State of California CIO: Teri Takai

Dan Farber: Teri, thanks for joining me.

Teri Takai: Dan, I am happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

Dan Farber: Now you are the CIO of a very, very large state. I think it's 37 million people who you are serving. Can you give us a little bit of the scope of your job and responsibilities?

Teri Takai: The size of the California IT organization really matches the size of the state. We have over 130 CIOs, over ten thousand state employees who are working on information technology, and we believe that we are spending somewhere around three billion dollars on maintaining the technology--making sure that our technology is really servicing the constituents and the businesses in the State of California.

Dan Farber: You were saying that you have, under you, over 100 CIOs working on various agencies and departments within the State of California. How do you manage such a large and distributed-across-the-state organization?

Teri Takai: It's a challenge. It really is a challenge. There are a couple of things that we do. One of them is that we've been gathering those individuals together and getting their feedback--getting their input on the things they would like to see moving the technology platform forward in the state. Along with that, we try to establish some underlying processes that everyone uses so that we can begin to use technology in a much more standard way. We can begin to look at the way we use technology across the state. We have instituted, for instance, a five year IT capital planning process. We ask all of the departments to establish a standardized way of reporting the projects that they're doing now and the projects that they're planning. We are asking them to establish a technical architecture--in other words, what are the technologies that they're planning to use now, and what are technologies they're going to use in the future? That helps us increase the communication between the different groups.

Dan Farber: Are there certain technologies or architectures platforms that you're going to be standardizing on going forward?

Teri Takai: Yes, there are a number. Our challenge is we have a lot of technology. What we're trying to do is to standardize more on certain technologies, but then also what we are doing is looking forward. Because Web 2.0, collaboration, and actual knowledge sharing is going to be a big, big important part of what we do going forward.

Dan Farber: It sounds very much like what we have heard from the President-Elect Obama in terms of his plan for focusing on technology--data sharing and e-government. How do you think the Federal Government and the State Government are going to work together on those kinds of initiatives?

Teri Takai: We are very excited to hear a new focus on the information technology and the use of technology at the federal level. It has been a challenge in the past to really look at how we can collaborate. There is a significant amount of things that we do together now. I think there is going to be a way for us to work even better in the future. There are so many programs--like our health care programs, our education programs, our home land security programs--that we do together with the Federal Government today. Being able to leverage our technologies is just going to be able to improve services for constituents and businesses. One thing we always say is, for you as a constituent, you don't really care whether your service comes from a county, a state, or the Federal Government, you just want your services delivered in the most effective way possible.

Dan Farber: California is known to be one of the "greener" states. How much is "green" and environmental issues a part of you portfolio of activities?

Teri Takai: It is a major of our portfolio. We are looking at not only our power consumption as an information technology organization--I think, as you know, IT datacenters are becoming one of the major power users either in the private sector or in the public sector. We are definitely looking now at our large data centers. We are also looking at how we can decrease our power usage in our smaller data centers, and then also even to the desktop. There is a broader implication in terms of how technology can help the state decrease their carbon footprint just in the way our employees work and in putting more services out--again for constituents, so they have the opportunity to do things online and not necessarily have to drive to a state office in order to be able to interact with us.

Dan Farber: California is a state well known for being on some earthquake faults. Does that change the way you think of disaster recovery and continuity?

Teri Takai: Very much so. Here in California, with the size and just the geographic diversity, the number of things that we have to plan for is really extensive. Our Office of Emergency Services and our Office of Homeland Security has done considerable work in looking at how technology can continue to assist their efforts. But there is a lot more that we could be doing, particularly in our new volunteer services, to make sure that we are taking advantage of what everyone in California wants to do--to gather together to help when we have an emergency.

Dan Farber: This is also a time, I am sure, in which your budget is very constrained. How does that impact the way that you go about and do business?

Teri Takai: Two ways. First of all, it makes us scrutinize our projects very, very carefully and make sure that we're spending money on the things that are most important. Second of all, what we're looking for are opportunities to use technology to make government more effective and more efficient. Therefore, to use the dollars we're spending to get savings out in the operations.

Dan Farber: Finally, I wanted to ask you about innovation, especially in an environment where you're working with state government people and politicians. How do you manage to get things done?

Teri Takai: It's really two things, Dan. You have to be out there building alliances; you have to be out there listening to people. It's really all of our great state IT employees who have tremendous ideas for how we could do things differently. It's also listening, not only to the IT community, but also to the key decision-makers and the departments and agencies that actually determine how they want to spend their IT dollars. Our cabinet secretaries are involved, and we are also out working with legislators to help understand how they would like to see the technology dollars spent. In the end, it is up to us to establish the kinds of policies that the governor would like to see in the way technology is used. Very often, one of the things I love to say about consensus is that people think that consensus means we're going to do it my way. Very often what it means is, how do we come to a joint decision that we can all live with that really moves the state as a whole forward? That's one of my jobs, to be able to bring that consensus around the technology decisions, and yet make sure that people are comfortable with them, so they can see that change moving forward.

Dan Farber: Teri, thanks very much for speaking with me.

Teri Takai: Well, Dan, I've enjoyed it very much. Thank you.

Dan Farber: I have been speaking with Teri Takai, who is the CIO of the State of California. For CIO Sessions, I'm Dan Farber. Thanks for watching.