Ep.80 Envisioning Equity through Broadband with Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina

Joe Toste [00:00:00]:
Let's kick this out. Jim Weaver is the secretary and state CIO. He leads the agency responsible for strategic it planning in the procurement and delivery of it services and solutions, as well as cybersecurity and efforts to expand broadband access and affordability across Carolina. And just right on the show right now, before we hopped on live, Jim told me he's a giant Yankees fan, so we're just going to throw that out there right now. As part of his description and in the words of Governor Cooper, Jim is a seasoned technology leader and manager. He's well positioned to protect the safety of all North Carolinas while helping to grow broadband connectivity. Jim is also an active member of the US armed forces, previously serving in the Army National Guard in Washington and Pennsylvania and currently serving in North Carolina. Jim, thank you for serving and welcome to Tech tables.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:00:46]:
Thank you. Looking forward to the conversation. And like I said, die hard Yankees, man.

Joe Toste [00:00:52]:
Die hard. Die hard Yankees. I brought out the Red Sox.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:00:56]:
Anytime you want to come and kiss the rings, let me know the recent rings. Or as you can tell, Derek Jeter is very much a fan favorite. So love the.

Joe Toste [00:01:07]:
Yeah, yeah. I love sports in general and I love the banter. We will at some point have to pick up this fun conversation in person before we jump into today's episode. This podcast is sponsored by Verizon Public sector. Verizon is redefining the front line for first responders, educators and k through twelve students. As a high school basketball coach, I work with student athletes all the time and I love the important mission. Verizon is failing at the federal, state and local levels, working across to close the digital divide by investing in high speed Internet infrastructure, access and affordability across the nation. To learn more about Verizon public sector, head to Backslash.

Joe Toste [00:01:44]:
Public sector. Let's kick it off today, Governor Cooper's number one priority for you, broadband. Now, broadband is critical because it provides high speed Internet access to the citizens across North Carolina. And we're in a mobile first world, right, where five g is super critical. But as I was researching North Carolina, there seems to be a bifurcation between the urban and rural areas. I heard you on a podcast or two before talk about this. There's about a 60 40 makeup between the urban and rural areas within the state. Can you break down how you're thinking about deploying broadband to the entire state?

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:02:18]:
First and foremost, I think it's important to note that the broadband problem in North Carolina is an entire state problem. It's not just a rural problem, it's also an urban problem. It's also a suburban can. Amazingly, as it is here in Wake county, which is the largest county by population size in North Carolina. You can go to southeast part of the city of Raleigh and have nothing. And then likewise that same type of situation exists across rural areas. North Carolina, interestingly enough, I think, is the second state as far as ruralness, if you will, in the country. And we also have geographical challenges here in North Carolina as well.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:02:53]:
We're not as mountainous as you go to the western part of the country, but we do have some sizable geographical features here in North Carolina that do make it challenging at times to get fiber to all parts of the state. So we're really looking at this as trying to address this as a holistic problem. And so here in North Carolina, we talk about high, we're not talking about 25 three, which is how the FCC has it currently defined. We're looking at minimal of 100 down and 20 up. So 120, if you hear me say it that way. And that's not a moonshot, right? That is something that is very much achievable. But we have to get there across all North Carolina. So we look at areas of the state, we look at underserved, that is, those that are not hitting the 120 threshold, and then we're looking at served areas as well.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:03:38]:
What can we do to improve? Ideally, we love to see a gig symmetrical, at least all over the place, but we know that we got a lot of work to get there to make that happen. So Governor Cooper put forward in the budget approximately about a $1.2 billion spending proposal, leveraging ArP funding opportunities. That really was to provide a holistic approach to how we did broadband here in the state. And it's really focused around three areas. So it's about accessibility to the infrastructure. $600 million of that 1.2 was really targeted on infrastructure build out through a number of opportunities, predominantly around fiber, getting fiber to household locations. It was looking at stopgap measures that we know that we're going to be challenged to get fiber. And what are the other alternatives that we can leverage, like fixed wireless, low earth orbiting satellites? What are the capabilities that we have in the toolbox to try to provide this type of connectivity out to all North Carolinians? And so we were also then looking at affordability.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:04:40]:
And so as part of the governor Cooper's plan, he had identified $420,000,000 to try to help offset the cost of Internet at a household level. We know that in some cases it's 2% of a family's income to pay for the cost of Internet. And during the times of the pandemic and the economic upheaval that we saw in 2020, we do realize that there was choices between access to these types of benefits, if you will, versus putting food on the table. So the governor was very conscious of the fact that we need to help some North Carolinians out in that. And so that point of 20 million was focused on a population set of about 380,000 households that we believed would need some type of assistance to continue to get and maintain broadband access. And then the last portion of that was around $150,000,000 to start addressing literacy and enablement. And by that, I'm really about how do we educate people on the Internet? How do we start providing devices to individuals, especially low income households? And we got some great nonprofits here in the north state of North Carolina. Locally, here in the most immediate company called Cramden, that really takes old computers and refurbishes them and puts basically an open system, operating system on it and to the point where you just power it on and you get browser access and connectivity to the Internet.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:06:01]:
But as part of that, they're also doing training programs to make folks aware of what's going on around on the cyber front. Because really, if you think about 10% of our state today, about 1.1 million individuals do not have access to the Internet today here in North Carolina. And that's terrifying. That is a workforce. And as you look at these high tech industries that are coming in North Carolina, we just had another major economic announcement the governor made yesterday. Excuse me, I'm tongue tied. That's the Red Sox ball that's throwing me off.

