County Chief Information Officer Chris Cruz will unveil the Regional Innovation for Sustained Excellence (RISE) plan on March 20 at a gathering in Stockton, where he’s scheduled to be joined by other government IT executives including Stockton’s CIO, Norbert Ruijling. AT&T will also have a representative on hand for a discussion about 5G. (Techwire plans to cover the event.)
The strategic plan, Cruz told Techwire, is “a digital services strategy for San Joaquin County that includes our educational institutions — University of the Pacific, San Joaquin Delta College — our public partnerships, all of our cities.” He said the goal is to devise “one digital strategy for the entire county that aligns with the Board of Supervisors’ business plan, that also takes into consideration all our key vendor partners and, really, anybody that does business with San Joaquin County.”
As an organization, RISE was created in 2018 by San Joaquin County’s then-CIO, Jerry Becker, who’s since been promoted to assistant county administrator. Cruz has gotten his predecessor’s blessing to tune it up and grow its footprint.
The digital services strategy will focus on new ways the county can lead local government and educational entities to use common solutions to address shared problems, including homelessness and other initiatives that are also receiving attention from state government.
“We’re looking at coming up with technology to address homelessness in San Joaquin County,” Cruz said. “How do we do Homeless ID? How do we exchange information in the county, including with the cities, to make us more effective in addressing homelessness?
“Also, chatbots — we’re standing up a number of chatbots now, and we’re doing a pilot. … So how do we extend that chatbot functionality for utilization with other cities — Manteca, Lodi, Tracy, Stockton? And how do we utilize that tech so we’re not building new tech over and over again for the county? How do we share data better across the county? How do we use data, for instance, in our Health and Human Services? Those are all included in that strategy.”
The economic challenges in San Joaquin County are another hurdle for those looking to technology for solutions.
“How do we do data that provides a high return on the investment for the county and allows for affordability for the county? Because that’s a big challenge in our county,” Cruz said. “There’s the haves and the have-nots, so how do we bridge the digital divide — and do it in a way where we’re not spending a bunch of money on technology that’s not sustainable?”
Before taking the CIO position just over a year ago, Cruz was the state’s deputy chief information officer and chief deputy director of the California Department of Technology (CDT). In that role, he had a chance to see what all 58 counties in the state were doing with IT innovation.
“We’ve been looking at Sonoma County,” Cruz said, citing the high-profile tech projects that county has undertaken including a 360-degree plan encompassing services for residents dealing with homelessness, mental illness, crime, poverty and displacement due to wildfires. That project involved IBM's Watson product, and SimpliGov was also part of the solution.
Sonoma’s Watson-based plan, Cruz said, “involves a pretty substantial investment that San Joaquin County would have to make that we can’t afford. So we’re looking at other options very similar to that, with our Community Based Networking with Digital Health, and Dignity Health. … We’re looking at other organizations where we can share data, distribute it appropriately, make informed decisions, but make sure it’s affordable down the line. Our county is a conservative county, so fiscal cost containment is very important in the decisions we made, and that was really driving this digital strategy.”
As the technology has changed and grown more complex, Cruz said, so has the job of the CIO.
“Today’s CIO needs to think about digital services and being an innovative and transformative CIO,” he said, “so I am transitioning myself into this role of digital services … to modeling the way throughout the county. How do we do that? How do we bring services to bear more efficiently and effectively? How do we utilize technology and data in doing so?”
The county hired Folsom-based Continuity Consulting to develop the digital services blueprint. It’s the same firm Cruz contracted with for Vision 2020, CDT’s strategic plan, when he was deputy state CIO and spearheading the same process for the state.
“We budgeted for this plan in the current (county) budget … so I got approval from the Board of Supervisors, in essence, when they approved the budget in July,” he said. Cost was around $200,000.
County officials and RISE members hope to have finalized the strategic plan by summer.
"I’m going to use the committee as our external governance structure," Cruz said. "That governance structure also includes the state CIO’s office. Amy Tong is invited to those meetings, and (CDT Deputy Director) Stephanie Tom showed up to a (recent) meeting. So there’s cross-pollination and alignment with what the state’s trying to do with digital services. I’m just trying to get out ahead of the curve. … I’m going to expedite that and show them that a county next door can be successful and work with its constituents. That being said, I’m also bringing them into the plan creation.”
Cruz strives for alignment with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s stated initiatives and priorities, including helping homelessness through technological transformation and innovation.
“The counties do get money from the state,” Cruz noted, “so we want to be sure we’re in alignment.”
“Our core goal is to establish expectations so when vendors approach us about priorities, they understand what our priorities are,” Cruz said. “They can review and be part of our digital services strategy. I’m hopeful that they will propose solutions to meet our needs. And given that those solutions will be articulated in the plan, they’ll be better-equipped to deliver services to San Joaquin County and our cities and educational institutions as well. As we effectuate the plan, we’ll have those requirements included in all our RFPs moving forward.
“There’s also a common strategy and a common focus with how we work with our vendors. So if we’re doing (a 5G program) with AT&T, maybe San Joaquin County is the leader, or maybe the city of Stockton is. But we’re leveraging the assets that are going in the ground for the benefit of the community. We’re taking a regional approach to managing and implementing technology in today’s digital age.”
Any conversation about IT innovation in San Joaquin County has to include at least a mention of “the barge” — a floating data center moored in the Port of Stockton that the city hopes to unveil in coming weeks.
Cruz said, “The barge will be a big part of the digital services strategy — leveraging green technology to put up a Tier 3 data center.”
Techwire will have more about the barge in coming days.
