State and Local IT Pros Share 2015 Wish Lists
What’s on your IT wish list?
StateTech posed the question to IT professionals in capacities across government. We didn’t restrict their answers but rather encouraged them to think outside the box, beyond a specific tool or technology. Below are some of their responses:
Stu Davis, CIO, Ohio
Spending more time collaborating rather than finding reasons why it can’t be done tops Davis’ priority list. “We spend a lot of cycles defusing the hurdles one by one thrown in our way on why we can’t work together,” he said.
He also wants to see security personnel engaged and embedded in all aspects of business and technology efforts. This is especially true in the application and software development lifecycle. “Engage security early and often” is his motto.
Also top of mind for Davis: developing streamlined data-sharing agreements so the government can share relevant data across programs, divisions, departments and agencies to better support services to citizens and businesses without compromising privacy, security or sensitivity restrictions.
Keith Young, security official, Montgomery County, Md.
The biggest challenge for chief information security officers is limited budgets, Young said. “I’ve heard this now across the entire security industry with few exceptions,” he said.
People are finding alternatives to traditional IT departments and services, and that is affecting how CISOs define security threats against the organization and track the movement of agency data. Users and security officials need education and training.
Young is also focused on making county services more accessible to residents.
Bill Schrier, senior policy adviser to the chief information officer of the state of Washington
As video cameras become more ubiquitous, there’s a growing need for content recognition software to help keep tabs on that content, Schrier said. “But, like the thousands of unindexed photographs most people have lurking somewhere on hard drives and smartphones, video is hard to index and identify for future use. Content recognition software is still inadequate — basically under development,” he said.
Good content recognition software can help agencies detect unauthorized use of copyrighted material and assist with indexing video clips, and it could also “form the basis for databases of video useful for a variety of purposes, such as storage and indexing of police body-worn camera video.”
Schrier would also like to see more widespread adoption of cloud computing. “While some governments use cloud services such as Accela for permitting, Workday for human resources and Socrata for open data, most applications continue to live in expensive government-owned data centers operated by government employees,” he said.
