Shows
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 264 How Automation is Accelerating Digital Transformation Across Federal Agencies Ep. 264 How Automation Is Accelerating Digital Transformation Across Federal Agencies Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com In this episode of the Federal Tech Podcast, host John Gilroy interviews Nabil Amiri, Vice President of Business Development for the federal practice at NWN. The discussion introduces NWN’s expanding role in helping federal agencies adopt advanced technologies, particularly artificial intelligence (AI), as part of broader digital transformation efforts. Amiri explains NWN’s recent acquisition of Leverage Information, a move t...2025-08-0820 min
The Outlaw Nation Podcast Network by John RochaTony Gilroy Talks ANDOR vs ROGUE ONE, Mia Goth Cast in STARFIGHTER🌌 The Jedi Way: Mia Goth in Star Wars: Starfighter, Tony Gilroy talks Andor vs Rogue One, 🌌Join John Rocha, Laura Kelly and Kevin Smets for this episode as they dive deep into the latest happenings in the Star Wars universe! In this episode, we discuss:✨ Mia Goth Cast as a Villian in Shawn Levy's STAR WARS: STARFIGHTER film✨ Andor Showrunner Tony Gilroy weighs in on Andor vs Rogue One ✨ Laura's Thoughts on Andor S2✨ THR's report on Filoni and Beck taking over for Kathleen Kennedy at Lucasfilm, Mark Hamill is done appearing in Star Wars , and more!2025-06-121h 03
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 235 How Tech Leaders Can Streamline Federal Contracting for Real Efficiency Gains Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com The federal government is releasing so many RFIs and RFQs that it is increasingly challenging to select which ones to respond to. For example, let us say you get 60 requests. You do not have an equal chance to win any of the sixty messages. Do you assign the same amount of time to each one? Do you review each and rank the chances of success? What about the time you used in th...2025-04-2924 min
Scriptnotes PodcastThe Second Season with Tony GilroyJohn and Craig welcome writer and showrunner Tony Gilroy (Andor, Michael Clayton) for an in-depth look at crafting a second season of a hit TV show. They look at ways to find your season’s structure, setting your production up for success, controlling the energy your audience spends on information, and how to wrap up your story before the show eats you alive.
They also answer listener questions on what to do when a movie that’s similar to yours is wildly successful, and whether being a movie critic could hurt your writing career.
In our...2025-04-0147 min
Scriptnotes Podcast682 - The Second Season with Tony GilroyJohn and Craig welcome writer and showrunner Tony Gilroy (Andor, Michael Clayton) for an in-depth look at crafting a second season of a hit TV show. They look at ways to find your season’s structure, setting your production up for success, controlling the energy your audience spends on information, and how to wrap up your story before the show eats you alive. They also answer listener questions on what to do when a movie that’s similar to yours is wildly successful, and whether being a movie critic could hurt your writing career. In our...2025-04-0147 minThe Outlaw Nation Podcast Network by John RochaAndor S2 Trailer Breakdown, TONY GILROY Talks Star Wars's Future | THE JEDI WAY🌌 The Jedi Way: EVERYTHING WE KNOW ABOUT ANDOR S2 AND THE ACOLYTE S2 FANS GET A BOOST! 🌌Join John Rocha and Laura Kelly as they soldier on without Kevin Smets for this episode as they dive deep into the latest happenings in the Star Wars universe! In this episode, we discuss:✨ Our breakdown of the new ANDOR S2 trailer✨ Andor Showrunner's Hopes for ANDOR S2✨ The Acolyte S2 fans get a boost from new analytics✨ Plus, and more!Whether you're a die-hard fan or just curious about the galaxy far, far away, this episode is packed with i...2025-03-3050 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 225 Why Identity is the First Pillar of Federal Security in the Digital Age Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com Once the transition to the cloud became dominant, the importance of identity was placed ahead of permission to access apps and data. When data centers were down the hall, one could have physical access to a room and sign-on permission. The hybrid cloud, private clouds, and an interest in “alternative clouds” make identity the keystone of modern computing. Companies like Okta, Ping, and SailPoint work with identity and access management but re...2025-03-2519 min
Podcasting in Professional ServicesThe Federal Tech Podcast, Constellations, and Farm Kid City Kid, with John Gilroy Today we're gonna talk with a guy who did 1200 podcast episodes and give you tips on how you can be successful.On this episode of Podcasting in Professional Services, John Gilroy, host of The Federal Tech Podcast, Constellations, and Farm Kid City Kid joins the show to share his podcasting experience. In this conversation, you'll hear:What motivates John to be an active ocean swimmer, even in his 60sThe transition from radio to podcasting in the DC marketThe difference between a $25 million studio and recording from a local BBQ jointA diversified approach to podcast sponsorshipsAudio -vs- vi...2025-03-2044 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 183 Hidden Relationships in Large Data Sets John Gilroy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com History books will document the origin of the relational database at around 1970. About a decade later graph technology was introduced but it has taken decades for the cost of storage to go down and the ability to compute to go up. Finally, we can take advantage of a new way to unlock answers from a database. A typical relational database looks at information in tables. This can be fantastic for many actions, which is why...2024-10-0322 min
Home Building HubEp. 65 | Global Investment Opportunities: Insights from Dubai with John GilroySend us a textJoin us as we chat with John Gilroy about Dubai's booming property market. Learn why investors are flocking to this dynamic city and what Australian investors can gain from global strategies. Get key insights into maximizing returns in international marketsTopic timestamps1:44 - Introducing our Guest, John Gilroy.4:30 - Tell us why people are moving to Dubai?6:30 - Why are people investing in Dubai?7:50 - Dubai has both a 2033 and 2040 plan, can you shed some light on this?14:30 - What is your role?...and what do...2024-08-1945 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 168 Who do you trust? Zero Trust & the Federal Government Want to make the most out of your next podcast appearance? https://content.leadquizzes.com/lp/fk1JL_FgeQ Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com John Kindervag is the father of Zero Trust; Greg Touhill is the general of Zero Trust; today, we sit down with Dr. Zero Trust, Chase Cunningham. Dr. Chase Cunningham has a solid background for his opinions. He served in the military, has a PhD., five patents, and has written five books....2024-07-3023 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 152 Insights on Managing Federal DataWe are in a whirlwind of change. Data is pouring into federal agencies. A recent report indicated that data was growing at 25% a year; cloud usage at a rate of 61%; and Software as A Service an astounding 200%. Oh, did I forget to mention that Generative AI is also increasing data exploding? It is one thing to worry about data from John’s Doughnuts, and quite another to worry about sensitive military, financial, and health information that the federal government is charged to protect. Data. gov estimates that 250 million data sets are being used by...2024-05-2825 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 151 AI and Software DevelopmentSometimes, the most important impact of technology can be behind the curtains. Today, we will not focus on AI Deep Fakes and AI language translation, but on the impact AI on software