Future Ready: A Playbook for 2020 And Beyond

Editor's Notes

• #2: Good afternoon. It’s great to be with you here in Frankfort and I’m looking forward to sharing the thoughts of the Center for Digital Government with you. This is a tough spot to be in. You’ve just had lunch and desert awaits you at the end of my presentation. I promise to not take it personally if there is a stampede to the doors in about 50 minutes!
• #3: At the Center, we think that 2020 will turn out to be a pivotal year in the journey toward citizen-centric government. The premise for this presentation is to look at what’s coming around the corner. What should organizations be thinking about? What issues should you be exploring? How should you respond - both organizationally and personally? What are the nuances you should be thinking about and how should you be getting your non-IT leaders engaged?
• #4: We’ve grouped our thoughts into 5 areas to help shape this conversations. How will data privacy impact the experience of government and the future of work? What about cybersecurity and emerging technologies and their role within governments going forward?
• #5: Our first prediction is that data privacy is going to (rightfully) have an outsized influence within state and local government and will influence how the citizen experience with government is shaped moving forward. This will move from a news item and will be front and center for legislative and programmatic leaders to weigh in on and set new policy for.
• #6: the EU General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR – came into effect in May 2018. Some of its provisions are at odds with conventional American views of privacy but GDPR has compliance implications for organizations that operate globally and, these days, that’s most organizations. GDPR is changing the world's view of data privacy – and giving legislators an opening within which to act. One of the most controversial elements of GDPR is the right to be forgotten and the notion that users can request that their data be completely expunged.
• #7: In 2018, here in the US, we started to see elements of an organic privacy movement emerge from conversations taking place across the country. In many ways, privacy is being thrust into the spotlight – through high profile corporate breaches to a myriad of legislative measures in state houses to the actions of trading partners across the globe. In addition, Chief Privacy Officers are starting to be named at a growing rate. (could add mention of California regulation…)
• #8: This is a graph noting how many state Chief Privacy Officers have been named since 2003. As you can see, both the number and pace of appointments has increased considerably.
• #9: As the graph would lead you to believe, 83% have been in the position for less than four years.
• #10: Traditionally when you think about privacy, you might consider the settings on each individual app on your phone. But the conversation has evolved. Agencies must start to think about privacy as a fundamental right (the way Europeans do) instead of just a setting on an app or personal info as a commodity that can be used as currency in the marketplace. We've seen a lot of movement at the state and local level around users gaining more control of the use of their data.
• #11: Colorado passed a Consumer Data Privacy Act that went into effect September 1, 2018. It’s like GDPR in that it gives users control and the ability to see what levels of information that the state has on them.
• #12: Clearly, Data privacy is trending. There have been at least 312 data privacy bills introduced at the state and local levels this year. The worrisome part is that at least 86 bills have been enacted that have direct data privacy implications on state and local government agencies. They have to work their way through the system, and they have different enactment dates. These are new regulations to which we need to start to pay attention. There's also fragmentation across the country. Minnesota is ahead of the curve and filing quite a few bills. As a result of all this state and local effort, we may eventually end up with state by state GDPR equivalents.
• #13: But make no mistake, your personally identifiable information has economic value. Just ask California Governor Gavin Newsom about something he calls the new data dividend….
• #16: His rough math suggests the bidding should start at about 2 grand.
• #21: Against that daunting backdrop, there is still a lot of promise. The citizen experience with government will be radically different than it has ever been – and that’s a good thing.
• #25: Now we will talk through what we see as the evolving landscape of government experience. For the most part government agencies own their own channels.
• #26: For example, a website has been an experience you can lock down and control. You set the branding guidelines. You control the design.
• #27: Now we see third-party platforms like the Amazon Echo, Google Home and a variety of voice assistants and chat bots are starting to work their way into the citizen interface.
• #28: An agency can create an app and add it as a skill on the Amazon Echo. However, the Echo is not an experience or platform they fully control. The front door of government is no longer its own, and this has ramifications for how we build and plan infrastructure and apps going forward.
• #29: The slightly scarier version of experience, and where this is all seems to be heading, is when third parties work their way into the system that interface with government, whether it’s online or offline, and create an experience in place of government. If a process is clunky or if it's a legacy process that requires you to physically show up there's technology that's now latching onto that.
