journeys, Thatwant to get their foot in the door.
think, you know, being able topartner, for example, at the community
college or the local college levelis a huge benefit for us because it's
(20:31):
a, , it's a, it brings a certain levelof continuity to their experience.
You know, they're coming into avery rigorous type of environment
with their academic studies.
They're going into a very rigorous typeof environment, working , in a local
municipality or whatever the case may be.
So, there's, there'sless of a divide there.
and then ultimately, there's atremendous amount of structure, good
or bad, know, I think if you usestructure in a very good and productive
(20:54):
ways, there's a tremendous amount ofstructure, a hierarchy, if you will.
And I think that's going to helpthem understand how to kind of like
navigate, you know, not just theirand sharpen their technical skills,
but sharpen their soft skills as well.
the other piece that you mentioned, and Idon't think people know enough about this,
especially maybe at the CIO level, you hadmentioned partnerships with companies like
(21:19):
HPE, and building those relationships.
Cause I don't think peoplerealize how many free resources.
They have at their disposal, like someonelike yourself, you've been in, CIO shoes,
you've been there, and we're able tolink you up in certain cases at no charge.
And people could bangquestions off of you.
(21:41):
I think that's something that people don'trealize that we have all this engineering.
It's not necessarily just about.
Hey, buying, buying, buying.
What can I, sell you?
We bring so much more value,to helping their business.
Right.
Yeah, well, let's let's talk about it.
So here I gave you the example ofMicrosoft at the innovation day.
Hmm.
you about the richness of my relationshipwith HPE as a customer, right?
(22:04):
They sat at my staff meetings, HPE andmy partners sat at my staff meetings.
know, I come from a very, I mean,almost simplistic kind of perspective
of how I run IT as a business.
The more I show and expose you towhat it is I'm trying to do and why
(22:25):
I'm trying to do it, I think themore inclined, the more skin in the
game you have in wanting to help me,
Yes.
that simple.
Again, that shared equity model, right?
so what was really beneficial for HPE,mind you, Steve, this was pre COVID,
right, all the things that we were doingaround our strategy, around our analysis,
(22:46):
around our financial models, all of thatstuff, all was serving a critical purpose.
For when COVID did happen, COVIDdid occur, and we were prepared.
were prepared to burst.
We were prepared to pivot.
We were prepared to adapt to the needsof the business because I was no longer
an I. T. leader having to deal with theworld of sourcing when millions, if not
(23:11):
billions of people across the world weredealing with the same problems as well.
Right.
I'm happy to double click on that.
I think a couple of questions downstream.
We'll be able to talk alittle more about that.
But that's the
Yeah.
I think, Being able to establisha relationship with your partners,
(23:33):
a relationship with your OEMs, canhelp kind of ground you and help
really put things in the contextand things in the perspective.
we were doing things at the county levelthat other counties across the nation
weren't even thinking about doing.
And we were successful at it.
And so that was motivationfor me to hear that from HPE.
(23:56):
And saying, Hey man, what you'redoing here hasn't been done before.
So let's, let's kind of like, you know,dig into it and, be a little bold, be
a little aspirational, if you will.
Right.
I came from private sector.
I made no excuses and qualms about that.
And that's what the board of supervisorswanted from me was to think different.
And I use that as a catalyst for us toreally be tip of the spear for change.
(24:22):
I love that.
And I do want to tap into thatsome of that pandemic conversation.
But I got one lastfollow up question here.
, because when it comes to the workforce,as I've been talking, it seems like a
common problem that like, look, , you'redoing creative things and you're
bringing people in and you're doingcreative things around training.
(24:44):
But at the end of the day,sometimes there's just not
enough People to go around.
And so one of the things I've seen peoplestart to talk about is as a service.
Now you used to work in, as VP ofGreenLake specialty, which is our,
as a service model, I feel like.
Some of it is maybe people shouldbe thinking about getting out of
(25:07):
the basics of the data center andcorrect me if you don't, if you don't
align with this, but getting outof the basics of the data center.
So you could focus on what's important.
And maybe that's application development.
Maybe that's, , virtualization.
Maybe it's whatever,
Yeah.
but the hardware piece of it.
I don't know that you need toput as much as you used to.
So maybe leveraging as a servicemight make sense for some customers.
(25:31):
I, think, for those customers whereit doesn't make sense today, I think
it's just a matter of time, right?
It's, it's like the old security paradigm.
It's not a matter of if, but when youget a vulnerability occur, it's You
know, I when I think about as a service,first of all, you think if you're
thinking about a couple elements here,let's think about in the traditional
(25:51):
you know, as a service, by definition,allows you to optimize your operational
efficiency because you have automation,you have self service capabilities, you
have very rich reporting capabilities.
The idea then is that having thatlevel of instrumentation, you can now
as a be as a technology, as a businessleader discern where you want to focus
(26:15):
your energies and your attention on.
And so if you're automating all theruntime activities, the low hanging
fruit, if you will, activities, thenyes, Steve, then you are inevitably
bound to reduce time spent on operations.
Mm hmm.
your customer.
(26:36):
That's one piece, but there'sanother element I think of as a
service that's really crucial herethat people don't often talk about.
And that is, you know, when I thinkaround managing, to kind of like
Yeah.
risk around that and againstfuture pressure and headwinds.
what as a service does.
(26:57):
In my experience is that it gives youa hedge against, the roadmap for future
product capability services, right?
Gone are the days of, oh, that'san added value benefit you
have to pay additionally for.
as a service motion traditionally bundlesthat and that's part of your subscription.
That's number one, but I thinkthe, finance is a language
(27:17):
of business monitor here.
Steve is that, you know, as a servicegives you a more predictable and
consistent model when it comes to yourfinancial investment, because here's
the thing as a service forces you.
To think long term, 3, 4, 5 years.
Those are generally the sweetspots because if you start thinking
(27:38):
long term, you start thinkingabout the growth of change that's
happening within your organization.
You start thinking about how do you hedgeyour staff against, you know, future,
like, technical innovations and whatnot.
looking at potential millions ofsavings through this rationalization,
through this cooperative effort.
And so it really becomes a strategy bywhich you allow your your partner into
(28:06):
your world of what strategy you're tryingto build upon and the culture you're
trying to create in your organizationand then helping you build that process
and build That mechanism that's goingto help support your business for the
next three, four, five years, right?
Big change from the way it was donein it Gone are the days of being
able to get five ten fifteen percentyear over year refresh budget,
(28:29):
you know Incremental additionsthat stopped 10 years ago, right?
For sure.
I think everybody realizedthat, , do more with less now
is the kind of the way it is.
let's dig in a littlebit of that pandemic.
information.
So lessons from the pandemic.
Let's think through that a little bit.
The pandemic forced a lot of agencies
(28:52):
in so doing, that helps you elevateyour staff to higher order business.
Issues,
companies to really adapt to remote workand digital services almost overnight.
, how did that experience changethe way you approached everything
like hybrid infrastructure, , howyou deal with residents.
So like resident portals or AI drivenvirtual assistance, , where do you
(29:15):
think things are going and what cameout of , that pandemic experience.
So let's talk about covid.
let's talk about summer of 2020, right?
here's what I learned as a cio duringcovid Okay I didn't want to be in the
procurement business as an it leader andI learned that painfully during covid.
(29:36):
You know, I wanted the the the kindlike the the after action of covid
is, you know I wanted the flexibilityof consumption models I wanted to
avoid course corrections with theboard asking them you know every
fiscal year or whatever the case maybe of new investment dollars, right?
Because if I avoided course correctionswith the board then I avoided the
(29:58):
possibility of us, you know, having toadmit that, Hey, we didn't properly budget
for our strategy or we didn't properlycapacity plan for our, for our technology.
Right.
We needed to mature our businessprocesses such that I was serving
solutions out of the gate, right?
My business was consuming itand they were, and I was holding
them accountable because they ownthe consumption of the services.
(30:21):
So.
What COVID taught me isthis beauty called cards, 40
Okay.
(30:47):
that were generally funded, didn'thave the benefit Of having special
funds and so there are basicallyliving on piecemeal systems and
what COVID taught us is the more wewere able to simplify, standardize,
and operationalize our environment.
(31:08):
The better end user experiencewe would have, That's number one.
two, when you think about COVID, andthe amount of information that was just
being flooded to us, I had the benefitof already standardizing on my enterprise
collaboration and workforce tools.
I already had the benefit of standardizingon my enterprise, compute storage
(31:33):
and networking, , environment, so itwas an opportunity for us to burst.
It was, it was, , the lesson ofbursting was it gave me an opportunity
to meet with critical departments.
We were able to stand up VDI instances.
Because of our GreenLake ecosystem, wehad compute storage already on the floor.
We were able to turn it on,serve those new VDI instances.
(31:55):
We weren't able to do it overnightovernight, but we were able to
do it in a matter of days asopposed to weeks or months and
timing during COVID was crucial.
Right?
The other piece too is, from abusiness point of view, COVID taught.
as a CIO to be masterfulin storytelling, right?
(32:17):
Because it really elevated the role ofthe CIO to be a public facing function.
Let's think
Okay.
prior to COVID and correct me if I'mwrong here, Steve, right prior to COVID.
You know, it was really thoughtit was like a backdoor operation.
You know, these are guys and girlsthat just sat in the back room and they
(32:37):
were buying their computers 24 seven.
And, and, you know, that waspretty much the end of it.
Right?
But No Covid really elevated and increasedour political stake to the success of
the organization that we are a part ofthen gave me an opportunity to become
a storyteller in that fusion, that artand science of using visualization and
(33:00):
data analytics that gave me, examples ofbeing able to use resident constituent
centric kind of experiences that notonly informed them, but provided a clear
representation of how government wasserving them underpinned by technology.
Right.
I'll give you a perfect example, Steve.
I had one of the directors of animalservices come to me one day and I'll
(33:24):
never forget this really, and youknow, the story, really funny guy.
And, and he's like, he went out andsay, Hey Mac, you know, I don't care
what your political affiliation is.
Everybody loves puppies and kittens.
I'm like, Everybody doeslove puppies and kittens.
And I asked him, I said,so, so what bothers you?
I mean, what, why are you doingthe role that you're doing?
(33:45):
what's your get.
like, euthanizations.
He's like, you know, our organizationis known tragically across the
nation as being a high, kill shelter.
And I said, okay.