development. Terry Miller from Karsun begins the interview with the basics of software development: collecting user stories. Traditionally, a systems analyst would interview several users to see how a software system should behave. This time-consuming process can be assisted with AI helping in assembling the details. Please note, Terry Miller will argue that AI is used as an auxiliary to humans...2024-05-2123 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 150 AI: Can it provide a safe path for federal technology?Ep. 150 Can a platform provide a path to safe AI for federal technology? About every reader knows that ServiceNow is a large company that helps the federal government with managing large systems. Today, Dr. Raj Iyer answers the question – is ServiceNow keeping up with AI to help reduce cost and improve delivery for massive federal systems? Dr. Iyer is in a unique position because of his years of experience in commercial systems and a recent stint as the CIO of the United States Army. An argument can be made that he is up to...2024-05-1426 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 148 Deep Intelligence and Critical VisibilityFederal technology has paralleled the commercial world in its expansion to millions of endpoints. On one hand, this means better information from something like an intrusion sensor. On the other hand, it means the attack surface has just expanded exponentially. It has come to a point where there has been a normalization of breaches. Unfortunately, this does not mean one can neglect protecting your agency from external threats. ZeroFox specializes in understanding external threat security. They have been around since 2013 and “Zero” in on protecting apps, data, people, domains, and API’s. During...2024-05-0723 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 147 Tech Communities how to build and sustainAfter hundreds of interviews with tech innovators I have concluded they are all trying to accomplish the same thing: tell how they can help get the word out that they may have a slice of the solution for federal information technology. One of the best ways to “get the word out” is through a community of interest. During the interview today, Derek Weeks details his success in forming a community around Development Operations, or DevOps. In fact, he has published a book detailing that wildly successful endeavor: Unfair Mindshare LINK One of the keys is to lis...2024-05-0229 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 146 Tactical Edge NetworkThe federal government has a myriad of technological challenges: legacy systems, Zero Trust, and even maintaining existing equipment! Most companies who work in that environment solve problems from a traditional office, or, even more comfortably, a home office. Unfortunately, life at the tactical edge is not that easy. Today, we dive into the tactical edge network with Sumner Lee, the CEO of a company called Fuse Integration. He started his career at the U.S. Naval Academy and has served in a variety of different geographical environments. As a result, he has an...2024-04-3023 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 145 DDOS Attacks & Federal AgenciesCybersecurity threats are like fashion; wait a few years and they come back in style. The Internet was designed to take a series of digits and resolve them to a website address. This was deemed the Domain Name Service, or DNS. In 1996, we saw the first malicious actor flooding a system with an attack. This was called a Distributed Denial of Service Attack, or DDOS. Over the years new methods of attack have proliferated and DDOS has taken a back seat. However, the number of endpoints has risen exponentially. It certainly looks like we are...2024-04-2519 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 144 Process automation and no code platforms AppianAppian Corporation is a 25-year-old technology company that focuses on improving process automation for large organizations. Once a year they have an annual conference for developers and partners. They rotate this meeting all over the world, we are lucky enough to have them meet in Washington DC where we have the chance to sit down with one of Appian’s co-founders, Michael Beckley. During the interview Michael Beckley covered topics like the impact of artificial intelligence on process automation; process automation and acquisition professionals; and how to improve process automation. Appian Corporation was one of th...2024-04-2321 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 143 Selling to the feds (Bonus episode) Breaking into the federal technology marketplace.In connecting with some new listeners, I learned that some have never sold to the federal government and listened to the podcast to see how other companies manage to work with federal agencies in reaching agency goals. Well, it seems time to pull back with a bonus episode on how to sell technology to the federal government. To accomplish this task, I looked for a person with twenty years of experience in public sector marketing. The logical choice was Brian Chidester. He has worked for many companies in the past two decades and, as a bonus, has...2024-04-1627 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 142 Artificial Intelligence applied to Threat IntelligenceNot all threats to the United States are discussed in English. That simple concept is well known in the intelligence community; however, making an obvious statement and being able to understand the nuances of a foreign language is a different matter. Today’s interview is with John Weaver, the Chief Strategy Officer for a company called Babel Street. The company began in 2009 with its name recognizing its ability to understand languages. From this humble beginning, it has grown into a powerhouse for looking at open-sourced information and doing advanced analytics. During the interview, John Weaver ta...2024-04-0925 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 141 Data privacy: the Data Behind the DazzleArtificial Intelligence is at the phase where federal and commercial technology leaders are amazed by novel model architectures. Each one can perform a function like data preprocessing, feature extraction, or prediction. The demonstrations are impressive; today we look at the data behind the dazzle. Adam Kowalski from proximal has spent years helping organizations follow a data-centric AI approach. During the interview, he expands on having high-quality, relevant data has precedence over any model architecture. One weakness of generative AI systems is they can be subject to bias. You may have insufficient data. Taking a data-centric...2024-04-0227 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 140 Getting Value from Massive Federal Data SetsCheap storage and fast Internet have made data collection cheap and fast. It is no wonder that we have federal agencies that are drowning in data. Some will argue that the federal government is the largest collector of data in the world. That may be a fantastic fun fact that will dazzle your neighbors, but how is that data being used to move forward the goals of the agency? Today, we sat down with Jason Green from Virtru. He brings his considerable experience to bear when he describes how agencies can optimize that...2024-03-2621 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 139 Applying Generative AI to improve citizen servicesIn 2021 the federal leaders recognized a problem with citizen experience on federal websites. As a result, Executive Order 14058 was released dedicated to improving citizen services for federal technology. However, a 2023 McKinsey & Company report states the average score for federal services is only 31%. Justin Fessler from Yext appears on the Federal Tech Podcast to offer some insights on how to improve the citizen experience, especially as it pertains to search. Everyone has laughed at the misleading results that a search engine gives. Everyone has opinions. It is one thing when you search