Ep.138 Breaking Burnout in the Public Sector (3 Insights to Not Miss!) with Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at the State of North Carolina & Mandy Crawford, CIO, State of Texas

Joe Toste [00:00:38]:
Today we have two special guests. Jim Weaver, secretary for information technology and state CIO for the state of North Carolina, and Mandy Crawford, CIO for the state of Texas. Mandy, welcome back to Techtables.

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:00:50]:
Hi. Thanks, Joe.

Joe Toste [00:00:51]:
Jim, welcome back to techtables.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:00:52]:
Thank you.

Joe Toste [00:00:53]:
I love that we have this topic today. So the title is called breaking Burnout. Breaking burnout. Now, we had a lot of fun. If anyone on there saw on LinkedIn, there was a lot of friendly banter. The last podcast event in Austin, Texas, Mandy was sitting next to Kevin Gilbertson and our colleague from Montana, your great colleague from Montana. And there was a lot of really great banter. And then I basically got a small video out of it.

Joe Toste [00:01:20]:
Will Jim Weaver burn out on the BBQ competition? Love the banter. But even more, I love the topic of actually breaking burnout. And Burnout is a topic that's, I think, really important and that a lot of people don't talk about that much. But before we begin, I do want to give a big shout out to today's sponsor, Sentinel one. Sentinel one redefines cybersecurity by pushing the boundaries of autonomous technology with its singularity XDR platform. Sentinel one is the leader in endpoint protection and beyond. To learn more about Sentinel one, check out Sentinel one. Jim, since we're in your home state, we're going to start with you first.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:01:55]:
I always thought the home team got like the last at bats here. Why are we going first? Is this why you're a Red Sox fan now? You didn't understand that visitors bat first, but okay, go ahead.

Joe Toste [00:02:05]:
I think because I'm a high school basketball always, I'm default aggressive. I always want the ball in my hands, so.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:02:11]:
Well, Mandy's got me a little bit on a height, so she still might win the jump ball because do you.

Joe Toste [00:02:16]:
Still want me to start with you or do you want me to.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:02:18]:
No, go ahead. I can't let you off that easy.

Joe Toste [00:02:21]:
Number one in my heart. Number one in my heart. Okay, so we're going to start. So you had the privilege of serving as state CIO on two coasts, which I don't know my history of state cios, but this already sounds impressive. So Washington state and North Carolina, not to mention you were the CTO for the state of Pennsylvania. Burnout or work fatigue rates are rising across the US. The stat that I grabbed was that north of 40% of workers say they are burned out this year. According to Robert Half, North Carolina is often viewed as a top ten state across technology and people.

Joe Toste [00:02:51]:
And I was really curious what's your secret for helping people across your team who might be battling work fatigue?

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:02:59]:
Well, I think the first thing that we have to look at, especially as leaders and managers in our roles, people need to be able to have the opportunity to take care of themselves. Right. And really start to encourage family relationships, friendships, getting out and doing things socially. I know it was tough during 2020 when many of us were all locked down and depending what state you were in, but as we've opened up in 2021 and continue to move forward, it's really important for us to have that social interaction. It's interesting you bring that up because a lot of our staff have listed a concern with remote working, especially those that are five day remote work right now or full time remote work of burnout. That's a risk because they're not taking the breaks, they're not doing the things they need to do. They're just going from one thing to another. Whereas for some of us that are in and out of the office, we do have the ability to go stop, have a conversation, be able to get up, force ourselves to have to get up and walk away to go do basic life necessities.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:03:50]:
It's not five steps and you're there. What kind of approach? But it's really important for us to take care of ourselves and demonstrate through leadership that you do need to take care of yourselves. So a lot of folks will follow what we do. And I tried to, and some of my staff here know if I can come in dressed down, I'll dress just to say it's okay, right? We can have some fun days. We had a suggestion on an all hands meeting, town hall meeting the other week where someone said, can we bring back the Hawaii shirt day? I'm like, why did we get rid of it? And it was a tradition that apparently was there in our agency, and it just has gone away. And that's a fun night. As long as we're respectful of who we're interacting with and our customer base, I'm fine with those kind of things. And as the team here knows as well, I really like to have fun in the office.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:04:33]:
Our jobs are so serious that if not having fun and having the ability, as these guys and ladies know, I can give it. And I can take it, too. And I'm sure Manny is going to give me a good ribbing here. Somewhere along the lines talking about burning and cooking. But that's okay. I mean, it goes with it, but that's part of the fun and that's part of the developing our respective relationships. So I think that's the big thing. The tech industry, we're 24 hours, seven days a week.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:04:54]:
We underpin everything that basically goes on at all levels of government. And so when something does go, oops, it's very important that we have the right people in the right frame of mind to react. As I'm fond of saying, we got to think about that highway patrol officer who's pulling a vehicle over and needs to know, am I walking up to a felony warrant or what's the circumstances I'm walking into? And if he or she doesn't have that information before they're walking up to that vehicle, that's life safety. And we just got to recognize the role that we're playing and understand the importance of what we're doing. So when those things do happen, we're prepared to be able to react to it. But to be able to do that, we have to be taking care of ourselves and trying to make sure that we try to balance the workload a little bit, get to some other things. Unfortunately, my family lives in Pennsylvania. I'm a geobacher here in North Carolina.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:05:42]:
So as I tell the team, just because I'm emailing you on a weekend, that's because I'm doing a brain dump. Don't respond. If I need something, it'll say urgent, I need a response, but otherwise it's just me pushing out information or getting set for the following week. So I don't know. Manny, what have you seen in Texas?