So what we did was we took thedata from their services, CRM,
for lack of a better term.
And I can tell you, I was ableto map an XY grid the amount
(34:08):
of euthanizations over time.
In this case, it was six years.
The amount of adoptions over time,also over that six year period.
And I could show you how is his marketingeffort and his team's marketing effort was
really moving that needle for number one.
And more importantly, I couldshow you the day when there was an
intersection between the amount ofeuthanizations and the amount of
(34:30):
adoptions that occur across the County.
that was a big deal for thisanimal services director to
the point where we had media.
We had news.
It was a big celebration becausefinally, he was fulfilling his mission
Mm
able to change the mindset.
Of county being a high, killshelter, county across the nation.
(34:51):
So, fundamentally, what we're doinghere now as an IT organization is
that we are our business's voices ina way that's never been done before.
Because we are co curating,co creating their stories for
them using data and analytics.
Yeah.
No, and I think it's great.
(35:12):
See, I think it once again, it comes backto something you said earlier, and it's
about people feeling comfortable with thatcommunication that they had with you for
him to be able to come to you with thatchallenge and you to be there and say,
Hey, What are you trying to solve for?
What's your issue?
Oh, , we can actually solve thisthrough data and, through technology
, like you said, , it has become a lotmore relevant and, it's more to the
(35:36):
forefront, which it needed to be becauseespecially like I came from a K 12
background and, , you're exactly right.
So many times we were just a cost center.
, they didn't see.
necessarily the impact ithad to the business until
something like COVID happened.
One of my happiest days.
Now I had left the school district,, when COVID hit, but my former
(35:56):
superintendent reached out to me andshe says, Steve, , people have been
saying, , how things are possible.
They're, they're not running aroundneeding to buy devices like other school
districts, because we've already doneone to one, , you already implemented.
, zoom and, communicationas far as our meetings.
So we already had the tool in place.
We already knew how to use it.
(36:17):
So it was funny because shesays, , they're reaching out to
me, thanking me, and she says.
You shouldn't be reaching out to me.
You should be reaching outto Steve because he's the one
that put all this in place.
And it was his forward thinking,, that, that allowed that to happen.
And, once again, it really showedwhat what's possible with it.
When you have some good leadership andyou have people that believe in you
(36:40):
and trust you and taking that visionand allowing you to put it in place.
And that was one of the proudestdays of my, total career, honestly.
Yeah.
And, and I think the, the last lesson,you know, that, that I learned from
COVID and I think is really, importanta government type of environment,
at least my experience, right.
What is, is the concept of failing fast.
(37:03):
Listen, there was no playbookfor what we were doing.
Steve, we were, we werethinking on the fly.
We were MacGyvering stuff for the,so, so for those of your audience
are old enough to watch the MacGyverseries, you know, back in the day,
Yep.
we were doing.
We were figuring things out.
We were figuring things out with our ownversion of duct tape and a screwdriver.
Right.
and this whole conceptof fail fast, which.
(37:26):
the benefit of really embodyingin my previous organizations.
It was just a natural evolutionfor, a very risk adverse kind of
environment to now have to be forcedto leaning into the risk because
the alternative of doing nothing wascatastrophic for our environment, right?
This was COVID that wewere dealing with, right?
(37:47):
And so, I think that was the biggestlesson for me and for our organization,
I think across the CIO communitywas being able to lean into doing
things differently, acceleratingthat process, not being so structured
and disciplined and orderly becauseyou knew that time mattered and it
(38:10):
mattered more so than any other timeof your professional experience.
For sure.
. Well said.
So I want to continue to dig intothe conversation a little bit and.
It really falls back into thatcommunication standpoint you
mentioned earlier, but cross agencycollaboration and sharing data, , for,
(38:31):
so many siloed data , is really theenemy of a great user experience.
But collaborating and sharing that dataacross agencies has its own challenges.
And depending on the level ofgovernment, it can definitely be tricky.
I know, like I've worked with attorneygeneral's offices before, and certain
people are allowed to see data.
Certain people weren't.
(38:52):
So that idea of sharingcan be challenging.
Sure.
From your perspective, , and fromthe idea of privacy and security,
what can you share about that?
So let's look at it.
I think from a there's a coupledimensions to your question.
I think let's look at it froma macro perspective, right?
So high altitude.
Let's think about the customer journeyfor whatever organization may be part
(39:14):
of whether it's a customer, whether it'sconstituent, whether it's a patient, you
know, depending on your industry, right?
customer journey is the get here.
The more you understand the inputs and theoutputs of that customer journey, right?
And I'll give you kind of like a realbasic example in the healthcare industry,
So when you look at the healthcareindustry, track patients or customer
(39:36):
journey would look something like this.
You track a patient from thepoint of initial engagement with
the doctor to assess a symptom.
Then the doctor that helps diagnoseit, then along that supply chain, if
you will, monitor that next input ofdiagnosing, maybe doing an x ray, and then
the next part of that supply chain is tointerpret that, that x ray, interpret that
(39:57):
diagnosis, then the short term treatment,followed by a long term treatment, etc.
There's a series of steps there.
It's clearly defined.
It's almost like if you were to doa, diagram you could see at step A,
step B, step C, step D, et cetera,what that patient is going through.
I think that same rigorneeds to apply across
(40:18):
Mm. Mm hmm.
Mm hmm.
(40:38):
Input, outcome of services becomes yetanother input to yet another agency's.
Services, right?
So, I'm Six Sigma certified.
There's a concept inSix Sigma called SIPOC.
an acronym for Supplier Inputs to aProcess that Outputs to a Customer.
SIPOC, right?
(40:59):
All that means to say is, Steve,we're a government agency, and
say we're part of public safety.
So, your Attorney General's Office.
you're the attorney general, and I'mthe, the probation department, okay?
So the attorney general sitsat this elevation that walks
(41:21):
through that customer journey.
The probation department sitsat this elevation that walks
through a customer journey.
the middle piece?
That is what I mean, and that'show I define cross agency
collaboration data sharing.
Notice, we're not eventalking about data here.
We're not talking about uniquerecords and sources of information.
(41:43):
I'm just talking strictly at that, lensof what is the The process that connects
the Attorney General to the probation,that's SIPOC, if you will, right?
So, again, I'll say it tillI'm blue in the face, man.
What business problem are you tryingto sculpt, are you trying to solve?
Because, you know, scope creepbecomes a real threat in that
(42:05):
everyone wants everything now.
I think it's easy to boilthe ocean, right, Steve?
So, in the world of counties,in my world, for example, Think
about it as centers of excellence.
I have public safety, public safety.
I have the sheriff, DA,probation, public services.
I have health, childsupport, behavioral health.
I have public recreation.
(42:26):
I would have parks and librariesthat would be classified in that.
So I think, you know, A good bestpractice around cross agency collaboration
data sharing starts with modelingthese centers of excellence around
those categories, and then exploringdifferent use cases and business
problems across those COEs, right?
(42:47):
And then what you do then is.
You're building advisory boardsacross those COEs so that you could
marshal those departments with, andyou're, you're emboldening them.
They have skin in the game and promotinga shared service and vision for that COE,
we could get into the data, but again,the, how, the, the, what, It's for me.
(43:11):
It's about the one, notthe how and the why.
I think being able to get the right peopletogether that have affinity to one another
and be able to talk through what thatcustomer journey is, what that patient
journey is, what that constituent journeyis, I think that's going to be able to
be gold and how we can kind of doubleclick into what additional governance
(43:36):
and policies and data sharing strategiesyou're going to need to implement.
What are your thoughts?
No, I think that I think that's great.
And it makes sense to me.
It's like, okay, people maybehave, similar challenges
or, especially data sources.
And so, okay, what are they tryingto accomplish and get people together
to kind of talk through that?
And then you can look long term.
(43:58):
Okay, obviously not looking tosolve a short term problem, but
a long term problem and saying,Hey, what are we trying to do?
And then trying to build a plan forwardof how you're going to address that.
That'd be, that's probably much easierthan trying to tackle the whole thing.
Maybe it's somethingthat gets there longterm.
Like if we're talking, creating some sortof, let's say modern application where.
(44:21):
You know, end user has their,their iPhone, and how can we bring
state government to the people?
Well, maybe, \\ there's a way once youhave some of these things built to, to
share additional data, but that's, that'sa long term problem of where to get there.
But it starts with somethingto maybe departmentalizing data
and then building from there.
(44:42):
But I think your example is very, I thinkit's an important example, but it's a
different type of relationship, right?
When I think about crossagency collaboration, I think
about two way relationships.
multi kind of functional relationshipsand with my idea around a center of
excellence for with public safety, youknow, Sheriff, DA, probation, public,
(45:06):
public defender, etc. There's a naturalneed to have information parsed back
and forth between those agencies.
So there's a level of complexity, Ithink, that we need to account for,
and that's why it's crucial for us toreally level set what is it that that
journey is of the person that we'retrying to track, as opposed to, I think,
(45:30):
what I heard from you was, hey, how dowe reach a constituent and have them,
you know, have them kind of report on apothole or, some type of civic kind of,
Mm hmm.
Type of relationship, right?
Because that's generally apush or a pull relationship.
When I think about in a cross agencycollaboration, that's both, right?
(45:52):
And there's multiple layersand multiple degrees there.
I think, you know, todaythere's plenty of examples.
We do it now at the city levelwhere you go open up your app.
you know, you know, Android enabled app,
Mm hmm.
you know, there's a, geo sensor thereand it tells you, okay, you know, you
(46:12):
want to report a pothole, boom, andthen you're pushing that information
to the people that's now going to beinformed to take, that, recommended
action, right, of filling the pothole.
Data sharing.
Absolutely.
But that's a differentlevel of data sharing.
And I think the utopia here for us, Steve,right, is that cross agency collaboration
(46:32):
where you're now being that you havekind of like these interfaces across
all of these different agencies, you'renow making a more informed decision how
you could now, in fact, affect your,policymaking and how your policymaking
could then impact, for the benefitof your constituents, your customers.
That makes a lot of sense.
(46:53):
Yeah, sometimes I lose track ofthe CIO piece of aligning that
vision once again, , to kind ofmake those connections at the top.
You know, I've never really had thosetype of conversation never needed
to, but that's that's a great point.
That's a great thought.
Thank you for that.
So moving on.
(47:14):
I want to talk a little bit about.
