Embracing technology for technology's sake is missing the point. While it's easy to get swept up in the excitement of the latest feature release in a piece of software, forward-thinking tech leaders in the public sector are grounded by the business need that technology is aimed at solving.
At the Los Angeles Digital Government Summit last month, CIO Ted Ross described the way the tech agency is now organized, with separate bureaus for applications, infrastructure and customer engagement — which is responsible for delivering value to both internal and external constituencies.
"We need to focus on our customers, have a great understanding of who they are and what they need," Ross said, "and deliver the maximum value to them using technology."