Holly St. Clair (@HollyStClair) , Chief Digital and Chief Data Officer for the State of Massachusetts sits down with Dave Vellante (@dvellante) and Stu Miniman (@stu) live at Actifio Data Driven 2019 at the Intercontinental hotel in Boston MA
#DataDriven19 #Actifio #theCUBE @SiliconANGLE theCUBE
https://siliconangle.com/2019/06/24/wicked-awesome-mind-behind-state-massachusetts-digital-transformation-datadriven19-womenintech/
The wicked-awesome tech behind Massachusetts’ digital transformation
State government isn’t always the first place to seek out innovative ideas in the era of digital information technology. Dragged down by legacy systems and antiquated culture, state IT departments traditionally struggle to fulfill their citizens’ basic requirements. Major sites, including Florida, New Mexico and the California legislature, are still not encrypted, and some still have design elements popular in the early 2000s.
Not so in Massachusetts. The state’s ultramodern website, launched in 2017, is a flexible, open-source platform that gathers relevant data to continually improve user experience on the site.
“Our mission is to use the best information in technology to ensure that every user’s experience with the Commonwealth is fast, easy and wicked-awesome,” said Holly St. Clair (pictured) chief digital officer and chief data officer for the state of Massachusetts’ Executive Office of Technology Services and Security.
St. Clair spoke with Dave Vellante and Stu Miniman, co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the Actifio Data Driven event in Boston. They discussed data management tactics and St. Clair’s goals for Massachusetts state IT (see the full interview with transcript here.) (*Disclosure below.)
This week, theCUBE spotlights Holly St. Clair in its Women in Tech feature.
Digital and data ‘joined at the hip’
“It’s rare that somebody shares the title of chief digital officer and chief data officer,” Vellante said, noting St. Clair’s dual responsibilities as a “double CDO.” The two roles are merging, according to St. Clair.
“Data fuels our digital world. It both creates the content and also monitors how we’re doing,” she said. “[The roles] are either going to be joined at the hip or it’s going to be the same person.”
St. Clair arrived at the junction of digital and data through a career in public service. A master’s degree in urban and environmental policy from Tufts University led to a position as a research analyst for the City of Boston. She soon moved to the Boston Metropolitan Area Planning Council, where her job description morphed as data grew in importance.
It was as head of the planning council’s data services department that St. Clair’s innovative vision focused. Under her lead, the council adopted advanced decision support tools, using data to model scenarios and make planning and urban policy choices for the metropolitan area.
This background in public sector data services made St. Clair an ideal candidate as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ first-ever chief digital (and data) officer. St. Clair was immediately tasked with transforming the face of state government in the Commonwealth. The old state website, which had been used as a “catch-all” depository for years of internal and user information, had over 250,000 pages of information.
“How to get a parking permit would be buried under five years of meeting minutes,” St. Clair said in a 2017 interview.
Screenshots of the old and new sites show the radical change from the old, cluttered, and hard-to-use interface to the new, clean design with a prominent search box and features such as tab select and audible menus that make it accessible to all.
Hybrid cloud is the practical choice
The launch of the mass.gov site was part of a larger overhaul of the entire Massachusetts IT infrastructure. A hybrid-cloud approach is the most practical for updating legacy systems, according to St. Clair.
“I do think we’ll always have some on-prem services,” she said. “We’re not so dogmatic that it’s cloud only … but really when it’s possible, whether it’s a SaaS service, off the shelf, or it’s the cloud environment, if it makes sense, then we are moving to that.”
St. Clair takes a more nuanced view of data than the purely technical approach most people adopt. “Data is actually very creative,” she said, comparing the role of chief data officer to that of a marketing executive. “You have to tell a story in order to be good with it. It’s just a little bit of a different hue, a different type of audience, a different type of pace,” she said.
To balance her workload, she has support from colleagues such as the chief technical officer, chief security officer, privacy officer and chief information officer, who take on some of the technical tasks that usually fall to a CDO.
...
Forgot Password
Almost there!
We just sent you a verification email. Please verify your account to gain access to
Actifio Data Driven 2019 | Boston. If you don’t think you received an email check your
spam folder.
In order to sign in, enter the email address you used to registered for the event. Once completed, you will receive an email with a verification link. Open this link to automatically sign into the site.
Register For Actifio Data Driven 2019 | Boston
Please fill out the information below. You will recieve an email with a verification link confirming your registration. Click the link to automatically sign into the site.
You’re almost there!
We just sent you a verification email. Please click the verification button in the email. Once your email address is verified, you will have full access to all event content for Actifio Data Driven 2019 | Boston.
I want my badge and interests to be visible to all attendees.
Checking this box will display your presense on the attendees list, view your profile and allow other attendees to contact you via 1-1 chat. Read the Privacy Policy. At any time, you can choose to disable this preference.