Joe Toste [00:06:31]:
That's right.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:06:33]:
An airline, a company that's focused on making the next round of sonic based jets. So we are attracting here in North Carolina, a significant portion of high tech industry coming in, whether it's biotech, whether it's information technology. Apple's building their east coast campus here in North Carolina. And they're doing that because we have an infrastructure. They're doing that because we have a workforce ready to be put to work, that's capable of doing the jobs that are coming here. But to sustain that, we need to make sure that we're getting all North Carolinians ready to connect onto that highway and making sure they have those opportunities, let alone think about the economic boom, when you can start bringing Internet connectivity to, I hate to call them small businesses, but mom and pop shops, when they can start selling their wares and their materials across the Internet, that brings a lot of tax value and benefit back in. When you think about rural North Carolina and the agriculture industry, IoT, whether it's soil sampling, whether it's husbandry, veterinarian services, you name it, IoT can do a lot of things. Telemedicine and telehealth capabilities.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:07:37]:
As we're starting to see the shift away from some of the urban buildup areas and moving slowly, and it's our older populations that are moving away from the cities and going to heading to the rural areas. Rural hospitalization or hospital systems only have so much capacity, but if you can use that local hospital system in conjunction with the more build up health systems that are probably around more of the metropolitan areas of the state, now you have a totally different healthcare experience, but that you need that connectivity to make that happen. So we recognize this whole thing and then woven into this really is a whole theme around equity. We know a digital divide exists here in North Carolina, and so we know in our state that right now, 76% of white households are more likely to have a high speed Internet subscription. That number drops down to 68% for latino communities. That number drops down to 64% for african american communities, and that number even drops down further to 57% for native american communities. So the governor's challenge to us is, I would like to see 80% across all racial subdivisions in the next, hopefully by January 1 of 2025, when his administration ends. But he really wants to put a significant impact across all the racial subdivisions so we can start addressing equity in a different manner than what has happened in the past.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:09:00]:
The other component of this, too, then, is the governor. As we saw in 2020, the governor really recognizes the impact of education as it relates to the need for high speed connectivity. And so the other challenge he has put in front of us is around. He wants all households in North Carolina with school age children to be connected 100%. We have these very well defined objectives the governor has laid out in front of us to go get. Unfortunately, we had this little process where it took a while for our budget to get processed here passed in North Carolina. So instead of July, it didn't occur until November. So we got set back a little bit in our timeframe, but now we're getting ready to start rocking and rolling.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:09:40]:
And actually, on Monday, we're going to be opening up the first part of the affordability piece. And by the way, I should say that while the governor had asked for 1.2 billion, the legislature basically appropriated us just a little bit south of a billion. But they recognized the importance of the build out of the infrastructure, and they recognized the importance around literacy and enablement. The door did not get closed on the affordability piece, but fortunately, on the federal side, we have what used to be the emergency broadband benefit, which is now moving to the ACP program. Unfortunately, Ebb provided $50 of a subsidy to subscribers. ACP now reduces that amount to $30. So I know the governor is extremely concerned that as this transition occurs in March and go from when we're seeing the average price point for Internet service right now being around $57, is there going to be fallout of some North Carolinians and not being able to afford the Internet? So while the General assembly did not close that door on the piece of affordability, the door is open for us to come back and have a conversation, but we're going to have the metrics and the data to show why this is extremely important. But the good news is that at least the General assembly, the legislative front, and other stakeholders are recognizing the importance not only about building it out, but we have to be able to afford it, and we have to know how to use it with devices that are capable of doing it.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:10:57]:
Now, as you talk about mobility, and you'll hear me talk about in the telco world, we talk about last mile, that run, if you will, from middle mile to brick and mortar location. We're in a mobile world, and we should be talking about connectivity to the last user, and you'll hear me use that terminology as far as last user. And so we have to recognize that we have to get connectivity to devices and not necessarily to a brick and mortar location. So while right now, today we're looking at delivering connectivity to households at addresses, we do know, as we evolve and mature in this opportunity, we're going to have to start looking more at the wireless component, and how do we start enabling individuals, wherever they're at, whether they're at the mall, they're in their front yard. Schools now, as we've seen, aren't necessarily a schoolhouse. Our world has changed a lot because of COVID and so we have to look at delivering service where and when the individual, wherever they're at and when the individual needs it. And so that's where some of the exciting things around five g can come into play. I'm really looking forward to seeing that.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:11:57]:
I know a number you meant. Verizon is our sponsor. There's other telco suppliers that are very much into the 5g arena, and we really want to look at how can we start doing some things with five g, and I think five g has a lot of applicability in the urban environments, probably more so than the rural areas. But nonetheless, we want to be able to add 5g into our toolbox as we're looking holistically across the state and seeing where those opportunities could come to play.