for some...2024-03-2126 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 138 Is Identity a 10-billion-dollar problem?The Federal Trade Commission recently estimated that nationwide fraud tops ten billion dollars. Most of the efforts to stop this abuse start with identification. However, the federal response has been weak. Today, we have a former federal leader and current Vice President and Head of Public Sector Strategy for Society on the podcast, Jordan Burris. He opens with the obvious – if malicious actors are leveraging artificial intelligence to attack identities, then the only logical response is to use AI against AI. AI allows malicious actors to assemble identity information for fast access. Recent rep...2024-03-1927 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 137 How Artificial Intelligence can help the WarfighterChatGPT has overwhelmed the headlines in the past few months. It has brought the concept of artificial intelligence to the forefront of many discussions. Like everybody talking about swimming in the Olympics and then forgetting about it for four years. Well, Primer.ai has been deeply involved in artificial intelligence since its inception seven years ago. It did not start with creating a bot for a site selling shoes, it got its start from I-Q-Tel and has a laser focus on helping the defense community apply technology to real-world problems. The company has deep relationships...2024-03-1222 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 137 Can Codeless Software Help Feds Reach Agency Goals?In most of my interviews, I sit down with a company and talk about innovation in solving federal technology goals. Today, a twist. Sonny Hashmi was at the center of the battle for improving federal technology. For the past three years, he was the Commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service at the GSA. This has given him a unique perspective on what the bottlenecks are in streamlining federal technology. He dealt face-to-face with issues like Zero Trust, remote work, and digital innovation. After looking at a myriad of issues, he decided that the way to...2024-03-0726 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 135 Networking at the Speed of LightEveryone reading this has seen the movie Top Gun with Tom Cruise and heard the classic phrase, “The Need for Speed.” Well, a desire for speed is not limited to Naval Aviators. People in federal technology may not have call signs but need to optimize communication speed between data centers. If you were to stand in front of a whiteboard with a bunch of enterprise architects, they would dazzle you with CPU and GPU speeds. Memory tricks with virtualization give you tons of memory. However, at the end of the day, the real choking point is the conne...2024-03-0521 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 134 Is Automation, branching logic, and optimizing pathsAn American poet once wrote about reaching a fork in the road and he considered which path to take. When one attempts to consider branching logic and automation in complex technical systems, there is a lot of consideration given to which path to take. There may be lessons to be learned from Robert Frost’s 25-line masterpiece. Today’s discussion is with Thomas Kinsella, Chief Customer Officer and Co-founder of a company that focuses on improving automation. It is appropriately called Tines. Thomas Kinsella was asked to discuss a typical day in the life of...2024-02-2925 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 133 Champions of innovation instead of captives of compliance?Today we sit down with Susan Kidd and Valinder Mangat and discuss FedRAMP. Some will argue that FedRAMP is an unruly thirteen-year-old. Although FedRAMP has authorized over three hundred public service cloud providers, there is much work to be done. For example Valinder Mangat opens the discussion by noting that we have approximately five hundred applications in the pipeline. We have a situation where manually reviewing compliance is going to be too difficult. As a result, FedRAMP is making changes. They are starting to automate the process, causing companies to become familiar with a new...2024-02-2720 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 132 Enhancing Collaboration in Federal SystemsIf you were to take a class in Data Management 101, you would walk into the classroom on the first day and be bombarded with terms like data lake, data warehouse, and data mart. Phew. Where to begin? Let us jump to a federal agency. They are being deluged with data from low code no code, big application platforms, and let us not forget legacy applications that are not in the cloud. How to manage this ball of data confusion. Once it is overseen, how can an agency share information with outsiders to allow for data collaboration? 2024-02-2223 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 131 Exploring and Understanding DataA recent study by Deloitte indicates that 67% of executives struggle with data analytics. The knight in shining armor that offers a rescue is artificial intelligence. Today’s interview pours the promise of artificial intelligence into both ends of the spectrum: qualifying data sets that are being used and, subsequently, producing explainable results. The headline overview of artificial intelligence involves writing a report by ChatGPT. Although that may be true, the article will be derivative and will not move the ball intellectually. You will hear Kyle Rice discuss how Virtualitics can use artificial intelligence met...2024-02-2019 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 130 Reducing Risk in the Hybrid Cloud through IdentificationWe begin this episode with a shocking statistic: 80% of hybrid cloud breaches involve credential abuse. During the interview, Jimmy McNary from Semperis unpacks the whole concept of protecting identities in the hybrid cloud. The interview covers a wide range of topics. First, we start by taking a view of how large systems have evolved. Larger systems tend to have two or more identity processes, and Active Directory from Microsoft has a 90% share of that overall market. Secondly, some identity systems can use outdated Identification Access Management systems. Thirdly, we have employees a...2024-02-1519 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 125 The Secure Hybrid EdgeWhen people think of Amazon Web Services, they normally think of a data center. This was certainly top of mind when AWS hosted 10,000 at its Public Sector Summit in 2023. Today, we go in a different direction. Dave Rubal is a well-known innovator in the Washington DC technical community. He has decided to throw his hat into the ring with something called the Secure Tactical Edge. It makes sense. If you look at how storage and computing are changing. In a recent study, IDC predicts that in the future 75% of data will be collected at the “ed...2024-01-3022 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 123 Is Artificial Intelligence limiting the Value of Process Mining?AI? Process mining? We owe it to the listeners to put the strange title into perspective. Some will argue that a federal agency is a collection of business processes. For example, a company turns in its taxes; a laboratory applies for a grant; and even federal agencies must comply with cybersecurity requirements. Some will label this process management. Because the federal government deals in billions of dollars these processes can be quite complex. Experts have evolved who can examine these processes and determine ways to improve the process. Because there are stacks and stacks of...2024-01-2320 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 120 How to Improve User Experience on Federal WebsitesOn December 13, 2021, an Executive Order titled “Executive Order on Transforming Federal Customer Experience and Service Delivery to Rebuild Trust in Government.” This initiative reflects the greater commercial experience. Because people are now so comfortable with