Select your Interests!
add
Upload your photo
Uploading..
OR
Connect via Twitter
Connect via Linkedin
EDIT PASSWORD
Share
Forgot Password
Almost there!
We just sent you a verification email. Please verify your account to gain access to
Actifio Data Driven 2019 | Boston. If you don’t think you received an email check your
spam folder.
In order to sign in, enter the email address you used to registered for the event. Once completed, you will receive an email with a verification link. Open this link to automatically sign into the site.
Sign in to gain access to Actifio Data Driven 2019 | Boston
Please sign in with LinkedIn to continue to Actifio Data Driven 2019 | Boston. Signing in with LinkedIn ensures a professional environment.
Are you sure you want to remove access rights for this user?
Details
Manage Access
email address
Community Invitation
Holly St. Clair, State of MA | Actifio Data Driven 2019
Holly St. Clair (@HollyStClair) , Chief Digital and Chief Data Officer for the State of Massachusetts sits down with Dave Vellante (@dvellante) and Stu Miniman (@stu) live at Actifio Data Driven 2019 at the Intercontinental hotel in Boston MA
#DataDriven19 #Actifio #theCUBE @SiliconANGLE theCUBE
https://siliconangle.com/2019/06/24/wicked-awesome-mind-behind-state-massachusetts-digital-transformation-datadriven19-womenintech/
The wicked-awesome tech behind Massachusetts’ digital transformation
State government isn’t always the first place to seek out innovative ideas in the era of digital information technology. Dragged down by legacy systems and antiquated culture, state IT departments traditionally struggle to fulfill their citizens’ basic requirements. Major sites, including Florida, New Mexico and the California legislature, are still not encrypted, and some still have design elements popular in the early 2000s.
Not so in Massachusetts. The state’s ultramodern website, launched in 2017, is a flexible, open-source platform that gathers relevant data to continually improve user experience on the site.
“Our mission is to use the best information in technology to ensure that every user’s experience with the Commonwealth is fast, easy and wicked-awesome,” said Holly St. Clair (pictured) chief digital officer and chief data officer for the state of Massachusetts’ Executive Office of Technology Services and Security.
St. Clair spoke with Dave Vellante and Stu Miniman, co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the Actifio Data Driven event in Boston. They discussed data management tactics and St. Clair’s goals for Massachusetts state IT (see the full interview with transcript here.) (*Disclosure below.)
This week, theCUBE spotlights Holly St. Clair in its Women in Tech feature.
Digital and data ‘joined at the hip’
“It’s rare that somebody shares the title of chief digital officer and chief data officer,” Vellante said, noting St. Clair’s dual responsibilities as a ���double CDO.” The two roles are merging, according to St. Clair.
“Data fuels our digital world. It both creates the content and also monitors how we’re doing,” she said. “[The roles] are either going to be joined at the hip or it’s going to be the same person.”
St. Clair arrived at the junction of digital and data through a career in public service. A master’s degree in urban and environmental policy from Tufts University led to a position as a research analyst for the City of Boston. She soon moved to the Boston Metropolitan Area Planning Council, where her job description morphed as data grew in importance.
It was as head of the planning council’s data services department that St. Clair’s innovative vision focused. Under her lead, the council adopted advanced decision support tools, using data to model scenarios and make planning and urban policy choices for the metropolitan area.
This background in public sector data services made St. Clair an ideal candidate as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ first-ever chief digital (and data) officer. St. Clair was immediately tasked with transforming the face of state government in the Commonwealth. The old state website, which had been used as a “catch-all” depository for years of internal and user information, had over 250,000 pages of information.
“How to get a parking permit would be buried under five years of meeting minutes,” St. Clair said in a 2017 interview.
Screenshots of the old and new sites show the radical change from the old, cluttered, and hard-to-use interface to the new, clean design with a prominent search box and features such as tab select and audible menus that make it accessible to all.
Hybrid cloud is the practical choice
The launch of the mass.gov site was part of a larger overhaul of the entire Massachusetts IT infrastructure. A hybrid-cloud approach is the most practical for updating legacy systems, according to St. Clair.
“I do think we’ll always have some on-prem services,” she said. “We’re not so dogmatic that it’s cloud only … but really when it’s possible, whether it’s a SaaS service, off the shelf, or it’s the cloud environment, if it makes sense, then we are moving to that.”
St. Clair takes a more nuanced view of data than the purely technical approach most people adopt. “Data is actually very creative,” she said, comparing the role of chief data officer to that of a marketing executive. “You have to tell a story in order to be good with it. It’s just a little bit of a different hue, a different type of audience, a different type of pace,” she said.
To balance her workload, she has support from colleagues such as the chief technical officer, chief security officer, privacy officer and chief information officer, who take on some of the technical tasks that usually fall to a CDO.
...