Joe Toste [00:12:21]:
That was fantastic. There was a lot there. You had mentioned the 1.1 million individuals in North Carolina who do not have that access. And when I think about, there's those two parts, and you hit it perfectly, right? There's the literacy and then the enablement, right? There's hardware, and then there's a people piece where the infrastructure needs to be set up so that people can actually hop on and we can actually close that divide that's happening right now. And since I work with high schoolers and I take these van rides with them, I know that there is a divide. And I work with these kids and I work with their parents. Some of their parents don't speak English because I have to check in with them on grades. I'm like, hey, we got league play coming up and your grades are this.

Joe Toste [00:13:04]:
What's going on? We got to close the gap, coach. I only have on my phone half the time, or I don't even have a phone. I have this old iPad or whatever, something the school gave them. And I'm like, okay, so we need to go get you this. We need to get this in motion. Yeah, there's a real gap across the US, but I love how you laid it out.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:13:22]:
Where I live in Raleigh, I have 220 down and 20 up with about 17 nanoseconds of latency. And I'm complaining. Yeah, and I feel guilty doing that because I've had some colleagues as I'm mentioning this, and they quipped at the speed test and held up their phone and they were getting three down, one up, and I'm like, oh, my. I just know what the end. And I can see where I live, and I'm an early riser, and that goes back to the military. But come 06:00 I start seeing latency at six in the morning, you can see that it's just quite interesting. And again, I'm happy that I have the speeds I have. But my goodness, if I'm there complaining about how slow it is, I can only imagine what somebody's there watching paint dry, waiting for connectivity.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:14:06]:
And that's not a good experience for our children to have in learning. If kids are sitting there watching the screen paint and waiting and watching things spinning their mind's going elsewhere. They're not focused on their studies and everything else. And I know when I was a child, if God loved my mom, loved my mom dearly, but if it wasn't for my mom, I could have probably had a different outcome, but she was able to keep me focused. But in today's economy, most of the time, there's probably times where children are at home without parents being there. And if they're not engaged in this world, I can see very easily why they're going off and playing a game over here or doing something that keeps them going and keeps them active. And if their schoolwork is just painting, watching paint dry, it's not a good experience. And we can do better.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:14:49]:
We have to do better. And we're at this transformational moment in our country, in our state's history here, where we can make a profound difference and for the next generation or two. And at the end of the day, really isn't access to the Internet. That's almost like it should be an essential, as you look at today's society and where we're at, and to have as many North Carolinians as we do that currently do not have access to sufficient bandwidth to do what they need to do is just atrocious and very fortunate that the governor, again, his number one priority to me, he made that very clear at the outset. And the legislature recognizes the importance of broadband connectivity, too, and that's evident by the funding that they provided to us.

Joe Toste [00:15:28]:
So this kind of brings up an interesting question for me, is when you think about your team and you've had the privilege and the honor of serving both in the state of Washington and now North Carolina. And I heard you say on another podcast that it takes a village to make anything great. So I was wondering, hey, what does it look like? I think you said the term is up January 1, 2025. So you've got some really good time. What does greatness look like for the North Carolina department of it, for this administration?