transactions on a phone that customers are using sites that present as “user friendly.” When combined with the Covid information that the federal government was presenting, the idea of improving the user experience only makes sense. Thelma Van is an articulate and experienced professional with user experience. During this interview, she takes the topic from a high level the level of the click...2024-01-1129 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp 119 CMMC & the Defense Industrial Base – Are You Ready?DoD tossed the revisions to the OMB; the 300,000 people in the DIB are waiting with ‘bated breath to see what it looks like in the Federal Register. Will it be a “final” rule? Will it be an “interim” rule? The first paragraph sounds like an academic dispute in an ivory tower; that “tower talk” is particularly important for the 300,000 companies that comprise the defense industrial base. Today, sit down with Kevin Hancock from Exostar. He will give you his thoughts on this important piece of federal regulation. If you wanted to classify this transition as revolution or...2024-01-0919 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 118 An update on Zero Trust for the Federal GovernmentThere was a time when a “snapshot” of a federal system was taken, and its security posture was evaluated based on the moment in time. That may have been a tolerable solution when a network consisted of two dozen personal computers and a server down the hall. However, this superficial approach will not work with today’s networks in constant change. For example, data is exploding and entering systems from a wide variety of portals. Add to that the devices that deliver that tsunami of data are doubling and tripling themselves. During this interview, Jonathan Trull...2024-01-0423 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 117 Putting Agile Software Development in Work Boots for the Federal GovernmentThousands of books have been written about agile software development since the release of The Agile Manifesto back in 2001. It was a noble, but frustrating concept two decades ago. They really did not have the tools to have informal teams combine to complete complicated software development projects. For example, if your team were in one building, you could meet daily and provide updates on agile topics like product backlog and continuous integration. This face-to-face approach hit a wall when team members were remote. Back in 2006, the founders of Bluescape saw the problem and star...2024-01-0223 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 116 The role of no code, low code for federal ITThe world is exploding with data and the need for systems to manage it. Unfortunately, we are not seeing a commensurate growth in people who are getting trained in software development. Let’s state the obvious: the need for coding is driving companies to look at ways to reach project milestones creatively. Companies like Nintex offer what they classify as no code, low code solutions. Essentially, they look at ways to systemize code creation. Let’s put this concept into perspective. In 1999 Salesforce popularized the concept of software-as-a-service. It became the world’s largest software firm in 202...2023-12-2626 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 115 How can Google help Federal Agencies?One of my goals in “Federal Tech Podcast” is to let federal leaders get an idea of what new companies and ideas are available to help them reach their goals. Well, everybody knows Google. This is an interview with Leigh Palmer from Google to bring to light some unknown areas of Google. Leigh provides Google's perspective on major cloud issues, like defining “cloud native” and giving her opinion on the hybrid cloud. She thinks that federal leaders should look at the success Google has had with commercial organizations. To accommodate that knowledge transfer, Google P...2023-12-2125 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 114 Improving Digital Adoption for Secure Federal TechnologyEp. 114 Improving Digital Adoption for Secure Federal Technology Commercial enterprises and the federal government have a challenge in managing the tremendous tsunami of data that has been released in the past few years. On top of that, federal agencies are under an unfunded mandate to adopt Zero Trust for all its systems. During this interview, Billy Biggs from WalkMe suggests that Artificial Intelligence may provide solutions to this complex problem. He begins by addressing the concept of digital automation. For example, when a person requests time off, they may have to engage five separate systems...2023-12-1923 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 113 MGM, CISA, and non-human entitiesJosh Brodbent has an amazing technical background. When he was still in his teens, he started a company that managed services. For the past twenty years, he has immersed himself in the world of technology with a particular focus on ICAM and cyber security. During today’s interview, we tapped his technical expertise to comment on some trends in cybersecurity that can impact the federal government: the MGM hack and CISA updates. The MGM attack was a curious combination of old-school methods and artificial intelligence. According to reports, a malicious actor used a telephone call to...2023-12-1424 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 112 Going from Observability to Deep ObservabilitySome will argue that providing cybersecurity to a federal agency is a balancing game. On the one hand, you must encrypt network traffic; on the other hand, you provide a mechanism where this encrypted traffic is inspected. This must be done in compliance with many regulations and not have any impact on the speed of the network. Sounds easy when a group of software developers are arguing around a white board. However, in the real world this task must be accomplished in a rapidly changing environment in the hybrid cloud. Systems are under attack daily; mountains of...2023-12-1220 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 111 Gaining a Deeper Understanding of CMMCIn Calvinball, the rules were always changing. When it comes to the DoD’s Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification, it seems to look increasingly like Bill Watterson’s masterpiece, Calvin and Hobbs. Today’s interview is with Dr. Amy Williams from Coalfired Federal. She has years of experience in the nuances of CMMC and has a strong academic background to be able to understand complex topics and present them in an understandable manner. Amy begins the interview with the range of activities that companies have regarding CMMC compliance. Some companies have invested thousands of hours in prepar...2023-12-0727 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 110 Visibility and Federal NetworksIn the early days of computer networking, one was taught to make the network hard on the outside and soft in the inside. A more popular variation on this concept was your network should be like a castle with a moat around it to prevent entry. Well, both metaphors have been destroyed. Today, you would be naïve if you did not assume the bad guys are inside your network. The proposed solution is, of course, zero trust. However, you do not flip a switch and have a zero-trust network assembled. Before the world ushers i...2023-12-0525 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 109 When Enterprise Detection and Response isn’t enough.Traditionally, a threat was detected, and a remediation plan was deployed. This is classic Endpoint Detect and Response (EDR). Would that life be that easy. Today, we have malicious actors using generative Artificial Intelligence to slightly alter code, so it doesn’t resemble previous attacks. This kind of eliminates the “detection” part of EDR. This isn’t rare anymore. In fact, in August of 2023 Deep Instinct did a study where it concluded that there was a significant increase in cybersecurity attacks fueled by generative