Building Stronger Public Sector Tech Foundations with Bill Maile

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;23;04

Davood Ghods

We're in an era of rapid change where resilience is vital. The Davood for Thought podcast dives into the most important topics in government and technology today. Our host, Davood Ghods, sits down with his vast network of colleagues to dish on the tech challenges that affect us all. Follow this podcast on your favorite platform and join the conversation by sharing it on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook.

00;00;23;06 - 00;00;49;19

Davood Ghods

Hello, everyone. Welcome to Direct Technologies, the Davood for Thought podcast. I am Davood Ghods and I will be your host today. The way I stay up with the pressing topics of tech and the government of today is to tap into the panel of experts I've had the honor of connecting with over the years. Today we have Bill Maile on our podcast.

00;00;49;21 - 00;01;30;12

Davood Ghods

Bill is currently the CEO of Mainly Media. He has more than 20 years of experience working in government communications, science, media production and publishing. Some of Bill's previous positions include Deputy press secretary for the Office of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger from 2006 to 2008, Director of communications for the Office of the State, CIO from 2008 to 2011, and he was also the founder and editor of Ten More from 2011 to 2016.

00;01;30;14 - 00;01;53;24

Davood Ghods

Bill, without sharing more about your background, since I'm going to be asking about it, I want to welcome you to this episode of our podcast and ask you to tell us about yourself. And for someone who doesn't know about you, please give us an overview of what you have done and what you're currently working on. Welcome to the podcast, Bill.

00;01;53;26 - 00;02;19;13

Bill Maile

Thank you, Davood. Really appreciate the invitation to come on the podcast. Love what you're doing here with this. What a great opportunity to check in with the technology community. As you know, we go back working together in state government. We work together. I think you were the agency information officer for the Department of Food and Agriculture. That's correct.

00;02;19;13 - 00;03;05;23

Bill Maile

But you have well, after that, you became the director of Food Tech and I think some other positions as well. But my I you know, I come from state government. I spent gosh, I think it's close to 20 years. It's getting, you know, somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 years, starting off with the Department of Justice back a long time ago in the nineties, working for the attorney general as first as an intern and then working for his speechwriter and then eventually working as a deputy press secretary and then I bounced around government a bit and came in with the Schwarzenegger administration to the executive branch.

00;03;05;25 - 00;03;42;12

Bill Maile

And I think one of the more interesting jobs that I had was working for is the communications director for the State and Consumer Services Agency, which is more or less now what Gov Office is, which had the department had the Department of General Services and eventually what became the Department of Technology Services and the data center, which as you know, combined the Health and Human Services Data Center and the Till data center to become the Department of Technology Services, I think is what it was called.

00;03;42;19 - 00;04;16;06

Bill Maile

And you were there, right. Back in the day. So I guess I was lucky to be around when all that foundational work was happening. And then of course, I, you know, I, I was in the governor's office, as you mentioned. And and as I was, I spent a few years there in the press office. And as I was leaving or I should say, when Terry Takai, the state CIO, came in, they asked me who who might be a good person to head up communications.

00;04;16;09 - 00;04;42;16

Bill Maile

And so I raised my hand and said, I'll do it, because I was really interested in that. And so I spent a few years there as well. So and, you know, have since left government, as you mentioned, started to acquire and then, you know, have done some different things today. I'm I have a small media company and I help clients and I, I publish information about all kinds of things. And it's just great to work near government still. That's where my my passion is, right. So I'll leave it at that.

00;04;42;16 - 00;05;10;22

Davood Ghods

Very good. Well, we go back a long way and you've been around different departments, so it's a very good lead into the next question. Bill, in your experiences and dealing with some of the work that your currently doing, what emerging trends are you seeing in this field?

00;05;10;22 - 00;05;47;04

Bill Maile

In our field that we should all be paying more attention to? You know, obviously after the year that we've had 2020 in the pandemic and then also the fires and the, you know, the the rolling blackouts. And it just seems like how to keep things going, it should be, you know, top of mind for everyone. And you know better than what are the new ways to do that or what are the things that we should be considering to, you know, make sure that that is something that we can we can be ahead of.

00;05;47;04 - 00;06;10;15

Bill Maile

Right. So having the infrastructure to work from home, I think some departments were really good at it and others, you had to really come up to speed quickly. I'm married to a state worker who suddenly we were you know, we were all and I my child was remote learning. So we're all learning and working out of the house.

00;06;10;17 - 00;06;40;00

Bill Maile

And boy, was that important to have good infrastructure. And it seems like the, you know, the emerging, you know, things to stay on top of are related to just all that we've been, you know, thrown this curve ball with 2020, you know, how do we stay ahead of it? Exactly. So, yeah, I agree with you that the pandemic has given us a new way to look at the work environment of the workforce.

00;06;40;03 - 00;07;06;15

Davood Ghods

So I think you would agree that adjusting to the pandemic was challenging for almost all organizations, and now everyone is or should be thinking of what the next major disruption like the pandemic is going to be and how can we better be prepared for it? So resiliency is a big topic of conversation these days. It is at least of direct technology. What are some examples of resilience you have seen in the past year and what is the one thing organizations should be doing to improve resilience?

00;07;06;18 - 00;07;36;25

Bill Maile

Yeah, well, I think that broadband infrastructure is critical. You know, the the electricity grid and having dependable electricity is obvious. You know, we take it for granted perhaps, you know, both of those things we've taken for granted, But we shouldn't.

