NACo CIO Forum: Going forward stronger, better

Key Takeaways

More than 140 county IT leaders, elected officials and others gathered at NACo’s 87th Annual Conference last month at the NACo CIO Forum, in a day filled with education, knowledge sharing and networking.

NACo then-President Larry Johnson kicked off the day with words of encouragement and affirmation to county IT leaders on their commitment to providing superb technology support and in keeping America’s counties safe from the ever-evolving landscape of cyber attacks.

The day then followed with a variety of panels, “fireside chats” and presentations on digital transformation, cyber strategies and the application of geospatial technologies during catastrophic events and disasters.

Below are a few highlights of those presentations:

• Removing Barriers and Creating Builders of the Future: Melissa Kraft, Dallas County CIO and Jayson Dunn of AWS shared their experiences in moving multiple solutions, functions and processes to the cloud. Moderated by Sybil Gurney, assistant CIO for Alameda County, participants learned how counties are taking a strategic approach to identify the benefits of moving to the cloud while developing policy that supports that evolution.

• Center for Digital Government Awards and NACo Achievement Awards: Phil Bertolini and Brian Cohen gave highlights on this year’s county award winners in the Digital Counties Survey. First-place award winners included King County, Wash., Prince George’s County Md., County of Placer, Calif., Arlington County, Va., and County of Nevada, Calif. The “Best in Category for Technology” award went to Miami-Dade County Fla. (CIO Margaret Bisbane’s team) for their response to the Surfside Collapse using drones and GIS.

• A Crash Course in Marketing—Communicating About Cybersecurity Across Your County: Participants heard from Berks County, Pa. and Dutchess County, N.Y. about their approach to sharing the story of cybersecurity priorities to county leaders. While Dutchess County CIO Glenn Marchi gets the word out via a NYSAC and county-developed guide for cyber, dubbed “Cybersecurity Primer for Local Government Leaders,” Justin Loose of Berks County takes the approach of developing easy to understand, key performance indicators that have a significant impact on the strengths of cyber defenses. Support for both these counties comes from valuable partners BIOKey and the Sylint Group.

• The 50 Shades of Community Engagement - Use Cases from Clayton County, Ga.: The presentation included a quick game of government trivia using Kahoot. More importantly, Detrick Stanford, COO for Clayton County, Ga., shared how the automated collection of social media comments and posts using ZenCity’s dashboard tool has aided the county in understanding the impact of resident sentiment. Knowing how county residents perceive and view current world, national and local events can enhance the way in which counties respond to and meet the needs of their residents.

• GIS – Emerging from the Storm: The panel included a video interview with the team from Flagler County, Fla. Led by Darlene Pardiny, GIS director, their team has successfully implemented the full stack of ESRI tools in day-to-day and emergency situations. Patrick Bresnahan, Geographic Information Officer (GIO) for Richland County S.C., shared his experiences with disasters and emergency situations, especially flooding and hurricanes and how GIS assisted in the assessment of damage from those types of storms. Richard Leadbeater of ESRI rounded out the panel providing additional county experiences that have benefited from the implementation of GIS. The new Technology of GIS Guide is the second in a series of five that showcases the benefits along with the top 10 questions that non-technical county leaders can use in talking with geographic/geospatial support and staff.

• Evolution of Cybersecurity Strategy Based on Organizational Maturity: Mark Pfaffinger, CIO of Larimer County, Colo., shared how his county has responded to changes in cybersecurity this year and their approach to include remote workers and cloud providers. Through the implementation of tools such as Okta and support from third-party partners such as NuHarbor, (represented by Jack Danahy), Larimer County has pivoted to address emerging priorities like zero trust. Mike Sage, CIO for the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania, moderated with humor and insight the correlation of cyber and county IT maturity.

• Digital Transformation in Howard County, Md. Brandee Ganz, CIO for Howard County, shared how ServiceNow has greatly improved and reduced the mean time to resolution for delivering online services and responding to resident inquiries. John Regula of Bucks County Pa. moderated the panel using a “Jeopardy” approach.

 Commissioner Joe Briggs, Cascade County, Mont., closed out the day with remarks that likened the technology journey being more of a marathon than a 5k race. He encouraged county IT leaders — and leaders in general — to stay the course.

The full video for the CIO Forum can be found on naco.org at: CIO Forum: Emergence: Going Forward Stronger and Better.