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:06:01]:
Well, as usual, I think you and I are really aligned on things. And I think that's one reason why we also like to rib each other so much, but also have learned so much from Jim and get a lot of great ideas, but very similar, my approach in Texas and what we're doing. And I think one of the things you talked about that I really try to do is modeling. And part of that is the modeling of taking time off doing things with your family. One thing that I was guilty of myself is we talk about our work family, and it's our work family and our work family. We're not family. We're community, and we're a group of people. But let's not diminish the importance of family by what we're doing at work.

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:06:37]:
Changing that language and really letting folks know that it's okay to step back. I joe all the time that I come into the office because I want a break, because when I'm at home and it's the back to back meetings that, you know, that we all have somebody on a. It was a different interview. Asked the fun question was, how many trips to the kitchen do you make while you're working from home? I'm like, zero. It's usually me texting somebody to say, could somebody please make me a sandwich? Would somebody please bring me more water? Because the meetings just don't stop. And a few things I may have talked about this before that we've tried to institute was, we have no meetings Thursday, so no internal meetings on Thursdays. We can do external meetings with customers. And of course, always there's things that pop up, but really try to keep Thursdays as a day for the team to be able to work on their deliverables and do on things where they're not in meetings so that you're not doing the rest of your work outside your normal business hours.

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:07:30]:
We put out a newsletter once a week, and I always put a reminder in there, in the top to remember, like, take your vacation, you've earned it. Take time off and make sure that you know about the resources that we have. I think we're seeing to Jim's point, I mean, technology that we are on call all the time, and so it is hard to step away. And I think it's also technology breeds that culture of can do and folks who don't like to step back and who don't like to say no and who don't like to not be helpful. And so it's important to put those reminders. We actually have a can do award at our agency. And I've now joked, hey, we could use a little can don't. It's okay to say no sometimes to set some boundaries around what we're doing, but it is a challenge.

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:08:12]:
And I think that the pandemic really showed how committed and dedicated the technology folks are across the sector. I mean, obviously, we partner with the private sector so much in doing what we do, but those public sector, dedicated servants who do this work so hard, trying to model and encourage folks to take the time they need.

Joe Toste [00:08:29]:
Yeah, that's great. I was going to message and I dropped it getting back from camp with the high schoolers, but I know Rob Maine over here loves basketball. Actually, I think he coached AAU basketball. And I know he had said to me before that he plays, and I don't know if he still does, but.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:08:43]:
He plays in the Wednesday nights. Wednesday nights he plays.

Joe Toste [00:08:46]:
Oh, man, I dropped. Dang it, toste. Okay, so I wanted to play pickup ball with you so bad, and I just totally slipped my mind. But I was kind of curious. What do you love to, I mean, I love to go shoot hoops. I love to get up and run up and down the court. But are there some specific things when.

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:09:02]:
I can get away? We have a place down on the coast of Texas near South Padre Island. I like to get down. I like to fish, and I also like to, I find it sometimes takes time where you have to be away from your home to actually totally disconnect and allow yourself to do nothing. And so sometimes I try really hard just to do nothing and just to kind of sit around and I like the water, going to the beach, floating in the pool, those kinds of things.

Joe Toste [00:09:29]:
How about you, Jim?

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:09:30]:
First and foremost, when I can get home to be with a family, that's the utmost importance. And I'm very fortunate. I have a lovely wife who will take my phone from me, so I don't feel the necessity to be checking emails and all those other things. Thank goodness that she does that. Secondly, it's really about going out and playing golf. We are here in the golf capital of the US. And so I commented earlier to the chief of staff, said, I'm here in North Carolina. I'm playing less golf than I played in the state of Washington.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:09:55]:
And chief looked at me and goes, Mr. Secretary, you're here to work. And of course, she gave me the big smile. But yeah, just getting out and playing golf and literally the phone will go and vibrate and it will go in the bag. It's not in the golf cart. I've played with too many people that have the phone there. They're driving the golf cart trying to, and that's not enjoyable golf. So it'll go in the bag.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:10:15]:
And then lastly is there's some beautiful trails here in North Carolina. So for Mandy's friend who just moved here a year ago, get out in the trails. There's some beautiful things here. This is a beautiful state. I haven't had the pleasure yet of getting onto the mountains. I'm very familiar with the beaches, had frequent them from years gone by. Haven't been there since I've been here, but that'll be changing later this year. But just getting out and seeing things and getting fresh air, it's a beautiful state here to do that, and it's just a lot of things to see.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:10:41]:
So that's been fun.

