Hip Hip Hurray for Technology in Government!

Oftentimes we remember all the bad experiences- the mistakes. The bad can obscure the good. But it is critical for employee morale and an agencies’ health to talk about the wins. One of those government cheerleaders is Brian Baker, Industry Chief for the ACT-IAC’s (American Council for Technology and the Industry Advisory Council) Excellence.Gov Awards that highlight technology innovations and initiatives. A job he loves because, “I think government on the whole gets a raw deal when it comes things like performance and mission effectiveness” and there are so many success stories that come out of government we should highlight.

Baker sat down with Christopher Dorobek on the DorobekINSIDER to discuss his experience with the program and details about the awards ceremony that took place on November 9^th, 2015.

Although Baker has been involved with the program for four years now, he says he’s seen an evolution. “One of the things that’s most interesting to me with this year’s batch of finalists is just the variance on who is in there. We’ve got 30 finalists, in five categories, from everywhere. We’ve got representation from the federal, state, and local levels, covering fifteen separate federal departments or agencies, across three states and two major cities.”

Below are the 5 categories that were recognized at the awards ceremony and some brief descriptions for each:

• Customer Experience and Digital Services: covers stories “where the public and the citizenry are interfacing directly with a portal or with a government agency,” Baker said.
• Enterprise Efficiencies: are “stories of savings and streamlining,” Baker said.
• Intergovernmental Collaboration: covers “success stories relative to agencies, state and local governments, and various organizations coming together,” Baker stated.
• Analytics and Big Data: The ACT-IAC website states that “nominees in this category need to have demonstrated a meaningful and mission-impacting use of large, complex data sets to solve difficult problems.”
• Workforce/Mobility: covers stories “doing well in distributing the workforce and utilizing teleworking as an option,” Baker stated.

In the end, the awards and judging are “forcing more conversation in an attempt to bridge that gap between government and industry,” Baker said.

If you wish to see the finalists for this year’s ACT-IAC’s Excellence.Gov Awards, please click here.