August 2010

It seems increasingly evident to me that public sector CIOs have even greater pressures than their private-business counterparts to adopt emerging technologies and cut costs. While carrying out these initiatives, government CIOs must also address constant regulatory issues, e-government mandates, green computing standards and a super-competitive market for new talent.

In particular, government agencies have always struggled to attract new IT staff and retain those at the most senior levels. I was thinking about the high turnover rate among government IT executives when I read about California CIO Teri Takai, who was recently named U.S. Defense Department IT Chief. And more recently, Anne Margulies — former CIO of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts — left her state job for one at Harvard University.

It’s possible that Margulies’ move was already under way when she told attendees at the MIT CIO Symposium in May that her state has had a hiring freeze for the past three years due to budget cuts. In addition, she noted that pay scales were low, and she was worried about "creating a talent pipeline" in light of an aging workforce where half of the state’s employees could retire in the next two years. Perhaps these facts —combined with the impending gubernatorial election in November — prompted her to take a new post in a more stable environment.

Since we have many members around the globe in public and nonprofit organizations, Smart Enterprise Exchange will be exploring some of these topics this month and next. The lessons learned should also be very useful to private sector CIOs even if they have relatively more resources to work with.

In our Professional Development section this month, Steve Ressler, co-founder of GovLoop — a burgeoning social media site for the government community — shares his recommendations for hiring and retaining Net Gen workers. In September, we are happy to feature the views of U.S. government CIO Vivek Kundra, who is determined to counter the traditional inertia and bureaucratic delays so common in large organizations. His efforts to push an agenda of cloud computing and social media as part of President Obama’s “digital administration” are making waves in Washington, D.C. and in the industry. Kundra’s mantra? Cut waste and execute, execute, execute!

We’d like to hear from those of you in the public sector about your experience. What are your challenges and success tactics? Take the poll here and add a comment. If you're in the U.K. government, tell us whether your new administration has had an impact on IT policies. And we’d like to hear from those of you in South America, Canada, Asia, India and Australia, as well. I invite you to share your experiences with me and your peers.

Paula Klein
Editor and Community Manager
Smart Enterprise Exchange