• #30: There's an interesting and controversial company called yogov that allows you to have someone wait in line for you at the DMV. The DMV is one of the most legacy environments you can think of in that it requires you to take time off of work and show up somewhere (that is not inherently a bad thing but sill an old process in the era of shopping on the internet rather than driving to the mall). Yogov is a service that interfaces with an offline government process, and you can do it all from your browser. This is where we start to see the interesting dynamics of government experience evolving at the state, local level. (city/county of Honolulu and state of Hawaii example?)
• #31: At the federal level, if you forget to renew your passport in time for an international trip there are hundreds of services that will wait in line for you at a regional office and take your photo and do everything for you so that you don't have to do the leg work. We see that with open records and a variety of other things at the federal level. The exponential nature of technology and the democratization of technology has made this possible, and it's starting to expand.
• #32: The technology is going to interface with legacy government experiences in a variety of ways. That might be through someone waiting in line for you or it may be through a digital assistant. Booking restaurant reservations and other things are the next natural segues to interface with things that have a lot of offline components -- like setting up a meeting with the DMV or finding a way to inquire about your parking ticket. It’s just getting started and it's something we must start to think about.
• #33: In 2018 we heard a demo of what was possible with a bot that emulates a human and schedules an appointment for you. Let’s listen… Another example of this is a service called x.ai that our Chief Innovation Officer, Dustin Haisler, uses. When he wants to schedule a meeting, he simply copies Amy Ingram (who even has a LinkedIn profile – or Andrew Ingram if you prefer a male admin) to set up a time to meet. She can coordinate a meeting with up to 10 people in 10 different time zones. Amy has access to Dustin’s work and personal calendar, knows when he is in town or traveling and can remember preferences on where he likes to meet certain people. He can direct her to schedule a meeting next week or in the next available slot. She can also handle cancellations like a breeze and will let all meeting attendees know if it needs to be rescheduled or if he is running late. She’s also been asked out 7 times (not a joke and we have the emails to prove it!).
• #34: Note: two pictures that build on clicks. First comments: Simple question - if Google can bring duplex AI to 43 states to make restaurant reservations this year, why can’t Google or its peers bring AI to your appointment making next year? Second picture: Another example of this is a service called x.ai that our Chief Innovation Officer, Dustin Haisler, uses. When he wants to schedule a meeting, he simply copies Amy Ingram (who even has a LinkedIn profile – or Andrew Ingram if you prefer a male admin) to set up a time to meet. She can coordinate a meeting with up to 10 people in 10 different time zones. Amy has access to Dustin’s work and personal calendar, knows when he is in town or traveling and can remember preferences on where he likes to meet certain people. He can direct her to schedule a meeting next week or in the next available slot. She can also handle cancellations like a breeze and will let all meeting attendees know if it needs to be rescheduled or if he is running late. She’s also been asked out 7 times (not a joke and we have the emails to prove it!).
• #35: It has become clear that the future of government experience isn't something government is going to own and control on its own. Government experience could evolve to a single pane of glass that you use to view and interact with any agency. There are 90,000+ local government agencies across the country and some 3,800 state agencies. Many of them have their own mobile applications and some have a variety of mobile applications. The future is not about each one having a mobile application, it’s about simplifying and consolidating all these things This is a trend that we're seeing applied to state and local government by third parties.
• #36: As an example, there's a company called Evergov that aggregates all services available online across states and localities and allows you to search and find a service that you need done in a single place - kind of like a Google for government services.
• #41: Here is our next prediction. Like it or not, you are not going to do all this yourself. You’re also unlikely to do all this with the people you have now. And the ones you have now, likely need some new skills.
• #43: To state what may be obvious, cities (and states) are large employers – dwarfing the feds and many in the private sector.
• #44: And right now, millennials are the largest segment of the U.S. workforce and by 2025 they'll make up 75% of the global workforce. But Millennials aren't entering government at the same pace as they are the private sector. A demographic divide exists. Is this a recruitment and retention problem from a government workforce standpoint or is this a sign of something bigger? Part of the challenge is that the skills millennials possess are not directly aligned to the current needs of government.
• #45: In fact, almost two-thirds of State Chief Administrators cite a growing skills gap in public service as having the greatest impact on the future of getting the public’s work done.
• #46: The biggest disconnect is around skills that abound within the public sector. This chart shows the top 5 declining job types. Data entry clerks; accounting, bookkeeping and payroll clerks; Administrative and executive secretaries… Do any of those categories sound familiar to you? An article I read on the Singularity University website indicated that cashier jobs will all but disappear by 2022. Have you used self-check at the grocery store or at an airport? One last point. The World Economic Forum data found more than half of all employees will require significant reskilling by 2022.