Joe Toste [00:10:43]:
Yeah, no, that's great. Do you take your apple watch off too when you go golfing apple?

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:10:47]:
I have a Fitbit. I'm a Fitbit because I do not want to look like Dick Tracy. If everybody remembers. I'm probably dating myself on cartoon characters now, but I don't want to sit there and be like this, looking at emails and everything else. I purposefully do not have an apple Watch.

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:11:00]:
Same good man.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:11:01]:
But the Fitbit is on so I can make sure I'm getting my step count in on the golf course.

Joe Toste [00:11:05]:
Yeah, I'm with you on the step count. So, Jim, people may not know this about you, but you're actually an active member of the North Carolina Army National Guard. The motto is always ready, always there, right? That's the motto. Yeah, love that. When you were serving as secretary for it and state CIO for the state of North Carolina, but you're also taking that time to serve in the national Guard. Where have you experienced crossover? In other words, what tools are in your belt as a resulting of serving in both those capacities? What have you learned from both those?

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:11:33]:
Well, I think first and foremost, I also should probably say I'm also a military brat, so my dad served 26 years in the navy. So the military lifestyle, military culture has been part of my being since I was a kid. Probably should say this to Mandy. So former colleague Mike Hussey last week sent me a picture. He was on the flight deck of the USS Nimitz, and I called him up immediately and gave him a lot of grief. My dad's a plank, owner of the USS Nimitz. He was part of the first crew of the Nimitz. There was a picture of me as a Rio and a tomcat on the flight deck of the Nimitz as a seven, eight year man, was four rows from President Ford when it got commissioned.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:12:07]:
And I'm like, Mike, of all ships in the navy, it's the Nimitz. Right?

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:12:10]:
And Admiral Nimitz, a proud.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:12:12]:
Well, yeah, and I'm also a World War II Pacific naval history buff as well. So I can't tell you how many times we played the Battle of Midway, the board game. But anyway, to make so that culture and that lifestyle and that education I got because living around the world has given me an appreciation for different cultures, different lifestyles, and the things that I've been able to see and experience and enjoy as a child has kind of stayed with me, obviously, through my years here. But also then being a military member, the first thing you really learn about is leadership. You also learn about diversity and culture and people coming together as a team. And I think that's probably one of the biggest things here, especially being the role, because our business is about relationships. It's not so much anymore about being. About technology, being the smartest person in the room, knowing all the bits and bytes.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:12:57]:
I mean, that's why I got robbed for security, right? I just now got to know what questions to ask, what hair gel does he use? But no, all joking aside, I mean, that's why you have that team around. You and our team, very proud to say we have gender diversity, we have cultural diversity. It's an awesome group. I've jokingly have said to Susan, my chief deputy, my job's done. I jokingly say I get to sit back. She knows I can't do that because I can't help myself, but it's just phenomenal. And then when you bring in the role of the national Guard here, too, especially here in North Carolina, I'm part of the group that's part of the cyber response force here in the national Guard as well. So the logical crossover between being secretary of it, helping to fund the group that's putting men and women on state active duty to help respond to cyber incidents is here in the state, is just phenomenal.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:13:43]:
So it's just a nice place to be. I get to see both sides in action, and then having that military background allows me to better interact and communicate because we understand the jargon and the culture of the military. Translate that over to the state government side, and it just makes for a win win. And again, Rob has served in uniform as well, so it's just another benefit. And as we get more and more people who have been veterans or who understand that culture and that ethos, it's just phenomenal to bring them together because you got an awesome team there. Another area we're really looking at, too, speaking of, is by recruiting military spouses to come to work for us, I think they're overlooked, and I think it's a phenomenal talent pool that's out there of resources for us to tap into. Again, growing up, I know how my mom was passed over on lots of opportunities because she was a navy wife. You're going to move in two years.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:14:28]:
We don't want to hire you. And so we have a lot of women and men that are spouses here, too, that are very capable. And Rob has brought in now our first intern, who's a military spouse as well. So it's an area that we're starting to dabble into as well. But it's that promotion and that embracing of that culture, I think that's been very helpful for us.

Joe Toste [00:14:47]:
I love what you said about bringing in the military spouses are there any other areas where you think there's people in the marketplace are underestimating and so, like, military spouse is another great one. Are there any other kind of gems in the marketplace for hiring that you're finding out there right now?