Artificial Intelligence. Some findings · 75% increase in attacks last year · 85...2023-11-2824 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 108 Federal IT and Collisions in SpaceEveryone who has watched everything from Star Wars to Star Trek has never encountered some of the problems we see in space today: collisions and space junk. It just doesn’t make for a good story on the big screen. However, the reality is that there will be 30,000 satellites launched before 2030 and we are encountering challenges in what is called situational awareness. In this application, situational awareness is the concept that a satellite must know where it is heading, and whether other objects in space may be on a collision course. This is such a comp...2023-11-2125 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 107 Data in MotionToday, we have Will Laforest from Confluent explain how federal leaders can harness the power of data streaming. We all know that data has exploded since the advent of cheap storage, remote computing, and the proliferation of the Internet of Things. Several lessons have been learned. First, just because you have petabytes of data doesn’t mean it can help in making decisions; second, if you delay acting on that data you can leave your agency vulnerable. The Federal Data Strategy recognizes these concepts. In this interview, Will LaForest unpacks the idea of getti...2023-11-1621 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 106 Federal Spend ManagementKenny Rogers once had a popular song where he sand, “There’s time enough for countin’ when the dealin’ is done.” Well, there was a lot of spending during Covid and now is the time to reflect on how we could have optimized that spend. In the studio today is Tom Voshell from Coupa. He will bring a new perspective on how to efficiently allocate resources. The focus is not on shopping for the best price; the emphasis is to admin that acquisition is a complex process and systems should be administered to make sure the spend is...2023-11-1423 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 105 The Value of Notifications for Cyber and Physical ThreatsDonald Rumsfeld is famous for saying there are “unknown unknowns.” Today’s interview with OnSolve takes this concept down a practical road: once something Is known, how can you quickly inform people of the issue? When it comes to the federal government, notifications can range an incredible gamut. A systems administrator needs to know if a server is malfunctioning in a data center; a FEMA administrator needs up-to-date information on weather conditions; satellite operators need to know if a collision is imminent. OnSolve has been helping commercial organizations as well as the federal government since 1998. Our...2023-11-0924 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 104 Can AI Assist Federal Software Development?Artificial intelligence in software development has been top-of-mind for federal technology leaders once ChatGPT was popularized. This concern is documented in the recent “Request for Information on Open-Source Software Security: Areas of Long-term Focus and Prioritization” which was issued in August of 2023. Their concerns include the Secure Open-Source Software Foundation, incentives to secure open-source software, as well as research and development. If you are interested in commenting on this RFI, you may want to review a recent survey by GitLab. They recently published its 2023 Global DevSecOps Report: The State of AI in Software Development. They survey...2023-11-0719 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 103 Effective data management at end of lifecycle and after a breachIf you have ever raised teenagers, you know the phrase, “unintended consequences.” In today’s world of federal technology, this concept can be applied to data storage. What are the consequences if you do not thoroughly erase data? It could be an open door for data leakage. For example, what happens when your agency moves data from one cloud to another? Is it erased? How do you know? Let’s talk about the 500-pound elephant in the room – a cybersecurity event. Today’s malicious actors have been known to place trojan horses in other areas of a sy...2023-11-0225 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 102 Trends in Cyberlegislation and ThreatsIt is always nice to occasionally get out of the trenches to look at the larger issues. Today, we sat down with Michael Mestrovich from Rubrik. He has decades of experience in three letter agencies and has a perspective that is hard to match when it comes to getting a handle on current trends in cybersecurity. Michael gives a quick review of current trends in cybersecurity legislation. He notes that many have overlooked something as simple as the Internet of Things. IoT is projected to have as many as 30.9 billion endpoints by 2025. Much of this...2023-10-3123 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 99 Explainable Artificial IntelligenceArthur C. Clark once wrote, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” This observation certainly applies to Artificial Intelligence. Unfortunately, there are federal agencies that aren’t quite enthralled with “magic”, and they do require some information on how AI derives its conclusions. Kind of like your high school math teacher asking you to show your work on that last answer. Today, we have an accomplished practitioner of AI giving listeners an idea of what understanding AI is. The interview is based on a recent article Patrick Elder wrote called, “Explainable AI.” The challenge is...2023-10-1030 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 98 What Federal Leaders Need to Know about Cloud Computing with David LinthicumSometimes, you need to pull back and try to separate reality from the shenanigans. During today’s interview, world-famous David Linthicum pulls back the curtain on many of the misconceptions of federal cloud technology and puts a focus on reality. In some academic circles, David would be classified as an “iconoclast.” This is quite an impressive word that means a person who attacks or criticizes beliefs. The perfect summary for David’s latest book, An Insider’s Guide to Cloud Computing. Let us just take a few of the opinions that go against common beli...2023-10-0527 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 97 Infrastructure Enables InnovationWhen the history of Covid and federal information technology is written, historians will talk about the amazing ability to transition to remote workers. As in all history, when time separates incidents, one gets a more nuanced perspective. It is true that massive amounts of effort were expended. That kind of pressure resulted in over provisioning of systems. From today’s perspective, it is obvious that this transition was not as optimized for cost as it could have been. It makes sense, the major cloud service providers vary in ways they handle data and invoice for usage...2023-10-0321 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp 96 Data Scientist: The Sexiest Job of the 21st CenturyWhen you use the term “data scientist” you normally think of an inarticulate introvert who is dazzled by numbers and has week social skills. Well, this interview with Aaron Pujanandez from Excella may change the preconception. We start off with referencing an article from the Harvard Business Journal from 2012. This was probably a conceit eleven years ago, but in the last decade we have seen cheap storage, available compute, and ubiquitous fast Internet. Perhaps the title is getting closer to the truth. We begin the interview with having Aaron differentiate “data analyst” from “data scientist...2023-09-2625 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 95 How Akamai Improves Federal SecurityAkamai has been a well know partner in many federal technology projects for many years. Some of their activities are obvious – some not as easy to see as it may appear. Rob San Martin is a twenty-year veteran of