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:15:56]:
So again, there's a lot of things on our plate right now to get done over the next, I'll just say, round numbers remaining three years. Obviously, we have to carry out the governor's agenda, and the governor is very much focused on the environment, clean energy. We got some exciting legislation going through relating to the climate and going green across the board. Governor is very excited about Medicaid expansion here in our state. North Carolina still is not a state that has done Medicaid expansion. And the governor is going to continue to push forward with Medicaid expansion. But when you think about what the governor's focused on, it's really around a healthier North Carolina and educated North Carolina, a prosperous North Carolina, and then back to an equitable North Carolina and making sure that these opportunities are available for all North Carolinians, that we're not leaving anyone behind because we can't afford to do so. So really, when I look at it from what I'm focused on, obviously broadband, and we can't be successful in doing a lot of the things that we want to do in a digital world without getting North Carolina connected.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:16:51]:
And so we really need to focus in on that cyber. We're very much have to be aware of the cyber activities that are going on as we respond and protect the state holistically from a cyber aspect. But then also as we look at our residents, our businesses, our tourists or visitors to the state as well, and making sure that they have a safe experience here in North Carolina, we have to start looking at privacy as well. And in December, we hired our state's first chief privacy officer. We got a phenomenal, talented lady, Cherie Givens, here in our state now brings a world of experience from the federal side, from being a federal contractor as well, working with DoD, CDC, a bunch of other entities and three letter agents. It's just a win for us here to have such a talented individual coming to North Carolina to help us get and launch a cyber or a privacy program here in the state. And then lastly, we got to talk about getting to the cloud and starting to unlock the potential of what cloud computing can bring to the state here as well. And I talk about these four things because I refer to them as the four pillars for ultimately what we need to do.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:17:55]:
And that's called digital transformation here in the state. The COVID the pandemic has really forced us to get online and servicing the residents of the state. We're not digital. We very much have focused on here's our services and this is how you consume them. But we really need to flip the paradigm and think about it from the north carolinian aspect. And how do I engage with state government? How do I engage with local? Because really, at the end of the day, a resident of our state is engaging government because they're in need of something they shouldn't have to figure out how to navigate. Is it local government? Is it my city? Is it my municipality? Is it my county? Is it the state? They're in need of a service. And technology exists today to allow the interaction of government to come together and get that individual to where they need.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:18:43]:
So we don't have a technology problem, we have a people process problem and we really need to hone in on that. But to get to digital transformation, you need connectivity, aka broadband. You need to focus on cyber. And how do we look at identity access management of our residents? So I could be Jim Weaver living in the city of Raleigh, I could be Jim Weaver, state employee. I could be Jim Weaver, small business owner. Am I Jim Weaver or am I three Jim Weavers depending upon the Persona I'm engaging in?

