Trina Zanow, Wisconsin’s chief information officer, told StateScoop that new technologies such as generative AI are on the table as the department continues to modernize its applications and expand its workforce. .
Zanow said some of his top priorities include improving interagency coordination and launching services that make it easier for residents to do business with the state, while Wisconsin will continue to hire technology talent and expand its workforce. The need to increasingly consider how new technologies interact with operations such as the provision of training. and the launch of a new service.
Zanow, who has worked in state government for more than 25 years, spoke in a recent interview about the state’s search for a new cybersecurity chief, staffing projects and last month’s leadership of Gov. Tony Evers’ task force to study the potential of generative AI. He spoke in detail about the installation order and other matters. risks and opportunities.
Colin Wood: Hi, Trina. Thank you for meeting with me and taking the time to share some of the technology projects you are working on in Wisconsin. First of all, what are your current areas of focus?
Trina Zanow: We are looking at digitalization and changes in our services to break down organizational silos and allow us to present more joint initiatives and joint opportunities as we work with our agencies. A few years ago, we created a one-stop business portal. Several agencies came together and really created a vision for how we could make it easier for people to come and start a business in Wisconsin. ?This project has sort of broken down the silos between different institutions.? We’re trying to do more of those types of projects.
What about cybersecurity? I heard that you lost Chief Information Security Officer Alan Greenberg this year.
Yeah, he quit in April or May. So we’re in the middle of hiring a CISO right now. We are in the middle of the interview process. And hopefully you’ll find a good candidate.
Security is also obviously an area where I don’t think we can do enough, considering everything from day-to-day management to the nation as a whole. And how do we educate them? How should we communicate? How do we make sure people put resilient parts and components in the right place? Yes, federal funding opportunities exist, and we can help manage them. We are awaiting approval for first year funding. We are awaiting his final CISA and FEMA approval. We will then dig deeper into implementation from year 1 to year 4.
What is your company’s candidate pool for CISO recruitment? Are you primarily looking for people who have held CISO roles elsewhere, or are you looking broader?
You don’t have to be a state CISO. There are very few of them. But I think it’s very important to have the aptitude to understand the complexities of cybersecurity. And managing relationships is very important. People with federal connections, people with state connections, or people in those roles are what we’re looking for. For us, it is important that the person has a connection not only with the internal team, but with all the parties with whom we work. Because we are as good in numbers as we are as individuals.
Recruiting and retaining IT staff continues to be a big challenge for many states, according to the latest policy from the National Association of State CIOs. annual survey It’s accurate. Is this the case in Wisconsin as well?
I think we’re getting closer to HR and having a lot of hearing sessions about what’s working and what’s not. We’ve had a lot of discussions about how to approach more diverse regions of the state. And part of our employee motto is “Everywhere in Wisconsin.” This is because people can work remotely and access places that were previously inaccessible. You don’t have to live in the Milwaukee metropolitan area or Madison to work in state government.
Are there any groups you partner with regarding recruitment?
We’re trying to coordinate and collaborate with the school system, interviewing K-12 students, working with public leadership to figure out how to create curriculum, how to implement technology and cybersecurity. Are we talking about whether to do that? We’re trying to connect some of the federally funded opportunities with the Department of Public Instruction. This allows us to have curriculum and trainers if we want to teach things like cybersecurity. We currently have pilot settings in probably 10 different school districts.
Are you doing anything special regarding your human resources strategy?
Our internship process has been going well in one of our fields for 10 years. For example, we realized we couldn’t find people in the mainframe space, so we changed the type of people we were looking for. We’re looking for people with an aptitude for technology, but we’re also looking for business people, people who understand finance, people with soft skills, and we can teach them the technology. And I’ve seen some of our senior employees really excited and excited about this opportunity.
We understand that optimization efforts are underway. Does generative artificial intelligence fit into your plans?
Some people are excited, others are super cautious. The governor announced a task force to look at the situation and understand what this means for us, what it means for our employees, and where we need to educate. What are the guardrails? What are the challenges and advances in technology? The pipeline of workers is dramatically smaller than it used to be, so how can we leverage some of it? Is it okay? Therefore, we need to think about automation differently than we have traditionally done. And AI will definitely be a part of that.
It’s a useful tool.
It’s a useful tool, but you know it’s just as useful for bad guys who use it for evil purposes. Today we received word that deepfakes are becoming more and more powerful. You also need to apply logic to it, use it for good purposes and avoid exposing yourself to new risks. And unfortunately, you can’t even control at the state level who has access. We’ve had some conversations with other states about similar things, like how we can help with procurement. How does it help you write specific things? My team is certainly doing some research to understand what those use cases are.
I think it is inevitable that there will be accurate deepfake videos and other generated content that is nearly impossible to distinguish from the real thing. I think we need to work on reliable ways to authenticate sources.
I agree with you. I think it will become increasingly difficult to check for fraud. We’re doing a My Wisconsin ID project and we’re trying to collapse all of these IDs. Knowing where AI is going, how can we validate some of the information we’re looking for without making it too complicated for the end consumer to do what they need? Is it related to the level of risk? And what data do they have access to? Or what data are they submitting? And how can such Will it be verified?
ChatGPT is also used to create more convincing phishing emails.
These emails will have fewer spelling and grammatical errors. Some of the traditional things we have traditionally told our business customers to pay attention to are becoming increasingly difficult to do. I saw a phishing email being shared on LinkedIn, and I literally read that email probably five times and couldn’t figure it out. One of the letters in “a” was slightly different from the rest. Everything else looked great. And I thought, “Wow, how can you say that to someone who is busy with normal daily life?” It is difficult for them to check them.
This interview has been edited and condensed.