The future, and kind of the technologyroadmap and with AI kind of now being
the buzz, it's really everywhere.
what's coming down the pipe withquantum computing or privacy
regulations, you name it, , everybody'stalking about all of these things.
It's all coming so fast.
(47:36):
How do you create a roadmap thatstays flexible, but still keeps
everyone moving in the same direction?
Because, , , this space is getting crazy.
And for me, if a customer said,well, what's the expectation
for five years from now?
I have no idea.
How are they supposed to plan for that?
Hmm.
(47:58):
CIO, I don't createtech roadmaps as a CIO.
I create strategies as a CIO.
My vendors, my OEMs, my VARs, theycreate the tech roadmaps, right?
I think it's really a function of whatlane do I feel most comfortable in?
(48:20):
And as a CIO, you have to beaspirational in your long term strategy,
I think, without a doubt, right?
Shuhai, Steve, be ridiculous, man.
Be bold.
Because I guarantee you, the moreridiculous and bold you are, it's
not a matter of if, but when, thatvision, that bold vision will,
will, will likely materialize.
(48:42):
it's the concept of being ridiculousand bold and then using face
based planning where initiativesare broken down into short term,
medium term, long term objectives.
And in that way, I think, youknow, being bold, you're already
future proofing because you'rejust thinking boldly, right?
But the tech roadmap piece, youknow, I just want to make sure.
As a CIO and I struggled with thisright with my own staff and even
(49:06):
with my business is that they expectme to know everything and I won't.
I can't.
I don't have the capability to,could hold HPE accountable, right?
I could hold HPE accountable by saying,Hey, by opening my opening up my kimono
and saying, Hey, this is what I'mbeing pressed by the business to solve.
What are your thoughts?
(49:27):
That's where they helped mebuild that tech roadmap, right?
That's, that's number one.
Number two,
you know, aligning policy and governanceto the skills of your business.
Not to under underestimate theimportance of government, but it's
not like we're, we're solving worldhunger here, you know what I mean?
(49:53):
We need to be very pragmatic, yes,but practical around what business
problems we're trying to solve, right?
Because we have to reduce and thinkabout reducing the potential noise of
other departments wanting to naturallybe curious and wanting to participate.
It's almost like you have to thinkof this like a tiger team and learn,
(50:15):
again Steve, learn to fail fast, right?
Right.
So from my perspective, the futureproofing, the technology roadmap is really
a function of as a CIO being very boldand ridiculous, collaborating with your
OEMs, your VARs, working in government.
(50:36):
We had a bunch of what wecalled affinity groups.
So you have MESAC, uh, formunicipalities, you have, you know,
state, you know, affinity groups,you have California County affinity,
affinity groups like CSAC, et cetera.
You've got a wealth of privateand public partnerships.
Again, like I told my staff, if Iwas in my office more than 50 then
(50:59):
job because really that other 50percent was trying to create, trying
to build that, expand that net.
Of being able to collaboratewith other, with other entities
and other organizations, right?
But as you're doing that, Steve, bemindful of highlighting, right, that
problem statement across all theteams that you're collaborating with,
because they're either going to bedirectly or indirectly involved, but
(51:22):
they're going to be in a positionto help contribute to the solution.
Yeah, no, I love it.
And I think you nailed it.
a lot of it comes into relationships.
You can't know it all.
So you have to use thoserelationships to help guide,
you know, you create the vision.
Okay.
And then bringing in those OEMs andsay, and using their resources and
(51:43):
saying, okay, how can we get here?
How can we collaborate?
And how can you help mesolve these problems?
And that will help you see the necessarysteps to get where you want to go
and be prepared that, Hey, some ofthat's not going to work out and we're
going to need to pivot and be agile.
And that's okay.
Cause Hey, if we got to fail, fail fast, and do something different , and adjust.
(52:04):
So then that's great.
You know what one, customer ofmine did, it was a university and
I thought it was really great.
Every year they had a partner day, andthey brought everybody in all of the
partners they did a presentation.
It was about an hour or so.
And they said, here's our challenges.
Here's what we're working on this year.
So we're not really going to necessarilyneed to talk about anything else,
(52:27):
but if you have some way to helpus solve one of these problems,
Yeah,
we'll gladly schedule time with you.
And I thought that wasa really innovative way.
And actually , they even had lunch.
The kids made lunch.
, they had a culinary program orsomething and they provided food
and, I thought it was great.
(52:48):
'cause, you know, typically I'mthe guy that has to bring a bag of
donuts or something like that, andit was a really unique idea and I
haven't seen too many people do that.
But once again, leveraging thosepartnerships and I think it's
, really important and probablysomething not enough people do.
One of the last things I wantto talk about , is just next big
(53:08):
steps, maybe in the public space.
, if we're once again, kind of buildingfor where we're going and looking ahead,
what's the thing you're most excitedfor in state government and, when
we're looking out the next, I don'tknow if it's AI for you or, if I'm
a CIO , , and I'm thinking about wherethings are going, what's exciting.
(53:28):
Mm
technology is becoming more.
Of a focus on how we're able tobridge and create these stories
(53:51):
for for our constituents, right?
a couple of things.
It's super exciting for me as a technicalguy to know that I have in the power of
my iPhone, the ability reach out directlyto my government elected leaders tell them
what's working, what's not working in away that can get substantiated and acted
(54:17):
upon versus just an opinion in a free formtext box that gets read and gets deleted.
hmm.
Silence.
Silence.
Mm hmm.
(54:47):
Mm
that's backed by data.
Right?
Because you're getting that informationand you're synthesizing it, and now
you're being able to act upon that.
Bro, sign me up.
That's super exciting.
exciting for me.
(55:07):
Right?
Because that, to me, is in factreducing the layer of bureaucracy
between government people.
That's number one.
Number two, here's behind that, is asaspirational as that is, and I think it's
(55:28):
a very simple kind of use case, again,how do you know where you want to go
if you can't measure where you've been?
I think the bigger challenge rightnow, precluding AI, Or that's, that's
going to allow AI to give us even adeeper richness of relevant and credible
(55:50):
information is being able to reallytalk through that customer journey.
Right?
So let me tell you, give you examples.
So I partnered with theDepartment of Public Works.
and we were able to extract permits,so different types of permits, like
(56:11):
pool permits, roofing permits, youknow, improvement permits, et cetera.
And I was able to show through dataand analytics that a permit that was
submitted online is generally speakingone and a half times to two times faster
and fulfilling than a permit that wasfulfilled, was asked of in person.
(56:34):
Why?
Right?
That's really fascinating, right?
could tell you, down to anindividual user, or an engineer,
what their yields were for processingpermits versus other people.
So it gave you instrumentationaround how efficient people were.
(56:54):
In comparison to others inthe same, in the same role,
hmm.
something similar for, for OSHA,OSHA, which is the, you know, kind
of like safety violations, right?
Yep.
Yeah.
(57:16):
Yeah.
when, when you come across these types ofenvironments, that is to say, Steve, that
those are all going to be very valuableinputs into your AI models because the
(57:37):
more relevant, rich information you'regiven to your AI, the less risk of noise.
Measurable, repeatable information.
Right.
And so I think, you know, thenext big steps looking ahead, I
see as the biggest opportunitiesreally around predictive analytics.
(57:59):
I think it's really around, you know,giving a DA information around what's
going on, where are their hot spots ofcrime, so that we can start focusing
on crime prevention techniques aroundthose areas, and using that as kind of
like a playbook, because I still thinkat the end of the day, particularly
when it comes to government, there's atremendous amount of human intervention
(58:21):
and human oversight that's needed, right?
Because you, you still have towork within the context and the
framework of, of the politicalenvironment that you're in, right?
And not to sound controversial, but it,it would be nice to have information
that you can then use as a playbook tothen sequence and kind of instrument, you
(58:42):
know, in your own way in order for youto, to do what you were elected to do, you
Yeah.
of your constituents.
Let me just comment on that real quick.
, because I think you make a great pointand that's one of the things that I'm
most excited for is just being able tohave your own AI model based on your data.
(59:02):
And just being able to ask normalquestions like you're saying, , from
your example of safety, being ableto ask a question, when is the most,
, incidents happen and if we're at thecome back and say, okay at nighttime
when it's, when it's dark or a specifictime of day or night, it's when we're
having issues and , then you couldstart asking it additional questions.
Okay.
And really kind of, , have thisconversation to really get to the
(59:26):
nitty gritty of that data in a waythat you don't have to be an expert.
Right.
If you're, let's say you extended furtherway up the chain, maybe, leaders,
as far as like your legislation, yourrepresentatives, if they're able to ask
some common questions about the data.
And they can really enhance whatthey're doing and solve some of the
(59:47):
problems that they're hearing fromconstituents and really then make
real good data driven decisions
Yes.
of that.
So it's super exciting that we're goingto have the power to do some really unique
things that, really, if you were goingto do it before, it took a ton of effort.
without a doubt.
And listen, I think, datais irrefutable, Steve.
(01:00:11):
sitting as a CIO in a government, ina government capacity, working with
elected and non elected individuals,data is your anchor in a sea of opinions.
going to have, everyone's goingto have a competing point of
view or expect that, right?
And the way you're going to be ableto disarm that is through data.
(01:00:32):
And, and if as a CIO, if you're notleading, with data, then how can
you have data driven decision makingif you're not leading the data?
No, I love that.
All right.
Any, anything else on that point?
The parting advice between a CIOleading a major transformation.
(01:00:52):
if you don't have anygray hairs, you will.
Or balding, you will.
That will certainly happen.
Again, I mean, I'm fortunate, right?
You know, I came from an environmentwhere HPE, Took a keen interest in
what we were doing at the county leveland wanted to replicate that, you know
(01:01:14):
nationwide That's number one So there'sthat stickiness in relationships between
you as the CIO the technology leader andyour partners and your suppliers Don't
underestimate that fact, I would argueand say you're doing yourself and your
team and your organization a disserviceif you're not opening up your strategy
(01:01:35):
and your playbooks to them in order forthem to help kind of decipher and, and
quite frankly, challenge it and make surethat your assumptions are in fact true.
you know, adequate orif they may be biased,
Mm hmm.
Mm hmm.
(01:02:02):
Yep.
in your success and toactively participate, right?
As I told you, it's It's beenmy experience being a CIO.
It can be a very lonely job and it'snice to have someone that you can kind
of lean on or a group of individuals thatwith which you could lean on and kind of
(01:02:22):
keep you honest and keep you credible.
