Colorado names first digital transformation officer
The Colorado Governor’s Office of Information Technology (OIT) solidified a national trend of citizen-centric service delivery Wednesday with an announcement of the state’s first digital transformation officer.
The position will be filled by Brandon Williams, leader of Colorado’s Google Services team. Williams will report to Chief Technology Officer David McCurdy as he aligns the state’s customer experience with the strategic business plan and organizes innovation events designed to generate new and impactful ideas for the state’s agencies and citizens.
One of Williams’s first projects will be to ensure that the state’s public-facing websites and portals are as easy to use as possible. The position represents the state’s commitment to transforming government with the citizen in mind, McCurdy said.
“I think the title is important in terms of stating what this position is going to do. It’s all about transformation. It’s identifying processes, websites, technologies that need to be transformed for the betterment of government and the citizen,” he said. ” So, I really think of Brandon as the tip of the spear.”
The state’s app development teams, McCurdy explained, place a strong emphasis on change management and new requirements. Having someone who can dedicate their time to the user experience is an important priority for the state during the next five to ten years, he said.
“If you look at our playbook, our real shift in focus over the last couple years is around digital experience for the citizen, digital experience for the local state worker, county worker, so it’s about focus for OIT in the state of Colorado,” McCurdy said. “[Chief Information Officer] Suma [Nallapati] fully realizes the customer expects a different experience in 2016. And they’re not seeing that across the board.”
Williams is one of the first in the nation to hold the title digital transformation officer in state government. Colorado led state IT in the open data movement and now they’re doing it with user experience, McCurdy said.
“There’s just a lot of work to do in terms of identifying and changing how the state functions,” he said.
OIT reported Williams is scheduled to assume his new responsibilities early next week.