• #47: Another challenge is that job applicants are not showing up in the first place. A recent study points to a growing gap between the number of government job postings and the number of government job applicants. This gap has doubled between 2014 and 2017.
• #48: It has been said that people look for three things in their work – opportunity, challenge, and stability. In an era of emerging technologies, you may only get to pick two!
• #49: Humans matter. They do. Now and always. But the mix of what they do inside and outside of government is changing. And will continue to change for the rest of your career. And your kids’ career. And well beyond that. Humans are doing the majority of work now. Globally, it will be 50-50 within a few years. And by 2025, the majority of the work on the planet is expected to be automated.
• #50: Traditionally, the far left of this chart represents what we're most comfortable with in government. Traditional fulltime W2 employment with full benefits. That began to shift as both agencies and younger employees started to look for flexibility – remember your first flex work day? Then came some Digital Labor. A little bit more open. A little bit more flexible. While 1099 contractors have always had a role in government, that business model is bumping up against the gig or sharing economy or crowd sourcing in interesting ways. Together, it is expanding the universe of potential ecosystem partners – including those with whom you might enter into a P3 (public private partnership). There is the same discipline in the name of public accountability, but more flexibility on the execution in getting the right talent for the right job at the right time.
• #63: Excuse the hard turn here but there is a severe weather warning that comes with all of this. Your cybersecurity threat environment is constantly evolving – and you need to evolve with it. Your cybersecurity efforts are moving beyond the walls of government.
• #64: We often think about cybersecurity in the context of something that is in government’s control. For instance, data at the DMV or in an HHS department. You, like me, probably watched with great interest as Atlanta dealt with a massive attack last year, at considerable taxpayer expense. And in March of this year, a county 60 miles from Atlanta also had a ransomware attack and they decided to pay – over $400k!
• #65: In the future, cybersecurity is going to be a lot deeper in government and IT leaders need to play a vital role in that conversation.
• #67: For instance, technology and cybersecurity will play an interesting role in future crimes. As an example, a 21-year-old recently used his smartphone at the Mall of America to hack into a Tesla and drive off. This affects government because the owner of the Tesla will go to a local police department for help? Is the department equipped to handle this? How would they even start?
• #69: Legislators are starting to respond to that. There are over 273 cyber security bills this session. This is a hot topic, but one that everyone is addressing in a piecemeal way.
• #70: The biggest takeaway: cybersecurity is transitioning to a community function. San Jose CIO Rob Lloyd views the city’s CISO as a community CISO rather than a city CISO. That's a big shift in terminology and focus because the CISOs of the future are going to have to think broader than the systems that are in their direct control. They're going to have to look at how community infrastructures - including IoT sensors and a myriad of other things they may have not installed themselves - could potentially impact their operations or become something that could be hijacked and used against the public interest if not properly safeguarded.
• #71: The 22-member AZ team – created by executive order is to develop recommendations and advise the governor on cybersecurity issues; receiving quarterly updates from state CISO; offer advice on federal resources available to fight cyberthreats; promote public awareness of threats; foster collaboration between government, the private and education sectors, law enforcement and others; and drive cybersecurity and IT workforce development and training at the higher education level.
• #72: NYC Secure is a free, New York City-funded mobile app that will alert you if your mobile device or tablet encounters threats such as a potentially unsecure Wi-Fi network and offers recommendations on how to address the threats. The app was designed with your privacy at the forefront. No information about you leaves the device.
• #81: Let’s pivot toward the future and look at some emerging technologies and their possible collision course with regulations. It may or may not be the Flintstones vs. the Jetsons. Indeed, there are a variety of emerging technologies that have potential to radically shift the way government operates.
• #82: It is the holy grail of the Smart Cities movement – Intelligent Infrastructure.
• #83: The state of Indiana is using data and sensors on their infrastructure to actually predict and calculate the probability of vehicle crashes and it can use this to both inform its planning for that infrastructure, but also to pre-position emergency vehicles and other types of assets out in the field to mitigate the risk associated with these crashes. All that data is compiled into a public crash prediction portal.  
• #84: Predictive analytics is poised to save lives and to reduce work in all industries. It is no longer science fiction and the same thing is starting to work its way into government. What if we could predict a pothole before it emerges? Kansas City is using data analytics and business intelligence to identify minor road failures before they turn into potholes.
• #85: Drones are on the rise at both the state and local levels, primarily ushered in by justice and public safety organizations.