We've talked about data.
The data is your anchorin the sea of opinions.
It's irrefutable.
lead with it.
It takes the emotion away.
Data will not take the politics away.
But it reduces your liability as a leader.
Particularly in the governmentworld, the politics is a politics.
(01:02:44):
The board made it very clear tome, Mac you're not a politician.
You're not a bureaucratstick to your lane.
And that's exactly what I did.
But it took the emotion away, right?
Set your goals, define your vision,your problem statements, solicit buy in
man, adopt a policy of shared equity.
And what I mean by that, isSteve, we agree this, to this,
(01:03:06):
Steve, we want to do this.
Never a me, never an I thing.
It's always a we thing.
And then last but not least,put relationships first.
50%. you're in your office more than50 percent of the time and you're not
talking to your customers, you're nottalking to your business, if you're not
building relationships and partnerships,then I would argue, to re evaluate that.
(01:03:32):
And rethink that strategyas to why you may not be for
awesome hearing yourstories and your insights.
I love how you combine the bigpicture, strategic thinking
with your operational tactics.
So thank you so much for joiningme today on the show for all
for all you CIOs out there.
(01:03:52):
If you want to keep your hair, ifthat's important to you, I'm going
to go ahead and I mean, I mean,build those relationships and take
some of that pressure off of yourback, , because it's important.
It's, it's really important.
sure.
you, Steve.
Thanks so much.
I appreciate the service that you'redoing and, and let's, let's continue
to do the things that we do andthen really help elevate, everyone's
(01:04:15):
awareness to the, the kind of like theunion between business and technology.
Yep.
Now, awesome.
Thank you so much again to our listeners.
Thanks for tuning in.
I hope you enjoyed this episode.
Don't forget to subscribe andlike, and I love to hear in
the comments of your thoughts.
Give us a little bit of review.
Let Mac know, Hey, , this,this was a great point.
(01:04:36):
Or maybe you want to challenge Mac.
I mean, I think he's open to that.
We could always have him back on theprogram again and say, Hey, here's, what
different people felt about what we said.
And if you found this valuable,share it to a friend, share it
to a colleague, spread the word.
, because what we're trying to do , isreally help get the word out there
and just try to help educate, , andget people to understand that there's
(01:04:59):
a lot of challenges, but we're alldealing with the kind of the same thing.
So how can we help each other?
so until next time, keepthriving in ambiguity.
I'm Steve Mancini andI'll talk to you later.
Thanks, Mack.
Thanks, Steve.
Hey, everyone.
Welcome to Thriving in Ambiguity, thepodcast where we tackle the twists and
turns of enterprise and public sectorIT, ideally without losing our minds.
I'm your host, Steve Mancini,and I'm thrilled you've joined
us today for a conversationabout technology transformation,
leadership, and innovation.
And everything in between.
(00:26):
Today, I'm joined by someoneseen it all in the tech world.
My guest is Mac Avancena, a seasonedexecutive with over 25 years of
hands on experience in technologydelivery, operations and innovation.
He's tackled massive transformationsin both the private and public
sector, leading everything from biganalytics initiatives, the digital
(00:50):
transformation for major organizations.
mac has an MBA from NortheasternUniversity, plus certifications
in Six Sigma, PMP, and ITIL.
You name it, he's got it.
He's currently a Green LakeStrategy Executive and former
Vice President at HPE, focusing onGreen Lake as a service solutions.
(01:10):
And previously, Mac served as achief information technology officer
for one of the largest countiesin California, overseeing multi
million dollar I T. initiatives andleading high performance teams.
Mac's all about using data analyticsand proven methodologies to solve
business problems and drive outcomes.
(01:32):
I'm super excited to dive intoMac's insights on modernization,
the future of the workforce, and howAI is reshaping the public sector.
Mac, welcome to Thriving in Ambiguity.
Thank you so much.
I'm super pumped to be here, Steve.
This is a cool setup you have.
mac, you and I only met a few weeks ago.
(01:53):
But I could immediately sense weshare the same passion for tackling
big challenges in state government.
I knew right away then that I had tohave you on the show so we could dig
into some of these topics together.
For folks who don't know you yet, canyou tell them a little bit about your
passion to solve government tech problems?
And maybe a little bit of whyyou think it's crucial these
(02:15):
Steve, I, spent 17 years at a mediaand entertainment conglomerate,
a few years in aerospace.
And those organizations had ahuge history in process, rigor,
and discipline decision making.
when I became the CIO of this CaliforniaCounty, I fully believe that we're
all solving the same business problemsand that the alert for me was how
(02:37):
that strategy from my experience, youknow, running worldwide engineering
operations, data and analytics forvarious organizations, how that strategy
would impact our local economy andour local community for that matter.
In fact, that was a plus for the board.
Of supervisors, because I didn't haveany formal government background.
Hmm.
so with my career spanning all over theprivate sector, and that was kind of
(02:59):
like my catalyst to really pivot, dosomething different, be bold, and do
things in a way that possibly it hadn'tbeen done before with the outcomes that
I had in mind as a private sector guy.
The first thing I want toreally dig into is really around
leadership and modernization.
Now, you just mentioned how you've beenpart of multiple large scale digital
(03:22):
transformations, both in public andprivate sectors, but I want to When you're
dealing with legacy infrastructure andthe demand for digital everything, how
do you strike the right balance betweendelivering immediate results and building
a solid foundation for the long haul?
Solid foundation for the long haul.
Well, let's define what longhaul means first, right Steve?
(03:44):
How do you know where you want to go ifyou haven't measured where you've been?
The old adage of you don'tmanage what you don't measure.
It starts with understanding yourenvironment and applying rigor around
your vulnerabilities and blind spots.
Alignment with vendors and partners,I think are crucial as a CIO, as
(04:05):
you wouldn't as a CIO expect to beknowledgeable and everything technology.
Right.
The irony, Steve, is that today'sCIO manages a level of complexity
technically and now politicallymore than any other time, right?
In our history.
And so a CIO is multifaceted,touches every part of the business.
(04:26):
So alignment to strategic partners canhelp formulate that North star strategy,
you will, and then that becomes thecatalyst for detailed conversations
with business and finance leaders.
So that's how I think you establishthe groundwork for long term
modernization is measurement.
Modernization, Steve is a tough journey.
groundwork?
(04:47):
Political capital.
Political capital.
How do you get to political capital?
As someone that was coming from theoutside, going into a government
organization, it starts withthat vision that prioritizes
a reasonable phased approach.
Let's face it, people areafraid of change, right?
They get uncomfortable.
And so in any capacity where you're a tipof the spear for change, It's nice to have
(05:13):
people along the journey with you, right?
To have those peoplealong for the journey.
CIO role is already a lonely place to be.
You know, the buckstops at the CIO, right?
So in other words, Steve,it takes a village hybrid.
the connective tissue that integratescloud self service, and now AI while
(05:38):
bridging legacy systems, so how doyou balance legacy infrastructure,
demand for digital, everything?
The underlying foundational kindof tenant behind that is hybrid.
So don't underestimate your businessrelationships, invest heavily in those.
I used to tell my staff, Steve, that ifI was in my office more than 50 percent
of the time, I wasn't doing my job.
(06:01):
Although I was a CIO, my job effectivelywas to ensure that I was helping
transform the culture of thoughtleadership, which meant building
bridges of trust and credibilitywith all the businesses I supported.
Steve, is a means to an end.
I think we could agree with that.
And informs technologydecisions are business inputs.
(06:23):
We can't lead with solutions unlessour assumptions are a hundred percent
accurate, build the necessary politicalcapital so that the business sees
you as an advisor and trust yourinputs and how you're going to be
able to solve their business process.
I think you mentioned a couple thingsthere that I think are hugely important,
for 1, as we talked the other day.
(06:45):
1 of the big challenges and the thingsI learned early in my career, and
you mentioned it is communication.
Of change.
Sometimes I would think of thingsthrough my lens where I was okay with
the change because I saw where the, Iknew where the outcome was going to be
and I knew how it was going to benefitthe business, but I had to really
(07:07):
understand that, Hey, the people thatare going to feel this change the most,
they don't necessarily see that vision.
So you got to be extra clear in makingsure that they completely understand why.
Ya.
Otherwise they're going to push back.
So it's going back to that vision,making sure that they see that vision.
So it makes all thedifference in the world.
(07:27):
So I just really wanted to point that out.
Ya let me expand of that
you would ask the questionon the immediate results
or something to that effect.
So delivering immediate resultsand laying the foundation.
sure you agree to the businessproblems at hand first.
And what I mean by that, it's arelationship that you as a technology
leader has with the financial officersof your organization, with the
(07:51):
business, the stakeholders of yourorganizations, that way you're able to
marshal that political support neededto execute on that vision, right?
Call me biased, but in my experience,it's been, if you're not aligned to
defining the right business problem,which are financial, Operational and
business leaders, then your projectis subject to fail, or I'll be
(08:12):
provocative, Steve, and say it will fail.
you don't have that alignment, know,the three, you know, legs of the
stool between IT, finance and thebusiness, or are the operational
leaders, then your project will fail.
good point.
And I like how you said you almost haveto make sure that they see the problem
(08:32):
as well, because if they don't, if theydon't actually believe it's a problem.
Then you're not goingto garner their support.
Correct.
That's, that's, that's the underlying,root cause to the issues at hand,
right, is people need to be invested.
They need to have skin in the game.
And if you're not communicating, reachingout to them in a way where they feel
comfortable and they understand what painsyou're trying to surface to the table,
(08:55):
then they're not going to back you up.
They're not going tobe part of your journey
You, know, I love, that story.
, I love what you're talking about there.
, cause I've seen it too in, injust, , some of my interactions with
some state government customers I'veseen where , they really struggle
to communicate, , the vision.
I think, sometimes people getcaught up, maybe they've built
(09:17):
some great infrastructure and itreally works well and it's secure.
They're working with different agencies.
Right.
And then it's almost likewhat I saw sometimes is they
make you fit in that box.
It's like, okay, well you wantmy help as a central it leader.
You got to fit in my box.
And they're like, well, I don'tnecessarily fit or understand your
(09:39):
box because it doesn't necessarilyalign with what I'm trying to do.
And you mentioned well, that'swhere those conversations come in.
That's where getting out of youroffice and understanding what they're
trying to accomplish is so important.