Joe Toste [00:19:14]:
Jim Weaver, the Yankees fan? Jim Weaver, the Yankees fan, yeah, I.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:19:17]:
Would love that one. But I don't think that worked well here if I said, hey, and Joe, if you come here, we have to go to Durham to watch a Bulls game because one of the best baseball movies, as you know, is Durham. So anyway, and we got to also focus on the privacy of the data that we're having here as well. And then obviously we need to get the cloud computing so we have that resiliency and we can get to a better experience overall for our residents in the state. So really, as we talk about digital transformation, it's got to be focused on a north carolinian. It can't be focused on a particular agency or a particular agency of services. And we need to start getting folks to think a little bit more as to who we're trying to service and how easy are we making their ability to engage in government and give them to a greater, better experience. I was always fond of saying, I'm trying to provide the Amazon experience with Domino's pizza.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:20:06]:
As we all go out to Amazon, Amazon already knows how to market to me and what it is I'm looking for. So I'm not having to go through everything to figure out where I want to. But what's fun about Domino's pizza is I can see where my pizza is in the process, right? So I'm getting that instantaneous feedback, if you will. And really, we've got to start engaging our residents and our businesses a little bit more differently in that business. Everybody wants to focus on residents or citizens. I also throw our businesses because the more business friendly, the state's going to continue to grow and business opportunities. And like I said, there's rarely a week that doesn't go by that the governor is not making a major economic announcement here in the state of North Carolina. It's just phenomenal the growth that this state has continued to undergo, and it's been shown by the census data and everything else we were the 6th largest state growth.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:20:55]:
We grew almost by a million people from 2010 and 2020. We were only behind obviously the big four. And then Georgia and then North Carolina was number six. So there's a reason people are coming here to this state. And again, we want to make sure that we're continuing that because this state's viability is based upon the economic impact it's going to have and those revenues that it generates to allow not only Governor COoper but maybe future governors to be able to go do some other things and really start addressing educational opportunities in those other areas that we talked about around health, education and prosperity for our residents.

Joe Toste [00:21:29]:
I love that. Okay, so speaking of taking a village, I am really excited. I am launching a new series called the Tech Table Suite Talk series. These are small, intimate conversations happening live across the US in presidential suites, in hotels. Starting Thursday, April 21, the first one is going to be in Phoenix with Arizona State CiO J. R. Sloan. Many who's been on tech tables before, Arizona Department of Education CIO Elizabeth Neely, ex CSO for the state of Arizona, Doug Lang.

Joe Toste [00:21:59]:
Most of these are all ex tech table. We love him. They've been asking me to come to Arizona, who's Doug's actually now the director of it at Choice hotel groups. Goodyear in the city of Goodyear in Arizona, CIO Justin fair. Plus I got four other special cios. Only eight vendors in the audience. I'm only selling eight tickets. So 16 people total, live podcast.

Joe Toste [00:22:20]:
I love it. It's going to be a ton of fun. So presidential suite recordings, it's going to be a blast. That's Thursday, April 21. And then lastly, I recently just confirmed Mandy Crawford. She's been on techtables three times. But bless her heart, she's coming on again live. She's a CIO for the state of Texas.

Joe Toste [00:22:36]:
One of my favorites also. And Wednesday, May 18 in Austin, Texas. We're going to do that. Jim, do you want to come? Do you want to come May 18?