• #86: People of a certain age will remember the August 2007 collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge over the Mississippi River in downtown Minneapolis. As part of an effort to avoid the repeat of such tragedy, the state of Minnesota is now using drones to inspect bridges and they're looking at expanding that to other infrastructure projects throughout the state. It's helped augment staff and inspect more aging infrastructure faster and they have picked up a number of awards along the way.
• #87: Drones are also an important part of situational awareness. Louisville has a ShotSpotter system that will identify a gunshot through acoustic sensors mounted on street lights. Now the city plans to launch a drone to see where the gunshot happened and provide footage back to central dispatch.
• #88: If it’s good for the consumer, it’s good for the citizen….
• #89: Meet Deputy CHIP the Chatbot. Again it is consumer technology applied to public service – in this case, law enforcement recruitment. The chatbot has been deputized to answer questions from prospective applicants about minimum qualifications and life as an LA cop using elements of artificial intelligence without tying up the scarce resources of a physical, human, officer.
• #90: What if your credentials or the way you wanted to pay actually worked seamlessly worked across state lines? You don’t worry about that when shopping online but it can be a real hassle when you are doing business with more than one public agency. Until recently, there has not been a great deal of focus on collaborating on a shared login credential or single sign-on across agencies. That was until Utah, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Indiana said a better consumer experience was overdue.
• #91: This cube sat is probably just one of the thousands of things you don’t see flying over your city but it is helping to bring with it next generation connectivity.
• #92: Everyone's talking about 5G, but we're also looking at what trumps 5G. In Alaska, Space X has FCC clearance for satellite Internet and their play is to provide rural broadband through low earth orbit satellite. The whole notion of connectivity and how we manage connectivity in the public sector is flipping upside down. It's no longer just the 5G conversation or the WiMax conversations from the previous years. It’s now time to starting to think about how to fit it into your infrastructure play if you're a government agency.
• #96: A 5G deployment in parts of Sacramento is worth a look if only to get a sense of the speed differences. The 4G phones in your pocket are good for up to 100 megabytes per seconds. Look to the right of the slide at 5G and the exponential increase to 10 gigabytes per second – which makes possible high-resolution public safety cameras, immersive education, broad adoption of autonomous vehicles and applications we have not even thought of yet.
• #97: Cities are the laboratories for emerging technologies – where people, pavement, and machines meet. We are still closer to the beginning than the end of the experimentation with autonomous vehicles, but they are coming to a street near you. We talked about the cybersecurity implications of them, but there's also a lot more that goes into how you should be thinking about these new technologies that can unlock a variety of new experiences and the challenges associated with them.
• #98: Las Vegas is prepping the strip for 30 self-driving Lyfts through the popular ride-hailing app. It just seems like the right city to try something like that… But going against type, perhaps a little like Connecticut at the state level, Pittsburgh, has attracted a lot attention and industry investment for its work on autonomous vehicles. The farther the city went, the farther it realized it had to go … A near miss in Pittsburgh and a fatal accident in Tempe, AZ slowed experimentation, and – according to the state DOT -reinforced the need for clearer legislative guidance from the state and federal level …
• #99: Connecticut launched its own autonomous vehicle pilot to work through the issues related to liability and viability. The small New England state joins a growing list of other states (Nevada, Utah, California) that have seen the technology mature, become more sophisticated, and develop a track record worthy of serious consideration as part of the state’s transportation system. Regulators and other state officials remain properly conservative if not cautious while recognizing the potential opportunity for increased transportation safety and efficiency, not to mention economic opportunity.
• #100: On that and other fronts, regulations are coming, and they're actively being filed.
• #101: The hottest sector for states right now is how to regulate drones. You’ve got a lot of federal direction and even preemption in that space. Followed by AI, blockchain, small-cell 5G types of wireless infrastructure and then the Internet of Things.
• #109: Try not to be overwhelmed by all the complexity and don’t avoid what the critics may tell you is too complex (The critics still don’t count…). Prepare for the real complexity at the intersection of organizational collaboration, institutional collaboration, and technological innovation – all in service to the citizen.
• #110: “Sometimes we make the mistake of focusing on the shadows cast by the opportunity rather than on the opportunity itself.” Steve Kolodney, former CIO, State of Washington
• #111: Opportunities like this one only come around once – maybe twice – in a career. I hope you don’t miss it!
• #112: vcGood afternoon. It’s great to be with you here in Frankfort and I’m looking forward to sharing the thoughts of the Center for Digital Government with you. This is a tough spot to be in. You’ve just had lunch and desert awaits you at the end of my presentation. I promise to not take it personally if there is a stampede to the doors in about 50 minutes!