That way you can accommodatethem , and they know how you're
all going to work together.
There's a, a rule called Kidlan's law.
(10:01):
if you could write the problemdown clearly and specifically,
then the matter is half solved.
The CIO, at least from my experience.
they should be investing is not intotechnology, but in the alignment of
the technology to the business outcome.
In other words, Steve, agreefirst to the what, before the
(10:22):
why, and ultimately the how.
I think the why and how is easy.
to agree to the what?
That's the art and science of what we do.
Yes.
I love that.
So the next thing I want to askyou is really around tackling
some workforce challenges.
One huge challenge today.
is finding and keeping talent,especially with the different
(10:45):
skill sets people need, AI, dataanalytics, all of that good stuff.
But from your perspective, how canleaders, especially in the public
sector upskill current employeeswhile also attracting next generation
of tech savvy professionals?
So lemme walk you through, , ajourney with when I was a CIO
(11:07):
at this, uh, California County.
talk about certifications and theconcept of continual learning.
Right?
So I inherited teams that had varyingdegrees of operational technical depth.
I've always said, Steve, thatfinance is the language of business.
You know, think aboutthat finance as a CIO.
(11:28):
I'm the one that's preachingfinances, the language of business.
If you can articulate the direct businessimpact and value to your customers in a
way that fosters engagements again, withthe finance and operational leaders,
then your ideas vaporware, right?
So, so I believe it leaders must becomethat tip of the spear for not just
thought and innovation leadership.
(11:51):
leadership as well.
So that said, finance isa language of business.
ITIL is the language ofrunning IT as a business.
So my first two months in thisrole, I mandated training, or I
set the seed get ITIL training.
So let's be clear what I meant by that.
(12:12):
I mandated the classroom ledinstruction piece, taking the
test, I didn't mandate passing it.
But I wanted my wholestaff to go through ITIL.
It was at that time ITIL V3.
I wanted my whole staff togo through ITIL V3 training.
If they took the exam andthey passed it, great.
(12:32):
was a huge kudos and wecelebrated that big win, right?
And, but let's be clear, although,you know, if they didn't pass the
test and they wanted to retest,I paid for that test as well.
Since then, every new hire that came onboard to the organization, I provided
That same onboarding ITIL experience.
And why did I do that?
(12:54):
As an IT organization, we all needa common language, a taxonomy that
defines business and operationalprocesses in order for us to be in sync.
If I, Steve, had to constantlyadapt my language to my audience,
whether it's business or technical,and I had to do so in a way because
(13:14):
I didn't think my own staff didn'tunderstand my vision, then shame on me.
Instead, I looked at ITIL.
I look at certifications and continuallearning as an opportunity to elevate
everyone that we're all in this case,speaking the proven structured methodology
of running IT as a business, that's numberone, you'll get a kick out of this one.
(13:38):
I gamified training.
Okay.
So, so I had a deputy CIO expressinterest in data analytics.
And Steve, you know, I'm Power BIcertified, I'm Tableau certified.
And so, I encouraged him to stretchand tackle the learning necessary
for that certification track.
know, he was a software developerby education and by experience.
(14:01):
So, he had to learn databasestructures, modeling, data cleansing,
etc. what we did, of public sourcedata, that are out there that you
could kind of manipulate and play with.
would get the same data source, hewould get the same data source, and
we'd spend a day or two tweakingthat data source and creating our
own visualizations against it.
(14:21):
show a mine, he would showme his, he would learn from
me, I would learn from him.
But that served as a successstory that inspired others across
the team to do similar, right?
So it was really a function of, youknow, teaching them how to fish.
And here's the other thing, Steve,is that securing next generation
pipelines requires attracting talent.
(14:43):
Let's not sugarcoat that.
There's huge headwinds in government.
Huge.
hmm.
Mm
economic, you know, from, from anexposure, from, uh, from an overall
technical roadmap point of view.
But here's what we did.
We partnered with ourlocal community colleges.
And I offered paid summer internships.
That was a huge success for us.
(15:04):
A, it gave us visibility into thedepth of their academic learnings.
hmm.
Mm hmm.
new thoughts and energy to the team.
And C, I had somebody else thatwas helping promote our mission
because that's effectively whatIT and government is, right?
That's the foundation is,you know, what's our mission?
(15:26):
I think that's the reason why peopleget into government and government
IT is that, you know, they want toimpact their local communities and
they love the idea of giving back.
A couple more things.
rotational programs, stretch assignments.
So, I came from an environmentwhere I spent 17 years at this media
and entertainment conglomerate.
(15:47):
And over the
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mm hmm.
approach that from a very basicpoint of view, what I call the
(16:09):
principle of shared equity.
invest in you, Steve.
You invest in us, Steve, together,we get a lot more what our
individual investments were.
And then, you know, not to mentionlike your traditional kind of
exposure to future technologyroadmaps and whatnot conferences.
I think oftentimes you can getcertifications there with a discount.
(16:32):
, we made a lot of investments with mystaff going to certifications, getting
certifications, going to conferences.
And it was kind of like a, , Danglingthe carrot in front of them.
That was their reward, right?
For putting in the work again,gamifying training, right?
And so that training and thatexposure to product roadmaps from
the OEM level from the partner level.
(16:52):
That's huge.
And as a CIO, I think it's importantthat we make those investments.
With the OEM so that we couldstay relevant benchmark other
similar companies and industries.
So we have a feel for what they're doingand how we could possibly apply that
for our local environments as well.
And then the last thingwas really interesting.
(17:15):
I, I partnered with Microsoft, right?
And we had what's calleda, an IT innovation day.
And what I did was I had Microsoftand the partner come to our
organization for eight hours.
And we had tracks arounddata and analytics, around
workplace engagement, security,
(17:37):
around collaboration andcommunication, and I opened that
up to the whole, organization,all 40 different departments.
I said, here's a structure.
Here's a schedule.
These were top tracks are aboutan hour or so long in length.
We had a schedule, we published it,I had the board announce it, I had my
boss, the chief officer announce it,and, advertise for it, what I, what we
(18:01):
were able to do, Steve, was we broughtin all of these different agencies.
And have them kind of like understandwhat our road map, what our future
vision was, and that this wasn'tjust my idea as a CIO, these were
backed you know, Microsoft, byall these product people, right?
(18:22):
And that was a big win for us becauseultimately what it did was it helped lower
that, that guard and that fear of change.
Particularly when you're trying topromote advanced transformation and
digital transformation initiatives.
Okay.
Now that's really good.
I got a couple of things I wrote downhere that I want to dig into a little bit.
(18:44):
, so 1, , was I love what yousaid about aligning with.
, different organizationslike the community college.
So I was, in, education and as anI. T. director, I was at a vote tech.
And, , one of the things we didwas, the superintendent wanted
help aligning the curriculum.
(19:05):
So I would go to the different,, cause I was in Delaware.
So we had a lot of banks.
, we had a lot of differentthings like that.
So I went and met with those leadersand,, ask them what they needed.
From a student perspectiveand what they needed to learn.
And so we talked a lot about programming.
We talked a lot about the servicesthat they were, looking for.
(19:26):
, I opened up the Cisco networkingAcademy so I can build those skills.
, really, really cool stuff, but it comes.
With those partnerships.
So I had great partnerships andquarterly, I would have them all in.
I give them a dinner andwe'd pick their brain.
Hey, what's relevant to you?
What do you need students to learn?
And then we would modify thecurriculum to meet those needs.
(19:46):
So it sounds like you were doing thesame thing at, the community college
level , and you were taking it a stepfurther by offering paid internships,
which allowed you to bring that talentin, get first Grab people potentially
I'm guessing at some point then, havethat pipeline for talent generation.
The
(20:08):
to be creative in government.
no mistake about it, as I've indicated,there are a lot of headwinds there,
but ultimately, it's, at the end ofthe day, particularly folks that are
early in their career journeys, Thatwant to get their foot in the door.
think, you know, being able topartner, for example, at the community
college or the local college levelis a huge benefit for us because it's
(20:31):
a, , it's a, it brings a certain levelof continuity to their experience.
You know, they're coming into avery rigorous type of environment
with their academic studies.
They're going into a very rigorous typeof environment, working , in a local
municipality or whatever the case may be.
So, there's, there'sless of a divide there.
and then ultimately, there's atremendous amount of structure, good
or bad, know, I think if you usestructure in a very good and productive
(20:54):
ways, there's a tremendous amount ofstructure, a hierarchy, if you will.
And I think that's going to helpthem understand how to kind of like
navigate, you know, not just theirand sharpen their technical skills,
but sharpen their soft skills as well.
the other piece that you mentioned, and Idon't think people know enough about this,
especially maybe at the CIO level, you hadmentioned partnerships with companies like
(21:19):
HPE, and building those relationships.
Cause I don't think peoplerealize how many free resources.
They have at their disposal, like someonelike yourself, you've been in, CIO shoes,
you've been there, and we're able tolink you up in certain cases at no charge.
And people could bangquestions off of you.
(21:41):
I think that's something that people don'trealize that we have all this engineering.
It's not necessarily just about.
Hey, buying, buying, buying.
What can I, sell you?
We bring so much more value,to helping their business.
Right.
Yeah, well, let's let's talk about it.
So here I gave you the example ofMicrosoft at the innovation day.
Hmm.
you about the richness of my relationshipwith HPE as a customer, right?
(22:04):
They sat at my staff meetings, HPE andmy partners sat at my staff meetings.
know, I come from a very, I mean,almost simplistic kind of perspective
of how I run IT as a business.
The more I show and expose you towhat it is I'm trying to do and why
(22:25):
I'm trying to do it, I think themore inclined, the more skin in the
game you have in wanting to help me,
Yes.
that simple.
Again, that shared equity model, right?
so what was really beneficial for HPE,mind you, Steve, this was pre COVID,
right, all the things that we were doingaround our strategy, around our analysis,
(22:46):
around our financial models, all of thatstuff, all was serving a critical purpose.
For when COVID did happen, COVIDdid occur, and we were prepared.
were prepared to burst.
We were prepared to pivot.
We were prepared to adapt to the needsof the business because I was no longer
an I. T. leader having to deal with theworld of sourcing when millions, if not
(23:11):
billions of people across the world weredealing with the same problems as well.
Right.
I'm happy to double click on that.
I think a couple of questions downstream.