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:15:05]:
Well, we're very fortunate. I think the same in Texas, too. We have a relatively low unemployment rate. I think we're sitting here at three. Three, maybe three 4%. But we're really doing a lot of reaching out and getting into the high schools. Rob has done a great job as far as starting to work with some of our cyberstard american national scholar winners working at their school districts, getting the involved in cyber security a little bit, trying to get them to understand that it's more than just capture the flag or the red team stuff, that here's where the real work is and starting to talk to them about things that we can actually show them without doing background checks and all that other kind of stuff. But vulnerability management.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:15:38]:
What is an incident? How do you go about doing an incident? Why? We always have to be right. Bad guys only have to be wrong once. Right once. They can be wrong all the time. We have to be right all the time. And what the consequences are when we are wrong and what that looks like. So that's an area. Another area we're really working out, too, is data scientists and trying to get high schoolers.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:15:56]:
Very fortunate here in North Carolina to have the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, which is kind of a hybrid between college and it's still a high school, but they jokingly referred to them as mutants, but very sharp students. And they actually went up against a cohort of NC state PhD candidates, and they only finished second because they could not tell the story. We failed them in that regard. They kicked rear end on the analytics. They didn't know how to tell the story effectively. And that's where the PhD cohorts really weaved the story and did an awesome job. But we had them analyzing the impact of post secondary education and the digital divide. What has that resulted in for North Carolina? Like I said, phenomenal work on the analytics part, but those are opportunities there that we can continue to grow.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:16:43]:
So I think that's the other area right now that we're looking at as well. Again, we have seven large military installations here. Really trying to tap into that, tap into the independence. So, not necessarily to spouses, but their teenage children. Community college system, Fayetteville tech outside of Fort Braggs, doing an awesome job on cyber and networking skills, running certification programs. We've had some great partners here in North Carolina that have funded and kind of supported that from a back end aspect. But it's also, I think, around the line. Was it 61% of the student population I'm looking at, Rob, I believe, is minorities and a large percentage of their student body is military.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:17:20]:
So again, North Carolina is the most friendliest state to the military. And so we're really trying to tap into that angle.

Joe Toste [00:17:25]:
How about you, Mandy? Where are you seeing some places in the marketplace where you're looking for hiring in maybe some unique or different ways?

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:17:31]:
Similarly to Jim, and actually another similarity is I'm a marine brat. My dad was in for 30 years.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:17:36]:
So that probably another reason we get along.

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:17:37]:
That's exactly right. But understanding that culture and the culture of service, and then I think to Jim's point about military spouses is until you've been in that environment and understand what that is, it's not something that always is top of mind to folks. Right. So one, the point about, well, you're just going to move in two or three years and we're not going to hire you. The other thing that Texas has been working on is removing some of that regulatory burden on licensing so that there's reciprocity from other states. So that if you're a cosmetologist in one state, that you ought to be able to move that when your spouse comes to Texas to work. So that has been a push for us. From a recruiting standpoint.

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:18:13]:
I think there's tremendous opportunity because you already have that baked in understanding of the culture of service and going back to that can do that you need to have. I was really proud that our agency dir was actually recognized with the we hire Vets award recently for our efforts in recruiting in the veteran areas and veterans and then the number of employees that we got. But the other thing, and I think Gartner's come up with a catchphrase. They're calling them returnships, but that's the concept. So you guys just hiring an intern who's a military spouse as well is the idea of talking about folks. And I'm going to say it's usually women who take time off to stay home to raise kids and then they come back into the workforce. And so the idea of, well, okay, but I've taken two years, five years, ten years off, and now I want to come back. Is my education still relevant? What do I have possibly to be able to jump back in? One of our colleagues from Maryland, Mike Leahy, I think one of his jokes is he had somebody come in and say, well, I haven't worked in it in ten years.

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:19:10]:
And he's oh, well, then you got five years ahead of us because our technology is like 15 years old. So you're great, you've got this. But the idea of looking specifically and targeting those folks to bring not only the talent that's out there, but that diversity as well. I was a beneficiary of that. I took about a year and a half off when my kids were born and then was asked to come back and welcome back completely and was able to come back part time for a while and then build back up to full time. So I'm a believer in that. And those are things we're looking at. Like, Jim, the folks that we really need are data folks, data scientists, obviously security people.

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:19:46]:
But part of it as well with our model is it's about people who have relationship skills, people who understand how to run projects and businesses and how to interact and bring people together to get the job done. And I think those are a lot of things when talking about folks who are stay at home moms and moving into, that's a perfect fit when it comes to talent for a lot of those projects. I mean, if you can juggle a household and manage all of those sorts of things, you can deal with it folks, and getting things running.

Joe Toste [00:20:15]:
Yeah.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:20:16]:
And I was going to say, joe, I think the other thing that we bring, and especially with Manny having the military background as well, is it's sometimes hard for military members who are getting ready to pcs out of service, whether it's retirement or whatever, to correlate their skill sets over into the civilian world. Right?

Joe Toste [00:20:31]:
Yeah.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:20:31]:
I can remember sitting on one interview out in Washington where the candidate started talking about he was the brigade s six and everyone around the table just had no clue what he was talking about. And I finally said, this is what you were doing, and just kind of started, slowed him down and walked through it. We used to do job fairs all the time at JBLM joint Baseline with McCorda in Washington. And that was one of the things we really talked about was really sitting down and translating your skill sets because obviously, if you're a captain of a ship, as an example, you already have project management skills. You already have think about all the things that you are doing, but you have to be able to correlate that into the civilian world. And that's what we were trying to help the to do. Plus not have Microsoft or Amazon recruit them either. We're trying to get them to come to Olympia, but that's a different story.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:21:15]:
So I'm hopeful that we're going to be able to do some of that stuff here in North Carolina as well. There's various programs and opportunities where we're embedded into to try to make that happen.

