Why was Rogers attending county-focused breakout sessions and talking with his local-government counterparts? What’s the state’s interest in all this county business?
“It’s beneficial to both sides for us to talk,” Rogers told Techwire in an interview at the San Diego conference. “It goes both ways. The most important thing is that we collaborate and share.”
Rogers said CDT and the county CIOs share one overarching goal: “How are we spending our tax dollars? Are we all spending as wisely as we can? Does it really make a difference if we’re a state or a county? Talking about these things is only a good thing.”
Rogers noted that innovation in government IT occurs at different speeds. A large department in state government can’t be as nimble — or “agile” — as a smaller county operation might be.
“There are some counties further along in some areas than we are,” he said. “We can learn from how they’ve tackled some of the things we’re facing.”
In addition, as a leading proponent of the state's cloud services, he serves as a contact point for county CIOs looking for options.
Another area in which the state and counties have overlapping interests is in the area of cybersecurity. At the conference, state Chief Information Security Officer Peter Liebert was part of a cybersecurity panel discussion involving county CIOs. Techwire will have more on that discussion later this week.