We'll be able to talk alittle more about that.
But that's the
Yeah.
I think, Being able to establisha relationship with your partners,
(23:33):
a relationship with your OEMs, canhelp kind of ground you and help
really put things in the contextand things in the perspective.
we were doing things at the county levelthat other counties across the nation
weren't even thinking about doing.
And we were successful at it.
And so that was motivationfor me to hear that from HPE.
(23:56):
And saying, Hey man, what you'redoing here hasn't been done before.
So let's, let's kind of like, you know,dig into it and, be a little bold, be
a little aspirational, if you will.
Right.
I came from private sector.
I made no excuses and qualms about that.
And that's what the board of supervisorswanted from me was to think different.
And I use that as a catalyst for us toreally be tip of the spear for change.
(24:22):
I love that.
And I do want to tap into thatsome of that pandemic conversation.
But I got one lastfollow up question here.
, because when it comes to the workforce,as I've been talking, it seems like a
common problem that like, look, , you'redoing creative things and you're
bringing people in and you're doingcreative things around training.
(24:44):
But at the end of the day,sometimes there's just not
enough People to go around.
And so one of the things I've seen peoplestart to talk about is as a service.
Now you used to work in, as VP ofGreenLake specialty, which is our,
as a service model, I feel like.
Some of it is maybe people shouldbe thinking about getting out of
(25:07):
the basics of the data center andcorrect me if you don't, if you don't
align with this, but getting outof the basics of the data center.
So you could focus on what's important.
And maybe that's application development.
Maybe that's, , virtualization.
Maybe it's whatever,
Yeah.
but the hardware piece of it.
I don't know that you need toput as much as you used to.
So maybe leveraging as a servicemight make sense for some customers.
(25:31):
I, think, for those customers whereit doesn't make sense today, I think
it's just a matter of time, right?
It's, it's like the old security paradigm.
It's not a matter of if, but when youget a vulnerability occur, it's You
know, I when I think about as a service,first of all, you think if you're
thinking about a couple elements here,let's think about in the traditional
(25:51):
you know, as a service, by definition,allows you to optimize your operational
efficiency because you have automation,you have self service capabilities, you
have very rich reporting capabilities.
The idea then is that having thatlevel of instrumentation, you can now
as a be as a technology, as a businessleader discern where you want to focus
(26:15):
your energies and your attention on.
And so if you're automating all theruntime activities, the low hanging
fruit, if you will, activities, thenyes, Steve, then you are inevitably
bound to reduce time spent on operations.
Mm hmm.
your customer.
(26:36):
That's one piece, but there'sanother element I think of as a
service that's really crucial herethat people don't often talk about.
And that is, you know, when I thinkaround managing, to kind of like
Yeah.
risk around that and againstfuture pressure and headwinds.
what as a service does.
(26:57):
In my experience is that it gives youa hedge against, the roadmap for future
product capability services, right?
Gone are the days of, oh, that'san added value benefit you
have to pay additionally for.
as a service motion traditionally bundlesthat and that's part of your subscription.
That's number one, but I thinkthe, finance is a language
(27:17):
of business monitor here.
Steve is that, you know, as a servicegives you a more predictable and
consistent model when it comes to yourfinancial investment, because here's
the thing as a service forces you.
To think long term, 3, 4, 5 years.
Those are generally the sweetspots because if you start thinking
(27:38):
long term, you start thinkingabout the growth of change that's
happening within your organization.
You start thinking about how do you hedgeyour staff against, you know, future,
like, technical innovations and whatnot.
looking at potential millions ofsavings through this rationalization,
through this cooperative effort.
And so it really becomes a strategy bywhich you allow your your partner into
(28:06):
your world of what strategy you're tryingto build upon and the culture you're
trying to create in your organizationand then helping you build that process
and build That mechanism that's goingto help support your business for the
next three, four, five years, right?
Big change from the way it was donein it Gone are the days of being
able to get five ten fifteen percentyear over year refresh budget,
(28:29):
you know Incremental additionsthat stopped 10 years ago, right?
For sure.
I think everybody realizedthat, , do more with less now
is the kind of the way it is.
let's dig in a littlebit of that pandemic.
information.
So lessons from the pandemic.
Let's think through that a little bit.
The pandemic forced a lot of agencies
(28:52):
in so doing, that helps you elevateyour staff to higher order business.
Issues,
companies to really adapt to remote workand digital services almost overnight.
, how did that experience changethe way you approached everything
like hybrid infrastructure, , howyou deal with residents.
So like resident portals or AI drivenvirtual assistance, , where do you
(29:15):
think things are going and what cameout of , that pandemic experience.
So let's talk about covid.
let's talk about summer of 2020, right?
here's what I learned as a cio duringcovid Okay I didn't want to be in the
procurement business as an it leader andI learned that painfully during covid.
(29:36):
You know, I wanted the the the kindlike the the after action of covid
is, you know I wanted the flexibilityof consumption models I wanted to
avoid course corrections with theboard asking them you know every
fiscal year or whatever the case maybe of new investment dollars, right?
Because if I avoided course correctionswith the board then I avoided the
(29:58):
possibility of us, you know, having toadmit that, Hey, we didn't properly budget
for our strategy or we didn't properlycapacity plan for our, for our technology.
Right.
We needed to mature our businessprocesses such that I was serving
solutions out of the gate, right?
My business was consuming itand they were, and I was holding
them accountable because they ownthe consumption of the services.
(30:21):
So.
What COVID taught me isthis beauty called cards, 40
Okay.
(30:47):
that were generally funded, didn'thave the benefit Of having special
funds and so there are basicallyliving on piecemeal systems and
what COVID taught us is the more wewere able to simplify, standardize,
and operationalize our environment.
(31:08):
The better end user experiencewe would have, That's number one.
two, when you think about COVID, andthe amount of information that was just
being flooded to us, I had the benefitof already standardizing on my enterprise
collaboration and workforce tools.
I already had the benefit of standardizingon my enterprise, compute storage
(31:33):
and networking, , environment, so itwas an opportunity for us to burst.
It was, it was, , the lesson ofbursting was it gave me an opportunity
to meet with critical departments.
We were able to stand up VDI instances.
Because of our GreenLake ecosystem, wehad compute storage already on the floor.
We were able to turn it on,serve those new VDI instances.
(31:55):
We weren't able to do it overnightovernight, but we were able to
do it in a matter of days asopposed to weeks or months and
timing during COVID was crucial.
Right?
The other piece too is, from abusiness point of view, COVID taught.
as a CIO to be masterfulin storytelling, right?
(32:17):
Because it really elevated the role ofthe CIO to be a public facing function.
Let's think
Okay.
prior to COVID and correct me if I'mwrong here, Steve, right prior to COVID.
You know, it was really thoughtit was like a backdoor operation.
You know, these are guys and girlsthat just sat in the back room and they
(32:37):
were buying their computers 24 seven.
And, and, you know, that waspretty much the end of it.
Right?
But No Covid really elevated and increasedour political stake to the success of
the organization that we are a part ofthen gave me an opportunity to become
a storyteller in that fusion, that artand science of using visualization and
(33:00):
data analytics that gave me, examples ofbeing able to use resident constituent
centric kind of experiences that notonly informed them, but provided a clear
representation of how government wasserving them underpinned by technology.
Right.
I'll give you a perfect example, Steve.
I had one of the directors of animalservices come to me one day and I'll
(33:24):
never forget this really, and youknow, the story, really funny guy.
And, and he's like, he went out andsay, Hey Mac, you know, I don't care
what your political affiliation is.
Everybody loves puppies and kittens.
I'm like, Everybody doeslove puppies and kittens.
And I asked him, I said,so, so what bothers you?
I mean, what, why are you doingthe role that you're doing?
(33:45):
what's your get.
like, euthanizations.
He's like, you know, our organizationis known tragically across the
nation as being a high, kill shelter.
And I said, okay.
So what we did was we took thedata from their services, CRM,
for lack of a better term.
And I can tell you, I was ableto map an XY grid the amount
(34:08):
of euthanizations over time.
In this case, it was six years.
The amount of adoptions over time,also over that six year period.
And I could show you how is his marketingeffort and his team's marketing effort was
really moving that needle for number one.
And more importantly, I couldshow you the day when there was an
intersection between the amount ofeuthanizations and the amount of
(34:30):
adoptions that occur across the County.
that was a big deal for thisanimal services director to
the point where we had media.
We had news.
It was a big celebration becausefinally, he was fulfilling his mission
Mm
able to change the mindset.
Of county being a high, killshelter, county across the nation.
(34:51):
So, fundamentally, what we're doinghere now as an IT organization is
that we are our business's voices ina way that's never been done before.
Because we are co curating,co creating their stories for
them using data and analytics.
Yeah.
No, and I think it's great.
(35:12):
See, I think it once again, it comes backto something you said earlier, and it's
about people feeling comfortable with thatcommunication that they had with you for
him to be able to come to you with thatchallenge and you to be there and say,
Hey, What are you trying to solve for?
What's your issue?
Oh, , we can actually solve thisthrough data and, through technology
, like you said, , it has become a lotmore relevant and, it's more to the
(35:36):
forefront, which it needed to be becauseespecially like I came from a K 12
background and, , you're exactly right.
So many times we were just a cost center.
, they didn't see.
necessarily the impact ithad to the business until
something like COVID happened.
One of my happiest days.
Now I had left the school district,, when COVID hit, but my former
(35:56):
superintendent reached out to me andshe says, Steve, , people have been
saying, , how things are possible.
They're, they're not running aroundneeding to buy devices like other school
districts, because we've already doneone to one, , you already implemented.
, zoom and, communicationas far as our meetings.
So we already had the tool in place.
We already knew how to use it.
(36:17):
So it was funny because shesays, , they're reaching out to
me, thanking me, and she says.
You shouldn't be reaching out to me.
You should be reaching outto Steve because he's the one
that put all this in place.
And it was his forward thinking,, that, that allowed that to happen.
And, once again, it really showedwhat what's possible with it.
When you have some good leadership andyou have people that believe in you
(36:40):
and trust you and taking that visionand allowing you to put it in place.
And that was one of the proudestdays of my, total career, honestly.
Yeah.
And, and I think the, the last lesson,you know, that, that I learned from
COVID and I think is really, importanta government type of environment,
at least my experience, right.
What is, is the concept of failing fast.
