Several ongoing IT initiatives are on the cusp and should yield results in coming weeks, state Chief Information Officer Amy Tong and other executives said during the morning event at the Crocker Art Museum. Among the takeaways:
• During the next couple of weeks, the Department of General Services (DGS) will release a new solicitation aimed at attracting IT vendors with Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) Mod certification, and expanding the state’s existing vendor list. DGS is working with California Department of Technology (CDT) subject matter experts to “hopefully give vendors more opportunity to compete,” said Angela Shell, DGS deputy director of the Procurement Division.
“It’s likely to take a few months because we do use our 6611 procurement process, which is our negotiation process, and we end up negotiating with each vendor," Shell told Techwire. "And sometimes that can take a little bit of time. I would expect it to take two to three months at a minimum, to be able to get through the solicitation and get vendors finally on contract." Shell is also the state’s chief procurement officer.
• The state continues a job search for its second-ever Chief Data Officer, according to Tong and Michael Wilkening, special adviser on Innovation and Digital Services in the Office of the Governor. That will set the stage for what the CIO called “an exciting year ahead” in opening remarks.
California’s first CDO, Zachary Townsend, took the position June 30, 2016, stepping down in 2017. He’s now an associate partner with McKinsey & Co. The next CDO will “set the vision for making data a useful strategic asset in service of the public — and catalyze progress,” according to the job interest form. The new CDO will report to the secretary and undersecretary of the Government Operations Agency, and he or she will be picked by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
“It’s an appointment, so we have to go through the appointments process. I’m hoping it will be within a couple months,” Wilkening told Techwire.
• The state’s GIS “portal of portals” is “hopefully going to get launched by the end of the year” to showcase data in graphic as well as tabular formats, Tong said. The site, announced Nov. 8 by CDT’s Office of Enterprise Technology, will provide public and private sector access to state data related to geographic information system data.
“And that’s a way of continuing to push data from its use of displaying open data made available for research to transforming into analytics and ways to use data to do projections,” Tong said.
• The upcoming Cloud Readiness Playbook, one of the tech initiatives discussed at CDT’s Vendor Event last month, was targeted to roll out last week — but because of the Thanksgiving holiday, should instead see a soft launch this week, said CDT Chief Enterprise Architect Ben Word. He emphasized its collaborative nature, pointing out that there’s no “one-size-fits-all” way to move to cloud.
“This is where we’re going to be leveraging — it’s a real collaboration between the customers and the vendor community as well. So, this is where we’ve got to figure out the government’s part of this. How do we get you guys engaged so that you can share some of your experiences of what’s going on out there?” Word said.
• DMVs nationwide are modernizing in an effort to improve “the government experience,” said Joe Morris, vice president of research for the Center for Digital Government.* That’s “the notion that we, regardless of what demographic we are, want and desire a better experience from our governments,” he said. California’s DMV has taken considerable steps this year to drive enrollment for the federally required Real ID, to move interactions online whenever possible, and to improve its internal processes. Wait times are getting shorter, Morris said, but ideas of what constitutes government experience continue to evolve.
“Now you’re seeing discussions around (artificial intelligence); you’re seeing discussions around the use of chatbots when it comes to DMV. I suspect we’ll see more focus on mobility. And this isn’t just going to be something that is focused on the modernization of DMV, but at many of the government agencies where we have high caseloads and high citizen interaction,” Morris said.
*The Center for Digital Government is part of e.Republic, parent company of Techwire.
