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November 20, 2009 By Dan Lohrmann
The National Association of State CIOs (NASCIO) has again polled state CIOs to determine what's hot and what's not as we head into 2010. Here's my take on their survey results.
Government Technology Magazine summarized the results into two categories. The top three in each category are:
A. Priority Strategies, Management Processes and Solutions
1. Budget and cost control: managing budget reduction , strategies for savings, reducing or avoiding costs, activity-based costing
2. Consolidation: centralizing, consolidating services, operations, resources, infrastructure, data centers
3. Shared services: business models, sharing resources, services, infrastructure, independent of organizational structure
B. Priority Technologies, Applications and Tools
1. Virtualization (storage, computing, data center, servers, applications)
2. Networking, voice and data communications, unified communications
3. Document/content/records/e-mail management (repository, archiving, digital preservation)
I am not surprised by budget issues leading the list. That almost goes without saying during these difficult economic times. Consolidation and shared services are also pretty obvious choices, with the cost control and efficiency being the major themes for CIOs right now. We need to work together to do more more with less, and partnering with others can certainly help.
What surprises me most from the "A" list is that security dropped to #6. Expect that to change next year. I fully expect security to rise back to the top three as Web 2.0 and cloud computing strategies try to battle with the inevitable threats that will surface from cost cutting.
The other surprise from list A is that infrastructure was #8. If you look at the top items on list B, they are infrastructure items like virtualization and networking. I can't quite figure that one out. List B also shows a drop for identity management from 2009, which will eventually need to be addressed in building more end-to-end trust and for moving forward with ambitious cloud computing plans.
The overall trend is "follow the money." Federal stimulus dollars are raising items like broadband to a new level of importance. Governments across the nation are looking at grant opportunities as well as making the most out of investments that they have already made.
In summary, I have a hard time arguing with any of the items on either list, based upon our economic realities. Michigan's list is similar, with a few exceptions like consolidation - which we've already tackled.
What are your thoughts? Do these priorities match your plans for 2010?
Building effective virtual government requires new ideas, innovative thinking and hard work. From federal stimulus projects to enterprise architectures to cloud computing, Dan Lohrmann will discuss what's hot and what's not in the world of technology infrastructure.
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