Akamai and sits down to give a broad overview of some of the ways Akamai is improving federal cybersecurity that may not be obvious to the common observer. One: Akamai sees one-third of the world’s Internet traffic every day. Being in the “catbird” seat allows it to see threats that are not apparent to smaller organizati...2023-09-1923 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 94 Can the Service Mesh address Federal Challenges?In the early days of the networking one could put together a simple diagram of computers, routers, and switches. The more complex it became, the more detailed was the diagram. When you combine containers, services and virtualization, today’s networks make early systems look like child’s play. Containers have proliferated because they can house all the necessary elements to run in any environment. When you combine them into pods and clusters you can increase effectiveness; however, this next generation relies on services to communicate. During this interview Branden Wood details how Tetrate offers a solution...2023-09-1222 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 93 Predictive Identity Document VerificationWe begin the interview with statistics on fraud from several organizations, including PBS, AP, and others. Covid fraud estimates range from $80 to $200 billion. One way to prevent future abuse is with a robust identity proofing platform. The miliary likes to talk about “force multipliers.” This can also apply to technology companies who serve the federal government. Let’s take Socure – a well known company that provides identity proofing for many federal agencies. While Socure was developing its expertise another company, Berbix was laser-focused on helping federal identity checks. In June of this year Socure acquired...2023-09-0522 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 92 Identity Management and Digital TransformationCovid forced federal organizations to move to the cloud. Federal leaders discovered a confusing world of multi-clouds, public cloud, private cloud, and even hybrid cloud. We have even seen federal systems using cloud tools to manage premises applications and data. There is one constant variable: an organization must be able to identify users. Years before Covid, this was a small, isolated field of knowledge. However, the complex nature of the cloud has forced system administrators to gain an understanding of the identity ecosystem. One crucial aspect of that ecosystem is identity management. Companies have had to...2023-08-2924 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 91 Insights on the National Cyber Security StrategyThe Great Lakes used to have iron ore boats running from Minnesota to Ohio. The ship was not very agile but was unstoppable at 12 knots. There is a close parallel with the federal government. It is such a massive entity that it is unstoppable when it sets its sights on a goal. However, when challenged with new threats, it has a difficult job altering course. Right now, the federal government understands it is being attacked every second. Sometimes, the traditional methods can leave it vulnerable to attack. In 2023 the Executive Office of the...2023-08-2224 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 89 Federal Websites: How to Transform the ExperienceOnce upon a time, surveys had meaning. However, today, if you buy a toothbrush, you are sent a five-page survey on customer satisfaction. Let us say you are trying to comply with the December 2021 Executive order to improve citizen experience with your federal website. What kind of feedback do you expect from a typical citizen who cannot take another survey? Today, we sat down with Matt Chong from Federal Qualtrics. They take a different approach to improving a citizen’s website experience. Qualtrics has been in business for fifteen years and is used in eighty-five of...2023-08-1526 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 88 Ethics, Artificial Intelligence, and Federal TechnologyAdvances in artificial intelligence are being released every day and being proposed as solutions for federal problems. Anyone who has raised children through their teen aged years is aware of the phrase, “unintended consequences.” We must be careful not to be dazzled by modern technology and not realize what unintended consequences are in store before we understand the ethics of modern technology. Today, we have Reggie Townsend, the Vice President, of Data Ethics at SAS in the studio. He provides listeners with some commonsense guidelines to use artificial intelligence ethically. In addition to his t...2023-08-1030 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 87 How Cloud Native Can Benefit Federal IT SystemsThe federal government has been told to move to the cloud since Vivek Kundra famously coined the phrase “cloud first” fifteen years ago. Unfortunately, somehow the “how” was not included in the prescription. In an attempt to achieve assigned goals, we have seen agencies “lift and shift” on premises applications to the cloud. There is the checkbox complete. A simile here is you have a broken-down Fiat in your garage, you move to California and put the broken-down Fiat Spyder in your new west coast garage. Different garage, same malfunctioning automobile. Why not take advantage of some the u...2023-08-0825 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 86 Privacy Enhancing TechnologiesPainting with a wide brushstroke, there are three kinds of data: data at rest; data in transit; and data in use. Today, we speak to the person who pioneered the concept of protecting data in use. Her name is Dr. Ellison Ann Williams and has an impressive background, having an MS in Mathematics, an MS in Computer Science, and a Ph.D. In Mathematics. Additionally, she served at the NSA for ten years and has a thorough knowledge of federal security requirements. Let us state the challenge: tech companies are scraping the Internet for as m...2023-08-0129 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 85 Cyber Security is National SecurityMost listeners have heard of Palo Alto Networks. Today, we bring in Eric Trexler to give us an overview of what the venerable Palo Alto Networks has developed to help federal agencies reach their goals. Eric started his career as a U.S. Ranger and has held leadership positions in many companies. He has chosen to work for Palo Alto Networks because he views it as the largest cybersecurity company in the world. From Eric’s perspective, he views it as the one company that can make a significant difference in protecting federal assets. He re...2023-07-2522 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 84 Is the API the Network?Definitions are always tough in the world of networking. The initial concept was all hardware: a group of computers connected through cards, routers, and cables. Oh, how things have changed in a mere fifty years! Software virtualization allowed systems administrators to spin up “hard drives” in no time. This was so practical that it was applied to the network itself in something called a Software Defined Network. Unfortunately, it took several decades for hardware to catch up to this kind of virtualization. The hybrid cloud has accelerated the adoption of virtual networks in today’s federa...2023-07-1824 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 83 Protecting Your Identity with IntelligenceLast year Americans lost $10.3 billion to online crime; contrast that with the estimated $1.3 billion lost to home robberies. Today’s interview with Dr. Zulfikar Ramzan from Aura gives our federal listeners ideas on how to protect your identity. We have learned that when a person’s identity gets compromised, it can lead directly to their employer, an especially sensitive problem when considering people who work for the federal government. In the cybersecurity community the gold standard for a detached perspective on understanding cyber threats is the annual Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, commonly