(37:03):
Listen, there was no playbookfor what we were doing.
Steve, we were, we werethinking on the fly.
We were MacGyvering stuff for the,so, so for those of your audience
are old enough to watch the MacGyverseries, you know, back in the day,
Yep.
we were doing.
We were figuring things out.
We were figuring things out with our ownversion of duct tape and a screwdriver.
Right.
and this whole conceptof fail fast, which.
(37:26):
the benefit of really embodyingin my previous organizations.
It was just a natural evolutionfor, a very risk adverse kind of
environment to now have to be forcedto leaning into the risk because
the alternative of doing nothing wascatastrophic for our environment, right?
This was COVID that wewere dealing with, right?
(37:47):
And so, I think that was the biggestlesson for me and for our organization,
I think across the CIO communitywas being able to lean into doing
things differently, acceleratingthat process, not being so structured
and disciplined and orderly becauseyou knew that time mattered and it
(38:10):
mattered more so than any other timeof your professional experience.
For sure.
. Well said.
So I want to continue to dig intothe conversation a little bit and.
It really falls back into thatcommunication standpoint you
mentioned earlier, but cross agencycollaboration and sharing data, , for,
(38:31):
so many siloed data , is really theenemy of a great user experience.
But collaborating and sharing that dataacross agencies has its own challenges.
And depending on the level ofgovernment, it can definitely be tricky.
I know, like I've worked with attorneygeneral's offices before, and certain
people are allowed to see data.
Certain people weren't.
(38:52):
So that idea of sharingcan be challenging.
Sure.
From your perspective, , and fromthe idea of privacy and security,
what can you share about that?
So let's look at it.
I think from a there's a coupledimensions to your question.
I think let's look at it froma macro perspective, right?
So high altitude.
Let's think about the customer journeyfor whatever organization may be part
(39:14):
of whether it's a customer, whether it'sconstituent, whether it's a patient, you
know, depending on your industry, right?
customer journey is the get here.
The more you understand the inputs and theoutputs of that customer journey, right?
And I'll give you kind of like a realbasic example in the healthcare industry,
So when you look at the healthcareindustry, track patients or customer
(39:36):
journey would look something like this.
You track a patient from thepoint of initial engagement with
the doctor to assess a symptom.
Then the doctor that helps diagnoseit, then along that supply chain, if
you will, monitor that next input ofdiagnosing, maybe doing an x ray, and then
the next part of that supply chain is tointerpret that, that x ray, interpret that
(39:57):
diagnosis, then the short term treatment,followed by a long term treatment, etc.
There's a series of steps there.
It's clearly defined.
It's almost like if you were to doa, diagram you could see at step A,
step B, step C, step D, et cetera,what that patient is going through.
I think that same rigorneeds to apply across
(40:18):
Mm. Mm hmm.
Mm hmm.
(40:38):
Input, outcome of services becomes yetanother input to yet another agency's.
Services, right?
So, I'm Six Sigma certified.
There's a concept inSix Sigma called SIPOC.
an acronym for Supplier Inputs to aProcess that Outputs to a Customer.
SIPOC, right?
(40:59):
All that means to say is, Steve,we're a government agency, and
say we're part of public safety.
So, your Attorney General's Office.
you're the attorney general, and I'mthe, the probation department, okay?
So the attorney general sitsat this elevation that walks
(41:21):
through that customer journey.
The probation department sitsat this elevation that walks
through a customer journey.
the middle piece?
That is what I mean, and that'show I define cross agency
collaboration data sharing.
Notice, we're not eventalking about data here.
We're not talking about uniquerecords and sources of information.
(41:43):
I'm just talking strictly at that, lensof what is the The process that connects
the Attorney General to the probation,that's SIPOC, if you will, right?
So, again, I'll say it tillI'm blue in the face, man.
What business problem are you tryingto sculpt, are you trying to solve?
Because, you know, scope creepbecomes a real threat in that
(42:05):
everyone wants everything now.
I think it's easy to boilthe ocean, right, Steve?
So, in the world of counties,in my world, for example, Think
about it as centers of excellence.
I have public safety, public safety.
I have the sheriff, DA,probation, public services.
I have health, childsupport, behavioral health.
I have public recreation.
(42:26):
I would have parks and librariesthat would be classified in that.
So I think, you know, A good bestpractice around cross agency collaboration
data sharing starts with modelingthese centers of excellence around
those categories, and then exploringdifferent use cases and business
problems across those COEs, right?
(42:47):
And then what you do then is.
You're building advisory boardsacross those COEs so that you could
marshal those departments with, andyou're, you're emboldening them.
They have skin in the game and promotinga shared service and vision for that COE,
we could get into the data, but again,the, how, the, the, what, It's for me.
(43:11):
It's about the one, notthe how and the why.
I think being able to get the right peopletogether that have affinity to one another
and be able to talk through what thatcustomer journey is, what that patient
journey is, what that constituent journeyis, I think that's going to be able to
be gold and how we can kind of doubleclick into what additional governance
(43:36):
and policies and data sharing strategiesyou're going to need to implement.
What are your thoughts?
No, I think that I think that's great.
And it makes sense to me.
It's like, okay, people maybehave, similar challenges
or, especially data sources.
And so, okay, what are they tryingto accomplish and get people together
to kind of talk through that?
And then you can look long term.
(43:58):
Okay, obviously not looking tosolve a short term problem, but
a long term problem and saying,Hey, what are we trying to do?
And then trying to build a plan forwardof how you're going to address that.
That'd be, that's probably much easierthan trying to tackle the whole thing.
Maybe it's somethingthat gets there longterm.
Like if we're talking, creating some sortof, let's say modern application where.
(44:21):
You know, end user has their,their iPhone, and how can we bring
state government to the people?
Well, maybe, \\ there's a way once youhave some of these things built to, to
share additional data, but that's, that'sa long term problem of where to get there.
But it starts with somethingto maybe departmentalizing data
and then building from there.
(44:42):
But I think your example is very, I thinkit's an important example, but it's a
different type of relationship, right?
When I think about crossagency collaboration, I think
about two way relationships.
multi kind of functional relationshipsand with my idea around a center of
excellence for with public safety, youknow, Sheriff, DA, probation, public,
(45:06):
public defender, etc. There's a naturalneed to have information parsed back
and forth between those agencies.
So there's a level of complexity, Ithink, that we need to account for,
and that's why it's crucial for us toreally level set what is it that that
journey is of the person that we'retrying to track, as opposed to, I think,
(45:30):
what I heard from you was, hey, how dowe reach a constituent and have them,
you know, have them kind of report on apothole or, some type of civic kind of,
Mm hmm.
Type of relationship, right?
Because that's generally apush or a pull relationship.
When I think about in a cross agencycollaboration, that's both, right?
(45:52):
And there's multiple layersand multiple degrees there.
I think, you know, todaythere's plenty of examples.
We do it now at the city levelwhere you go open up your app.
you know, you know, Android enabled app,
Mm hmm.
you know, there's a, geo sensor thereand it tells you, okay, you know, you
(46:12):
want to report a pothole, boom, andthen you're pushing that information
to the people that's now going to beinformed to take, that, recommended
action, right, of filling the pothole.
Data sharing.
Absolutely.
But that's a differentlevel of data sharing.
And I think the utopia here for us, Steve,right, is that cross agency collaboration
(46:32):
where you're now being that you havekind of like these interfaces across
all of these different agencies, you'renow making a more informed decision how
you could now, in fact, affect your,policymaking and how your policymaking
could then impact, for the benefitof your constituents, your customers.
That makes a lot of sense.
(46:53):
Yeah, sometimes I lose track ofthe CIO piece of aligning that
vision once again, , to kind ofmake those connections at the top.
You know, I've never really had thosetype of conversation never needed
to, but that's that's a great point.
That's a great thought.
Thank you for that.
So moving on.
(47:14):
I want to talk a little bit about.
The future, and kind of the technologyroadmap and with AI kind of now being
the buzz, it's really everywhere.
what's coming down the pipe withquantum computing or privacy
regulations, you name it, , everybody'stalking about all of these things.
It's all coming so fast.
(47:36):
How do you create a roadmap thatstays flexible, but still keeps
everyone moving in the same direction?
Because, , , this space is getting crazy.
And for me, if a customer said,well, what's the expectation
for five years from now?
I have no idea.
How are they supposed to plan for that?
Hmm.
(47:58):
CIO, I don't createtech roadmaps as a CIO.
I create strategies as a CIO.
My vendors, my OEMs, my VARs, theycreate the tech roadmaps, right?
I think it's really a function of whatlane do I feel most comfortable in?
(48:20):
And as a CIO, you have to beaspirational in your long term strategy,
I think, without a doubt, right?
Shuhai, Steve, be ridiculous, man.
Be bold.
Because I guarantee you, the moreridiculous and bold you are, it's
not a matter of if, but when, thatvision, that bold vision will,
will, will likely materialize.
(48:42):
it's the concept of being ridiculousand bold and then using face
based planning where initiativesare broken down into short term,
medium term, long term objectives.
And in that way, I think, youknow, being bold, you're already
future proofing because you'rejust thinking boldly, right?
But the tech roadmap piece, youknow, I just want to make sure.
As a CIO and I struggled with thisright with my own staff and even
(49:06):
with my business is that they expectme to know everything and I won't.
I can't.
I don't have the capability to,could hold HPE accountable, right?
I could hold HPE accountable by saying,Hey, by opening my opening up my kimono
and saying, Hey, this is what I'mbeing pressed by the business to solve.
What are your thoughts?
(49:27):
That's where they helped mebuild that tech roadmap, right?
That's, that's number one.
Number two,
you know, aligning policy and governanceto the skills of your business.
Not to under underestimate theimportance of government, but it's
not like we're, we're solving worldhunger here, you know what I mean?
(49:53):
We need to be very pragmatic, yes,but practical around what business
problems we're trying to solve, right?
Because we have to reduce and thinkabout reducing the potential noise of
other departments wanting to naturallybe curious and wanting to participate.
It's almost like you have to thinkof this like a tiger team and learn,
(50:15):
again Steve, learn to fail fast, right?
Right.
So from my perspective, the futureproofing, the technology roadmap is really
a function of as a CIO being very boldand ridiculous, collaborating with your
OEMs, your VARs, working in government.
(50:36):
We had a bunch of what wecalled affinity groups.
