NASCIO Voices
A podcast from the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO). Amy Glasscock and Alex Whitaker interview guests (state CIOs, NASCIO members, strategic partners and colleagues) to get their unique stories and perspectives on state information technology, leadership and lessons learned.
Episodes
Amy and Alex talk about Amy's experience last week hosting guests from the Hubert Humphrey Fellowship Program in Lexington on behalf of NASCIO and Alex gives an update on federal affairs. Plus we talk about all the major pop culture news of the last couple of weeks.
Amy and Alex are joined by NASICO President and Texas state CIO Amanda Crawford to discuss her president's initiative around state IT procurement and the report that was released last week. NASCIO held a number of listening sessions between state and corporate members to learn about procurement pain points and how to to avoid them.
See the report here: https://www.nascio.org/resource-center/resources/2025-presidents-initiative...
Chris Rein stops by the NASCIO Voices podcast to talk about his initiatives in New Jersey. We talk about updating infrastructure, balancing innovation with AI and citizen concerns, his advice for new CIOs and he tells us the most "New Jersey" thing about himself.
Amy and Alex are joined by Georgia state CIO Shawnzia Thomas. We talk about her four years at GTA and how AI has changed the work of the organization during that time. We also talk about her other priorities in the state and her favorite thing to buy for $10.
Alex and Amy are joined by NCSL's Legislative Director Barrie Tabin to talk about the proposed federal 10-year moratorium on states regulating AI. We discuss why our two organizations are working together to oppose the proposal as well as our work around preserving the State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program. Plus we look ahead to some fun summer plans.
https://www.nascio.org/press-releases/nascio-statement-on-efforts-to-pr...
Amy and Alex are joined by NASCIO policy analyst Kalea-Young Gibson to talk about her new report, Unlocking Potential: Empowering Re-entry Through Cybersecurity Training. The cybersecurity workforce gap is growing—and so is the urgency to find new solutions. In this episode, we explore an unexpected yet promising approach: training incarcerated individuals for careers in cybersecurity. With hundreds of thousands reentering society ...
Goodbye to National Harbor, hello to Philadelphia. Alex and Amy are joined again by NASCIO's director of experience and engagement, Emily Lane to talk all about what we can expect at the NASCIO Midyear Conference coming up in Philadelphia. We talk about programming changes, a new city, themes and apps Emily just can't live without!
Today Alex fills us in on the recent hearing on the State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program and the testimony from Utah CIO Alan Fuller and CT CIO Mark Raymond. We also talk about making our homes more energy efficient and the new publication coming out on privacy.
Find the recording and testimony here: https://homeland.house.gov/hearing/cybersecurity-is-local-too-assessing-the-state-and-local-cybersecurity-grant-program/
Today Alex and Amy are joined by Waldo Jaquith with US Digital Response to discuss a new joint publication on improving the RFP process with a simple summary sheet.
We also discuss the importance of user research and who would play us in a movie.
See the report and summary sheet template here: https://www.nascio.org/resource-center/resources/improving-rfps-with-user-research-how-summary-sheets-can-improve-solicitations/
Alex and Amy talk with Bryan Zaczek who works as a principal data scientist with the state of Indiana's Management Performance Hub. Bryan walks us through the art of prompt engineering to get better answers from generative AI tools. We also talk about how we are using GenAI in our personal lives!
Today Amy and Alex talk about how the federal funding freeze might affect the Cybersecurity Grant Program and state IT offices. Plus Amy tells Alex about what she learned about the Japanese local government system, their workforce challenges that look a lot like ours and what she was most impressed by in her recent trip to Japan representing NASCIO.
NASCIO's 2025 federal advocacy priorities are released! Alex gives us the rundown. https://www.nascio.org/government-affairs/federal-advocacy-priorities/
Kalea Young-Gibson, NASICO's policy analyst also joins to give us an overview of the DOJ final rule for accessibility for state and local government websites and apps.
Alex, Amy and Meredith from the NASCIO team disucss our predictions for the trends that will affect cybersecurity, privacy, AI, enterprise architecture, workforce and DC. We also give our pets some new year's resolutions.
Amy and Alex are joined by Eric Sweden, program director for enterprise architecture and governance with NASCIO, for our annual NASCIO Top Ten episode. Come for the data, stay for Eric's Christmas medly on the guitar! Eric tells us all about what's on these lists for 2025, how the lists have changed over the years and what's staying consistent.
Top 10
Find out where we've been, what we did and all we accomplished as a community in our episode wrapping up the year at NASCIO. Alex and Amy have a conversation covering our events, publications, awards, advocacy priorites and some fun things too. And yes, they tell you what was on their Spotify Wrapped lists too.
Alex and Amy are joined this week by NASCIO's deputy executive director Meredith Ward and Deloitte's Srini Subramanian to talk about the 2024 Deloitte-NASCIO Cybersecurity Study. We talk about the changing role of the state CISO, why budget woes are back and how CISO's are handling generative AI. Come for the great cyber content, stay for the seven minute lightening round where we talk about what they would be doing...
Today Amy and Alex talk about the new NASCIO report on how states are using generative AI. This was a President's Initiative Report spearheaded by the past year's President Jim Weaver, North Carolina's state CIO.
Find out key findings from the report such as:
- The role of the state CIO when it comes to generative AI
- The most common business practices for generative AI in the states
- Why some states aren'...
Amy and Alex sit down with Texas State CIO and Executive Director (and NASCIO's new president!) Amanda "Mandy" Crawford to talk about her involvement with NASCIO over the years, her priorities in Texas and her thoughts on a presidential initiative. And of course, in our Lightening Round we also hear about her thoughts on fall, hobbies and Halloween plans.
Fresh off the NASCIO Annual Conference, Amy and Alex use the magic of Notebook LM to give us an audio overview of the NASCIO 2024 State CIO Survey. Hear how this AI tool summarizes the main ideas in the survey and even plays up this year's "building blocks" theme.
Read the survey for yourself here: https://www.nascio.org/resource-center/the-2024-state-cio-survey/
It's time for the NASCIO Annual Conferece preview episode with our own director of experience and engagement, Emily Lane.
We'll be getting together very soon in The Big Easy! Find out what to wear for the Awards and Recognition Dinner, what you'll learn in the learning lounges and who our keynote speakers are. Plus, you'll learn how to hear directly from state CIOs and where to charge your phone and net...
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