Tag Archives: Government

FedTalks, 24 August 2022, Digital Transformation. Infographic by Henry Chamberlain.

FedTalks is a conference series, presented by FedScoop, a gathering of leaders in government and the tech industry. Last week’s FedTalks, on Digital Transformation, sparked a number of lively discussions centered around the focus of the citizen experience. A recent executive order issued by the Biden administration presents a bold vision of streamlining government service to the public. This order is a comprehensive plan to meet the challenges of the 21st century, especially when, left without leadership, government actions are slow and often counterproductive. But that is no longer something that can be ignored or put off for the future, not when our national security hangs in the balance. With that in mind, this conference took on the challenge of presenting twenty-three talks, one after the other, each lasting around ten minutes each, discussing as many facets as possible of the work ahead as the federal government faces a major shift in how it operates: a full-scale digital transformation.

But, you may ask, hasn’t the country already gone through a digital transformation? Well, has it? Business has. Many individuals have. But government, not so much. Government, left to itself, will take the path of least resistance, the path that is most familiar, and definitely not the path that is most visionary. There’s a reason that the very mention of government conjures up thoughts of red tape and bureaucracy. Think about it. Anything that involves government usually, if not always, involves some painfully slow process of unnecessary complexity. And maybe we’ve heard promises of change before. What makes things different this time is that our sluggish ways have left us completely vulnerable to attack from other countries and various other malicious agents.

The Executive Order on Transforming Federal Customer Experience and Service Delivery to Rebuild Trust in Government is the catalyst for change that has arrived not a moment too soon. Here is a link from The White House on that order.

Will an executive order truly make a difference? This one is certainly one of the most articulate, ambitious and credible of such orders. The big takeaway from this FedTalks conference is that people want to rally around a certain set of goals that make sense and can actually lead to a lot of good. So, in that regard, this order is a football in play. The game has begun. And no one appears to want to let the hard-fought momentum slip away. The overall consensus is that experts in tech and government already know that we have a broken system and any push toward fixing it is more than welcome.

FedTalks is a series of discussions and presentations that brings together some of the greatest minds in the tech, government and academic communities. Now in its 13th year, FedTalks is the premier federal IT event, showcasing the most important conversations on topics like modernization, the evolution of zero trust security, the adoption of emerging technologies like AI and 5G, and the importance of culture, talent and innovative thinking in making the government a more digital institution.

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Henry Chamberlain at work during FedTalks.