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:22:44]:
I would love to have you come to Raleigh. You can only go to Phoenix during certain times of the year. You can come to Raleigh here year round. And so I would welcome you to come to Raleigh. We could do something similar here. And again, one of the benefits here, Raleigh, in this part of North Carolina is we got the research triangle. We got major universities sitting around us. We got major it vendors sitting here in this area.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:23:07]:
It's phenomenal, the talent level. Now, what the converse of that is, unfortunately, is we're also in a labor market. So as we're looking at it professionals. An IT professional can basically dictate where they want to go and who they want to work for. There's that much competition we've seen already where help desk technicians are leaving state employment to go to private sector. I won't tell you how much, but I will say substantial raises, so that's how much. This is a talent starved area because of all the vastness that's going on here. But we got SAS, we got red hat, we got IBM, we got Cisco, we got Netapp.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:23:44]:
I could just go on and on with the opportunities that are here in our immediate area. So, Joe, come to Raleigh.

Joe Toste [00:23:49]:
Come to Raleigh. Mandy. I tried to get Jim to come to Austin, but he wants me to come to Raleigh. So I'm going to come to Raleigh.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:23:57]:
Because we still need to have a barbecue cook off, and she exactly knows what's going on there. But there's a challenge between North Carolina barbecue versus Texas barbecue.

Joe Toste [00:24:06]:
We talked about that. Yeah, we talked about that.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:24:08]:
Okay.

Joe Toste [00:24:08]:
I will ask Mandy if she will come to know my colleague down there in Texas.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:24:14]:
Mandy is doing some phenomenal things, and it's just great to watch the great work that she's got going on in Texas, and some of which is what we're trying to replicate here in North Carolina as well. So as our community, and we will leverage each other fully to get to the outcomes that we need. So I love the great work that Manny's doing and value her insights as we move forward.

Joe Toste [00:24:33]:
Yep, love it. So if anyone else is interested in having this tech table sweet talk series come to a city near you, just email me, joe@techtables.com. And we will make it happen because I love in person events, and so I was trying to figure out how I can make this happen on a smaller scale. I think once you get past 1620 comes a little harder, but I think smaller, intimate settings are really good. And shout out to Rob Lloyd for pushing me to come up with this. He's the ex CIO at the city of San Jose. He was asking for that. Jim, you got a unique background being the Washington state CIO before heading to North Carolina this past year.