Joe Toste [00:21:23]:
Yeah, no, I love that. I love looking at different opportunities. Actually, it's my guy here. Right here. Say your name. Sam. Yeah. So he was my Uber driver, and he's talking to me about wanting to get into data science and getting into the tech space.

Joe Toste [00:21:35]:
So I was encouraging him, and he was like, so what do you mean? I just host a podcast.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:21:40]:
Oh, cool.

Joe Toste [00:21:40]:
What kind of podcast? The technology podcast. Oh, really? Yeah.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:21:43]:
What do you do? Tomorrow?

Joe Toste [00:21:44]:
I'm throwing a live podcast about you want to come? And here he is.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:21:46]:
And so one of hopefully my staff development person here, if Karen's still here.

Joe Toste [00:21:51]:
Yeah.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:21:51]:
Is hooking him up and maybe we can get him into the North Carolina it.

Joe Toste [00:21:55]:
Yeah, he's a. Yeah, he's a military.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:21:59]:
Vet and a New York Yankees fan, too.

Joe Toste [00:22:01]:
Yankees fan.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:22:02]:
I tell you, he's got a lot going for him.

Joe Toste [00:22:05]:
Yankees fan. But I think this presentation that I'm going to give next week, going back to people, this is actually a key piece. One of the things that I've seen that the best leaders do is they're looking for these certain traits in people. And sometimes you can't spot it on a resume, you can't spot it. But if you have an interaction with the. You can understand when you look in their eyes like, okay, this person, I see something in them right now. They might not see it in themselves, but I see this in them right now. And I love doing this with high schoolers as the coach.

Joe Toste [00:22:35]:
So I get to do that's kind of my little small microcosm where I get to do that. But I always love talking to other leaders about how they're doing that in the IT marketplace.

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:22:44]:
Back in my former life when I was hiring, because I'm a recovering lawyer, for those who don't know, one of my looking at a resume, and she was at the bottom of the stack. Other folks, she didn't really stand out, but I pulled it to the top because she had worked from the time she was a freshman in high school, all the way through college and all the way through law school at super salad. Do you all know super Salad? Like, right. Okay, that is not a glamorous job. That is not a fun job. That is a hard job. And you're basically busting tables, bringing people stuff, and they may throw you a tip or not. I mean, it's tough.

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:23:21]:
You have to hustle. And I said, no, I want her in for an interview because that's it. Like, if you can stick with that and you can do that and you work all your way through and you stay that, stick to itiveness and you've got it, and that's the kind of person, and we hired her and she promoted up, and now she's still there working at that agency, and she's one of the managing attorneys for that group. So you got to look for those.

Joe Toste [00:23:44]:
I love that. Yes. Okay, so let's go back, Mandy, let's go back to our very first podcast. You said this, the it systems can be automated, but not the culture. Could you share some of your wins that you've had driving connection and community for creating a stronger team culture in the state of Texas?

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:24:01]:
Sure. Yeah. It's so important to have that culture. I'm very proud of what you've been able to build at my agency. And it's fundamental because at the end of the day, especially when you're looking at working in the public sector, mission and culture, that's the heart of what we do. Particularly when you're talking about from a recruitment and retention standpoint, if we're just being purely kind of business like and looking at why you would want to do it from retention and recruitment, it's hard for us to compete with private sector salaries. And so when we're attracting folks, we have to promote the mission, which is a fantastic mission, to be able to serve Texans, to serve North Carolinians, and to really do work that matters and that impacts people's lives daily. And then having a culture where people that fosters innovation and drives for excellence and that appreciates people for who they are and understands all those things, that's something that we can really go for.

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:24:52]:
But then from the reasons why it really matters if we're not just being business is, I really think that the role of a manager and a leader is to understand their employees and to help them be the best version of themselves that they can be. And if that is in our agency, I hope it is. I truly hope that this is a great fit. But ultimately, if it's not a good fit and somebody isn't happy, don't. I'm not going to try to keep them. I would like for them to go elsewhere, hopefully in the public sector, where they can go out and kind of populate all of Texas it with these great, fantastic, candoers who are committed to the mission. As you know, some of the wins and the things we've done is really driving on our core values that we have, and we talk about them all the time. It's the I lead values, innovation, leadership, ethics, accountability, and delivery.

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:25:37]:
We have challenge coins for those. So every new employee comes in and they get their challenge coin with all five. And then you get to be nominated not just by your supervisor, but by your peers when you demonstrate one of those core values, and you can collect them all. We have a month in November. We celebrate core values, and we have different events that are around that. Like, we had shark tank during innovation week to let employees pitch their ideas to us about how they think that they could make the agency better or our services better. And they pitched it to the sharks, which are me and the leadership team, to try to really help drive that, and then just fun things. It was hard during the pandemic to be able to do things in person, but we'd still try to do virtual activities.