referred to as th...2023-07-1126 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 82 Improving Search Results for Law Enforcement AgenciesA wise man once said two things can be true at once. On the one hand, federal law enforcement agencies are being bombarded with data. Petabytes seem to be leaking in from the roofs and seeping in from the basement. On the other hand, they are being pushed to give analysis quickly while being understaffed. Not a problem to solve for the sight of heart. Into the fray steps Siren. During today’s interview, Brian Gilkey explains that Siren was founded with the idea of using concepts from the semantic web to be able to abso...2023-07-0523 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 81 Improving Automation for Complex Federal SystemsIt seems like everybody in federal information technology was at the AWS Washington, DC event a couple of weeks ago. We didn’t manage to interview Tyler Johnson from the floor, so we got him on a Zoom call to explain how his company can help federal leaders achieve the goals for their agency. Tyler Johnson says that CloudBees can take all the point providers at the AWS event and wrangle them into one continuous build. This allows a kind of unified test and deployment for software pipelines. Ok, let’s make this simple. A bee goes...2023-06-2924 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 80 Empowering Federal Teams to Deliver and Control their Software.The good news is that today’s digital technology allows for seemingly infinite variations on a code; the bad news is malicious actors know this and change their code constantly. One of today’s responses to this constant attack is called “continuous” improvement. Quite a simple phrase to type, but difficult to accomplish. How do you continuously improve a complex software application that is used by a federal agency? How can anyone know what impact revised code will have on dependencies? We all know that large teams produce the application programs used by the federal government. T...2023-06-2720 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 79 Agentless Cloud SecurityThere are certainly many ways to approach security in today’s complex hybrid federal cloud. raditionally, a manager would look at a system and have an agent assigned to each machine. This could be a virtual machine or a real instance. This structure goes back to the days of servers in the back room and megabytes of storage. Once you put a few “zeros” behind some data stores, then you have a problem with scaling. The business problem is simple: the old “tried-and-true” may have worked for years, but it doesn’t work in the cloud. When Avi Sh...2023-06-2224 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 78 What’s Hot and What’s Not at the AWS Summit, Washington, DCWhen 10,000 people show up to talk about cloud computing, what topics do they cover? Today, we sit down with Jeffery Kratz, Vice President, of Worldwide Public Sector Channels & Alliances to find out. With a conference this large, there are hundreds of stories to tell. To focus on the needs of the federal government, we will look at how improvement with Amazon partners can help federal agencies reach their goals. First, Amazon is targeting partners with Transformation Modules. This means that a partner can do the face-to-face work of understanding the needs of a specific federal pr...2023-06-2011 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 77 The Value of Federated Governance have for Massive Data StoresForty years ago, the boxer Roberto Duran famously said, “No mas.” Translated from Spanish, it means, “no more.” Sugar Ray Leonard was bombarding him with too many punches to handle. The flood of data and the incredible size of data stores in the federal government is causing the federal government to examine how to store and categorize data more efficiently. We could be reaching the point where federal agencies say, “No mas.” Today’s interview with Chris Brown from Immuta offers a solution: federated governance. This is a decentralized approach to ingesting data where tags can be automatica...2023-06-1525 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 76 Federal Chief Data Officer Survey ResultsIf you go to Google Trends and compare “Artificial Intelligence” to “Chief Data Officer” you will find a hockey stick for AI and a pancake for Chief Data Officer. It seems that many are ignoring the importance of the Chief Data Officer in assuring that the data used for AI is accurate. The importance of managing data in the federal government has been reflected in the formation of the Federal Government’s Chief Data Council. In a remarkably mature analysis, they decided that they needed to ask fellow members what their priorities were to serve them better. Mitr...2023-06-1228 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 75 Digital Transformation Culture at the Defense Logistics AgencyOur interview is with Steve Forster, a data scientist from the DLA. Steve started in the warehouse and through years of struggle and hard work managed to rise to the position of Senior Data Strategist. This parallels the transformation that the DLA is undergoing. The DLA was formed in 1961 and has over 25,000 people supporting the Department of Defense worldwide. To reduce costs and improve service to the military, the DLA is undergoing a transition from an outdated COBOL warehouse system to a modern system. Much of the warehouse has sensitive military...2023-06-0627 minFederal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 74 Digital Transformation of an enterprise financial systemConsider this: a few years ago, a Navy officer would have a financial question about how a program was executed, and its t took 45 days to get an answer. Certainly, a contrast for a Naval Aviator’s need for speed. Today, we interview two leaders in the Navy’s Financial Management Data and Digital Transformation program. They provide insight on a wide range of topics with a focus on giving leaders near real-time information on key decisions. One fascinating phrase that both use is the term, “decision advantage.” From their perspective, the next major confli...2023-06-0124 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 71 Equity and Federal IdentityCovid prioritized identity verification. It went from the bottom of the tech stack to the top. Many federal agencies have zero trust initiatives divided into segments; each group starts with identification as the first pillar. Our guest Jordan Burris has years of experience in managing identities for large organizations. He has worked in commercial enterprise technology as well as the Office of Management and Budget. During the interview, he makes the claim that digital identity is a critical infrastructure. Listen to the interview to see how he defends that statement. Jordan begins the discussion with...2023-05-2324 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp.70 How to Manage Machine IdentitiesIf you can distill today’s cybersecurity recommendations down to one word, that word me be “trust.” We have Executive Orders that talk about “trust” in digital architecture. Look at the motto for today’s enterprise architecture, “Zero Trust Architecture.” The way most of us apply this trust is to garden a variety of humans. This may involve using some kind of a.” system to assure that a person is a human they represent themselves to be. Kevin Bocek from Venafi states machines interact on networks more than humans. It seems warmer to call them “nonperson...2023-05-1622 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 69 Digital Adoption Platforms Save Money for Federal WebsitesWhen industries mature, users learn how to optimize them. For example, early televisions were huge, expensive, and black and white. Technology has made them small, cheap, and stunning. When the cloud was introduced 15 years ago, there was a rough transition with rough starts, failures, and much money wasted. Recent figures