Joe Toste [00:25:10]:
I know folks would love to hear, what are two to three lessons that you could share for aspiring state CIOs.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:25:17]:
First and foremost, if you've been to one state, you've been to one state. Each state has different operating models. Each state has different authorization models that are in play, too. So when I look at Pennsylvania and how we were able to interact and some of the things we were able to do. Going to Washington was night and day, and in Washington, very fortunate. I worked for a democratic governor Inslee. I'm again thankful for the opportunity governor Inslee and his administration provided for me, getting to work with the Washington legislature, which was two thirds democratic as well. So Washington is very much a blue state in that regard.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:25:49]:
But there's some fundamental things that you need to be able to do. And first off, our business is about relationship. It's not being about the smartest person on information technology issues, because if you think you are, you're missing the boat. There's a reason why you have our supplier community that's here. There's a reason why you have the great teams that are under you as well. But at the end of the day, our business is about relationships. And when you think about going forward with strategic initiatives, you're going to gravitate to those who have demonstrated value and have proven that it's not about where's my next purchase order, it's about what do you need and how quickly do you need it. So you need to build those relationships.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:26:28]:
You need to build those relationships through the supplier community. You need to build those relationships with the legislature, and you need to build those relationships across your peers in the cabinet. As North Carolina, and to some degree, Washington had it, too. Where you had separately elected. North Carolina, we also have separately elected. And when you think about secretary of state and Department of Public Construction, the superintendent, Department of insurance, as an example, and I can go on and on that form of the Council of States, they're part of the executive branch, but they're not part of the governor's jurisdiction. And so it's interesting that Pennsylvania, the executive branch, was well defined. We only had the treasurer, the auditor general, and the attorney general were the only separately elected.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:27:07]:
The rest of government was under the governor's jurisdiction. When you went to Washington, we had basically, when you looked at all the agency boards and everything, there was 105, if I remember correctly. Then the number might have shrunk or increased since I've left. But you had the executive cabinet, which is about 26 of us. Then you had the small cap, which was the smaller agencies, and then when you had everybody together, but a different style, different operating model, different authorization environments. And from here, living out in the west coast as well, coming back to North Carolina, it's a little bit of both, which is interesting as well. But at the end of the day, it's about building those relationships. And that is so important in our business to be able to get things effectively done.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:27:50]:
Again, when we talk about people, process, technology, it's not about the technology. It's got to be about the people and the process. Again, we're leaders, we're mentors, we're educators. Think about all those types of things, and you need to be able to ask the right questions at the right time. But like I said, and I'm fond of saying, I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, and so there's a reason why I'm looking at my team. The other thing is make sure you're creating a diverse as well. Diversity in thought, diversity in gender, diversity across racial subdivisions is extremely important as well because everybody thought like I did, God help us. Appreciate open dialogue.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:28:28]:
And as I'm fond of saying, we can agree to disagree, but I will entertain a healthy discussion as to why you think we should go in a different direction. And I will tell you, probably 60, 70% of the time, I'll sit there and say, you're right, didn't think of that. Yeah, let's pivot. But you have to create that dynamic with your staff and your team that encourages those kinds of conversations and not have a. I guess technically it's a blue culture type environment, but you don't want to be directed. I'm fond of saying that the military, for all the structure and command and control that is a very agile organization at the end of the day, and some people just look at me like, what the heck is he talking about? But when you have a mission occurring, the individual who's in charge of that mission is empowered to do what they need to get done. So you can have a sergeant on the ground telling a colonel flying a fast mover, drop the ordinance here and doesn't have to go through 15 different channels to get to that person. And so we need to also have that agility in our organizational structure as well, which is the bureaucracies don't like.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:29:36]:
But it's really, at the end of the day, you need to see and hear what's going on at all levels of the organization. And my team knows that I'm going to go to the person where I know the answer can be found at. I don't need to go through three or four levels to get down there because all I effectively did was wasted their time to get an answer. And that's no value to us as well. I got them working on important stuff, and if I have a quick question, why should I have to go and bother them to get to the answer that I know where I need to go. So I think those are some of the highlights here. It's about people skills more than it is about technical skills. Now, yes, you need to be technical sufficient or proficient.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:30:12]:
But again, don't focus on the technology stuff. Learn the businesses of the agencies you're supporting and talk to your colleagues across the cabinet or your colleagues at your level in business terms, not in it terms. You will be amazed of how quickly you get invited back to the big kids table, as I like to call it.

Joe Toste [00:30:30]:
Oh, yeah, that's great. The big kids table. Okay, so two to three lessons. First off, relationships. You had a great quote. You said, our business is about relationships. I loved that. And it's people and process, and that is just so important.

Joe Toste [00:30:47]:
Even as a coach, I preach having relationships are the most important thing on the team versus mastering the X's and O's, because the x's and O's always break down in a game. It always breaks down. And if they have the relationships, it just wonders to see the kids just fall into the right spots and everything. And so I love what you shared.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:31:11]:
There, and it's that word called trust. Right. At the end of the day, as a coach, and again, as we talked in the past, I coached rec ball as well. When the kids different. It's not about X's and O's. Anybody can diagram X's and O's and do things. John Madden made a career of it on the teleprompter. But at the end of the day, it's about trust.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:31:29]:
And in that moment in time that you're trying to do the right thing at the right time and that folks believe that's what the. As we know, it doesn't always work out. So fail is the first attempt in learning. Failure is not a bad thing. It's a phenomenal learning experience.