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:26:15]:
Just some goofy stuff. But now that we're back, we're going to do a barbecue when it's cooler. I mean, right now it's so hot in Texas, nobody wants to go out and barbecue a thing. But sometime when it gets cooler in Texas, which would be like December 1, I think we'll probably do some sort of an outdoor barbecue. But I'm really proud of that. We were through an employee survey, it's an anonymous employee survey asked to questions about working here, and we were chosen as one of the top work places to work in the Austin area and then got to top workplaces in the US. And that's all about culture. So it's always top of mind.

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:26:46]:
And if it isn't a fun place to work, like Jim said, if you're not having fun, if you don't believe in the mission, then I don't know why we're doing it.

Joe Toste [00:26:52]:
Yeah. I love that. I am fortunate enough at the ACL event, you gave me an ilead coin. Yeah. I didn't know this was a thing. But as I'm starting to travel more across the United States, I was in Phoenix, and I started receiving coins from different cities and the state.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:27:06]:
There's a military tradition with that. That's where it stems from.

Joe Toste [00:27:09]:
Okay.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:27:10]:
Especially as you go to certain events that may have adult beverages the person with the highest ranking coin doesn't have to buy. So when you sit there and you go to one of those events, whoever. Yeah.

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:27:22]:
So there might have been another motive to it. Joe.

Joe Toste [00:27:25]:
Got it.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:27:26]:
You have to figure out, is the Mandy coin or the gym coin? What's worth more?

Joe Toste [00:27:30]:
Do I get a gym coin? Is there a North Carolina coin?

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:27:33]:
There's a North Carolina. There's a dit challenge coin wasn't worthy enough.

Joe Toste [00:27:37]:
No, I'm kidding. No, I'm excited. Let's jump to the next question. Jim. I was at a conference where they had talked about the relationship revolution. I love this relationship revolution. And I was kind of curious. What stuck with me was that we have a place where we have in society, have traded connection for convenience.

Joe Toste [00:27:56]:
And I love what you said earlier about spending time with your family and encouraging that maybe. What are two to three tips for as we wrap this out before we open the Q A session, what are two to three tips that are working for you, for building relationships for folks on your team?

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:28:10]:
Well, I think first and foremost is you have to go to where they are.

Joe Toste [00:28:15]:
Right.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:28:15]:
So it's not come to my office, it's not come to my building. I'm very thrilled to go out and go to where you are. One of the most enjoyable experiences of being secretary here so far is actually getting out and seeing our PSAP, our 911 centers, as I'm chair of the 911 board. It's just amazing getting out there and watching these men and women across North Carolina, in many ways are first responders. They are the first responder. If you think about it, we're operating six screens, a radio, typing, talking to somebody on the other end that is probably experiencing the worst day in their life. And they're so calm, collected and just making things happen. And it's just truly inspirational to sit there and be able to observe that and watch that and just tell them how much they're appreciated.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:28:57]:
Because we just take for granted that they're there on the other end of the phone when we call 911, someone's going to answer. And that's a job right now that's in high. There's a lot of vacancy rates. It's a job that has a lot of turnover. And you can imagine why getting out there and seeing that firsthand allows you then also to be able to go and start working with the legislature and some others. Why aren't we looking at these jobs as a first responder? Why aren't they being afforded post traumatic stress disorder type opportunities? Because they're there personally. Got to reward a young lady who was three years as the telecommunicator. She was 21, three years doing the job, and she had a domestic abuse situation with a weapon involved and stayed with the spouse the entire time through while talking to law enforcement.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:29:39]:
All through it. Unfortunately the situation got diffused without anything terrible happening. But still, think about that trauma. Think about that. And a lot of what I've learned from my travels with 911 as an example is a lot of times the 911 operator doesn't know the outcome and that's sometimes the worst part of it. Were they successful? Were they good? And we're human, so just going to be able to do that. Rob knows a lot of times I'll walk over to his office just to plop down and harass him most of the time. But no but as opposed to him coming to just.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:30:10]:
It's coming to where they're at and being able to sit there and talk. I got the best broadband director just walked in here. But Nate Denny is my deputy for broadband and digital equity. Getting out and getting out to the customers, getting out to the stakeholders, getting out to the community, interacting even yesterday when we were in Charlotte for the vice president's visit, being able to interact with a lot of the community members down there, actually getting to hear firsthand, getting to see the programs that are in play, it's just tremendous. And A, it uplifts you because you do see you are making a difference. You're contributing to that difference maker. But B, then it's also to get that more realistic, honest opinion as to what is going on and folks are more likely to tell you maybe what's not working correctly so you can go back and fix it. I think it's just getting out and about and taking time to do that that's so important.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:30:52]:
I think in our role as leaders within the state government to make sure that we're making ourselves available and having that interaction.