from Gartner indicate that, in 2023, the global public services cloud market will increase by 20% to an amazing total of $591 billion. It is one thing to move to the cloud, and another effort completely to take advantage of all the savings and efficiency it can provide. Frequ...2023-05-1225 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 68 Generative AI for US Federal AgenciesFor some reason, the topic of Artificial Intelligence has embedded itself into the common mind. It is so pervasive that one might walk into a local Seven-Eleven and hear a conversation about ChatGPT. It may be fine for an undergraduate student to use generative AI to help write a term paper, but those who manage federal agencies must get serious about how Generative AI can help, or hurt, their agency. Today, we sat down with Dr. Jennifer Sample from Accenture Federal Services. In addition to her academic achievements, she also has decades of experience in...2023-05-0427 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 67 Improving Citizen Experience on Federal WebsitesWhen you look at the Executive Orders that have been issued you can see many references to user experience. The initial order, #14058, included thirty-six customer experience improvements across seventeen different federal agencies. This was followed up in March of 2023 with further fact sheets that detail improving the typical citizen experience with federal websites. It is one thing to issue an Executive Order and quite another to implement it in the complicated world of federal technology. We interviewed Frank Antezana, the CEO of a company called iTechAG. They have a good history of assisting federal agencies...2023-05-0224 minFederal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 61 Identity Verification and Federal SystemsIn every spy movie, you see there is a scene where someone is in line at an airport and there is emotional music where the government agent looks at the passport, looks at the actor, and makes a decision. Well, the world of digital identities is much more complicated that any scene in a Bourne movie. In our digital world, identification is such a hot topic we have conferences that have an extensive list of speakers who discuss aspects of ways a network can identify the person trying to log in. Today’s interview introduces th...2023-04-2528 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 65 A Better Approach to Intelligence Analysis and Data VisibilityOur post-Covid world is full of clouds merging, remote data being collected, and a rash of new federal security initiatives. This is causing federal technology professionals to look for better ways to see what is on their network and then make decisions on how to use that data. In the last six months, there has been a surge of interest in a company called Elastic. During today’s interview with George Teas from Elastic, he shares with listeners the importance of accurately knowing what is on your system and how to manage data from multiple so...2023-04-2022 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 64 Open-Source Security and Federal SoftwareWhen the history of software development is written, they will look back at the decade that preceded 2023 as the era where developers started to pull pre-written code off repositories and assemble code in this “modular” manner. Many federal systems are constructed in this “cut and paste” method. This is all well and good if the code can be trusted. But can it? Today, Emile Monette from Synopsys shares with listeners some fascinating statistics that document this historical transition and he offers solutions as well. During the interview, Emile Monette references a recent study by his co...2023-04-1825 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 63 Gaining insights on managing the federal hybrid cloudWhen it comes to the federal government, the old news is “move to the cloud.” Today, the question is, how can your agency optimize its presence in the hybrid cloud? Today, we sit down with a tech veteran, Michelle Rudnicki, the Vice President of the U.S. Public Sector for NetApp to answer that question. Her company has been involved in data management for decades and it is difficult to shoehorn her observations into a 25-minute interview. We have decided to look at some of the newer offerings from NetApp and see where they can be applied in f...2023-04-1324 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 62 Advances in Threat Detection and ResponseOut of all the phrases that technology has generated in the past ten years, I think I like the phrase, “cloud washing” the most. The concept is that a traditional company would promote itself as always being cloud native. Kind of like being a Monday morning quarterback. In 2023, the variation on that theme is “Artificial Intelligence washing.” Now that AI is a trending phrase you can see technology websites suddenly claiming the long history they have with artificial intelligence, or, what may be called, “artificial intelligence washing.” This brings us to today’s interview with Chris Howard from...2023-04-1125 minFederal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 62 Advances in Threat Detection and ResponseOut of all the phrases that technology has generated in the past ten years, I think I like the phrase, “cloud washing” the most. The concept is that a traditional company would promote itself as always being cloud native. Kind of like being a Monday morning quarterback. In 2023, the variation on that theme is “Artificial Intelligence washing.” Now that AI is a trending phrase you can see technology websites suddenly claiming the long history they have with artificial intelligence, or, what may be called, “artificial intelligence washing.” This brings us to today’s interview with Chris Howard from...2023-04-1124 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 61 Understanding the National Cybersecurity StrategyIn March of 2023, the National Cybersecurity Strategy was released. Lots of pundits opined a day or two after the release; rather than an immediate reaction, it seems best to wait for a news cycle or two to look at the strategy from a better perspective. Well, what better perspective than a person who has worked inside the government, is an attorney, and has some serious credentials in the tech world? Today, we sat down with Bill Wright, Global Head of Government Affairs at Elastic. The strategy document talks about the importance of infrastructure. Bill Wright comments that 80...2023-04-0623 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 60 Solving a Billion Dollar Paper ProblemWhen the history of technology of the twentieth century is written, one of the giants will probably be Ray Kurzweil. As most listeners know, he designed the first Optical Character Recognition (OCR) machine. The drudgery and error-inducing process of keying in forms was reduced. Today’s interview is with Chirs Harr from Hyperscience. During the interview, he gives listeners an understanding of how OCR has become Intelligent Document Processing. He argues that the founders of Hyperscience produced innovation that combines expanding OCR’s ability and have it reducing clerical errors, improving performance, and deliver better customer experience. Not only...2023-04-0423 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 59 How to deliver software with impact beyond mere project deliveryIf you toss a baseball anywhere inside the Washington, D.C. beltway, you will probably hit a company that develops software. Well, what differentiates them? Size? Degrees the staff hold. The number of contracts? Today, we sit down with a couple of software development experts from Excella to talk about completing more that the bare minimum for a project. They argue, quite cogently, that quality is the characteristic that is the hardest to achieve and has the most lasting impact on federal projects. Two representatives from Excella are in the studio to argue their case. Dogu...2023-03-3026 min