Joe Toste [00:31:44]:
Yeah, 100% with you. As we're wrapping this up. I know you grew up watching biggie's basketball, and so I always love drawing parallels. You've already probably heard of this episode of, like, between basketball and it teams. What do you see on the basketball court that translates very well over to the teams that you're leading.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:32:01]:
Again, as you look at a basketball game, as an example, go back to the word agility. Right. You can have a scheme, and you can come into with a game plan. You're going to run a certain scheme. You're going to do this against a particular team, whether it's a one, three one extended, you're running a box in one. All those kind of different things. But at the end of the day, you don't know what the other team is going to do to you. And so basketball and even the sports analogy is a game of adjustments.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:32:29]:
And as we sit here and create strategic plans, as we sit here and look at very tactical plans, you still need to go and make adjustments because there's so many unknowns out. One of the things we look at here in North Carolina is we have our employee performance process. And what has happened in the past is that projects employees were working on were woven into their performance plan. And when I came here, I said why an employee success should not be tied to a project, because there's so many things that outside an employee's control that can derail a project. Why are we holding our employees accountable now? Further work on the project. Yeah, I get it. But if you think about external stakeholders, the general assembly as an example, the legislature, you think about the federal change in the administration, in DC, gubernatorial changes, you name agency head changes. There's so many things that constantly our game is about change and responding to change.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:33:23]:
And when you think about a basketball game, every 24 seconds is about what changes are being done, what's occurring, your scheme changes depending upon who's on the floor, what players are there. And so it's that same type of maneuvering. So in many ways, your head coach is like your CIO. If you want to think about it from an it perspective, it's really getting the right players in the right moment to go and do some phenomenal. And I'm excited about, I think we're at that point in time here now where we're ready to really move forward. And this is going to be a phenomenal year for us in the it side of the house here in North Carolina, between broadband, between what we're doing on cyber privacy, and starting to get some of our cloud initiatives rolling forward.

Joe Toste [00:34:02]:
Oh, I love that. Yeah, I love what you said about agility. That is exactly right. You never know what's going to be thrown at you, whether it's an odd front zone or if a team is going to press you and what type of press, and there's just so much that goes into that. I've got my own personal podcast called the study, and I just interviewed the sniper that was with Jocko Willinek on SEAL team three. He was featured in the book extreme ownership, if you've read that and the talk about the four laws of combat and the four laws are cover and move simple, prioritize and execute and decentralized command. And when you said trust, that's exactly decentralized command came right to mind right there. I love that.

Joe Toste [00:34:43]:
So I know we're almost out of time. Jim, I know you're a big Will Smith fan. You go first. Favorite will smith movie. Go.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:34:51]:
Goodness. You know what I really love is bad boys. Okay.

Joe Toste [00:34:55]:
I didn't tell you mine before, but that was mine, too.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:34:57]:
Going bad boys. Bad.

Joe Toste [00:34:58]:
That was mine, too. I didn't tell you that, but I wanted to know all yours. Yeah, mine is also bad boys. One, two and all. They're all so great. Yeah. Okay. So what's your favorite spot? Where do you like to hang out? LinkedIn, Twitter.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:35:11]:
Probably both equally on Twitter and LinkedIn. Less about Facebook, so I'm more on the professional side again. A lot of times. I have a lot of contacts and connections on the military that are on Facebook. And it's rewarding to sit there and soldiers you mentored in their career, as they're getting promoted, as they're having families and all that kind of stuff, it's great to stay in connection with them. When you talk about social media, it's Twitter and LinkedIn more so than anything else.

Joe Toste [00:35:36]:
Awesome. Thank you for coming on tech tables. It was super fun to have you this morning.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:35:40]:
Great. And Joe, I'm serious. Come to Raleigh. We'll host you. We'll have a good time.

Joe Toste [00:35:44]:
I'm going to make it happen.

Jim Weaver, Secretary for Information Technology / State CIO at State of North Carolina [00:35:45]:
I didn't even talk about golf here yet. Come on.

Joe Toste [00:35:48]:
Oh, I know. Let's go. Yeah. I love it.