Joe Toste [00:30:58]:
Yeah, I love what you said right off the bat, go where they are. And this is a theme working with high schoolers is you got to go where they are. And sometimes this past basketball season I had a couple of kids living in a motel six and some other spots where they're not so fortunate, but you got to go where they are and then that's where you can actually start to make changes in people's lives. And yeah, right off the bat, I love that. Mandy, anything from you before we hit the Q A?

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:31:25]:
Now just once again, great words from Jim. My thing is doing a similar thing with the customer agencies as well, in addition to how I work with my staff and going across the state where they're located. But our customer agencies that we serve, making sure that they know I'm available to them, reaching out and doing those touch points with them to continue to build the relationship and make sure that they know that we're available. I want to hear the good and the bad because I can't fix it if I don't know about it. And if folks don't feel comfortable coming to you, then they're not going to. And then I can't do my job. So that's so important. And the other thing I think is just, again, going back to relationship, doing the opportunities like this, where we get to visit and talk.

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:32:06]:
I really rely on my peers throughout the state, the states, to be able to vent, ask questions, commiserate, support, celebrate on the different challenges and wins that we have. That sense of community is tremendous. And then also the relationship with industry partners as well. I really value those as well, is folks who work to build that relationship. And then I truly feel that then they're partners and not just a vendor. And that is so important because with the mission as big as we have, we can't do it without our partners in the industry and having meaningful and sincere relationships. And folks you can trust in that area is tremendous.

Joe Toste [00:32:42]:
Yeah.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:32:43]:
And I'll add, I'm a big fan of Mandy. I'll be honest. And she's done some wonderful. You've done some wonderful things down in Texas. And I've somewhat said tongue in cheek, but also very meaningfully. I look at Texas and what some of the work that Mandy has done in Texas as a North Star for us and some of the things that we want to do. My challenge is to make it North Carolina, because just because it works in Texas doesn't mean it's going to work. But, I mean, there's some things around there, and so it's that type of collaboration.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:33:10]:
I mean, I first met Mandy, it was actually a gardener back in October of 2019. It was in a little booth.

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:33:16]:
That's right. I know.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:33:17]:
And you were in a slightly different role than you were now. But we first talked and met there, and so. Yeah, who knew that at a conference with tens of thousands of people? And now here we are, three years.

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:33:28]:
Exactly, sitting next together, eating barbecue in Raleigh, North Carolina. I know. Yeah.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:33:34]:
Great.

Joe Toste [00:33:35]:
Okay, so we're going to open this up for Q and A right now. Anyone have any questions? We've got two phenomenal state cios. There's 106 tech table podcast episodes. Mandy's been on six Times. Someone's got to have a question. Yeah, Rob. Yes.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:33:51]:
Anybody but Rob, please. Anybody. So one of the manners in which you can defend against insider threats or complacency drops of cyber hygiene levels is mandatory vacations. What is your thoughts, or what are your thoughts on mandatory vacations? Is that something that's doable in your respective states?

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:34:13]:
You want to take that one first?

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:34:15]:
Well, this is a personal near and dear, so could we dim the lights? Music.

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:34:21]:
That's right.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:34:22]:
To do my version of Rob. People have an earned vacation, and I encourage the taking of the vacation. I don't know if we can go to the line of mandatory, because each state has its own operating and authorizing environment. But by all means, as my team knows, if you got vacation and you're taking it, schedule it. We'll work around that. Nothing's that important that would overwhelm a vacation. Even if we have an operational issue, we should be at a point where we have bench strength to be able to step in, take over it. So no one person is irreplaceable.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:34:53]:
We're all replaceable at the end of the day. How well we train and mentor others to fill our shoes is what's critical here.

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:35:00]:
100%. I was actually, before you said that I was going to jump in. If you think you're irreplaceable, then you aren't doing your job well. I mean, you absolutely should be replaceable and be able to leave and have the place keep on running.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:35:11]:
Since we've been on the military theme, we were soldiers. Great scene there with the helicopter as they're getting out, and bam, you're dead. Bam, you're dead. And then the next person's like, you're in charge, and get out of the helicopter. But, I mean, it's just your job. So, I've often said that if you're not training your success, you're never going to go anywhere. And so that's critical.

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:35:33]:
No technology questions, Ethan.

Joe Toste [00:35:36]:
Someone's got to have a technology question.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:35:38]:
From a technology perspective. I was wondering if you could each comment on how you view your respective departments moving from your current state to your desired state. Okay, so I'll start. So we talk, people, process, and then technology. So, if I look here in North Carolina to align with what Governor Cooper's goals are about, a healthier, educated, prosperous and equitable North Carolina, really, for me, that's a focus on digital transformation.