So you have MESAC, uh, formunicipalities, you have, you know,
state, you know, affinity groups,you have California County affinity,
affinity groups like CSAC, et cetera.
You've got a wealth of privateand public partnerships.
Again, like I told my staff, if Iwas in my office more than 50 then
(50:59):
job because really that other 50percent was trying to create, trying
to build that, expand that net.
Of being able to collaboratewith other, with other entities
and other organizations, right?
But as you're doing that, Steve, bemindful of highlighting, right, that
problem statement across all theteams that you're collaborating with,
because they're either going to bedirectly or indirectly involved, but
(51:22):
they're going to be in a positionto help contribute to the solution.
Yeah, no, I love it.
And I think you nailed it.
a lot of it comes into relationships.
You can't know it all.
So you have to use thoserelationships to help guide,
you know, you create the vision.
Okay.
And then bringing in those OEMs andsay, and using their resources and
(51:43):
saying, okay, how can we get here?
How can we collaborate?
And how can you help mesolve these problems?
And that will help you see the necessarysteps to get where you want to go
and be prepared that, Hey, some ofthat's not going to work out and we're
going to need to pivot and be agile.
And that's okay.
Cause Hey, if we got to fail, fail fast, and do something different , and adjust.
(52:04):
So then that's great.
You know what one, customer ofmine did, it was a university and
I thought it was really great.
Every year they had a partner day, andthey brought everybody in all of the
partners they did a presentation.
It was about an hour or so.
And they said, here's our challenges.
Here's what we're working on this year.
So we're not really going to necessarilyneed to talk about anything else,
(52:27):
but if you have some way to helpus solve one of these problems,
Yeah,
we'll gladly schedule time with you.
And I thought that wasa really innovative way.
And actually , they even had lunch.
The kids made lunch.
, they had a culinary program orsomething and they provided food
and, I thought it was great.
(52:48):
'cause, you know, typically I'mthe guy that has to bring a bag of
donuts or something like that, andit was a really unique idea and I
haven't seen too many people do that.
But once again, leveraging thosepartnerships and I think it's
, really important and probablysomething not enough people do.
One of the last things I wantto talk about , is just next big
(53:08):
steps, maybe in the public space.
, if we're once again, kind of buildingfor where we're going and looking ahead,
what's the thing you're most excitedfor in state government and, when
we're looking out the next, I don'tknow if it's AI for you or, if I'm
a CIO , , and I'm thinking about wherethings are going, what's exciting.
(53:28):
Mm
technology is becoming more.
Of a focus on how we're able tobridge and create these stories
(53:51):
for for our constituents, right?
a couple of things.
It's super exciting for me as a technicalguy to know that I have in the power of
my iPhone, the ability reach out directlyto my government elected leaders tell them
what's working, what's not working in away that can get substantiated and acted
(54:17):
upon versus just an opinion in a free formtext box that gets read and gets deleted.
hmm.
Silence.
Silence.
Mm hmm.
(54:47):
Mm
that's backed by data.
Right?
Because you're getting that informationand you're synthesizing it, and now
you're being able to act upon that.
Bro, sign me up.
That's super exciting.
exciting for me.
(55:07):
Right?
Because that, to me, is in factreducing the layer of bureaucracy
between government people.
That's number one.
Number two, here's behind that, is asaspirational as that is, and I think it's
(55:28):
a very simple kind of use case, again,how do you know where you want to go
if you can't measure where you've been?
I think the bigger challenge rightnow, precluding AI, Or that's, that's
going to allow AI to give us even adeeper richness of relevant and credible
(55:50):
information is being able to reallytalk through that customer journey.
Right?
So let me tell you, give you examples.
So I partnered with theDepartment of Public Works.
and we were able to extract permits,so different types of permits, like
(56:11):
pool permits, roofing permits, youknow, improvement permits, et cetera.
And I was able to show through dataand analytics that a permit that was
submitted online is generally speakingone and a half times to two times faster
and fulfilling than a permit that wasfulfilled, was asked of in person.
(56:34):
Why?
Right?
That's really fascinating, right?
could tell you, down to anindividual user, or an engineer,
what their yields were for processingpermits versus other people.
So it gave you instrumentationaround how efficient people were.
(56:54):
In comparison to others inthe same, in the same role,
hmm.
something similar for, for OSHA,OSHA, which is the, you know, kind
of like safety violations, right?
Yep.
Yeah.
(57:16):
Yeah.
when, when you come across these types ofenvironments, that is to say, Steve, that
those are all going to be very valuableinputs into your AI models because the
(57:37):
more relevant, rich information you'regiven to your AI, the less risk of noise.
Measurable, repeatable information.
Right.
And so I think, you know, thenext big steps looking ahead, I
see as the biggest opportunitiesreally around predictive analytics.
(57:59):
I think it's really around, you know,giving a DA information around what's
going on, where are their hot spots ofcrime, so that we can start focusing
on crime prevention techniques aroundthose areas, and using that as kind of
like a playbook, because I still thinkat the end of the day, particularly
when it comes to government, there's atremendous amount of human intervention
(58:21):
and human oversight that's needed, right?
Because you, you still have towork within the context and the
framework of, of the politicalenvironment that you're in, right?
And not to sound controversial, but it,it would be nice to have information
that you can then use as a playbook tothen sequence and kind of instrument, you
(58:42):
know, in your own way in order for youto, to do what you were elected to do, you
Yeah.
of your constituents.
Let me just comment on that real quick.
, because I think you make a great pointand that's one of the things that I'm
most excited for is just being able tohave your own AI model based on your data.
(59:02):
And just being able to ask normalquestions like you're saying, , from
your example of safety, being ableto ask a question, when is the most,
, incidents happen and if we're at thecome back and say, okay at nighttime
when it's, when it's dark or a specifictime of day or night, it's when we're
having issues and , then you couldstart asking it additional questions.
Okay.
And really kind of, , have thisconversation to really get to the
(59:26):
nitty gritty of that data in a waythat you don't have to be an expert.
Right.
If you're, let's say you extended furtherway up the chain, maybe, leaders,
as far as like your legislation, yourrepresentatives, if they're able to ask
some common questions about the data.
And they can really enhance whatthey're doing and solve some of the
(59:47):
problems that they're hearing fromconstituents and really then make
real good data driven decisions
Yes.
of that.
So it's super exciting that we're goingto have the power to do some really unique
things that, really, if you were goingto do it before, it took a ton of effort.
without a doubt.
And listen, I think, datais irrefutable, Steve.
(01:00:11):
sitting as a CIO in a government, ina government capacity, working with
elected and non elected individuals,data is your anchor in a sea of opinions.
going to have, everyone's goingto have a competing point of
view or expect that, right?
And the way you're going to be ableto disarm that is through data.
(01:00:32):
And, and if as a CIO, if you're notleading, with data, then how can
you have data driven decision makingif you're not leading the data?
No, I love that.
All right.
Any, anything else on that point?
The parting advice between a CIOleading a major transformation.
(01:00:52):
if you don't have anygray hairs, you will.
Or balding, you will.
That will certainly happen.
Again, I mean, I'm fortunate, right?
You know, I came from an environmentwhere HPE, Took a keen interest in
what we were doing at the county leveland wanted to replicate that, you know
(01:01:14):
nationwide That's number one So there'sthat stickiness in relationships between
you as the CIO the technology leader andyour partners and your suppliers Don't
underestimate that fact, I would argueand say you're doing yourself and your
team and your organization a disserviceif you're not opening up your strategy
(01:01:35):
and your playbooks to them in order forthem to help kind of decipher and, and
quite frankly, challenge it and make surethat your assumptions are in fact true.
you know, adequate orif they may be biased,
Mm hmm.
Mm hmm.
(01:02:02):
Yep.
in your success and toactively participate, right?
As I told you, it's It's beenmy experience being a CIO.
It can be a very lonely job and it'snice to have someone that you can kind
of lean on or a group of individuals thatwith which you could lean on and kind of
(01:02:22):
keep you honest and keep you credible.
We've talked about data.
The data is your anchorin the sea of opinions.
It's irrefutable.
lead with it.
It takes the emotion away.
Data will not take the politics away.
But it reduces your liability as a leader.
Particularly in the governmentworld, the politics is a politics.
(01:02:44):
The board made it very clear tome, Mac you're not a politician.
You're not a bureaucratstick to your lane.
And that's exactly what I did.
But it took the emotion away, right?
Set your goals, define your vision,your problem statements, solicit buy in
man, adopt a policy of shared equity.
And what I mean by that, isSteve, we agree this, to this,
(01:03:06):
Steve, we want to do this.
Never a me, never an I thing.
It's always a we thing.
And then last but not least,put relationships first.
50%. you're in your office more than50 percent of the time and you're not
talking to your customers, you're nottalking to your business, if you're not
building relationships and partnerships,then I would argue, to re evaluate that.
(01:03:32):
And rethink that strategyas to why you may not be for
awesome hearing yourstories and your insights.
I love how you combine the bigpicture, strategic thinking
with your operational tactics.
So thank you so much for joiningme today on the show for all
for all you CIOs out there.
(01:03:52):
If you want to keep your hair, ifthat's important to you, I'm going
to go ahead and I mean, I mean,build those relationships and take
some of that pressure off of yourback, , because it's important.
It's, it's really important.
sure.
you, Steve.
Thanks so much.
I appreciate the service that you'redoing and, and let's, let's continue
to do the things that we do andthen really help elevate, everyone's
(01:04:15):
awareness to the, the kind of like theunion between business and technology.
Yep.
Now, awesome.
Thank you so much again to our listeners.
Thanks for tuning in.
I hope you enjoyed this episode.
Don't forget to subscribe andlike, and I love to hear in
the comments of your thoughts.
Give us a little bit of review.
Let Mac know, Hey, , this,this was a great point.
(01:04:36):
Or maybe you want to challenge Mac.
I mean, I think he's open to that.
We could always have him back on theprogram again and say, Hey, here's, what
different people felt about what we said.
And if you found this valuable,share it to a friend, share it
to a colleague, spread the word.
, because what we're trying to do , isreally help get the word out there
and just try to help educate, , andget people to understand that there's
(01:04:59):
a lot of challenges, but we're alldealing with the kind of the same thing.
So how can we help each other?
so until next time, keepthriving in ambiguity.
I'm Steve Mancini andI'll talk to you later.
Thanks, Mack.
Thanks, Steve.
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