I was Living the Dream…

Strategy Priorities

I took on some additional responsibility last month. For the first time in Nebraska history, I, the State CIO, became the functioning Interim Director of the Department of Administrative Services.
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5 Simple Questions of Cyber Security

2018 Cyber Security Conference

Last month I had the honor of speaking to a group of nearly 400 at the 13th annual Nebraska Cyber Security Conference, organized in partnership between Southeast Community College and the State of Nebraska. How sensational, to be present among so many individuals who understand the importance of security and how it fits into their daily responsibilities.
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Agile Leadership

Highway through woods

This past year we have increasingly discussed Agile development in our organization. State governments like Nebraska are interested in Agile because it promises more fluid production processes and more response from customers. Agile has an appropriate place and time, as do other development methods which we have diligently addressed during these conversations in Nebraska.
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Cooperation

Planning for now, not later

The Office of the CIO’s largest accomplishment to date is not design and consolidation of the Network Architecture. Not the consolidation of State Agency data centers. Not the elimination of more than 20% of the State’s servers. Not the high availability of our two Data Center strategy. Not the consolidation of State-owned servers in 93 counties. Not the reduced time to resolve issues. Not the reduced travel from moving to regional support centers.
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Hide and Watch

Person stepping on wet paint in parking lot

“Hide and watch” is a Texas expression that I use, and yet no one from Nebraska has called me out for using it or asked me what it means. However, “hide and watch” is one of those idioms with multiple implications that changes meanings depending on the situation. Without doubt the phrase always means much more than one would assume. Like many terms from the south (ie: “bless your heart”) “hide and watch” has definite negative implications in certain situations, and in other situations its meaning has truly positive intentions. I will admit the negative use of the phrase far outweighs the positive, in both life and in practice.. ...
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An Army Brat's Views on Culture Change

Hanau Post Guard Gate in the 1970s

On June 9th I celebrate my third year as CIO here at the State of Nebraska. It has been a great experience and an honor to represent the State’s technology organization. This milestone serves as a good time to look back and appreciate how much we have accomplished as a team. It has also caused some self-reflection, as I think about my experiences growing up and how they still influence me to this day, especially so close to Father’s Day. ...
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Plan to Fail(over)

Ed Toner standing by servers

I remember being asked a few years ago, “What are you going to do if we need to failover to our disaster recovery site?” My quick but not very politically correct answer was, “I will be working on my resume.” We did not have a plan to failover. We had not provisioned the disaster recovery environment in a way that replicated our production environment and it would take days to build it out. So we lacked a plan. ...
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Silo Thinking

Man working inside a box

Some time ago at the State of Nebraska, we recognized it was inefficient for our technology resources to work in IT silos. Prior to consolidation, IT silos existed in every individual agency. As any productive business would do, we began working to break down these legacy silos across the enterprise through organizational and technological change. ...
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NextGen OCIO

venn diagram image illustrating DevOps

The OCIO’s 2018 initiative is to focus on the role of software delivery and support which is a best practice framework for Development and Operations. “DevOps” has many different definitions...
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It was a Good Tuesday

Site Support team imaging laptops

Monday (Presidents Day) started with a phone call informing me the building that housed the Department of Insurance was on fire. The initial focus for an IT team during a business continuity event is restoration of IT infrastructure. My preliminary thoughts went to our recently completed consolidation effort which safeguarded the technology during the event. ...
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2017 Customer Service Year in Review

Survey Satisfaction Rating

Last July I wrote a blog titled Fundamental Data. I discussed the need for measurement of Customer Satisfaction through collection and analysis of data. In order to improve, an organization needs to be able to monitor performance progress against service goals...
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