Joe Toste [00:36:05]:
Right.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:36:05]:
How do we change the interaction of North Carolinians with all levels of government, not just state government, but how do we also incorporate local government and even the federal government in some cases? Because a resident should not have to figure out where they need to go. At the end of the day, this is not a technology problem. Yes, we have legacy technology that is in play there, but we have a people and a process issue and that's what we have to focus in on. So as we look at that, I mean, first and foremost, the big thing for me here culturally, and like I said, I got the best broadband director in the country. Not saying that because he's sitting over there, but anyway, it's around connectivity. I mean, if we don't get our people connected to the digital highway, we're going to fail miserably. North Carolina is a booming state because it's got a workforce, it's got an infrastructure that's here. And every, at least once a week there's a new major announcement governor is making about new businesses opportunities coming in.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:36:59]:
Just recently voted the number one state in the country for businesses here in North Carolina. And we're seeing that. But if 10% of our residents are not connected to the digital highway, how long is that luck going to last? Because we're not going to have that workforce, we're not going to have the ability to sustain that, and business is going to end up leaving. So we have to get them connected. Secondly, it's really around cyber. We have to start doing things and focusing on cyber. Not necessarily from the nefarious bad actor doing things, but from the residents aspect. Right.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:37:25]:
We talked about our colleague Mike Leahy really looking at self sovereign identity management. What does that mean? A lot of states are going to centralized identity. Maybe that's not the right answer. And then we roll in the factor in privacy into that. Now, as privacy is an emerging topic across the country, how does privacy and cyber coexist and meet that balance? But then also how do we empower the residents for the data that they're providing to the state that they have control over that, especially if you look at what GDPR is into Europe right now. And then lastly, of course, it's basically getting into the cloud. We have to start looking at the cloud, what it offers, the resiliency, and it's a better consumption based operating model for us. But all of that to make all that happen, it's going to take people, and that's a cultural change.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:38:10]:
And that's something we've been working very hard in our agency to try to really hone in on because we do have people who still see, this is my job, you're taking my job and you're outsourcing me. No, we're not outsourcing you. We are now evolving you. We're going to retrain you, retool you, re equip you into other opportunities. I need cloud architects. I need project managers, I need portfolio managers. We need cyber professionals, we need privacy professionals. We need supplier managers, because as we begin to leverage more and more cloud opportunities, SaaS based opportunities, we need the people who understand not only the business but also the technology to be an effective manager of what's going on in these scenarios, procurement.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:38:50]:
So we have lots of opportunities for folks to be able to go into. And that's that cultural change that we're really trying to hone in on here in our agency. So it's not as much about the technology as much as the people and getting the processes correct.

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:39:04]:
So our state's set up a little bit differently as far as our model. The good news is we have strong legislative support and the statutory backbone to be able to build out the programs and the services that we have. And we have, in anticipation of where the state wants to go, built out a suite of shared technology services, a very strong cooperative contracts program with IT goods and services that allows our government customers to make those moves. Right. So that is there, like where we need to be. Again, talking about the cloud modernization efforts around all of that. But now I think what we're looking at is pushing, of course, on adoption. And to Jim's point, it's the people process thing.

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:39:46]:
And I was speaking on a panel yesterday back in Austin with some legislative members and was asked, well, what is it, modernization? What does modernization mean to you? And I think we could all probably come up with a different definition depending on what we're doing. But I think focusing on it as not just looking at legacy systems and changing and upgrading those. And to Jim's point, we know the technology is there, the solutions are there. That can happen. But changing legacy mindset, and that is the bigger challenge in the state. And really, I think across government at all levels is changing that legacy mindset. And that, unfortunately, is not the easier thing. It's not a technology solution.

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:40:27]:
So we're focusing on that. That's a cultural shift. One of the things that kind of came to us as a light bulb baja moment just recently, and we have a lot of our agencies really putting a lot of workload in the cloud, but still running into these hiccups and these challenges. And it occurred to us that, well, they think it runs just like our private cloud and it just doesn't. And so that's a retraining. I mean, we have the resources and the folks that are a public cloud manager and all of our infrastructure and staff in those programs to support that. But we on our part on the upfront going, okay, let's start really from just even the basics of how do you put in a request for this and what does that look like and what are the questions that we're asking and reframing and retooling the thinking around that. So that's the bigger challenge for us.

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:41:13]:
And of course, cybersecurity, building out that whole estate approach. We have a pretty robust program and we have some really great initiatives that we're working on, but a lot to be learned. I'm really excited to talk later with North Carolina on how they're approaching it as well. There's a lot of great things that they're doing here.

Joe Toste [00:41:30]:
Thank you. I also want to give a shout out to Jim Weaver. Our first podcast actually was phenomenal, episode 80, envisioning equity through broadband. So you can make sure you check that one out.

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:41:39]:
That is a good one. I forgot. That's a really good one.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:41:43]:
I wasn't going to vote for myself. Jr.

Mandy Crawford, Executive Director & Chief Information Officer, State of Texas [00:41:46]:
It is great. And I always listen to those. And then I'm really grateful that broadband doesn't fall in my office so somebody else in our state.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:41:55]:
But if anybody has any broadband questions, like I said, I got the best broadband director in the country. So thank you.

Joe Toste [00:42:03]:
All right, well, let's take a short break and the we're going to come back for our next episode with Jim Weaver and Rob Maine, cybersecurity. I'm excited to tackle it.