We’re not talking about finally resealing the driveway or losing 10 pounds, but tightening up business processes and doubling down on the technology priorities that state and local government IT organizations held in their sights last year.
Los Angeles Chief Information Officer Ted Ross told StateScoop he thinks 2023 will be a “pivotal” year following the stresses of the COVID-19 pandemic. As some IT organizations emerge from the often-frenetic pace of work during the health crisis, the lessons gleaned during that period may translate into new ways of working and realigned priorities.
Oregeon CIO Terrence Woods said his department hasn’t changed its values or mission, but is moving forward with an updated framework that prioritizes legacy system modernization, open data and cloud computing.
Over email, CIOs shared with StateScoop some of their technology resolutions for 2023, offering a window of what they hope is to come.
With the Texas Legislative Session beginning on Jan. 10, I’m directing my team at the Texas Department of Information Resources to focus this year on increasing savings, value and security for the state and local entities we serve. We’ve asked lawmakers for additional resources to better serve our customers and protect Texas from cybersecurity threats, as well as statute clarifications to simplify our programs. Internally, we will focus on improving customer and employee experience and ensuring we understand and meet the business needs of those we serve. We also look forward to providing Texans with a positive and streamlined digital experience of government. For DIR, 2023 will bring less red tape and improved service for all we serve.
With the start of 2023, Oregon Enterprise Information Services will be releasing a version 2.0 of our EIS Strategic Framework (oregon.gov). The core of who we are — our mission, vision and values — remains the same. The updated framework will again commit to a progressive set of goals and objectives that focus on the maturation of our people, processes and technologies. Legacy system modernization, open data, cloud and shared services will remain at the forefront and help foster alternatives to traditional IT delivery models. We will partner with state agencies as we critically examine business processes in a way that will continue to enable change — better decision making, increased efficiencies and more personalized customer experiences.
I believe 2023 will be a pivotal year. Organizations digitized quickly after the COVID-19 pandemic, but often did so hastily and are feeling the need to scale and refine their digital capabilities. In addition, cyber criminals continue to take advantage of these hasty digital solutions and the reduced visibility and vigilance coming from hybrid telework. Therefore, my first 2023 professional New Year’s resolution is to fully implement the zero-trust cyber security model across our networks and systems. The “never trust, always verify” zero-trust model has become essential in both preventing the intrusion and limiting the scope if it does happen. My second resolution is to expand on and refine the City of Los Angeles digital transformation that has occurred in the last two years. This includes targeting any remaining manual business processes, optimizing existing workflows and standardizing key platforms. Most importantly, these renewed 2023 digital transformation efforts will focus on new ways for technology to assist Mayor Karen Bass in our critical state of emergency on homelessness across Los Angeles.
New Jersey’s technology priorities heading into 2023 can be thought of as having two major components — resident experience improvement with digitization, and legacy technical debt reduction. For me personally, the focus is on 5 c’s that are heavily interrelated: collaboration, communication, commonality, consolidation and compliance.
In the past three years, many of our state agencies were faced with a massive spike in demand with the onset of the pandemic, and through the efforts of various teams across these agencies, capacity was added and many services were pushed online from prior being transacted on paper or requiring in-person contact. These were pockets of quick response — individual projects undertaken under often extreme circumstances to meet an immediate need. Heroes emerged and New Jersey owes a debt of gratitude to them.
But these implementations were often disparate. Different vendors — sometimes using a different web presence and different technologies — resulted in digital services that at times were disparate. A resident that wants to interact with digital New Jersey sees varying types of “look-and-feel” as well as multiple identity and credentialing presentations. Our efforts have begun to shift towards ensuring that each new system implemented or that undergoes a substantial upgrade or modernization, takes on a more common branding of New Jersey and operates on resilient and stable infrastructure.
Just as the gym is jam-packed on Jan. 1 and all but deserted by the end of the month, resolutions have a way of fading into the background pretty quickly. I’m thinking more in terms of our solid emphases for 2023, forging ahead on our commitments to strengthen state government’s IT capabilities and improve citizen services. We’ll continue migrating agency applications and systems to cloud computing environments. We’ll keep working to empower communities through the expansion of broadband services and connectivity for even the most remote parts of Georgia. And we’ll keep our eyes fixed on cybersecurity, ensuring that we have the right policies in place and adding new tools where we need them. Making real progress will mean we stay in the gym innovating and improving all year long.
The Florida Digital Service will be pushing hard in 2023 to continue scaling the successes of the DeSantis administration as we continue on our mission to become the national leader in cybersecurity and digital transformation. 2022 saw Florida transform from zero state agencies ever having sharing cybersecurity data in real time to more than 30 agencies operationally integrated in the state’s first ever enterprise-wide cybersecurity operations center. 2023 will be the year that those capabilities and partnerships scale beyond state government to launch the most advanced whole of state cybersecurity operation in America.
This team will continue making history in Florida as long as we remember how this turnaround started, what it was built upon, and refuse to get complacent. We’ve made the progress we’ve made as quickly as we’ve made it because we truly believe in understanding the customer’s need and then doing whatever it takes to deliver for them in a way that continuously increases their trust in our organization. Our team has to be prepared to solve for almost anything on any given day and perhaps nothing in my tenure has illustrated that more than the state’s response to Hurricane Ian. The remarkable team of people who have bought into the mission and to each other have consistently answered the call and, as a result, have us set up to do some really special work together over the next few years.
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