00;07;36;28 - 00;08;10;11

Bill Maile

You know, to answer your question, I think this the state of California has done a fantastic job in helping their employees work remotely and be understanding and flexible. And and, you know, maybe it's a little a little less on the technology and a little more on the human, the need for just understanding and being flexible and, you know, understanding when people are having challenges, all of those things go along with the the different approach to work.

00;08;10;11 - 00;08;49;05

Bill Maile

So, you know, I think the state of California should be complimented for their, you know, effective use of broadband technology and remote working and, you know, distributing laptops and all of that that they had to do just to keep things going. Excellent. Definitely broadband is needed in order to make this remote work happen. You mentioned electricity also because one of the major incidents, major disruptions, could be a regional power outage.

00;08;49;07 - 00;09;26;04

Bill Maile

How would organizations be able to continue their business without power or should there be a civil unrest? Will organizations be able to be resilient and continue their operation? You know, we have seen recently the disruption that happened in the oil pipeline. We have seen recently the meat supply be disrupted by distribution of meat. We distribute been disrupted by the cybersecurity incidents. So all of these are areas that organizations can do to improve resilience.

00;09;26;06 - 00;09;53;27

Davood Ghods

My next question, Bill, is about motivation, direct technology. We always talk about how we are going to get a project done, but we also ask ourselves, why are we doing what we are doing? We even have a department of why that our marketing team has called themselves. What is your why? What motivates you in your work?

00;09;54;00 - 00;10;30;11

Bill Maile

That's a great question. Well, and I mean, kudos to you and your team for having, you know, being well grounded enough to to ask that question because it's so important. There's so much more than the bottom line. You know, if you're if you're in this business, you know, serving people, government, technology, serving people, digital services, however you want to put it, there's really there's so much more to it than just simply being in business.

00;10;30;13 - 00;10;53;28

Bill Maile

And I mean, the why for me, I think it just it goes back to public service. That's where I came from. And and, you know, spent most of my career. So finding ways to better serve the people, I think is is you know, what else is there really? How do you do that? What are what are the ways to measure that?

00;10;53;28 - 00;11;17;04

Bill Maile

How do you know that you're really hitting the mark? And who is it that needs help the most? Those are things that really should be driving the priorities, right. You know, so, I mean, to answer your question, it's public service. Absolutely right. You may not be in public service right now, but you are married to someone who is.

00;11;17;04 - 00;11;39;26

Bill Maile

So you're still contributing. So thank you for your service. Absolutely. I mean, I can't take credit for the great work that my wife is doing. But like you to do, it gets in your blood. And you you know, you don't go very far away from that. And and, you know, there's there's life after public service in different ways.

00;11;39;26 - 00;12;09;27

Davood Ghods

And you're you're in that same business. I'm I'm interested in knowing how to improve things for everyone and how to make government more effective and more transparent and more equitable and, you know, really just helping people get the services that they need and having a modern government deliver it. That's why we call ourselves a direct technology. The human side of tech.

00;12;09;29 - 00;12;35;15

Davood Ghods

And that's why we are starting to do these interviews and finding out different aspects of public service and what motivates people. My next question, Bill, I know you don't have a large team right now, but you've been part of large teams before. What inspires innovation on on your team? On any team?  

00;12;35;15 - 00;13;14;19

Bill Maile

Yeah, that's it. That's a great question. You know, I think about the different situations where new ideas came in innovation and new innovation. What inspires that? I think that it's includes fitness and it's letting letting anyone participate based on merit, you know, not based on someone's title or some hierarchy, but really just the merit of the idea is meritocracy, you know, just being able to contribute and and having, you know, having your ideas heard and, you know, be considered for the value that they offer.

00;13;14;19 - 00;13;39;16

Bill Maile

I think that's maybe one of the most important things. And so I'm thinking of times when I was in government and we would hear new ideas, you know, come from all directions. And, you know, the ones that really stuck were they came from the people that were working closest to the program. You know, or the or the client or customer, people that were right there on the front lines.

00;13;39;21 - 00;14;11;02

Davood Ghods

Exactly. That's why whenever we had to do an I.T. project, we would go and get the real requirements from the program. That's why we needed to know what was broken and what needed to be fixed. What is something that would surprise people about you, Bill, but you or your background or your interests?

00;14;11;05 - 00;14;46;16

Bill Maile

I've had some interesting experience is, I suppose working in government, working in the governor's office was super exciting. I got to go on lots of field trips and travel places and do interesting things. I toured lots of facilities throughout the state with the governor, so I was I was really fortunate to just travel a lot and take in a lot of experiences. So, you know, maybe the one the one thing that might be surprising that people wouldn't expect about me is when I was young, really young, I was into skateboarding and I was actually sponsored by Santa Cruz skateboards to skateboard.

00;14;46;16 - 00;15;06;26

Bill Maile

And they would they would take me places and I would travel. And I was I was just a kid. But it was super fun. And I was okay. I was I wasn't I didn't feel like I deserved it at the time, but it was pretty awesome.  

00;15;06;26 - 00;15;35;08

Davood Ghods/Bill Maile

So yeah, I would not have guessed that about you. So that's something new I learned about you. That's pretty cool. And my last question, Bill, where can people find you and keep tabs on what you're working on and how can people support your work? Well, thanks to Bird. So I think, you know, LinkedIn is probably the place where most professionals live online these days, you know, so hosting content and just keeping up with what's new and the latest in our industry.

00;15;35;08 - 00;16;07;00

Davood Ghods

So I would say LinkedIn, check me out. Very good. Thank you so much for joining us today, Bill. Thank you to all the listeners out there for joining us as well. We will see you in the next episode of the of Davood for Thought, where we will shed more light on the human side of tech.

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